Remembering Peter Diamandis - One of the Best & One of the Nicest!

I first meet Peter Diamandis when he was at the Lambert Ad Agency in the late amp821660s I was the apparel ad sales manager at Time Magazine Lambert had Hanes Hosiery Ken Marks another ad sales rep and I got an appointment with Peter who was SVP at Lambert He was amused and curious as to why people from Time Magazine wanted to call on him for Hanes Hoisery We came into his office with a huge TDI Poster Time Magazine back then ran a highly creative and massive transit outdoor campaign with the TIME logo missing the amp8220Iamp8221 Instead a product or company logo stood in its place The poster we mocked up had a woman39s leg as the missing I and the headline across the top simply stated quotWHERE HANES GETS ITS LEG UP ON THE COMPETITIONquot Before we could even get into our presentation Peter took one look at the TDI poster and said quotGet me this and a thousand to send to major retailers across the country and you have a schedulequot That was Peter ever so quick to size up a business opportunity and also one step ahead of everyone elseWe became friends and once when I was looking for a job he introduced me to Si Newhouse Si was totally taken with Peter39s talents as a Publisher and loved his sense of humor Si told me that once when Peter was no longer at Conde Nast and they both were at different tables at The Four Seasons having lunch Peter had the captain send over his bill telling the captain that Si was so wealthy that he could easily afford to buy lunch for both tables And Si didPeter39s unique combination of being a top business executive with a phenomenal sense of humor made working for him or doing business with him both profitable and enjoyable When he cut a great deal by buying CBS Publications and then made a small fortune when he sold it to the French he shared the profits with every single employee at Diamandis Publications He was not only one of the best in the magazine business but one of the nicestPeter Diamandis stories are legendary When Self Magazine was launched with Peter as Publisher a major party was held for clients at Tavern on the Green Self was a huge success thanks to him Peter got up to speak and said how at most launches only the big people were acknowledged and that today he wanted to acknowledge one of the smaller people who helped with the launch He then asked Si Newhouse to stand upA few years ago Peter came to someone39s retirement party The room was jam packed Peter looked around and then innocently saidquotI39ve never been in a room before with so many people I thought had passed awayquot It broke up everyone So many people in media today say the fun has gone out of the business and the number crunchers have taken over Peter Diamandis produced great numbers no matter where he went and everyone had fun amp8211 most of all him He just loved what he did and did it better than mostSteve39s most recent book You Can39t Fall Off The Floor The Insiders39 Guide to ReInventing Yourself and Your Career chronicles his 50 year career working for over 25 different companies with 189 lessons learned and insider tips from Gayle King Cathie Black Chuck Townsend and 28 others Blacker is still going strong today as a partner in Frankfurt ampamp Blacker Solutions LLC His web site is blackerreinventionscom and email address is blackersolutionsaolcomRead all Steveamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media ReinventionsCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Remembering Peter Diamandis - One of the Best & One of the Nicest!

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Remembering Peter Diamandis - One of the Best & One of the Nicest!

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