A body with a Santa hat bobbed around the packed room and stopped to rest at the kiddy table. Jonathan Greenberg, CEO, Gist.com was donning the holiday hat as he entertained children of employees and guests at their holiday party in their offices on Wednesday, December 15th. They moved into this space two months ago, and they were celebrating in high style with overstuffed sandwiches the size of Connecticut, cheese platters bigger than Wisconsin and enough Sushi and cookies to satisfy the state of Massachusetts. Down the hall the band was setting up in their one-day-old space, and Jonathan took me around the corner to show off the space they'd been in for three-and-a-half years.
This space was true Soho-divine. Lovely glass-walled dividers and a flow-promoting collaboration. Their Webby Award was nicely displayed, a true accomplishment considering it was the only time a TV site ever received one aside from the usual winner, PBS. Mark Edmiston, Vice Chairman of the company (and former president of Newsweek International, among other luminary-roles), bid hearty "thank yous" and "adieus" to Jonathan as we rounded out the tour.
It normally would sound like the premise of a bad sitcom, but sometimes real life is stranger than we think. The fact that Jonathan's corner office overlooks his artist-mother and stepfather's Wooster Street loft, which they've had since 1975 in which he grew up, is a small-world coincidence unlike many others.
Before leaving I had a chance to see Hugh Crawford, who's had his project bought four times by different companies. His newest employ is with Cisco, and he was chatting with Emily Russo of Zeitgeist.
A chronicle of the people and events in technology, internet and media since 1997, mixed in with snapshots of musings and observations.
