Everything's Better With Brentter » Incoherent Thought

The Timesheet Dilemma At Avenue A/Razorfish (or “How To Fail”)

Brent — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:41:08 +0000

This is a re-post of something I caught over on the adfreak blog, apparently the NY office of Avenue A/Razorfish has recently implemented a new method aimed at getting their employees to start submitting their timesheets in a more “timely” fashion: They’re showing “offenders photos” with a message indicating what crime that employee has comitted.

In the example above, the text reads:

“I haven’t done my timesheets in 3 weeks.”

The adfreak posts then goes on to say that according to an agency rep, this new tactic of public display is paying off with an increase in diligence for timesheet submissions. Hmm… I wonder if they bothered to check and see just how many current employees have also showed a newly-found diligence in updating their resumes/portfolios? Do they realize these “offenders” are their employees? I wonder how long it’ll take until one of their programmers switches the photos/messages out with explicit photos of top-level agency execs (perhaps from last years’ company Xmas Party)? Or better yet, how long until someone realizes that this might give off the wrong impression to their clients about the agency’s ability to manage their own employees.

I can’t imagine this tactic being something that would look appealing to anyone seeking employment there, that is… unless you happen to be looking for a job in accounting, in which case you’d probably love the thought of being able to ridicule those bastard creatives who think they’re just so cool in their black tshirts and hipster hair-do’s… “accountants are all nerds” my ass! You’ll show them who has the real ultimate power!

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Originally from www.Brentter.com

Fund-a-Stache 2008 - Donate For A Chance To Win A Free Ipod!

Brent — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:18:49 +0000

A friend and fellow interactive ad industry hoodlum Brandon Barr is taking part in this year’s Fund-a-Stache 2008. For the entire month of May he has grown a mustache but can only continue on with your donations.

The money all goes to a great cause - The Atlanta Community Food Bank and he’s been a real trooper about this whole donation drive. He first set goals in order to entice friends to donate, with the first being that if the donation level reached $500 he would sport for the remainder of the month what is called a “Picasso Mustache.” Following his word, when the amount was reached he shaved off part of his mustache accordingly and then went and upped the ante even by proposing that for every additional $100 donated, he would take a photo sporting his new ’stasche in a seemingly embarrassing situation… A donation of $50 will even garner you a specific photo request that will be added to his “embarrassing shot queue.”

If you read my tech/web blog - www.addto10.com, you may remember me posting about getting an iPod Shuffle as a thank you gift from StartupSchwag.com and that I was going to host some sort of contest to give it away. Instead, if by May 31st, when the donation drive ends, Brandon has reached his goal of $1000, the iPod will be given away to a RANDOM donator. So even if you only donate $5, you still have a chance at winning the ipod. In fact, if you donated five dollars but did it in fifty increments (meaning you are a kind soul who donated a total of $250), you would have 50X the chance of getting this brand-new, top of the line ipod shuffle. Not only that but you’d most likely get that warm feeling inside knowing that you both helped out a good cause and also gave us a chance to watch a grown man suffer through a full month looking like the kind of creep that asks small children if they want to play in his “mystery van full of candy.”

UPDATE 5/29/08:He’s reached his goal of $1000!! Thanks to everyone who donated, the drawing for the free ipod will occur on June 1st and we’ll contact the winner via email/phone.

So far he’s taken on the following photo-promises:

$600 - In a business meeting or on a film shoot
$700 - Out at a crowded restaurant or bar.
$800 - At the gym, in the middle of a workout
$900 - Shaking hands with the president of his company (IQ Interactive)
$1000 - Nightclub. On the dancefloor.

As of 4:42PM EST he’s managed to raise $636.00 which means next tuesday we’ll get to see him with clients out on a photo-shoot sporting the Picasso.
But just look at what he’s willing to do even for a $50 donation:

Joel Krieger is responsible for the above photo, he donated $50 and asked for a shot of Brandon sitting in a shopping cart wearing just a swimsuit, goggles, and swim cap. Joel….. You have issues…. but thanks for the donation!

To view a day-by-day photo gallery of Brandon’s mustache progression - you can visit his page on www.moustachemay.com.

