November 18, 2011

Introducing the Dream Team!

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Apple Inc.

We have a dream to change the wine world and we firmly believe that one of the great catalysts is social media. Over the last three months VinTank has continually focused on our free social media listening platform, Social Connect. But if you want to change the world, you need the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the innovators and the geniuses. We have sought out the support of the best of the best in social media, location based services, wine, successful entrepreneurship and overall kung foo to form our first Board of Advisors. They have joined VinTank not only to help us guide our Social Connect innovations, but to help the wine industry in general. Please let me introduce you to the Dream Team:

Barry Schuler – Former CEO AOL/Time Warner, CEO of Meteor Vineyards, and Managing Director of DFJ Growth Fund. Twitter: @bschuler

Gary Vaynerchuk – Social Media Expert, Wine Industry Innovator, Best Selling Author, CEO of Vaynermedia. Twitter: @garyvee. Blog:http://garyvaynerchuk.com/PS – As you can see, Gary’s not done revolutionizing the wine industry as was hinted in an article yesterday. Wait till you see what he does next!

Michael Brito – SVP Edelman. Successful Author of Smart Business, Social Business. Twitter: @britopian. Blog:http://www.britopian.com/.

Aaron Strout – Head of Location-Based Marketing at WCG. Thought leader in Location Based Services and co-author of Location Based Marketing for Dummies. Twitter:@aaronstrout. Blog:http://blog.stroutmeister.com/.

Margot Sinclair Savell – VP at Weber Shandwick, Social Media Analytics. Thought Leader, frequent speaker at events such as Blogworld, PR News Digital Summit, Centre for Digital Media & more, passionate wine blogger and columnist. Twitter: @writeforwine @margotsavell. Blog: http://www.writeforwine.com/.

Bob Wozniak – Senior Enterprise Relationship Manager at LinkedIn Corporation. Wine industry enthusiast from growing up around his family’s former business, one of the oldest Michigan wineries: Bronte Champagne and Wines Company. Twitter: @bobwozniak

Our motto has always been “Wine Online, We Believe!” and we are excited for what the future holds and what this dream team will do to help us, our customers, and the entire wine industry!

The official press release: http://bit.ly/vXQQhe

Jodi Fritch

This is great news. Congratulations to the ‘Dream Team’ and VinTank.

Jodi a/k/a tampawinewoman
http://girlwithaglass.com Alana Gentry

Some serious thought leaders, good for you for keeping your dream alive and helping the wine industry. What you are doing is extremely valuable and I look forward to following your thought progression.
http://twitter.com/ornelas ornelas

Great job to VinTank and its engineers for bringing in this dream team. WineMaps.com is looking forward to seeing new features.
LuchaVino

Great lead in quote, but give the correct attribution. Not Apple. Jack Kerouac.
WineWonkette

6 advisors and only 1 woman? Sure seems like status quo to me. Hope you don’t expect her to take minutes during the meetings.
Anonymous

So excited to be a part of this!
http://twitter.com/VineBuzz Rich Reader

I love it when a plan comes together. Now I’ll just have to be patient to pick up word of it.
http://www.boozemonkey.com Matt

no, that would be wrong… coffee maybe…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=578078884 Eric V. Orange

Nice Paul. Kudos.
EVO
http://blog.terroirist.com/?p=7196 Terroirist » Daily Wine News: Respecting Beaujolais

[...] VinTank — the Napa Valley-based research group and new media consulting firm — has announced an extremely impressive board of advisors. [...]
http://www.poofysheep.com Rachel

That was my first thought, too!
http://writeforwine.com Margot Sinclair Savell

Not to worry, I won’t take minutes at the meetings or make coffee, but I will bring my 16 years of digital analytics experience to the table, along with my passion for the wine industry! Cheers!
http://writeforwine.com Margot Sinclair Savell

No worries – see my reply to Amy!
http://writeforwine.com Margot Sinclair Savell

Ha! I live in Seattle – coffee is my friend! But I won’t make coffee or take minutes at the meetings. See my response to Amy for what I will do. Cheers!
http://www.facebook.com/evancover Evan Cover

Thanks LuchaVino, we are always inspired by the greats. As we looked into the quote to ensure we attribute them properly, we have found that it was in fact from a marketing campaign that Apple ran, however it is common that particular quote is associated to Jack Kerouac. Here is a link to where we found this information http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac and if you look about 3/4 of the way down you will notice a “misattributed” section that refers to this very thing and further explains that it is very similar to his famous quote “On the Road”.