USNA News Article

Guy Kawasaki - Honorary Naval Aviator

Jan 23, 2012

By Dennis Hall - The Avere Group

Guy Kawasaki will be the keynote speaker for the U.S. Naval Academy Leadership Conference Jan. 30, 2012.

For more than 20 years, I have volunteered my time outside of my business to nominate civilians to our military public affairs officers for their individual considerations of each nominee to participate in military training maneuvers. The PAOs select nominees for invitations.

During 2008, Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures in Palo Alto, Calif., author and prolific blogger, allowed me to nominate him for an exhilarating embark to an aircraft carrier underway in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego and Mexico. I nominated him to Cmdr. Charlie Brown, the public affairs officer for Commander, Naval Air Forces Pacific, based at Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado Island near San Diego. Soon thereafter, Cmdr. Brown selected Guy for his first embark, to and from the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) aircraft carrier.

Guy flew to and from the USS Stennis on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 2008, respectively, by way of a Navy C-2 Greyhound transport, a large twin-engine turboprop aircraft that can hold sixteen passengers, plus luggage and mail. He landed or “trapped” upon the moving flight deck, stopping due to the tail hook grabbing the carrier’s arresting cable. After touring for a day and night, the next day he again boarded the C-2. The catapult shot him aboard the C-2 off the bow with all its consuming exhilaration for his return flight to shore.

Upon his return to internet connectivity, he enthusiastically wrote his account of becoming an honorary naval aviator in his blog posting at Blog.GuyKawasaki.com, titled “26 Hoursat Sea: The Longest Posting in the History of Blogging.”

On Oct. 8, 2008, Guy and I gathered with Bill Reichert at their Palo Alto offices of Garage Technology Ventures to discuss his idea he pitched to me via e-mail . “how about sending a whole planeload of bloggers out to sea!” That sure sounded like a great idea to me.

Guy put forth several names . Steve Wozniak or “Woz”, Charlene Li, Jennifer Jones, Beth Blecherman, Pamela Slim, Andy Sernovitz, Robert Scoble just to name a few. A day later, I pitched Guy.s idea to Cmdr. Brown, coining the name Bloggers. Embark. He called me promptly and enthusiastically conveyed full support. He directed Guy and me to line up the 16 participates to fill a Navy C-2 Greyhound for a spring 2009 embark. He explained it had to be a mix of even numbers of women and men. Guy decided to make it eight and eight.

Guy and I led a group of 15 social media bloggers and podcasters to the USS Chester W. Nimitz (CVN 68) aircraft carrier by way of Navy C-2 Greyhound May 29-30, 2009, and separately blogger-podcaster Chris Pirillo embarked on the USS Nimitz as well June 1-2, 2009. The outcome involved an outpouring of blog posts, podcasts, Facebook postings, and tweets that reached thousands of people all over the globe. One participant, Charlene Li, even wrote about the embark in her 2010 bestselling book titled Open Leadership that hit The New York Times Bestsellers List. Since that initial embark, we have continued to nominate social media celebrities to the Navy for embarks in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The embarks involve aircraft carriers, surface ships and submarines. So far, more than 75 social media experts embarked to sea.

You may read Guy’s and my blog postings at the following:

• blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/10/26-hours-at-sea.html
• blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/06/24-hours-at-sea-on-the-uss-nimitz.html
• averegroup.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/bloggers-embark-start-up/

These postings provide links to each of the other bloggers-podcasters’ posts.

The success of the maiden voyage of the Bloggers’ Embark convinced me that other programs within the Navy might be interested in a similar endeavor. Guy and I set about making inquiries to other organizations within the the Navy, e.g. Surface Warriors and SEALs. From those inquiries have come embarks for social media experts supported by the Surface Warriors to the USS Green Bay, USS Makin Island and USS Bonhomme Richard. Submarine Squadron 11 supported an embark aboard the submarine USS Hampton.

During late July 2010, Cmdr. Brown informed me that he had transferred to the coveted assignment as the public affairs officer for the Chief of Naval Operations, then Adm. Gary Roughead. Adm. Roughead asked me to convene a meeting with him and Cmdr. Brown of Silicon Valley executives. We convened the meeting on August 5, 2010, involving Garage Technology Ventures, Lithium Technologies, Altimeter Group, Apple, Inc., Cisco Systems, and Google . YouTube. This meeting further expanded the circle of people exposed to Navy leadership. It is just another example of the contributions Guy Kawasaki, as a staunch supporter of our military, made to advancing awareness and appreciation of our Navy and Marine Corps.

More information about Guy Kawasaki may be found online at GuyKawasaki.com, HolyKaw.com, Garage.com, on Facebook via his fan page for this tenth book titled “Enchantment,” and Twitter -- @GuyKawasaki. Online news searches yield a bounty of reporting on his dynamic career.

Dennis Hall is founder of Avere Group, a media business based in Elk Grove, Calif.