Last night, a few of us had the opportunity to attend the Churchill Club panel discussion “Learning from the Masters: How America’s Highest Growth Companies Executed to Achieve Success.” Odd they would let us in, but since we worked to get client Network Appliance CEO Dan Warmenhoven on the panel, they made an exception.

This was a memorable event. Dan was joined by Tom Stemberg, Founder & Former CEO/Chairman, Staples; Venture Partner, Highland Capital Ventures and Jeff Weedman, Sr. Vice President, External Business Development & Global Licensing, Procter & Gamble. The panel was moderated by Dave Thomson, author, Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth.

Thomson is a sharp guy and a great moderator. Part of me was thinking, he must’ve read Guy’s “How to be a Great Moderator” post. For his book, Thomson studied hundreds of “blueprint” companies over several years. He concluded that only 5% of the companies that IPO ever achieve $1B in revenue. Additionally, these companies delivered two-thirds of the market value of all IPO companies. Wow.

Anyway, I thought we’d share a few memorable quotes from some of the panelists. There’s some good color in here for all you entrepreneurs looking to build that billion dollar (plus) baby.

“I run into a lot of investors with deep pockets and short arms”

-Jeffrey Weedman of P&G describing his experiences with “gun shy” internal investors

“I disagree with your point that everyone is replaceable. Our tech visionary is a guy named Dave Hitz…graduated high school at 14…has 200+ IQ…probably the smartest guy I’ll ever meet. How do you replace that?”

-Dan Warmenhoven of NetApp refuting a claim that ALL good executives render themselves useless

“No offense to the financial analysts, but the minute we stopped listening to them was the minute we began to succeed.”

-Tom Stemberg describing his experiences with analysts that he says forced Staples to think short term

“Sometimes you take a wrong turn and end up in a deep swamp. But you can learn a lot in those swamps.

-Weedman on making the wrong business decisions and their repercussions

“You wanna talk about a swamp? Before NetApp, I lived in the deepest, darkest swamp - somewhere out in the Amazon, I believe. I’m more comfortable on dry land.”

-Warmenhoven on the same topic and his role as CEO of less successful company, prior to NetApp

“Why should a small business owner pay $3.49 for a box of Bic pens when a big wig with a large company pays 20 cents for the same damn pens? That was my “big idea” moment.”

-Stemberg describing why he launched Staples - on the premise that small business owners should get the same bulk discounts as large companies

“In World War II, the U.S. Department of War decided that military deserters would be shot in public. The head of the department believed that by making an example of one deserting soldier, they may be able to minimize the amount of desertions. You know how many soldiers deserted in all of World War II? Just one.”

-Warmenhoven describing his philosophy on how to grow a company quickly - trust employees and don’t waste time watching over their shoulder. But for those that abuse that trust, deal with them swiftly, severely and publicly.

– Dave Black

Technorati Tags: Business, Churchill, Events, NetApp, PR

According to MONEY Magazine and Salary.com, of the 50 Best Jobs in America, being a PR specialist ranks 20th. Not too shabby. Ironically, the PR specialist is sandwiched between the 19th placeholder (editor) and the 21st placeholder (sales manager). It also receives a “D” grade for being one of the most stressful jobs on the list — you don’t say;)

Technorati Tags: Business, Jobs, PR

We asked Mike “The Guerrilla” Manuel, who spearheads our social media services, if he could cross-post here to a local meetup he’s co-organizing with a few PR industry peers called “Third Thursday.” Details follow, we’re looking forward to getting involved. — Voce Nation

Hello, My Name is “Third Thursday”

For several weeks now I’ve been co-organizing a side project called “Third Thursday” with a few industry cohorts, including Jeremy Pepper at Weber Shandwick, Giovanni Rodriguez at Eastwick and Phil Gomes at Edelman. While bits of pieces of this project are already known by some, consider this post its formal introduction.

In short, Third Thursday is a new meetup we’re organizing for Bay Area PR and marketing folks interested in learning more about social media tools, trends and best practices, and their practical application in marketing and communications programs.

This meetup was born out of our collective frustration, err, desire to try and fill an industry knowledge gap that exists right now, today, inside many companies and consulting firms that recognize the promise and potential of social media, and are eager to implement related projects, but could still benefit from some practical, real-world insights, expert advice and peer discussion on everything from blogging and podcasting to social networks and new media measurement, among other things.

That said, the goal of Third Thursday is really to try and close this knowledge gap and move industry thinking a little further forward, and we figured where better to start than in our own backyard.

Third Thursday is also a peer networking event, meaning come for the speakers and learning, but stick around for drinks and discussion. In the spirit of meetups, we’re aiming to keep our meetings very casual and open and really focused on a small but growing community of social media practitioners.

We’ll be hosting Third Thursdays the third Thursday (yes, how clever) of every month, with things officially kicking off next Thursday, April 20th at Fanny & Alexander’s in downtown Palo Alto, just two blocks from the PA Caltrain Station for you SF and SJ folks. Our game plan is to rotate these meetups around the Bay. I’ll be sharing the details of April 20th’s meetup in a follow-up post here shortly. In the meantime, if you’re interested in getting involved, please register (for free) at our Third Thursday meetup page.

Questions, ideas, suggestions? Submit them here or leave a comment.

Update: Michael Arrington, the author of TechCrunch, a highly influential blog about Web 2.0 companies and products will be our guest speaker at the April 20th Third Thursday. More details here and on the Third Thursday meetup page (reg req’d).

– Mike Manuel

Technorati Tags: Bay Area, Marketing, Meetup, PR, ThirdThursday

Time to toot the ‘ol Voce horn…Last week, Voce was honored as one of the Top Businesses to Work For in the Bay Area, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Voce placed fifth in the category of companies with 25-50 employees and was also the highest ranking PR firm in its class. More than 400 companies submitted for this award, so we’re feeling pretty special right about now. It’s not just the free bagels on Friday or the new Voce lounge that make this place great - it’s the culture. Unless you’ve lived it, it’s hard to explain. The people here make this place special.

Kevin Allison of the Financial Times, in true mafia fashion, arranged a meeting of the families last week. Bay Area spin doctors and media tycoons rumbled in San Francisco’s Mission District at the Elbo Room to kick off the first, "Everybody Needs a Mafia - West Coast Edition." The meet-up was organized to keep the peace in "furthering a mutual understanding between adversaries," Allison said in an email calling for the gathering. I was skeptical at first, as these meet-ups tend to be a feeding frenzy on the 1-2 media in a pool of PR sharks. I thought for sure I would be swimming with the fishes after the first hour. I was pleased to see that this event was a success and I made a great media contact through a casual encounter. I also got to catch up with some past PR colleagues while meeting other PR professionals.

Successful meet-ups like this can be great for networking. I encourage others to join the next mafia mixer as this one proved to be fun and resourceful. So Kevin, when’s the next meet-up? Let us all know so we don’t fugetaboudit.

–Josh Gershman