I’m sure you’re all chomping at the bit to hear about my trip to Nike HQ last week. Overall, it was an excellent experience and very well run. I left NY on Thursday morning. An inevitably delayed flight out of LGA contributed to my missing the group trip to the Nike Employee store and the tour of the Nike campus in Beaverton, so I headed to the hotel to relax for a few minutes before meeting the group for dinner.

Nike put us up at the Westin downtown which was quite nice and centrally located. Upon entering my room, I was greeted with my first bag of goodies from the Nike crew. And what a bag of goodies it was!

Open up the bag, and it pretty much puked Nike goods all over the place…

Initial goody count consisted of: 2 pair of Nike+ running shoes, 2 Nike shirts, 1 pair of Nike running shorts, 1 Nike running jacket, 1 pair of Nike socks, 1 Nike+ kit, 1 personalized Nike+ armband for the nano, 1 Nike water bottle, 1 Nike+ travel pouch, 1 book on shopping and eating in Portland, and 1 Nike duffle bag.

After digging through my new toys, I met the group in the Lobby for a walk to dinner. This was my first opportunity to meet our contacts from Nike as well as the rest of the group (or those who’d already arrived, a few were still traveling). Dinner was a fun time at a Fridays-ish type of restaurant, courtesy of Nike. Then we headed back to the hotel to call it a night.

Friday was the big day. We met in the Lobby at 7:30 to meet the rest of the group and head over to Nike HQ for the big day. Our meetings were held in the design library of the Mia Hamm building (all of the buildings on Nike’s campus are named for famous Nike athletes). The design library itself could have been a playground for me for the day alone. Nike described it as their inspiration room; it was a collection of magazines, design pieces, and other information from around the world (no pictures allowed in the building).

I’ll have to settle for a broad overview of the day’s discussions (both because I signed a confidentiality agreement and because it would take a week’s worth of posts to cover the day’s talks). The morning was spent discussing the web and digital aspects of the Nike+ system. What would we like to see changed, what do we like about the current site, how can it grow, how has it created a community, etc…

Lunch was excellent and included the opportunity to meet some running greats such as Alberto Salazar and Adam and Kara Goucher. These runners were fun to chat with and were quite happy to offer some thoughts and tips to those of us who are a little less…talented.

The afternoon was spent discussing the hardware aspects of the Nike+ system. A representative from Apple was present to talk to us about any problems that we had encountered as well as any further wishes and wants we have about the system. Then things got interesting…

There has been a rumor about Nike producing a watch/remote that integrates with the Nike+ system, which, of course, someone brought up. To which Nike answered with a giddy grin, “well, it’s funny you should as about that…” We were then introduced to the Nike Amp+ and were each given a pre-production sample to test out and report back on.

After the discussion on the Amp+, we were introduced to one of Nike’s running shoe designers who came by to get our feedback on a new shoe that is planned for launch in October. I can’t share much on that one, but will do so in October…when Nike sends each of the summit attendees a pair to review!

This final session was followed by a short group run. And since one of our Super Users (as Nike dubbed our group of summit attendees) challenged our Nike hosts to a 400M race, we made a stop-off at Nike’s on-campus track for a little race fun:

After our fun-run/race, we all hopped the bus back to the hotel for a quick shower and then met back in the lobby for another Nike sponsored dinner. This one was a lot of fun as well since many of the Nike designers that we’d met during the day were there, so we got to continue our discussions over a few drinks and a tasty meal.

I hopped a plane early the following morning for a long travel day back to NYC, though many of the Super Users did stick around Portland for another day or so to explore and play. Overall, a very fun day at Nike with some extremely generous hosts. They seemed very interested in listening to what we had to say and putting it to good use. The entire day was video-taped so that they could go back and review the discussions. Nike also went to the trouble to bring in creatives from RGA here in New York (the agency that designed and maintains the Nike+ site) to listen to our comments as well.

Don’t hesitate to ask any questions; I’m sure there are things that I’ve missed in this brief review. I’ll answer whatever I can.

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