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Pretty PowerPoints, In General

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:27:04 -0400

Because approx. 70% of my waking time is spent with PowerPoint opened on a screen in front of me, I’ve learned a thing or two about creating some nice looking slides. The slide above is not one of them, but it is one that I created for a class that I’m teaching at The Brooklyn Brainery called Polishing Your PowerPoints. Basically, just do the opposite of that picture above.

Getting Sauced At SASS

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:38:00 -0400

I love history, but it’s a difficult hobby to maintain (how do you even practice a history hobby?). For years, Anna and I have been talking about creating informal history-focused events, where friends could come and learn about history in a non-intimidating (and even fun!) way. We mentioned this to our friends at The Brooklyn Brainery and they encouraged us to do it!

So in September 2011, Anna and I founded The Society for the Advancement of Social Studies, a monthly lecture series designed to both entertain and enlighten. Our official motto is “All the history you knew but forgot, and all the booze you need to forget it again”.

Each month, a guest speaker, Anna, and I teach short lectures on topics pertaining to one event. Past events have include The Crusades and The Civil War. We also keep it fun with games and themed drink specials (to ensure maximum knowledge gained, of course).

I think we’ve hit on something, because on the first Tuesday of each month, over 100 attendees come to hear us talk. We’ve even been written up in various blogs, including Brokelyn, and in Time Out New York’s magazine.

Playing the Agency Obfuscation Game

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:38:00 -0400

Two things about the advertising industry: being on Agency Spy is usually not a good thing, and the industry is full of agencies with interesting names.

On my last days at Tribal, I create the Agency Obfuscation Game with some coworkers. Each phrase took an agency name and obscured it with hints, homophones and bloated word choice. This also marked my first appearance in Agency Spy, which was a good thing.

Guerilla Picnicking on the Brooklyn Bridge

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:36:00 -0400

After taking a Surprisology class at LifeLabs, Einav Jacubovich and I decided that we needed to surprise our friends.

We sent mysterious postcards to 7 of our friends requesting their participation in a New York Dinner Adventure. The postcards each had an abstract photo on it, an assignment to bring a food, and a random street corner to meet us.

On the night of August 30th, we brought our unsuspecting friends from a random street corner and on to the Brooklyn Bridge. We stopped in the middle, set out picnic blankets, and announced that dinner was served.

Our guests were surprised, so mission accomplished! We then ate our delicious feast on the bridge with an unbeatable view of New York as tourists and locals gawked.

Winning Revel!

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:22:12 -0400

Recently, I entered AND WON Revel’s first monthly challenge. Revel is a mobile app that turns sets of instructions, called challenges, into adventures and experiences that can be shared by friends or strangers.

The challenge (co-authored by Jason!) we created was titled Play by the Rules. You can read all about it and us here.

Teaching Color

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:57:00 -0400

One of my favorite classes in college was called “Color” and based on the work and ideas of Josef Albers. I wanted to use what I learned them, combined with what I’ve learned about color from marketing and psychology to teach a class exploring the abtract topic.

In July, I taught a course at The Brooklyn Brainery called Color! (is Awesome Even If You’re Not an Artist). The course explored color across a variety of topics—the science, psychology, history, and culture of color.

Here are some fun facts I learned:

A computer screen can make 17 million colors
Question: Are white and black colors? White is if you’re talking about additive (light) color, but isn’t if you’re talking about subtractive (pigment) color. The opposite is true for black.
The k in CMKY stands for key, or black.
Da Vinci thought the primary colors were white, yellow, green, blue, red, black, which psychologists later found were the colors primary to sensation.
Goya (and basically everyone else during his time) was driven into insanity by the paints they used- cadmium yellow, mercury red, white lead.
Birthstones go back to the bible! Exodus 28:17-20 and Revelation 21:19-20
The color of 2011 is honeysuckle (according to Pantone).
Have you ever noticed color clichés exist in marketing?

Wrecking Havoc and Getting Published in the New York Public Libary

Sun, 22 May 2011 14:24:00 -0400

For the 100th anniversary of the New York Public Library, Jane McGonigal, with Natron Baxter and Playmatics created an overnight scavenger hunt in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building called Find The Future- The Ga me.

