Category: Play

SpeedGolf in SoCal

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About 7 years ago, I weighed about 270 lbs.

Today, I am closer to 200.

I attribute this loss to running. Running certainly helps to burn calories but for me it helps to clear my head and focus on food as fuel.

I have now done Ragnar relay 5 times and run several family fun runs with the kids.

Those who know me also know I love golf. Like business, I like the personal challenge golf presents.

Thanks to Garlin Smith , a friend from the media space, I tried Speed Golf a few weeks back.

I am hooked.

Your Speed Golf score is comprised of TIME + SCORE for 18 holes.

I will be running 18 holes once a week at the crack of dawn and welcome you to join me.

If you have any interest, please fill-out this form.

I will email out a schedule once I get a few folks together. Off to my home course Tuesday morning to try it out.

 

SPEEDGOLF VIDEO.JPGSPEEDGOLF.JPG

Missing my favorite event of the year assembled by @dherman76 

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As I sit here thinking about the week ahead, I find myself truly disappointed to not be joining my friends and colleagues at this year’s Silicon Alley Sports event. On one hand, I’m appreciative of the opportunity to be busy with amazing client growth plans. On the other, I am sorry that I won’t see Darren’s vision take form in what will no doubt be another great year. 

From performance to brand building and several tech offerings in between, Darren’s event is one of the best places to meet up with those who make moves in the media and connected marketing landscape. 

Those of you interested in attending next year, let me know via DM. It’s an invite only event but I will be happy to bring a plus one next year if the fit is right 😉

I’ll be looking for photos and recaps from those of you going. 
http://www.siliconalleysports.com/new-page-1/

OCTANE OC, MACKENZIE CORP., TEN-X, AND THE BUDDY GROUP JOIN FORCES TO PRESENT THE 4TH ANNUAL BUDDY GROUP INVITATIONAL

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

OCTANE OC, MACKENZIE CORP., TEN-X, AND THE BUDDY GROUP JOIN FORCES TO PRESENT THE 4TH ANNUAL BUDDY GROUP INVITATIONAL

 

Featuring a Unique Performance by Flock of 80’s

 

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — OCTOBER 5, 2016 —The Buddy Group, Inc. and Project Hope Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to ending the cycle of homelessness for kids in Orange County, today announced details for the Fourth Annual Buddy Group Invitational to be held on Monday, November 7, at the Aliso Viejo Country Club in Aliso Viejo, California.

 

From wacky argyle socks to rock music blasting the greens, The Buddy Group Invitational is one of the most unique and fastest growing un-golf golf events in Orange County. For the first time, this year’s event will be capped off with an outdoor concert under the stars by Orange County’s most beloved band, Flock of 80’s.

 

The format for the Invitational is a four-player best-ball with unique activities and challenges peppered across the 18-hole course. Following the tournament, players, sponsors and non-golfing invited guests will partake in a special 80’s-themed party hosted by the presenting partners and the generous sponsors (see below), as well as silent auction donors. Flock of 80’s will perform at sunset to cap off the night. While the golf event and concert are invite only, interested parties can request more information via the website. But just like past years, this event will sell out.

 

“Our events bring together brand builders, investors, inventors, and entrepreneurs who seek to Be The Exception(™) in their respective fields,” said Pete Deutschman, CEO of The Buddy Group. “By uniting our employees, clients, and partners, we will once again come together to raise awareness and funds to help Project Hope Alliance end the cycle of homelessness in Orange County. Project Hope Alliance is an amazing non-profit organization with an entrepreneurial spirit that authentically speaks to our guests and sponsors.”

 

“This is hands down one of our favorite events of the year,” said Jenny Dinnen of MacKenzie Corporation. “We always talk about wanting to work with industries and companies that we are passionate about. I would be hard pressed to find two more passionate leaders than Pete and Jennifer for moving their companies/organizations forward. We are proud to be sponsors again and look forward to this amazing event.”

 

“We’re proud to support The Buddy Group and Project Hope Alliance in their mission to end youth homelessness in Orange County, a community where our company has very deep roots,” said Ten-X CEO Tim Morse. “Ten-X is committed to investing in America’s youth and to helping preserve the American Dream, and there’s no better place to start making an impact than in our own backyard.”

“There are more than 26,000 homeless kids in Orange County,” said Jennifer Friend, CEO of Project Hope Alliance. “It is inspiring to see leaders of business, marketing, and technology come together on behalf of such an important cause.”

