The Hotcakes in Black Book Magazine

More press for The Hotcakes!

http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/the-hotcakes/23856

GO LEE! THE NEW EP FROM THE HOTCAKES HAS BEEN RELEASED!

Lee’s band (http://www.thehotcakes.com) released their new EP yesterday!  Check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/2vkh9sw , on Amazon, or on iTunes!

‎If you’re around, they’re having their release party at Arlene’s Grocery (95 Stanton Street) this Saturday night (December 11th) @ 11pm!

They’re fantastic…Don’t just take my word for it… http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/nightlife/hotcakes-arlenes-grocery

Congrats to Lee and the entire band!!!  Stellar album!!!

Dad in the Press: SoHo Business Improvement District Plan

Check it out:

“SoHo Business Improvement District Plan Yanked Over Fee Payment Confusion”

http://www.dnainfo.com/20101119/greenwich-village-soho/soho-business-improvement-district-plan-yanked-over-fee-payment-confusion

Way to go Dad!  :)

GO LEE! The Downtown Express interviewed Lee for Light The Night.

Click the link below to read the full article on their website:

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_390/lightingup.html

VERY well done!

The Hotcakes: Feature in Filler Magazine

Check out The Hotcakes in Filler Magazine:

http://fillermagazine.com/culture/music/turn-up-the-heat

GO LEE!  GO HOTCAKES!  :)

Honoring Mom: Grandma’s Art Exhibit

Earlier this month, Lee organized “Art4Life,” an art exhibit showcasing our Grandmother’s paintings at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford, CT.  The paintings were auctioned off and all proceeds went to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of our Mother, Joanne Leshen.  Our Grandmother, Evelyn Friedman, has been painting for the past 40 years.  Like mother like daughter, our Mom was an artist too, so we figured this would be a wonderful way to honor Mom’s memory.  Donna Berman, the Executive Director of Charter Oak Cultural Center, graciously offered up the Center as the location for the event.  Donna is also the Rabbi who performed the services at both of our Bar Mitzvahs and at my wedding.

Lee signed up sponsors, had the event promoted, and was even able bring in a catering company, free of charge.  Thanks to all who helped make the exhibit a big success!

He put the following video together to commemorate the event:  http://vimeo.com/14185066

You can learn more about Art4Life here:  http://pages.lightthenight.org/ct/HartfrdL10/Art4Life

Lee, congrats on a job very very well done.  “Have I told you lately that I’m proud of you?!”  Truly amazing!

Ana is running in the 2010 NYC Marathon!

We’re absolutely delighted to let everyone know that Ana got into the 2010 NYC Marathon!  We’ll keep everyone posted and let everyone know how she does.  She’s already started training and is running 8 miles per hour!

Just for reference…  I think I could probably run 4 miles in an hour, and then I’d probably stop somewhere during mile 5 or 6.  ;)

Ana is going to be doing some fund raising for Team for Kids.  Here’s some more info about that:

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http://www.runwithtfk.org/Member/PublicPage/694

Team for Kids is a team of volunteers who raise funds for critical services provided by New York Road Runners Youth Programs. These programs combat childhood obesity and empower youth development via running and character-building programs in low-income schools and community centers in New York City, throughout the country, and in South Africa.

Making a donation is easy! You can click on the Donate button on Ana’s Team for Kids page to give through their secure fundraising site. You can also find information there about where to write a check, or how to get your company to match your gift! All contributions are tax-deductible.

Your giving helps New York Road Runners Youth Programs to:

• Serve over 85,000 children in more than 400 schools and community centers with FREE programs.
• Reach children of all fitness levels and athleticism, with a heightened focus on reaching out-of-shape and overweight kids with little or no athletic experience.
• Prevent overweight or obese children from eventually suffering heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses that lead to health-care costs in excess of $100 billion annually.

Whether you are a runner, have worked with children, or have kids yourself, we hope you will join Ana to further this great cause!

http://www.runwithtfk.org/Member/PublicPage/694

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Grandma’s Latest Painting

Posterous Test from Email

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Testing out Posterous’ Post.ly service.

