This blog is dead.

But don't worry. It passed its seed on. Catch my brand new blog here:

http://ievenwrotethisblog.tumblr.com

The big AD-venture

A month or two back, William and Francis rolled into Boulder. They were recent graduates of Ad House in New York on an epic journey. Their scheme was to travel across the country interview today's top creative minds. Naturally, they were looking to have a chat with Alex Bogusky. Unfortunately, he was out. So they got me instead.

Even if it was by default, it's quite an honor to be among contemporary luminaries like Rei Inamoto, John Maxham, Scott Goodson and others. The resulting film is called The AD-venture, and it's sure to be a great piece. Sort of Art & Copy who aren't in the history books quite yet.

Check out the trailer here:

The AD-venture

More to come from these guys, I'm sure.

A poem I wrote inspired by recent events in my house

Eloquent Idiot Bard

O, eloquent idiot bard,
Burning on into the night.
Dreams three feet deep,
Groping at tree branches and imagining highways,
Drinking up the spice mulled wine in August.
Here’s where your branches lead.
They tangle into great yarn balls in the grandiose darkness.
You cast a line into your beloved abyss
And come up with a crappie.
Dumbass.

A comic

A very short-lived tradition I'm bringing back. The daily comic. Starting with this one.

They can take away our Twitter . . .

But they don't give two bits about Blogger.

This whole DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack on Twitter today is fascinating to watch unfold. It legitimately feels like warfare. Almost like a non-life-threatening part of our lives are under attack. Like pirates knock all reality TV shows off the air or something.

But it's also no longer just social media. It's commerce and communications too. This'll be big news for Twitter-lovin' CNN anchor Rick Sanchez.

And the cardinal said, "You have proven yourself true, my son."

Sorry I've been so MIA lately. But really, it's not my fault. And that's according to SCIENCE.
Report: Social Networks Growing while Other Social Media Sites Stagnate and Decline

It's been a year exactly since I left school and started my career officially at Wieden+Kennedy. Dang. I'll be writing a one-year retrospective very soon. Look out.

Till then, just check out The Whoa.

Twitter feeds are the new iPhone app

First there was a MySpace page, then a widget, then a Facebook app, then an iPhone app. Now the hip, new interactive advertising thing to do is add a Twitter feed. Doesn't matter what brand it is. It's got to have a Twitter feed embedded somewhere. We seem to do it to everything, and somehow everything seems cooler with a Twitter feed. (I say this wholly ironically, uniroincally and hypocritically all at the same time, having just launched two major websites in the last month that feature Twitter feeds quite prominently. In case you haven't seen one of them, check out the new http://beta.cpbgroup.com/.)

Well, I got to thinking the other day. My Twitter feed twitter.com/ievenwrotethis is pretty cool. But what would make it even cooler? That's right. Its own Twitter feed.

I give you twitter.com/heevenwrotethat. It uses a very simple bot I wrote I'm calling 2itter that retweets everything I say on my main Twitter feed over to this second Twitter feed.

BOOM. A Twitter feed of a Twitter feed. Now that's hip as hell.

And yes. The internet just got post-post-modern.

The Battle for Your Social Screen

Interesting that Twitter launched its Verified Accounts just one day before the start of the Facebook Username bonanza that's set to erupt tonight at midnight EST.

As Facebook moves more and more into the realms of both MySpace and Twitter it seems to be slowly losing relevance. Evolution in the social platforms is necessary to staying exciting and innovative, but it also risks making them overcluttered and obnoxious. That was the opposite of Facebook's appeal in the first place. It was about enhancing your real-life connections and making them easily available anywhere, at any moment. So why usernames? Hm. Good question.

I'm not calling Facebook dead by a long shot. If I were Zuckerberg I'd double check its life insurance policy.

Talking the Talk = Talking Out Your Ass

[Disclaimer: Views expressed here are just my own and absolutely no one else's, including my employer.]

A few weeks back I wrote a post about how people will soon be using Facebook to target jobs they want directly. Well, as I was YouTwitFacing today I came across another such ad. Although, this time is wasn't a hopefully young creative trying to break into a top agency. It was just this dude:


OK, fair, I thought. Let's see what Doug's got. Clicking his ad took me to a page that looked like this:


No, Doug. No. No thanks. No thank you. Somehow I don't think our styles would jive. (Also, make sure you use the agency's name correctly.)

If you want to check the page, it's right here. He's also got a post about this "campaign" on his website here.

Here's the issue I have with stuff like this. Doug's clearly gets that there are ways to reach consumers/people/your target/whatever with media in smart ways. The problem is that that's where the smarts end. Not to knock Doug—I'm sure he's a great guy—but this is what I keep seeing time and time again. Self-professed social media experts that promise to "provide vision and guidance needed to navigate the waters of social media, digital marketing and influence."