 

For more information about the tournament, including online registration and donations, visit invitational.thebuddygroup.com.

 

The Buddy Group Invitational 2016 Partners include:

Presenting Partners: The Buddy Group, OCTANe OC, MacKenzie Corporation and TEN-X.

 

Sponsors: Google, Signature Analytics, Top-End Motorwerks, Adorn Premiums, Pentel of America, Prosum, SpaGirl Cocktails, LootCrate and Lynx Grills.

 

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About The Buddy Group

The Buddy Group is evolving what it means to be an agency by focusing on the experience of an ever-evolving connected consumer. Driven by forethought, The Buddy Group shapes how audiences or segments think about brands and products by creating for the future. The Buddy Group offers strategic research, user-experience planning, and award-winning creative and development execution services to brands including Dell, Zodiac Aerospace, Edwards Lifesciences, Stacked, Ladera Ranch, Mozilla, and Pentel of America. Founded in 2005, The Buddy Group’s team of experts are located in Irvine, California, where they leverage their in-house experiential and content soundstages — DotLot™. For more information, visit thebuddygroup.com.

About Octane

OCTANe drives technology industry growth and innovation in Orange County by connecting ideas and people with resources and capital. Its members represent Orange County technology executive leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, academicians, and strategic advisors, all working together to fuel innovation in the OC. The organization has helped more than 800 companies via the LaunchPad™ SBDC accelerator. LaunchPad™-certified companies have received more than $1.7 billion in investment and equity exits. OCTANe annually welcomes more than 7,000 people to its programs and events. More than 2,000 business leaders throughout the Orange County region are OCTANe members. For more information, visit www.octaneoc.org.

 

About Ten-X

Ten-X is the nation’s leading online real estate transaction marketplace and the parent to Ten-X Homes, Ten-X Commercial, and Auction.com. To date, the company has sold 244,000+ residential and commercial properties totaling more than $41 billion. Leveraging desktop and mobile technology, Ten-X allows people to safely and easily complete real estate transactions online. Ten-X is headquartered in Irvine and Silicon Valley, California, and has offices in key markets nationwide. Investors in the company include Google Capital and Stone Point Capital. For more information, visit Ten-X.com.

 

About MacKenzie Corporation

MacKenzie Corp. is a family-run firm with over 30 years of experience in partnering with clients to make them stronger and more profitable by strategically and creatively using data analytics and research. Success is achieved by uncovering detailed stories within data sets, making analytic results palatable, relevant, and useful to decision makers. At our core we are Curious, Creative, and Customer-Centric in our approach to all matters. Curiosity drives us to ask questions others do not. Creativity reveals trends, opportunities, and threats that others do not see. In being customer-centric, we always put the customer first because we truly care about their success. The only way we achieve success is through the success of our partners. For more information, visit www.mackenziecorp.com

 

About Project Hope Alliance

Founded in 1989, Project Hope Alliance is ending the cycle of homelessness in Orange County, one child at a time. The nonprofit organization supports homeless students and their families, meeting the unique academic and psychosocial needs of these children via a two-generational approach targeting innovative rapid rehousing and education programs. Since 2012, Project Hope Alliance’s Family Stability Program has worked with over 150 families to end homelessness by moving more than 700 parents and children into permanent housing with financial independence. Project Hope Alliance is located at 1954 Placentia Avenue, Suite 202, Costa Mesa, CA 92627. For more information, contact Suzy Gardner at suzy@projecthopealliance.org or 949-791-2714, or visit www.projecthopealliance.org.

 

Two of the issues with HomeKit

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HOMEKIT DEVICES HIGHLIGHT MAJOR PROBLEMS HOLDING BACK SMART HOME ADOPTION: The HomeKit ecosystem is suffering from two major problems that have held back growth in the overall smart home market, as evidenced by a comprehensive review of nine HomeKit-compatible smart home devices by CNET.

