Lefty December 16th, 2008
So the big news here is that, after a joyous six months of working on personal projects and freelancing (at Euro RSCG and MCD Partners), I’ll be starting a new job on January 5th. I’ll be joining Organic, one of the original Silicon Alley interactive agencies (and current Omnicom company), as Director of Strategy. It’s a pure account planning role, where my key responsibility will be to provide consumer insights to our creatives in order to deliver effective client work. The day-to-day will consist of a whole lot of talking to consumers, as well as research, writing, and presentations on digital media.
I’m honestly very excited to start. Organic is a great company (with a great blog), and I think this role will be a really challenging opportunity for me. I’ll probably be working mostly on Bank of America to start, with some new business work thrown in as well.
Lefty December 16th, 2008
This past Sunday’s NY Times ran an interesting article on the challenges of using social networks for marketing. This is particularly relevant for me, as one of my freelance projects right now involves creating a Facebook page for a major financial services company. I think the key quote is here:
Independent experts on Web advertising have been watching, however, and what they see is a myriad of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites. Members of social networks want to spend time with friends, not brands.
I’m reminded of a brand strategy class I took at Stern last summer in which brand benefits were broken into functional, emotional, and self-expressive. Functional benefits speak to actual features and utility (i.e. a car gets me from point A to point B and has automatic transmission), while emotional benefits speak to how a brand makes me feel about myself. Self-expressive benefits matter most in a social context however. When a brand allows consumers to communicate something about themselves, it becomes highly relevant to sites like Facebook. For that reason, I can see brands with strong self-expressive benefits like Apple (“I think different”) or Harley-Davidson (“I’m an all-American tough guy) having effective social networking presences. For brands that lack a self-expressive component, it’s going to be an uphill battle.
Lefty June 10th, 2008
Yesterday was my last day at Digital Pulp, and today is my first day of self-employment after three and a half years. The plan is to work on Figure Four Media and maybe fry up some donuts along the way. I’ll be working mostly from Brooklyn until August 1, when Emily and I will move up to Cold Spring, NY for the month. Should be a good summer.
Lefty April 16th, 2008
I finally launched the site for Figure Four Media, a new side project focusing on web video distribution, strategy, and production. We’re still working through a few things (getting the blog working, for example), but you should be able to get the idea.
Our goal is to do high quality branded content, with a full set of web tools like RSS, comments, sharing/emailing/embedding, as well as integration with the big video sites like YouTube, etc.
Lefty February 21st, 2008
At work, we finally finished the two sites I’ve been working on for the last year:
redken.com
redkensalon.com
As a reward, Emily and I spent five days up in Phoenicia for the Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend. There was lots of snow up there, so we gave cross-country skiing a try. It was good fun.
Stay tuned for news on what’s next, work-wise.
Lefty February 1st, 2008
My company does work for the Make-A-Wish foundation. They had to put up a notice on their home page notifying people that this hilarious video from the Onion was a hoax.
Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation With Wish For Unlimited Wishes
Lefty December 9th, 2007
I’ve been a bit neglectful of posting here over the last month, as I’ve been focused on getting a huge project out the door at work. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about the upcoming year and all the big decisions that need to be made. There are a lot of things happening next year, and all of them are going to require some thinking:
1. In February the aforementioned project will launch, so I’ll need to figure out what to do afterwards. I can stay the course, or I can more seriously pursue the online video project that most of my posts lately have been hinting at. We’re also going to take a vacation in March and I need to decide where to go. The contenders right now are: snowboarding in upstate NY or VT, snowboarding and visiting friends in Portland, visiting the state of Michoacan in Mexico, or perhaps just finding a nice tropical beach to surf in Costa Rica.
2. I’ll be graduating from Stern, most likely in the August. The program has been taking up pretty much all my free time over the last two years, and finishing will be a real transition point. It will free up a lot of time and mental energy for me, and I think also open some opportunities to go in different directions.
