May 2009 Archives

I'm less than 24 hours away from joining 14 other fellows for the Knight Digital Media Center's inaugural News Entrepreneur Boot Camp May 16-21 at the University of Southern California.

All of the semi-finalists were asked to profile a news entrepreneur as part of a "homework" assignment. This is my profile of Shoba Purushothaman, co-founder of The News Market. I submitted the following profile on March 31 after meeting with her a few weeks earlier, on the day she made the transition from CEO to Chairman. Purushothaman will be speaking during the seminar.

I would like to extend a HUGE thank you to Silvio Carrillo, Erin Sullivan Capellman, Mark Micheli, Tom Oates and Pat Washburn for their help and feedback. Some of these folks are looking for new opportunities. All are worth checking out, as they rock in their respective fields.

-----

Building a Business by Bridging Divides

By CHAD CAPELLMAN

Once, Madison Avenue was where the rules of marketing and public relations were made, broken and remade. Today, just a few feet away, there's Shoba Purushothaman - an entrepreneur whose company, The NewsMarket, is helping change the rules in radical new ways.

Purushothaman hadn't thought about the irony of being near Mad Ave. She's too busy with The NewsMarket, providing an online distribution channel for broadcast-quality video of newsmakers from paying clients to more than 25,000 media outlets in 190 countries.

The day we met, the company had just announced that she would be leaving her post as CEO to focus on more strategic initiatives in her new role as chairman, and she had been tied up in numerous conversations and interviews about the change.

Despite the frenzy, she was engaged and thoughtful during an hour-long conversation that covered how she had arrived at this point, what sets The NewsMarket apart, and what challenges and opportunities the company experienced and faces in the future.

The Celtics advanced to the second round of the playoffs. But this is the end of the road for Comcast Sports Net, and color commentator Tommy Heinsen.

I love the crazy things he says, so I thought tonight I'd take notes. Here's the compilation:

Cheers