I was chosen as one of the participants in the game, where I would spend the night locked in the New York Public Library, complete tasks based on items on exhibit in the library, and collaborate on writing a book. Using a QR code reader app, I ran around the library with a team, unlocking codes from items including Jack Kerouac’s harmonica and The Declaration of Independence. Then, I would write short stories based on writing prompts based on the items, including writing rules for a unique approach based on Kerouac’s “Spontaneous Prose.” Others, too, would write their own version and a bookbinder set our contibutions in to a physical book.

As the night wore on, the delirium from being awake for 20+ hours began to set in. Quests were abandoned for activities like “Freeze Tag in the Foyer” and absurd photo shoots.

At the end of the night, however, everyone reconvened to celebrate the creation of a physical book, based on the collaborative story writing, to be a part of the NYPL permanent collection.

Entering Cannes Young Lions (TWICE)

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:24:00 -0500

This year, Einav Jacubovich and I teamed up to create two entries in to the Cannes Young Lions Competition over the course of one week.

We were given the challenge to increase college student participation in SIFE, an international organization that connects marketing and business students with charitable causes.

Einav and I knew that business and marketing students need both education and experience to compete in today’s job market. To make SIFE meaningful to students, we showed that SIFE would give them real business experience by positioning SIFE groups as real start-up businesses.

For the Cyber competition, we demonstrated this through banner ads and a social media plan, which can be viewed here.

For the separate Media competition, we created an action plan that used media dollars to support the SIFE business experience and make it more attractive to students. Our entry is posted below.

Creating The No Right Brain Left Behind Entry: LIVINGBOOKS

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:48:00 -0500

In collaboration with Social Media Week 2011, No Right Brain Left Behind called upon professionals in creative industries to brainstorm solutions to creativity crisis happening in US schools today.

I lead the Tribal DDB submission during this week-long challenge. Our approach was to address the disconnect between class objectives (doing well on standardized tests) and the individual educational needs of the students. The team decided to work within the system and update a rapidly antiquating element: the textbook.

By working with publishers to create dynamic lessons tailored to students, Tribal DDB saw an opportunity to extend publishers’ business offerings while greatly benefitting students, calling this innovative program: LIVINGBOOKS.

LIVINGBOOKS inspires students through evolving, personalized lessons by customizing existing publishers’ content through a dynamic template that self-edits to reflect its readers’ interests. It generates study guides and tests that help students internalize information in a way that encourages creativity by relying on their input.

Genuine Authentic Hand Painted Signs

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:50:00 -0500

I stumbled upon “Genuine Authentic Hand Painted Signs” while in search for some much-needed caffeine in San Francisco last weekend.

Inside The Summit (a tres trendy coffee shop with beautifully architected wooden walls and full of dozens of laptop drones), the walls were full of beautiful handcrafted signage and I, now equipped with a seriously strong coffee, was happy. What can I say, I’m a sucker for typography.

What I connected with came from the inspiration for the pieces:

We’ve had customers use the phrase “more authenticity”, in describing what they were coming to us looking for in a sign, while providing us with digital files to work from, which themselves bore no particularly hand wrought characteristics. What is it about what we do that implies to our clients, or to their clients, something genuine and authentic?

As someone who works with the brand side of social media, I know too well about the difference request for authenticity and the actual experience. It seems that too frequently, there’s a lot of enthusiasm for being something, like authentic or genuine, without doing something.

We’re hoping, through this show, to call people’s attention to their own standards for genuineness and authenticity, and to spark some conversations about how they (and we) do or don’t manifest or recognize them. Or, at the very least we’ll decorate the place with a slew of genuine authentic hand painted signs.

Mission accomplished, guys.

View more here.

Celebrating the 12 Days of December

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:06:00 -0500

This December, due to my inordinate obsession with holiday cheer, I wrangled some friends together to create a corny chain email. Each day, someone in the group had to send out a little present for everyone based on the 12 Days of Christmas song.

Here’s what happened:

December 1: A partridge in a pear tree
My take: A pair of trees donated on our behalf to the Arbor Day Foundation and the Partridge family!

December 2: Two turtledoves
Alicia’s: Really, what is a turtledove? And a Dove coupon!