3. Related to both the above, I need to decide where to live. I’ve been back in NYC for 13 years now (after spending my childhood here), and the pace can take a toll. My wife and I have been talking a lot lately about moving out to the Pacific Northwest, and now that my school obligations are wrapping up, we’ll have the opportunity to do so. But leaving NYC won’t be an easy decision - I’ve got a lifetime of friends, relationships, family, and experiences here. At the same time, the call of life in a more manageable city, and the adventure of new surroundings, is very strong.
Lefty January 25th, 2007
This past Sunday through Tuesday I had the pleasure of flying out to Las Vegas for a bizarre, 9,00 person-strong hairdresser’s convention put together by Redken (for whom I’m building several new websites at work). The scale of the thing was incredible, with a huge, dancer-filled opening night show featuring confetti, strobe lights, and superstar hairdressers applauded like heros by the audience. The second night Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas played, and the assembled hairdressers went ballistic for her. My reaction was a bit more subdued, but I did gamble a little bit and managed to win $200 on the blackjack table. I wanted to find a baccarat table so I could do my James Bond impression, but it wasn’t meant to be.
I had a good time, but it’s hard to believe anybody could spend more than 48 hours in Las Vegas without going abolutely crazy. The place is so synthetic and goofy, and really pretty depressing. And whoever books the entertainment for the hotels is scarily into Carrot Top and Louie Anderson. But I’ve enjoyed myself the two times that I’ve been regardless.
Lefty January 2nd, 2007
As the calendar turns to a new year, it’s a natural time to reflect upon the year that’s past as well as to new goals and resolutions for 2007. Highlights of 2006 for me included:
- Our winter trip to Costa Rica, including lots of surfing, canopy touring, and monkey viewing
- Another great year of successful GGRD bouts
- Quitting my old job and starting at my new company
- A year of learning at NYU, and entering the business plan competition with students from ITP
- Hundreds of walks around the Prospect Park lake with my dog Champ
- Two trips to upstate New York, including snowtubing, a visit to the Catskills Animal Sanctuary, and lots of exploring of small towns
- Hockey at Lasker Rink
- The Prince Lefty and his Ramblin’ Kings grand finale at Great Lakes in Park Slope
- Going to Austin for DJ Saturn’s wedding
Things I’m looking forward to in 2007:
- Going to Great Exuma next week with Emily
- A productive work year at my new company
- Deeper involvement in the tech and entrepreneurship scenes in NYC
- Planned trips to Portland, OR, upstate NY, Las Vegas, and possibly Mexico or Austin
- Fixing up the Windsor Terrace apartment
- Developing a few other business ideas I have, and continuing deeper into the NYU biz plan contest
- Hundreds more walks around Prospect Park lake with Champ, more announcing GGRD bouts, more Stern classes, and more hockey!
Lefty December 13th, 2006
This last week I got to attend two fun holiday parties. The first was for my employer Digital Pulp, and it also doubled as a celebration of the company’s ten year anniversary. The owners rented out a great space at the SoHo restaurant Barolo, and even went so far as to take the impressive step of getting an ice sculpture made of the company logo. There was delicious food and drinks, as well as insightful conversation with colleagues and clients. I had to leave for about an hour in the middle of the party to meet up with some Stern students so we could finalize a group presentation (on the imminent Eurozone expansion) due on the last day of our Global Economy class. But afterwards I headed right back to the action and had a nice late night. It was definitely the most fun I’ve had at a company party in recent memory, and I certainly enjoyed the chance to get to know all my new co-workers a lot better. Check out some sweet Flickr shots here.
On Saturday evening, Emily and I trekked up the BQE to my old hood of Williamsburg and hit the Penny Larceny/Lil’ Red Terror holiday party. It was more good times all around, but there was one key experience that I think will change my life forever: my first ever attempt to play Guitar Hero 2 on PlayStation2 (which was set up in one of the extra rooms.) I have to say, my take on “Search & Destroy” was pretty solid for a first timer. If anyone wants to get me a Hannukah present, this one’s a no-brainer. Pictures are here.
Next week I’ll be hitting up some events thrown by old Wunderman colleagues, as well as some more derby folks.