Click HERE to DONATE! You could win an ipod plus get to see him do funny shit… what’s stopping you?

Originally from www.Brentter.com

Dippin’ Dots Turns 20 Today - Gives Out Free Cups!

Brent — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:23:23 +0000

Dippin’ Dots is celebrating their 20th year of being in business by offering a FREE cup of Birthday Cake Flavored Dippin’ Dots today, May 20th, from 4PM until closing time. So if you’re a fan of the product, now is your chance to sample a free flavor at participating locations. You can find a store near you by clicking on their “Find Locations” link at the top of the page. Congratulations go out to the inventor, Curt D. Jones - a true marketing genius… I still don’t see how this product ever became so popular, yet can be found in just about every mall - including in vending machines!

Originally from www.Brentter.com

My YouTube Account Has Been Disabled

Brent — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:45:39 +0000

Apparently Nike decided to pull the Nike+ Addicted Video that was sent to me via a press release a while back (when it actually aired), and in doing so prompted YouTube to suspend my account along with all videos that I’ve uploaded over the years and posted on brentter.com.

I am working on getting this issue resolved, but for now, I apologize if there are any clips that are not working, a few I still had and replaced the link with either another version uploaded from someone else’s account on youtube, or uploaded it to another service.

~Brent

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Originally from www.Brentter.com

DSW sues Zappos.com - Forgets to Tell Them

Brent — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:50:34 +0000

DSW issued a press release yesterday stating that they were suing Zappos.com, one of the largest online shoe retailers, for copyright infringement. Zappos.com, a company who’s online presence has recently skyrocketed as a result of their adaptation of various social-media endeavors, has yet to be notified directly of this lawsuit (1:30pm EST 5/13/08) other than by the press release.

This strange lack of communication was mentioned by the CEO of Zappos in a twitter comment stating: “Weird, just found out through a PRESS RELEASE that DSW filed a lawsuit against Zappos. Maybe phone call, letter, or email more productive??” (keep in mind you can’t use more than 140 characters on twitter, hence the broken english seen in most twitter comments)

He then later made another twitter comment posted late last night stating that he “Just checked with Zappos legal team and haven’t received any communication (phone call, letter, email) from DSW, just press release. Weird.”

Zappos.com has taken an interesting approach to embracing social media - their online shoe-store features four separate blogs, one of which is maintained by the CEO and COO (who not only blog frequently, but are always replying to consumer questions/remarks/feedback on twitter directly), as well as a twitter feed that lets you see any Zappos related comments/tweets in one collective source. You can check it out for yourself (it’s pretty cool, not to mention that this is the first brand I’ve seen pull this off successfully) by going to http://twitter.zappos.com. They also have a feature that lets you see a collected feed of what Zappos employees are twittering and it looks as if a lot of them are frequent users of twitter.com.

The consumer response to this lawsuit has already been rampant across blogs and other social-networking platforms, all seeming to take the side of Zappos.com and pointing the nasty PR finger at DSW and their recently launched online site. According to the press release, “The suit alleged that the name DSW was being used in multiple URLs, along with DSW store photographs, in an effort to mislead consumers into believing they were on a DSW related website.” DSW recently launched their online site after “numerous” customer requests for a way to shop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Taken from a BNet article comparing the advertising campaigns used by the two retail shoe giants - “Analysts weren’t expecting DSW.com to open until the second half of 2008, but the $26.3 million project soft-launched April 23. DSW plans no marketing other than promotional flyers and e-mails to its 8.6 million loyalty card holders.” Compare that to their comment saying, “Zappos doesn’t do a lot of advertising, but what it does is brilliant. When you take off your shoes in the TSA line at 15 airports around the country, they go into bins with Zappos ads on the inside.” That may account for how Zappos.com has seen growth from an initial $1.6 million in 2001 to over $800 million last year meanwhile DSW has been facing not only a decline in store-bought purchases but also started off the first quarter of 2008 already down 1.7%. That being said, DSW is still the big-dog in this fight - last year taking in $1.41 billion in revenue.