Smart home device costs need to come down. Several of the HomeKit-compatible devices simply cost too much for the average consumer. The only smart lock that currently works with HomeKit is the Schlage Sense Bluetooth Deadbolt, which costs $230. Regular front door deadbolt locks can cost less than $15. The only smart thermostat that works with HomeKit right now is the $250 Ecobee3 smart thermostat. The Nest smart thermostat, which competes with Ecobee, also costs $250, but a regular home thermostat can cost as little as $20. The wide price gap between connected home devices and non-connected ones is probably the biggest barrier to smart home adoption right now.
Fragmentation can confuse customers who are new to the smart home market. There are two versions of the Ecobee3 smart thermostat – one that works with HomeKit, and one that doesn’t. So customers have to be careful which one they buy if they want to use HomeKit, which is difficult as the two versions of the thermostat look identical. HomeKit also works with the Insteon smart home hub, which can control a full range of Insteon smart home devices including lights, locks, and switches. However, only some of those Insteon products can work with HomeKit, while others don’t. Again, this could confuse customers into buying devices that don’t actually work with HomeKit. This is a problem with other platforms for controlling smart home devices like the Amazon Echo and Nest’s Weave that only work with a limited number of devices right now.
2015 Advertised Prices Of Connected Vs. Nonconnected Home Products

THE BUDDY GROUP INVITATIONAL is NOVEMBER 9th, 2015. JOIN US!

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IRVINE, CALIFORNIA – October 13, 2015

The Buddy Group, Inc. and Project Hope Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity dedicated to ending the cycle of homelessness for kids in Orange County, announced the details today for the Third Annual Buddy Group Invitational to be held on Monday, November 9th, 2015 at the Aliso Viejo Country Club in Aliso Viejo, California.

“Our events in previous years have raised awareness for those in our community who, beyond all odds, seek to Be The Exception(™),” said Pete Deutschman, CEO of The Buddy Group. He added, “By uniting our employees, clients and partners we will once again come together to raise awareness and funds to help Project Hope Alliance end the cycle of homelessness in Orange County.” He continues, “Project Hope Alliance is an amazing non-profit organization with an entrepreneurial spirit like no other.  “There are more than 32,000 homeless kids in Orange County,” said Jennifer Friend, CEO of Project Hope Alliance. She continued with, “It is inspiring to see leaders of business, marketing and technology come together on behalf of such an important cause.”

From wacky argyle socks to rock music blasting the greens, The Buddy Group Invitational is one of the most unique and fastest growing un-golf, golf events in Orange County. It is also The Buddy Group’s largest fundraiser, with proceeds raised benefiting the charity and its’ mission.

The format for the Invitational is a 4-player best-ball with unique activities and challenges peppered across the 18-hole course. Raffle tickets will be sold prior to and during the event with proceeds benefiting the charity.  Lunch will be generously provided by Wahoos! fish tacos.

Following the tournament, players, sponsors and guests will partake in a special Be The Exception(™) themed Happy Hour hosted by The Buddy Group and the generous sponsors  (see below) and silent auction donors.  Darren Herman, VP Content Services of Mozilla and Jennifer Friend, CEO of Project Hope Alliance will be this year’s keynote.  While the golf event is by invite only, interested parties can purchase tickets to the Happy Hour online. But just like past years, this event will sell-out.

More information about the tournament, including online registration and donations can be found on the event’s website: http://invitational.thebuddygroup.com .

Thank you to our The Buddy Group Invitational 2015 Partners:

Auction.com, Mozilla, Google, BigRentz.com, NBC Sports, OC Register, Signature Control Systems, Top-End Motorwerks, Adorn Premiums, KODAK PIXPRO Digital Camera, MacKenzie Corporation and David August

ABOUT THE BUDDY GROUP

The Buddy Group is celebrating 10 years of evolving what it means to be an agency. By leveraging its vertically integrated creative team, in-house sound stages, proprietary process and technology, The Buddy Group is able to support, identify and create unique experiences with customers. Having expertise in B2B, B2C, the Internet of things, technology (hardware and software), financial services, and CPG verticals has provided unique opportunities for The Buddy Group to collaborate with notable brands such as YouTube, Wells Fargo, Mozilla, Dell, Western Digital, King’s Hawaiian Bread and TP-Link. For more information please visit, www.thebuddygroup.com.

ABOUT PROJECT HOPE ALLIANCE

Project Hope Alliance was formed in 1989 and seeks to end the cycle of homelessness in Orange County, one child at a time. The organization supports homeless students and their families, meeting the unique academic and psychosocial needs of these children. Project Hope Alliance take a two-generational approach to ending homelessness: The organization ends homelessness today through innovative rapid rehousing programs — providing stable housing and financial independence to homeless families; while their team is ending homelessness tomorrow with one-of-a-kind academic empowerment programs uniquely tailored to the needs (and strengths) of homeless children.

