Commentary

Loreen Babcock could have kicked herself!

There was a little of everything -- hula hoops, Curious George, Tom's Shoes, and the Reverend Al Sharpton himself at the Advertising Week Trust Forum. The event began with tasty revelation by host Loreen Babcock, chairman and CEO of the agency Unit 7, which also explains why she had a Curious George stuffed monkey on stage (along with the Hula Hoop): she had gone to attend a conference in, I think, New York. She had arrived, luggage in tow and late hoping beyond hope that she had not missed the main speaker. No seats, she ran up to the balcony where she found a parterre seating area that was completely empty. She had 30 seats to choose from, including two extras for her luggage. She plopped herself down, and waited. In walks an older man also looking for a seat, but insisting, incomprehensibly, in asking for the seat right next to her.

"Great," she thought. (I'm paraphrasing here obviously) "Twenty seven chairs to choose from and he just must sit on the one I've put my bags on." But she moved her bags and the man sat. Probably still enraged, and disinclined to speak to him (and, I suppose vice versa) they sat like that for some twenty minutes until the elderly man got up and left.

And then appeared on stage, the man she had come to hear speak: Warren Buffet himself. She said she could not believe she had missed that opportunity. "From that point forth," said Babcock, I vowed to never stop being curious. Like George.

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