If you want to see for yourself how a company can use social-media to their advantage, take a look at the Twitter accounts for the top two executives at Zappos and see what they’ve been talking about with their customers/random people on the ‘net:

The CEO - Tony Hsieh - can be found on twitter via: http://twitter.com/zappos
The COO - Alfred Lin - can be found on twitter via http://twitter.com/zappos_alfred

Originally from www.Brentter.com

The Power Of A Story

Brent — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:58:10 +0000

I just came across this over at www.themoth.org/listen/ It’s a collection of some of the most odd as well as some of the most hilarious stories as told by the person who lived through the event.

From Dr. Ari Handel (Ph. D in Neuroscience in 2000) talking about the problems that arise when you fall in love with your monkey to an EMT talking about the time that he was shot, there are some crazy stories to be heard there. Another good one is from Richie DiSalvo talking about “Anthony The Hat.” Richie’s claim to fame is that he is credited as being the inventor of the Baby Calzone as well as the cheese-filled pizza crust. Genius……

So go have an early morning laugh by heading over to www.themoth.org and prepare yourself for story-time with some great storytellers…

image from the flickr collection of flickr.com/photos/gregor_y/

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Originally from www.Brentter.com

The Mentality of A True Planner - The Mind of An Info-Geek

Brent — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:08:30 +0000

This was taken from a quote by China Miéville from The Believer. I feel that it is a perfect description of the active curiosity that is necessary for any serious Account Planner/Interaction Designer. It all boils down to that natural curious instinct that, at times, has the potential to give you an insight into someone else’s experience who has a completely different/random perspective on life that you. This is something that can’t be achieved by sitting in a round room brainstorming what type of person uses your product. From absorbing yourself in random magazines, books, even to the occasional user group meeting, interacting with people that are passionate about something (and it really can be just about anything) shows you the true nature of your consumer. Anyhow, here’s the quote:

What I love is passion. One of my fascinations is trade magazines. I love picking up specialists’ magazines about subjects I know nothing about. For instance, you pick up a magazine that is the house journal of tropical-fish keepers or model-train builders. I have no interest in model trains; I have no interest in tropical fish, but I love reading the magazines, because you get this insight into this world of debate and passion and argument, and then you get two competing magazines with different platforms who are dissing each other because this is a world where the people involved in it are absolutely in love with what they do. What geeks have, geeks in any field, be it a field like science fiction or a field like tropical fish, is that they are moved to do what they do because of a love and passion for the field above all else.

~ China Miéville

Yes, I am a geek. I have two blogs, am a constant news junkie, my RSS feeders are constantly overflowing, but for some reason….I love it. And half of the sites I subscribe to were found thanks to services like Stumbleupon.com, where it can transport you to a random website based on pre-determined categories…what I did was select just about all of them (there are around 90+ to choose from), so every-time I click on Stumble, I never quite know what I’m in store for.

Regardless, It’s a great tool, even if you’re not as information-obsessed as I might be. There are enough categories where I’m sure it could help you find new resources for whatever it is that YOU’RE into….so go check it out… or better yet…. what hobbies/obsessions do you harbor that others might call you a dork for? I’m interested…. if you want to remain anonymous feel free to use the Contact Me page instead of commenting… Links to related sites would also be appreciated.

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Originally from www.Brentter.com

Tornado Hits Atlanta and Hates Our Advertising

Brent — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:58:43 +0000

[here's a close-up of the actual ad it didn't like]

As some of you may know, I live here in Atlanta, GA. The part of town I currently reside in is right between downtown and an area called Cabbagetown (I live in Inman Park). Well, if you’ve been paying attention to the news at all you would have learned that we had a tornado hit us last night…. well, it landed right on top of where I live. I’m ok, my actual complex did not sustain any noticeable damage, however I went out this morning with my camera and took a bunch of shots so that I could show the aftermath. The shot above was one of the first that I took, as it was a billboard that found itself about five blocks from where it use to be…..which leads me to believe that tornados hate advertising… either that or it never got to review the piece before it went into production… tornados HATE it when that happens.

