I wish I had something more witty to lead with here, but in looking back at the year that’s about to end, for some reason, it feels more important to chronicle the work I produced than it has in past years — and to share some notes about a few of those items. With five webinars I hosted mixed in with my writing efforts, it certainly has a bit more of a 2020 flavor.

Without further ado, here are links to my 23 published pieces, as well as five webinars I moderated in 2020.

• 

  At my desk in June.

  Results Magazine April Lead Column: Stay Safe. Stay Healthy, Stay Strong.

• Results Magazine April Cover Feature on Election Media Spending: When I wrote this piece in mid-late February for Results, the PDMI’s quarterly digital magazine, we had no idea what the pandemic had in store for us. I felt fortunate that we had a half-dozen media experts at the ready to discuss what we thought would be the big crossover story of the year — that is, real news affecting the performance marketing industry. Even with all that changed, we were able to close the loop on this story with a pair of episodes of our Take 20 webinar series (Sept. 22 and Nov. 18) — updating and then looking back on how the eventual $8 billion spent in election 2020 media affected the business.
• BostonMan Magazine May Feature Story: Boston Celtics’ Enes Kanter and Tacko Fall: Another piece that started prior to mid-March’s pandemic stay-at-home orders — the photo shoot for the story, originally set for March 16 in Boston, had to be scrapped — I really enjoyed putting together this piece for Matt Ribaudo’s magazine about two of the Celtics’ big men (one of whom has sinced moved on) and the international flair they helped bring to Boston.
• WEBINAR — PDMI Virtual Summit June: Government Affairs Roundup
• Results Magazine June Lead Column: In 2020, Personal Growth Is Required for Professional Success
• Results Magazine June Cover Feature on the Coronavirus Crisis: The further we get from this story, two things become more clear: we have a committed group of folks in the PDMI membership who are willing and able to open up — eloquently — about both the professional and
  

  The McCourty twins.

  personal effects of a global tragedy; and while we were very hopeful that we’d seen the worst, we were woefully naïve about what was still to come.

• Results Magazine June Feature Story: Media Attribution
• BostonMan Magazine August Cover Feature: New England Patriots’ Devin and Jason McCourty: Easily my personal favorite piece from this year. The opportunity to spend more than an hour on a conference call with the McCourty twins came at just the right time for me. Their passion, wisdom, and commitment to their beliefs — plus the willingness to put their good fortune to work to better the world — makes their incredible on-field success as NFL players pale in comparison. It was an honor to be entrusted with telling this story.
• BostonMan Magazine August Feature Story: Dropkick Murphys’ Ken Casey: Nothing I wrote above should minimize what a joy it was to work on this piece at the same time as I was working on the McCourty feature. Casey, who is an absolute rock star in Boston, was the farthest thing from anyone’s negative connotation of that term when we conducted the Zoom interview for this feature. Great guy, great band,
  

  With Caitlin and Ken Casey in Boston, July.

  and — I hope — a great story.

• WEBINAR — PDMI West Virtual September: Reviewers and Influencers and Testimonials … Oh My!
• WEBINAR — PDMI West Virtual September: Post-Event Roundup
• Results Magazine September Lead Column: Energize Yourself, and Then Energize Others. Like many of you, I spent some time digging a little deeper into myself during 2020. In this column that kicked off our September issue of Results, I shared a little bit about what that introspection led to — at least on a professional level.
• Results Magazine September Cover Feature: Coronavirus and the Workspace
• Results Magazine September Feature Story: E-Commerce
• WEBINAR — PDMI Fall Seminar Series October: Lessons From the Pandemic
• TomRants October Feature: The Dodgers Won! Yes, I wrote it. But let’s be honest: it’s Theo who says it all in the video at the bottom of the piece.
• TomRants November Column: My Vote, My Voice
• 

  Theo, ready for USC kickoff, on Nov. 7.

  USCFootball.com November 6: USC vs. Arizona State Preview

• BostonMan Magazine November Feature Story: Journalist/Author Dave Wedge: My final 2020 piece for BostonMan presented a pair of rare challenges: interviewing another journalist AND writing about another writer. Wedge made it easy — both gracious and open, he made the interview simple, which in turn made the story easier than it should have been. (And, thanks Dave, for signing the Lennon books for my dad and me.)
• USCFootball.com November 13: USC vs. Arizona Preview
• USCFootball.com November 19: USC vs. Utah Preview
• WEBINAR — PDMI Fall Seminar Series December: Fearless Predictions for 2021. Taking part in the final feature-length webinar on the 2020 calendar, seven members of the PDMI’s Workshop Council made my job as moderator easy in this 60-minute roundtable. Though each works in a different facet of the performance marketing world, the group took disparate viewpoints about the coming year and wove them into a thought-provoking look ahead. Also, they ably teed up our Results December cover feature (link below) on the same topic.
• USCFootball.com December 4: USC vs. Washington State Preview
• USCFootball.com December 11: USC vs. UCLA Preview: While my 20th year providing game previews for Ryan Abraham’s website wasn’t what I’d hoped, in retrospect, the final regular season preview of the abbreviated Trojan football season was my best effort. As I wrote in advance of USC’s five-point victory, secured on a touchdown pass with just 16 seconds to play, “Both teams will make big plays, and both will make big mistakes. Which team will make one more big play – or one less mistake?”
• Results Magazine December Lead Column: Paradigms Shifted, Lessons Learned, Hopes Renewed
• Results Magazine December Cover Feature: Fearless Predictions for 2021
• Results Magazine December Feature Story: Marketer Conversation
• USCFootball.com December 17: USC vs. Oregon Preview

Happy New Year!