OK. a) That's just a lot of meaningless words you jumbled together. If that's the kind of masterful command of the social landscape I can expect from you, I'm better off without help. And 2) Anyone with a laptop and an internet connection, you should be their own social media expert. As advertisers it's our job to understand this sort of thing. I'm sick of hearing all this BS from people who's only goal is to follow as many people as they can on Twitter just so they'll get followed back. It's the same sort of people that sit in coffee shops yammering loudly about branding and the Starbucks model and how their start-up will leverage intelligent marketing. (Also an experience today.) Good people don't talk about how good they are. They just make kickass work and let that speak for them.

Marketing is empty without creative. Sure. You can talk at people with your entire ad budget or masterful "navigation of the waters of social media" until you're a deep, purpley blue. But if your breath still stinks, everyone's going to turn away. Media and marketing are not ideas in and of themselves. Surprising, creative work supported by great media ideas are. Just because you can tweet doesn't mean you always should.

I remember seeing an article recently about why advertising creatives are so antagonistic toward these social media experts. I can't find it now, but it's true obviously true that we are. I'll be 100% honest when I say I scoff at most. Not because I feel superior. I just don't see their necessity yet. Until I see one wildly successful campaign (or heck, even anything of note) created by a social media expert, I'm going to hold that opinion. And I loved to be proved wrong. Seriously. Maybe I'm being ignorant here. So please, if you know something I don't know, clue me in.

I'm not threatened or scared of them like the article said. Just annoyed. Like when I see a banner ad with George Washington booty shaking in front of a list of all 50 states telling me I can save on my car insurance.

Epilogue:
As I was navigating ole Dougy's page, another banner of his popped up.


Where's the third to make this thing a full-blown campaign?

UPDATE:
Ha. Just found the third.

What Website?

Agencies have gotten leaps and bounds more innovative over the last year or so with their websites. After all, doing work for yourself is sort of the dream. You're the client. If you like it, it's going to run. Guaranteed.

One of the biggest trends has been the move away from the labor-intensive and usability-crushing Flashturbation extravaganzas of past years. Instead we've seen the reemergence of HTML-based sites. Easier to navigate and update, they provide more function over form—which is really the model the web has embraced.

Still, agencies are coming up with some killer ways to make their sites engaging and really surprising. The best example is Modernista!'s overlay site, which recently won a Gold Pencil, along with a straight rip-off courtesy of the folks at Agency.com and Skittles.

Well, here's another brilliant stroke, the Boone Oakley website.

BooneOakely.com
Don't be fooled. That's not a video about the website. That is the website. Contained all within a series of YouTube videos, it provides a showcase of work and navigation within the video itself. It screams all kinds of smart and has garnered over 100,000 views in just a few days, even cracking the Viral Video Chart around the 14 position. It's not a sustainable model or one that others should replicate, but it's something brand damn new that will surely work wonders for a little shop based out of Charlotte, NC. Cheers, guys.

Milking the Internet to Land a Job

There's been all kind of big news over using the internet to get job, get clients and get noticed. Recently my very own agency has gotten the twitterverse all a-twitter over our hiring of Chris Kahle from tweet spamming and now our current intern auction on eBay.

If you learn how to work the angles and have a fresh idea, the internet can be a very kind place to you. Here's another example of smart thinking.

I was just sitting here at work, doing something on Facebook when an ad on the page caught my eye:


Facebook owns a massive amount of data on its users, making it easy to target a very specific type of person. I was wondering how long it was going to take someone to do this. Kelly, kudos. You got my attention. You can check out Kelly's work here.

Reminds me of what Think Tank 3 did a little while back. Although I think this actually works a lot better for Kelly.

But always remember, pulling a publicity coup is one thing, but you've always got to have the work to back it up too. I had a long discussion about that with one of my CDs yesterday. I'm all for smart stunts. But if it's just a one-time stroke of luck and not a piece in a larger ouerve of smart work, no thanks. (That's not a comment on Kelly's work necessarily, just a general thought to remember.)

Maybe that'll spark some ideas in your noggin. Go get 'em.

News Headline Fail

Just caught this one on CNN.com:

An interview that's Nothing But Awesome

I've known Kent Sewell for a little while now. I think we actually met through this blog. Really smart guy, nice dude and a copywriter in NYC. A few days he approached me about doing a little interview for his own blog.

We covered the definition of success, 35-hours work days, the dying art of copywriting, making ballsy work and a bunch more stuff. In typical style, it's a little long, but if you're interesting, you can check it out the whole thing over on his blog Nothing But Awesome.

Thought for the Day

You can sleep when you're retired/after you've been up for three days straight and have finally turned in all your projects. For now, you have to prove yourself. Don't ever turn anything down, and be flattered to have too much on your plate.

That being said, I'm not sure when the next time I'll be sleeping will be. Ever.

So, I'm Up for an Award

Just found out that my CPB Shred School site is up for a People's Voice Webby Award.


Wanna help a brother out and cast a vote for it? Yeah you do.

Just click over to http://pv.webbyawards.com, register (yeah, bummer), choose Shred School from the drop down menu at the top and give us your vote. I'll split the prize money with you. Promise.

Thanks.