The Smoking Gun: The Power 50 2012 Awards; ferreting around

The Alex Hope fundraising award for services Scottish-Cuban relations

We’ve all woken up dry of mouth, delicate of head, with a fistful of bar receipts the only indication of the night before. Still as you sit, tearfully attempting to work out how you managed to sell your house for one last Babycham, spare a thought for one Power Affiliate-related firm. During an evening of erudite conversation and meaningful discussion a person who will remain nameless decided it would be a great idea to order a round of Scotch and Havana cigars for his companions. A few hours later he went to bed content, thinking nothing more about it and dreaming only of the great networking he’d done while propping up the bar. When TSG finally stumbled out of our room the next morning to check out of the five-star lodgings, our hearts went out to the poor chap as we watched him beg the bar staff to explain how he’d managed to spend £560 on a single round. We salute his attempts to single-handedly boost the Scottish and Cuban export trade, but pray he either has an expenses account, or a very forgiving FD.

Social censorship award sponsored by Facebook

One or two central themes always emerge at the Power 50. This year’s event was no exception with the opening up of the US market alongside social gaming’s rise in popularity, and above average revenue per user compared to say farming-style games, featuring heavily in the majority of discussions on and off stage. But when it came to the social panel, featuring may I add some of the biggest names in the space including Gigi Levy, who was involved in selling Playtika to Caesars for an estimated US$135m last year, there appeared to be one delegate who was more interested than most with what was being said. Again, we won’t say who it was, but let’s just say that every time one of our panellists mentioned the company he works for ““ a certain network the vast majority of sites rely on to operate from ““ I swear his telepathic transmissions instantly changed the subject matter they were discussing at the time. It was a shame he managed to focus on one speaker that little too long leaving only a smoking pair of loafers in his wake.

The Morgan-Bush awards for Segway acrobatics

During his illustrious reign as editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan famously ran the headline “You’d have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn’t you Mr President,” after then US-President George Dubya Bush took a tumble from a Segway way back in 2003. Of course, four years later Morgan emulated Dubya when he fell off a Segway and broke four ribs, but we’ll leave it up to you to decide what that actually means about his mental faculties. Idiot. These incidents flashed through our minds when one of our PFiddy delegates failed to master one of the two-wheeled beasts ““ ‘souped down’ to 4mph from a top speed of 18mph ““ and, in tribute to Segway inventor Jimi Heselden, dropped to the dewy ground like a pile of old spuds. Whether this makes him especially clumsy, or simply a more-than capable US president and/or tabloid editor, again we’ll leave it up to you.

In brief:

Prize punt

It’s a modern-day version of the prisoner’s dilemma: You’re leading the Power 50 poker tournament, one of the most illustrious events in the history of the game, but first prize is something you already own. As is second prize. What do you do? Punt off your stack, of course, but make it look really subtle. Of course none of the Power 50 sponsors would advocate manipulating the results of a poker tournament for personal gain. Personal loss? Well that’s another matter altogether. It would be really awkward if your company sponsored a ‘last-longer’ award in a major poker series, though, wouldn’t it?

Unfur play

If they didn’t know anything about ferrets before the Power 50, delegates sure knew a lot about the Mustela furo afterwards. As other groups sped around on petrol-powered vehicles, shot air rifles or raced Segways, one ‘ferregate’ (geddit?) looked on in amazement as a fully grown man in a waistcoat and top hat attempted to entertain them by placing a rodent down a hole… repeating the exercise a dozen or so times. Ferret Roulette saw a rat-like creature placed into a round, numbered wooden contraption (see picture) while onlookers were asked to ‘bet’ which hole it would appear from. Some thought the system was rigged, while some took turns to hold one of three smelly mammals being told the odour would not disappear “for weeks”, but most simply stared at the sky wondering how they ended up in a muddy field talking about ferrets.

Watch us wreck the mic….psyche

Our Power Summits attract a busy bunch, some busier than others, so when the panel sessions finished one or two of our speakers had to rush off to other commitments. But one was in such a hurry that he was halfway home before realising he was still mic’d up from an earlier speaking slot. We’re not sure when he realised something was wrong ““ when he set off Gatwick’s metal detectors or when he picked up not-for-transmission messages from the pilot… on his way to way to sunnier climes.