A Little Fund Raising for the Holidays

http://mycharitywater.org/helpfortheholidays

Earlier this year our mother passed away suddenly due to complications resulting from a very aggressive form of acute leukemia. Since then, we’ve raised a significant amount of money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and her favorite humane organization, the ASPCA. I had come across mycharitywater.org earlier in the day and figured, why not add another charity to the mix. So I started reading about it…

When I found out that more than a billion people live without clean, safe water every day, I realized the perfect time to start a campaign is during the holiday season. A little can go a very long way with water. Just $20 gives someone clean water for twenty years. And just $250 gives two families of six clean water.

My goal? I want to raise $5000 by the time the 2009 holiday season comes to a close. But I need your help. Because of charity: water’s innovative new business model, 100% of every donation funds water projects in the developing world, and each project is “proved” using GPS technology and photos and placed on Google Earth.

Together, we’ll be able to see what we’ve accomplished.

Mom, we’re continuing to make you proud. Love ya! :)

http://mycharitywater.org/helpfortheholidays

Solidifying Your Foundation: An Ad Ops Perspective

The current state of the economy is having an impact on large, medium, and small sized businesses across the online industry, each feeling its effects in their own unique way. For many online publishers, advertising is typically the primary source of revenue generation, and online ad spending needs to remain strong for these businesses to be profitable. Moreover, due in large part to the current economic downturn, websites that haven’t traditionally run advertising, such as online retailers, are now beginning to do so in order to make up for decreasing sales. To weather the current economic challenges, these businesses need to secure a strong foundation on which to continue operating intelligently, which includes focusing on best practices within their support divisions.

New ad creative types, the ever expanding ways to advertise within video, interest targeting, and re-targeting technologies, are just a few of the blossoming areas within the online advertising industry. Agencies are constantly pushing the envelope by using these new and/or improving technologies to ensure that their advertising campaigns stay ahead of the curve and perform at their highest level. Publishers will always endeavor to support these new ad technologies in order to make sure their websites are eligible for inclusion on as many agency RFPs as possible. In order to do this, publisher-side advertising support teams must be prepared to quickly adjust to the ever-changing advertising landscape.

In addition to supporting evolving advertising technologies, publishers have also been combating potential risks to their bottom line using other approaches. Some have expanded their reach of saleable inventory by way of network affiliate sites, while many others are constantly managing remnant ad placements to drive incremental revenue and maximize effective CPMs. These heretofore time consuming tasks have been simplified by several emerging technologies, such as DART Network Builder, which enable publishers to more easily manage ad inventory across multiple sites, and remnant optimization technologies, such as AdMeld, PubMatic and Rubicon Project, that automatically optimize remnant impressions to maximize revenue. Proper implementation and support of these technologies is integral to ensure successful deployment and revenue recognition.

It’s important that companies perform a thorough analysis of how to best build out their advertising operations division. Having an experienced ad ops team in place can be the difference between recognizing millions of dollars in revenue instead of having to offer countless costly make-goods. One option these companies should consider is outsourcing this component to a team of professionals.

Here are a few of the significant benefits that can be achieved by working with an experienced outsourced ad operations partner:

• Staffing: Staffing around tight budgets can be avoided. For the same financial commitment, or possibly less, a company can have a whole team of ad operations professionals at its service. Worries regarding vacation days, unanticipated sick days, and potential employee turnover become things of the past.
• Coverage: Most of the big players in the outsourcing business offer multiple time zone coverage, which is especially useful when those last minute deals come in and need to be handled right away.
• Knowledge: Equipping companies with a high level of knowledge/expertise in all things related to ad operations allows them to keep up with industry buying trends and new technologies.
• Programming Efficiency: Companies will be able to keep their trafficking errors to a minimum, as their outsourced company will have well developed QA procedures in place.
• Partnerships: Avoid the frustration of figuring out which ad technology to work with, or which ad system to implement. Companies can leverage the established partnerships their outsourced company has built over the years.
• Focus: The current economic climate can distract to the point of derailment. Outsourcing allows companies to stay focused on both the task at hand and their vision, while their ad operations partner is making sure that requests are being handled properly and in a timely fashion.
• Motivation: Aside from finding qualified traffickers, the biggest challenge employers face within their trafficking department is keeping their traffickers motivated (more info on that and other trafficker related challenges can be found here).
• Play It Safe: Another angle to think about is outsourcing as a preventative measure. Companies can use an outsourced team as a component of their current team, to handle overflow, and/or for redundancy purposes in the event of unanticipated employee time off or turnover. It’s a great way for companies to protect themselves. There truly is safety in numbers.

