Very early yesterday morning, I drove to the picture-perfect New England town of Newport, New Hampshire. Since I had an early morning planning session with a key customer, I wanted to arrive early so that I could go over my notes, plus I wanted to talk to my favorite economist and her reaction to the Wednesday night Obama speech.

In addition to the work we do with our customers, I’m a professor at Tufts, where I teach Sales & Marketing within the Tufts entrepreneurship program. Great students, great faculty, hard work and very rewarding in the fact that it tests my skills, energy and the small amount of intellect that I sometimes think I have. Nothing is more real than addressing 20 students at 8:30 for three hours every week for 13 weeks.