December 3: Three French hens
Lily’s: After telling us all about her chicken inspirations, then shocked us all when she went a little too far.

December 4: Four calling birds
Theo’s: A real, live, analog conference call date!

December 5: Five golden rings
Anna’s: A lovely, Christmastime story.

December 6: Six geese a-laying
Alex’s: Six geese laid low!

December 7: Seven swans a -swimming
Lyndsey’s: Seven swan facts, a trippy Japanese video, and adopted us all swans!!

December 8: Eight maids a-milking
Einav’s: The (rained out) Brunch-Time Milk Block Party!

December 9: Nine drummers drumming
Jess’: An awesome (9-video-long) drumming playlist

December 10: Ten pipers piping
Mike’s: A song made from 10 overlaid tracks (play it over Bing Crosby for full-on Christmas joy)

December 11: Eleven ladies dancing
Kate’s: Whiskey Kate emerged and shared some favorite songs

December 12: Twelve lords a-leaping

Andrew’s: A sensory experience. Oh lordy.

Birthdays come with a lot of rules. You have to have fun on your...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 11:26:00 -0400

Birthdays come with a lot of rules.

You have to have fun on your birthday (this is the one that typically can be seen as a burden but luckily is supplemented by the next few rules).
You get to tell people what to do on your birthday.
You get to tell strangers it’s your birthday.
You get to convince your friends to do things they normally wouldn’t do AND they can’t complain about it because it’s your birthday.

#4 is my favorite. You get one day of the year to do WHATEVER you want so it has to count. This year, I pretty much only had one birthday wish: I wanted Baked Alaska.

I have no idea where I heard of Baked Alaska, but I’ve been passively searching for this traditional American dessert for the last 5 years or so. It’s a composite of all of my favorite desserts in ONE, plus it takes it up a notch with the thrill of defying science by putting ice cream in the oven (!!!!).

APPARENTLY I’m in the minority with my obsession with Baked Alaska, because while you can find 139+ places that have Banh Mi, there are only 3 restaurants in the 5 borough area that actually still make Baked Alaska.

My BA came from Giorgio’s of Gramercy and contained: walnut sweet bread, espresso gelato, flamed meringue, and strawberry coulis. It was amazing and, BECAUSE IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY, Giorgio’s also threw in chocolate covered strawberries, a piece of Espresso Cheesecake and a piece of S’more Bread Pudding. Nice.

Birthday boys and girls, if you want to test your hand at Baked Alaska and share this amazing dessert with deserving people, try this really simple recipe:

Ingredients
1 layer sponge cake
1 qt. ice cream
4 egg whites
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

1. Beat egg whites until nearly stiff, beat in sugar gradually, add vanilla and beat until stiff.
2. Place a board at least 1 1/2 inches thick between 2 pieces of corrugated paper; cover top with waxed paper.
3. Place round of sponge cake on board, heap ice cream quickly on top, leaving a 1 inch margin of cake all around; cover thickly with meringue.
4. Brown quickly in very hot oven (450 degrees).
Serve at once with chocolate, caramel or fruit sauce, if desired.

Look, Ma, I'm Internet Famous

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:20:00 -0400

Look, Ma, I'm Internet Famous:

2 weeks ago, I got my first taste of internet fame via a single-serve subject blog called Cool Planner Hair, Dude. Though it didn’t rival This is Why You’re Fat or Selleck Waterfall Sandwich, it was wild to watch a silly site get 1,000 hits in <24 hours. What I ultimately learned was that it takes about 6 days for a site like that to jump the shark (though I still am getting about 25 hits a day now), and that advertising people really are as narcissistic as they say. Fun!

While looking for a bread recipe today, I came across this....

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:29:50 -0500

While looking for a bread recipe today, I came across this. Summer can’t come quickly enough.

Blackberry Tom Collins Cocktail Recipe

Ingredients

3 lrg. Blackberries
1/2 oz Fresh Lime Juice
1 t Sugar
2 oz Gin
3-4 oz Club Soda

1. Put blackberries in a highball glass, add lime juice, and sugar and muddle (you know, smash it all together with a pestle or something similar)

2. Add ice, then pour in gin and club soda. Stir, garnish with a couple cut blackberries if you’d like, and enjoy.