The online advertising business is constantly evolving. Having a solid foundation in place on which to sell and deliver ad campaigns is a key contributor towards a company’s success. Companies who reinforce that foundation in order to further protect and maintain their advertising revenue will be better aligned to move forward, especially in a down economy. As detailed above, partnering with a strong outsourced ad operations company would accomplish exactly that.

Craig Leshen is the President of Outsourced Ad Ops (www.adops.com), a leading provider of around-the-clock online ad management services to both website publishers and agencies. Clients receive unmatched quality of service from their experienced staff of ad operations professionals. Outsourced Ad Ops’ offices are located in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Denver. Their strong ad ops teams operate in concert across all of their locations utilizing our highly efficient process that results in increased revenue recognition for your business.

(This has been re-posted from AdOps.com:  http://www.adops.com/news/?p=29)

Light The Night Walk – Mom’s Page

http://pages.lightthenight.org/nyc/Manhattn09/TeamMom

As many of you know, our mother passed away in June due to Acute Leukemia. This is a vicious disease that attacked an otherwise completely healthy person. It can take as little as days to manifest and grow in the blood, and as Blood Cancer doesn’t discriminate against age, race, or gender, this could happen to any one of us. The speed of the disease is remarkable; Mom was diagnosed on a Wednesday, and passed away only a week-and-a-half later.

Now, it’s time to regroup, rebuild, and renew. Join us in our aid to fund new research so we can help cure all forms of this disease.

Light The Night Walk is The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s evening walk and fundraising event. It is the nation’s night to pay tribute and bring hope to thousands of people battling blood cancers and to commemorate loved ones lost.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) funds lifesaving research that has contributed to major advances in the treatment of blood cancers and treatments for other types of cancer, such as chemotherapy and stem cell transplants. These treatments have helped patients live better, longer lives. New targeted therapies that kill cancer cells without harming normal tissue are providing drugs and procedures that are improving quality of life.

• A donation of $25 provides patients and their loved ones with FREE booklets that contain up-to-date information on their disease and help them make informed decisions about their treatment options.

• A donation of $50 makes possible a Family Support group with a trained facilitator where comfort can be found and experiences can be shared among patients and family members.

• A donation of $100 helps supply laboratory researchers with supplies and materials critical to carrying out their search for cures.

• A donation of $1,000 makes possible one- on-one conversations with health care specialists who provide patients with information about their disease, treatment options, and helps prepare them with questions for their health care team.

Please make a donation to support our participation in the Light The Night Walk and help save lives. Be sure to check this Web site, and the site linked to above and below this post, frequently to see my progress.   Thanks very much for your support!

http://pages.lightthenight.org/nyc/Manhattn09/TeamMom

Outsourced Ad Ops on MSNBC’s “Your Business”

Craig Leshen, President of Outsourced Ad Ops, on MSNBC’s “Your Business” discussing small business practices: Click for video.

Updated on 10/03/09:  MSNBC posted an additional video clip:  Click for the additional video.

Carl Crawford, 6. Yankee Game, 0.

While I was waiting around at Yankee Stadium for no reason (the game was canceled due to rain), Carl Crawford decided to go out and tie the modern era record for stolen bases in a single game (6).  I was impressed when Dexter Fowler stole 5 bases in a game the other day, but evidently Crawford wasn’t…

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