The only reason for the delay in uploading the photos was the fact that my power was just turned back on (it is around 1:30pm EST), and has been out since 10PM last night. With a lot of businesses closed due to the tornado, including the Starbucks where I was hoping to have been able to use their wifi/power plugs, that didn’t give me many options. So now that I’m back online, I’ve quickly comprised a collection of photos and uploaded them to my photo gallery and flickr account. You can view them both here:

www.brentter.com/photos/
www.flickr.com/photos/brentter/

The worst hit were the Georgia Dome, which you can’t get anywhere near right now, and a loft complex just a few blocks away (close enough to view from my balcony). Here’s a side-view of the complex and the damage that the tornado did to it. By the way, what you can’t see is that it actually drilled straight down through the building and actually hit the basement. Luckily it was a building that was being remodeled so no one was currently living in it, however all of the other buildings next door were beaten down by the storm leaving Cabbagetown full of debris and downed trees. That and a lot of people woke-up to find their roof in their neighbors front yard.

Originally from www.Brentter.com

Etsy.com Gets $27 Million Investment

Brent — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:18:26 +0000

Etsy.com, the online store that enables you to sell your homemade goods, just announced that they’ve accepted a $27 million dollar investment to further establish their online community.

taken from their site:
“What does this investment mean?
This means that we now have the resources to extend Etsy’s reach in this world, to enable so many more people to make a living making things. We want Etsy to exist for hundreds of years. Our goal is for Etsy to be an independent, publicly traded company, focused on all things handmade.”

They’ve seen a lot of growth since five friends started the site in 2005 to what they now claim to be a community with over 650,000 members, all purchasing wares from more than 120,000 registered vendors in 127 different countries. From their news post, they try to outline what the investment will be used for - multiple language translations of the site, a better checkout process (which is currently pretty low-fi for a site as large as etsy’s is), as well as being in a position to better service the vendors who rely on Etsy.com for their living. Ohh, and something else about wanting to give their employees dental benefits (pffffffffsh).

Another venture they plan on trying is a cooperative advertising program where Etsy’s would take out print ads in various magazines/newspapers, and select vendors would be given the opportunity to showcase their “store” and one of their products. With enough vendors, Etsy’s promises to split the cost of the ad if the combined vendors come up with the rest. This idea is just being talked about now, but judging from the results, it looks like it is plausible in the very near future.

To read more about their Marketing Plans for 2008, click here.

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Originally from www.Brentter.com

It is not the end

Brent — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:27:23 +0000

At least not yet…. sorry i’ve been away for so long. I’ve been swamped with work in addition to various new side-projects, all of which will be revealed at some point on either this site or one of the other blogs that I have started. For now though, I want to thank those of you who have emailed me over the past 3 months asking if I was going to continue to post to Brentter.com and for those of you who have yet to unsubscribe from my RSS feed. I promise that it was not in vain! Here’s a snippet of what lies in store for 2008:

A fresh redesign to the brentter.com wordpress theme
A new blog which focuses on the tech/development side of interactive advertising
In addition to the tech blog, I plan on branching off a more personal weblog where my day-to-day observations/amusing will have a place to live that won’t interfere with the main focus of this website.
More importantly - A group of us are currently involved in the creation of a community portal for the interactive industry where you’ll be able to showcase your work, collaborate with others on group projects, network with like-minded-folks, and much more… More on this will be revealed as the project itself progresses…

2008 will bring in a new era in brentter.com, and I’d like to thank you for being a part of it.

image courtesy of Stuck in Customs

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Originally from www.Brentter.com

Everything's Better With Brentter » Incoherent Thought

The Timesheet Dilemma At Avenue A/Razorfish (or “How To Fail”)

Random Posts

Fund-a-Stache 2008 - Donate For A Chance To Win A Free Ipod!

Related Posts:

Dippin’ Dots Turns 20 Today - Gives Out Free Cups!

Related Posts:

My YouTube Account Has Been Disabled

Random Posts

DSW sues Zappos.com - Forgets to Tell Them

Related Posts:

The Power Of A Story

Random Posts

The Mentality of A True Planner - The Mind of An Info-Geek

Random Posts

Tornado Hits Atlanta and Hates Our Advertising

Related Posts:

Etsy.com Gets $27 Million Investment

Random Posts

It is not the end

Random Posts