Disclaimer:
The opinions blogged herein represently only those of Rick E. Bruner and do not reflect those of his employer, persons or companies mentioned herein, or anyone else.
Rick has been working in online and offline media, marketing and research services since the late 1980s, and since 1998 has specialized in e-business strategy consulting and market research. Prior to that, his increasingly long and varied career has included stints in public relations, newspaper ownership, online publishing, and print journalism.
Career highlights include the following:
DoubleClick
In October 2004, Rick took a full-time position as Research Director with DoubleClick, the market-leading Internet advertising and marketing technology solutions provider. In this capacity, he directs the public research initiatives for DoubleClick, details of which are available at DoubleClick.com/Knowledge
Executive Summary Consulting, Inc.
From early 2001 till late 2004, Rick ran this independent consulting practice, based in New York City. Executive Summary Consulting provided clients with strategic counsel, custom research and expert writing services with regard to Internet marketing and media. Clients including the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Online Publishers Association, New York Times Digital, MSN, DoubleClick, Quris and many others.
IMT Strategies
From mid-1998 till early 2001, Rick was a partner, VP of Research and co-founder of IMT Strategies (now closed), a small e-business analyst group affiliated with META Group, a leading global IT advisory firm. While at IMT Strategies, Rick and his associates consulted for clients including Gillette, American Express and IBM, as well as many other large, medium and small companies from a wide range of businesses.
Among his many projects at IMT, Rick was the principal analyst on several important industry reports, including in 1999 "Permission E-mail: The Future of Direct Marketing" and in 2000 "The Impact of the Internet on Public Relations and Business Communications". (To see examples of white papers Rick wrote, or to purchase either of those reports, click the links above.)
Net Results, the Books
Rick is also the principal co-author of two books, Net Results.2: Best Practices for Web Marketing (New Riders, 2000) as well as its previous edition, Net Results: Web Marketing that Works (Hayden, 1998). This book is distinguished from other similar titles in several ways, but primarily by its even treatment of both high-level strategic guidance in the first half of the book, "Part I: Get the Site Right: Web Fundamentals," as well as tactical programs that work in "Part II: Audience Development."
The books have hit a mark with readers, the first selling out its print run before the release of the new edition. The book has been used as a textbook in many colleges, including Harvard, New York University, San Francisco State University and George Washington University. Quotes of the book jacket include "This is the gold standard for web marketing books" from Robert Frump, VP of StandardandPoors.com, and "I consider this to be required reading for any web entrepreneur" from Jim Davis, VP of Marketing at eBay.
Find out more about the book here , or visit Amazon.com to buy a copy.
Advertising Age
In 1997 and '98, before co-founding IMT Strategies, Rick was a regular contributor to Advertising Age magazine's Interactive section, where he specialized in Internet advertising technology and service providers.
Marimba, Inc., & Niehaus Ryan Wong
In 1996, Rick was an account executive at one of the pioneering (and now defunct) PR agencies in Silicon Valley, Niehaus Ryan Wong. He worked on the accounts of several clients while there, most notably being the account executive in charge of Marimba, Inc., at the time of its public debut. Those of you who have been in the Internet industry long enough doubtless remember this company as the pioneer of "push technology" with the photogenic female CEO Kim Polese that was, for a short time (i.e., while Rick was on the account) perhaps the most-media exposed Internet startup short of Amazon.com. (And, yes, they are still in business, delivering mostly software application management services to large enterprises, which was always a parallel business model to the consumer angle, which got all the hype and has largely since gone away. More than 450 customers.)
The Hungary Years:
Budapest Week and 'The Hungary Report'
After graduating college (at age 25, a late bloomer) in 1990, Rick spent the next five years living in Budapest, Hungary, as a journalist and eyewitness to Eastern Europe's amazing transition from Communism to capitalism and democracy. Within months of arriving, Rick co-founded and became editor-in-chief of Budapest Week, Hungary's first independent English-language newspaper. The paper circulated 15,000 copies, reporting on news, politics, business, social issues, culture and entertainment, providing a welcome source of community and information for expatriate Americans, English, Europeans and others living in Hungary at the time.
Under Rick's editing, the paper pioneered openness in reporting and high standards of journalism then relatively new to Hungary. One of the paper's proudest moments was causing the immigration authorities to free eight legal Chinese immigrants who had been wrongfully imprisoned for weeks before our exposé. The paper survived in print for about eight years, but a few years ago turned into a web-only entertainment listings, a shadow of its former self (long after Rick left the helm).
After two and a half years running Budapest Week, Rick became a freelance journalist, corresponding throughout Central Europe on politics, business and technology for various publications, including Wired Magazine, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Examiner, European Computer Sources, Multichannel News and others.
It was at this time, in 1994, that Rick got his first taste of online publishing, launching "The Hungary Report," a weekly e-mail and web-based newsletter of news and feature stories from Hungary. Sadly the archives of that endeavor are no longer online.
The BVI Beacon
Rick interrupted his college studies in the mid-80s to work for a year and a half in the Tortola, The British Virgin Islands (Caribbean) for a small local newspaper, the BVI Beacon. ("The light that comes from wisdom never goes out.") This was the genesis of Rick's career in journalism. His mentor, the paper's owner and editor, Linnell Abbott, was a masters graduate of Columbia Journalism School and 20-year veteran of Dow Jones, as well as a native of the BVI. She taught him more about journalism, research and writing than anyone else (except, perhaps, his father, also a career writer).
Education
In 1990, Rick received a B.A. in creative writing cum lade from Columbia University. He also previously attended the University of Montana, in beautiful Missoula, MT, for two and a half years, where he had much fun but earned no degree.
Today
Rick presently lives in New York City, with his all-around wonderful wife, Adrienne Haspel, a film editor who hails from Budapest, Hungary, along with their two adorable Siamese cats, Popsi and Cini. His leisure interests include photography, bicycling, jazz music and blogging.
If you just can't get enough of Rick, you can read every last thing he's thinking on his personal site, Bruner Blog.