MH3 Business Lessons, Events, Marketing, Olympics, Sports, Travel

Olympic Gold: Lessons from the 2012 London Olympic Games

I didn’t plan to blog three times about my London experience. Sorry if you have heard enough! Hopefully, third time is the charm?

But the more times I have recounted my holiday to people the more I realize what a wonderful professional experience the Games were. I cannot exaggerate what a magnificent demonstration of event management they were to behold. In fact, event management is not a lofty enough title. This was brand management. This was client fulfillment. This was satisfying your customer. This was delivering on your value proposition. This was brand experience personified.

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MH3 Events, Living Life, Olympics, Sports, Travel, vacation

Games and Frontiers: European Vacation Stirs a Range of Feelings

My blog needs a vacation. It’s feeling slighted.

It knows I’m on vacation. Last week the Olympics, this week Normandy.

Don’t side with my blog by calling me spoiled. It can see my entire family is on vacation. It doesn’t need new allies.

My blog is feeling treated like a dog. It should feel worse, because my dog is also away, at a friend’s cottage. How does that work?!

By coincidence, my sister is on vacay right now as well. On the West Coast, California style. Her husband used to play football with my buddy Rico. He’s chilling on the East Coast, Hampton Beach style. There is no deep connection here. I’m just trying to make sure my blog feels as crummy as possible. Even if I have to resort to entirely random connections.

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MH3 Events, Living Life, Olympics, Sports, Travel, vacation

Cheer to the End

Words escape me.

With powerful memories of the Vancouver Olympics and Whistler Paralympics still fresh in my mind, l booked a trek to the London Games. Yes, I’m incredibly spoiled.

I write to you from Olympic Stadium at this very moment.
The appropriate words to describe how I feel are far beyond my writing skills or even my fictional powers. In part because I was worried that after spending all the time and money to get here that it wouldn’t be as amazing as the 2010 Games.

Silly me. It is unreal here.

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MH3 Olympics, Sponsorship, Sports

Entitled: Levelling the Playing Field for Canada’s Female Athletes

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Title IX.

I highly doubt when the United States Congress brought the act into legislation in 1972 that it expected to be responsible for helping build the female sport system in Canada. But it has.

The original premise of Title IX was to ensure that women had the same access to competitive sports as men in terms of access to leagues, coaches, facilities, instruction, etc. That would be my technical interpretation of the bill. But the emotional interpretation would be to allow girls to play sports, just like boys.

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MH3 Marketing, Olympics, Sports

Give Your Everything

On Monday I was privileged to play a very small part in the Toronto launch of the Canadian Olympic Committee’s new brand campaign.

Sown from the creative blood, sweat and tears of the COC’s Derek Kent, Rob Pashko and their AOR Proximity, the new campaign delivers on its promise to be athlete-centric and genuine to the movement. Many an Olympic campaign holds out the same promise – to be athlete-centric – but all too often drop the relay baton between idea and execution.

But aided by the creative brilliance of director Henry Lu (of Nike “Just Do It” fame), this is not your “father’s Canadian Olympic campaign” to bastardize another old, actually ancient, advertising tagline. The campaign is not only about the athletes, but it’s also about their intensity, passion and relentlessness to represent their country. Continue reading “Give Your Everything” →