They say to truly understand a person, you have to walk a mile in their shoes. Taking that advice figuratively if not literally, I decided to spend a day with an executive from five components of licensing business-licensor, licensee, licensing agent, retailer, and public relations firm-and report back on my experiences. Being dogged by a reporter for an entire day is no easy feat, but Hearst Magazines' Glenn Ellen Brown, Lantis Eyewear's Craig Chroney, United Media's Karyn Schneider, Steve & Barry's Aaron Spiewak, and Dan Klores Communications' Jeff Klein bravely stepped up to the plate.

The following pages are filled with the details of a typical day for each of these licensing executives. After all, it's always interesting-and often enlightening-to see how the other half lives.

9 a.m.: When I Arrive at the office of Jeff Klein, executive vice president at Dan Klores Communications, he already has completed his daily ritual of reading five daily newspapers and googling his clients and their competitors to stay up on the day's events. Once seated at his desk, he begins his day by e-mailing reminders and new ideas to his staff of six direct reports and reviewing his way-too-ambitious day planner.

To say Jeff is a newshound is underestimating his intensity. He is passionate about his job, his clients, and ensuring that his growing portfolio of clients such as King Features, AG Properties, Marvel Entertainment, Big Tent Entertainment, 4Kids Entertainment (except for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Yu-Gi-Oh!), Lionsgate Entertainment, and FAO Schwartz never miss an opportunity to be mentioned in a story.

My history with Jeff goes back to the early 1990's, when he was peddling home videos (that's right, folks, no DVDs back then) at Amy Alter & Associates, and I was an associate editor writing abut the home video category for Discount Store News. Our paths also crossed many times when he was general manager at Bender Helper Impact for six years.

Today, I sit in his well-manicured office decorated with Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic 4 movie posters and a smattering of licensed products neatly organized on a wooden bookshelf. Jeff speaks with great candor and intelligence on the public relations business and is himself a quotable person. On the relationship that publicists and journalists share, he opines, "A good publicist must establish good relationships with the press because a journalist at a small paper today covering something you have no interest in might be the same journalist who is covering the hottest trends and biggest news at a major publication tomorrow."

10:30 a.m.: The weekly internal licensing meeting gets underway with each member of Jeff's team discussing opportunities for his or her clients at the upcoming Licensing International Show. The team talks about how the organic angle of King Features' Mutts property can be tied into bigger trend stories and their desire to make a big splash for first-time exhibitor and brand-new client AG Properties with mention about pitching a story to the Wall Street Journal. The group also is in on the lookout for opportunities for Big Tent Entertainment, which will be pushing new properties Domo ( a Japanese property) and Body Doubles and existing ones The Koala Brothers and Habbo Hotel; 4Kids Entertainment and its new Viva Pinata property; and Marvel Entertainment with Ghost Rider and Marvel Heroes.

11:15 a.m.: Back to Jeff's office, where he begins to respond to the 40 e-mails he's gotten since he left. He takes his open-door policy seriously and always makes time to answer questions, listen and joke about industry gossip, get the latest update on a pending story, or offer a suggestion about which person or outlet to pitch a certain story to. Before we head to an off-site meeting with American Greetings, Jeff shifts gears into story-pitching mode and starts to call key media at USA Today to pitch a story on 4Kids' new Viva Pinata property; finalize a Time magazine article on Hard Candy (a movie from Lionsgate Entertainment); and finalize a Los Angeles Times profile on Albie Hecht, the former president of Nickelodeon and Spike TV who has started Worldwide Biggies, a new children's entertainment company.

12:15 p.m.: We take a short walk over to American Greetings' New York office with Kas Rigas, vice president at DKC, for a meeting with Tamra Seldin, senior vice president, consumer products, and Betts FitzGerald, vice president, outbound licensing at AG Properties, who both recently joined the company to grow its outbound licensing efforts. Jeff takes the lead at the informal meeting, discussing details of an exclusive feature story by Editor-in-Chief Joyceann Cooney in LICENSE magazine, as well as opportunities the new division has to fit into future stories at a variety of publications.

1:15 p.m.: We stop for a bite to eat at a local restaurant and play catch-up, talking about out personal lives and things going on in the industry.

2:15p.m.: Jeff uses the 25 minutes he has before meeting with his team to check his e-mail and make calls to reporters (he rarely leaves a message) to tell them they will be receiving an advance copy of "Marvel Civil War," a new politically charged comic book series.

2:40 p.m.: The team gathers for a brainstorming meeting with ideas flying back and forth on unique ways to support the opening of the first Betty Boop-themed diner in San Francisco.

3:15 p.m.: I leave at the tail end of the meeting, but Jeff still has a few more hours of business before heading home to his Princeton, NJ, home. The remainder of the day will be spent on a weekly status conference call with Lionsgate Entertainment to discuss feature film See No Evil, followed by another weekly status conference call with Albie Hecht on Worldwide Biggies. If there is any time left, he will make a few additional pitches and be out the door by 6 p.m.