Monday
Wake at 6.10am and scan my emails and check news headlines on both the Bloomberg and Guardian iPhone apps, before heading for the train. As I'm taking a rare week off travel, I'll be commuting to New York every day.
We pass by the stunning view of Long Island Sound and I find myself comparing the journey to my old daily trek on London's Northern Line. My monthly ticket to New York City from a small suburban town in Connecticut costs less than my Zone 2 Underground pass.
After the regular Monday 8.30am global managers' meeting, I grab our traffic manager to review how the Bloomberg TV team handled a last-minute programme change late Friday night. All went smoothly, so the rest of the morning is spent reviewing proposals for clients.
I grab a sandwich in the local deli and head into interviews for the two digital sales positions we have open.
I spend the evening commute combing various football blogs and sites in an attempt to find out exactly when Spurs will announce our new manager.
Tuesday
The office day begins with a review of our "upfront" activity. American broadcasters and cable networks negotiate roughly 80% of the following year's ad deals in a few weeks in the early summer and while, as an international business news network, the majority of our business is negotiated on a calendar-year basis, the upfronts are still hugely important to us.
So far the signs are good – CPMs are growing at a healthy 7% and overall budgets are up. But a handful of clients are reporting that they'll sit the upfronts out this year and wait to buy inventory later in the scatter market, hoping to snare lower pricing.
The rest of the day is spent focused on digital. We've made an enormous push to quadruple the production and consumption of Bloomberg's online video by July and are well on track.
Two clients I meet that afternoon confide that they are looking to significantly increase their budget allocation for video. I'm happy to tell them that we not only have inventory, but also can help them produce assets.
I dedicate the evening to installing a new Sonos sound system. I spend the rest of the evening jumping around radio stations from around the world.
Wednesday
Wednesday mornings start with a four-mile run with a good friend. We are running the NY marathon this November in aid of the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Society. My father died of the disease last year and just recently, a good friend lost her battle, so this encourages us despite the 85-degree heat.
I bump into a client on the train who was in Cannes for the advertising festival. He gleefully describes the parties, yachts and high jinks that I, and 99% of those of us who work in B2B media, missed.
At 8am I have a call with our Asia team out of Hong Kong and Singapore. They are very optimistic about the next six months and, having scrutinised their forecasts it's hard not to agree.
Later, I meet our chief financial officer to start reviewing our second-half performance. We're seeing some really interesting trends emerging in our clients' buying patterns, which merit further analysis later this week.
Thursday
After another humid morning run, I cool down listening to the BBC on the new Sonos system. When I turn it on at 6.30am, I discover my daughter has linked all the speakers in the house and One Direction pumps out at max volume. By 6.31am, the whole house is wide awake and I have an unhappy wife to pacify. Clearly a password is going to be required.
This week's papers have been dominated by the imminent Supreme Court decision on Obama's Affordable Care Act and it becomes clear that the ruling will land today. The entire office is abuzz while waiting for the results. Just after 10am, it's been declared legal by five to four.
On my way down to meet with our chief executive, one of our senior editors from Bloomberg News confides we were the first to break the story. Amazingly, both CNN and FOX news announced it incorrectly.
That evening, my wife and I settle down to watch TV. I've noticed recently that 90% of my TV viewing is now done in the office, but tonight we settle down to watch 'Mad Men'.
Friday
Friday morning and still no sign of Spurs' new manager on The Guardian, Times or Telegraph apps (he is finally announced as Andres Villa-Boas).
Much of the morning is spent with my teams reviewing the past few weeks' activities, as today is the last Friday of the quarter.
Lunch is a hurried sandwich as I prepare for a four-day trip to London and the Middle East next week, before spending the afternoon with a key client discussing mobile. I draw in our head of mobile sales, our research department and our product engineers to meet with the client.
She's clearly impressed by the amount of time, energy – and money – we're dedicating to our mobile apps. Her appreciation doubles when she meets our global head of mobile product, Oke Okaro and learns that he designed all her favourite ESPN apps.
.jpg)
.jpeg)