Since 2012, Project Hope Alliance’s Family Stability Program has worked with over 120 families to prevent or end homelessness by moving the families into permanent housing with financial independence. These families, representing over 300 children, have moved from motels and shelters into homes where the children can study, play and grow in a safe environment. For more information please visit www.projecthopealliance.org.

ICYMI: The Personalized Video Market Got a Little Bigger This Week

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In case you missed it, we’re closing out a milestone week here. Not specifically for SundaySky, but for the overall personalized video engagement (PVE) category.

On Tuesday, Conversant launched its own personalized video solution to the market, made possible by its 2014 acquisition of SET Media. The next day, Vidyard announced its acquisition of Switch Merge, adding a personalized solution to its existing video content marketing platform. (This is not the first market purchase we’ve seen; over the summer, Pitney Bowes acquired Real-Time Content.) And while the PVE market got a little deeper in North America, it also got a bit wider across the globe as one of our insurance customers overseas in Japan introduced personalized video experiences to its customer base to support and improve the automobile policy renewal process. (OK, so there was a small SundaySky promotional nod.)

What does all this personalized video market news means?It is interesting to see this PVE market news coming from both sides. On one hand, we have a personalization technology company adding video to its digital marketing suite, and on the other, a video platform adding personalization to its offering. Additionally, one solution lives in the adtech space, focused on targeting anonymous consumers, further building out a consumer’s profile via additional Epsilon data sets and serving personalized videos via paid media across devices. The other, more a CRM and automation play, merging data from third-party integrations such as Salesforce. 

But what does this news all mean? No doubt, one constant between the two announcements is to more effectively engage audiences on an individual, 1-to-1 level. We continue to see the varied definitions of what personalization means to marketers and technology providers, and its execution in video. For some, an overlay text of the consumer’s first name in the first frame is enough personalization. For others, a message personalized to a segment of customers, such as their geo-location, is relevance. For us, telling stories and delivering messages that are completely unique to one individual is where we set our bar of personalization.

As our space matures even further, it will be very telling to see just how deep personalization in video can go, and what are the optimal levels of personalization consumers want and brands can deliver on. Welcome to the emerging category of PVE, more solid than ever!

http://info.sundaysky.com/blog/icymi-the-personalized-video-market-got-a-little-bigger-this-week?utm_campaign=Blog+posts&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22725358&_hsenc=p2ANqtz—MnOq2GeuiNQc1aQvNzm4NG7itVrkghzjm21F0yjlGpgtLqNLeN5T8dexqHWjbcNmts280CnJ9Scp7oFKLuIuEX5GWg&_hsmi=22725358

Pope Francis Reverses Position On Capitalism After Seeing Wide Variety Of American Oreos – The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

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http://www.theonion.com/article/pope-francis-reverses-position-capitalism-after-se-51363

My issue is that he sees progress in these terrible flavors. I see the downfall of American innovation.

“Only a truly exceptional and powerful economic system would be capable of producing so many limited-edition and holiday-themed flavors of a single cookie brand, such as these extraordinary Key Lime Pie Oreos and Candy Corn Oreos. This is not a force of global impoverishment at all, but one of endless enrichment.”

Your hand can now be used to control micro-activities thanks to Google’s Project Soli and Radar

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If Google has its way, our future will be nothing less than a sci-fi movie. After creeping us out with a robotic cheetah and the Google ‘Glass’, Google is all set to bring forth something really amazing. Google’s Project Soli has invented a new interaction sensor using radar technology that can capture motions of your fingers at up to 10,000 frames per second. And that is something that has never ever been done before. Simply put, this technology is so bafflingly accurate that you could operate any device (fitted with this) without having to even touch it.

Google’s New Project Is So Insanely Advanced It Will Blow You Away

Approximately the size of a small computer chip, this technology can transform your hand into a virtual dial machine to control something as mundane as volume on a speaker, or into a virtual touchpad to a smartwatch or a smartphone screen. Check out the GIF below to get a better idea of how this works.

Google’s New Project Is So Insanely Advanced It Will Blow You Away

This chip is actually a miniature gesture radar that captures even the most complex hand movements at close range, at unbelievably hyper speeds and replicates hand gestures. Given the micro size of the chip, it can almost be fitted into literally anything. This technology, if the project is successful, can make the need to touch a device to operate it redundant.

Here, the introductory video.