Humongo Summer Tour

Creating virtual collisions to foster communication

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:59:00 +0000

One of the first things that you notice when you walk into Crispin, Porter + Bogusky in Miami are these giant monitors in a central open space. It's not really a lobby, but more like a quad. The space gets pedestrian traffic from around the agency, and is also the central part of what feels like a massive set of comfy bleachers. People are invited to hang to meet, chat, or chill.

Upon closer inspection, the monitors serve as live windows to other CP+B offices. You can see right into the Boulder, Colorado office, and say hi to anyone walking by. Boulder has similar monitors on their side, and can communicate back. Sure, you've seen this in a Cisco commercial before. But have you ever seen it implemented within an agency?

The end result is a virtual lobby that ties their offices together across the globe. Connecting high traffic areas within agencies produces "collisions" of people from across the firm. Collisions provide opportunities to say hi to a coworker across the country, ask about a project that's midstream, or meet someone that you've spent hours on the phone with. Collisions provide creativity.

Video conferencing technology has been with us for what seems like ages, but this is the first installation that we've seen that's successfully connecting multiple offices together in an informal way.

We chatted with Eric and Mason at CP+B, and learned about their rationale for multiple offices: attracting talent from across the globe. Now they've managed to connect these offices unlike any other multi-office agency empire that we've ever seen, giving us a sweet peek at all of their outposts while on our visit to Miami.

See our interview with Eric & Mason at CP+B on the Humongo Nation Miami wrap up video.

People get hot over the Heat.

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:42:00 +0000

As we were approaching our visit with the Miami Heat, plenty of friends and followers had things to say. ("Kick LeBron in the cubes for us" comes to mind.)

Professional sports is one of those industries where everyone and their brother believes they are capable of making management decisions. (Coincidentally, advertising is another one of those industries.) People criticize player choices, management decisions, game strategy. Plenty of people think they might make better decisions. Most of your friends probably don't have strong opinions of recent management decisions made by the leadership team at Dell. But the Yankees? Or the Miami Heat? You bet.

We walked into the Miami Heat offices with plenty of questions from followers from across the Humongo Nation. Why didn't you have the announcement up on your website when LeBron announced his move to the heat? Why do you hate Cleveland? ;)

Like many businesses, there are things about running a sports team that are happening behind the scenes that you're probably not aware of. What seems like a simple and easy decision may sometimes have other factors for consideration that make the decision more complicated than it might appear on the surface.

Social media and marketing people criticized the Miami Heat for not updating their team's site or tweeting about the LeBron announcement immediately after the press event. Seems like a fair criticism, right? Jennifer, from the MIami Heat's marketing team sheds some light on the other side of the story. "We couldn't make the announcement until we had a contract signed." Until there was ink on paper, Lebron wasn't playing for the Heat, and therefore they couldn't update their marketing properties to reflect his decision. Fans forget that there are formalities that need to be taken care of.

We loved the fact that the social media team behind the Heat recognizes this fan passion. Even if that passion is coming from the side of another team. This is the landscape within professional sports, and that's core to the game. It's great that even in the midst of some Twitter hate from rival fans, the Miami Heat can keep their cool.

Watch our interview with the Miami Heat in the Humongo Nation Miami wrapup video!

humongo nation: bringing families together

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:05:00 +0000

Our Wisconsin friend Todd Sanders (perhaps better known as @tsand, the funniest dude on Twitter) has kids. And everyone knows that kids need the hottest back to school fashions.

Because the Sanders family knows style when they see it, his kids wanted Humongo Nation t-shirts. (They were already the most fashion forward crowd in Wisconsin, sporting last year's PlaidNation t-shirts.)

Humongo supports trendy family fashion, so we were willing to oblige...if @tsand's son could complete a video challenge: deliver a frank & beans pie to his dad's face, we'd send his son a Humongo Nation t-shirt.

Because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Todd's son was happy to oblige. Watch the frank and beans goodness on YouTube. (And yes, if you do the same, we'll send you a t-shirt. Just be sure to tag it #humongonation)

Sanders family: t-shirts are on the way.

How social media tools are changing the fan/driver relationship

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:59:00 +0000

Chatting with Ramsey Poston at NASCAR gave us great insight into how social media is not only being embraced within the sport, but how it's changing the very relationship between drivers and fans.

In the old days of racing, it used to be that while a driver was a celebrity, there was a wall between their public life and private life. We all know that social media has changed that forever. NASCAR has embraced this revolution, and encourages their drivers to communicate with fans using the multitude of available social tools.

This has created new relationships with fans, as they're exposed to every aspect of the driver's life. With this new relationship comes new opportunities and new responsibilities. Naturally, the rules have not been written on where to draw all of the lines. For example, should sponsors integrate themselves into a driver's personal life?

Trash talk has been elevated to a new level, too. Drivers can tease their competitors publicly via Facebook and Twitter, and now their fans can join in on the fun. Clearly social media has changed life on and off the racetrack forever.

We chatted about this and more as it relates to the NASCAR brand during our visit to their headquarters. See it all on our Humongo Nation Daytona Beach wrap up video.

surprise and delight still work

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:52:00 +0000

Wingate by Wyndham is a sponsor of Humongo Nation, so it's no surprise that we enjoy our stays at their properties as we make our way across the nation.

We've discovered something in the process as a part of our guest experience that could serve as a great reminder to brands in any business: small, pleasant surprises make customers happy.

Upon opening the door to our guest rooms, we each found a Wingate gift bag, with a bag of pretzels, M&M's and a personalized note. At first we believed this to be related to our sponsorship status, but have since learned that this is an experience that many Wingate properties extend to their guests.

The personalized note invites the guest to participate in the Wingate rewards program. You're accustomed to getting this pitch at the front desk - when you're tired from traveling, and just want to get to your room. But a gift pack of snacks and personalized note in your bedroom changes your perspective, right?

Could you be surprising your customers, and inviting them to your programs in new ways? Would a bag of candy help your offer? We say...yes.

how do you manage a brand that's a person?

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:32:00 +0000

How do you manage a brand that's a living, breathing, person? Stay true to your heart, and listen to your fans. That's one of the things we learned while visiting Paula Deen Enterprises, and chatting with Phil Peterman, Webmaster for the Queen of butter.

We were curious how a brand as popular and extensive as Paula's would protect it's reputation as the brand continues to grow with licensed products and future product development. We were pleased to learn that they're creating buttery Paula goodness by listening:

+ Listening to Paula's heart. "Would I buy this product?" Chances are that if she likes a product herself, her fans will find love for it as well.

+ When fans voice their opinions on Paula's Facebook page or via Twitter, Paula listens. Her team at Paula Deen Enterprises are listening, monitoring, responding - and even making adjustments to products that fans are asking for.

While Paula can't respond to everything personally, she's an active part of the process, and has a brilliant team of web geeks who are looking out for her, growing the brand and getting her fans what they need.

In an industry filled with focus groups and PowerPoint decks of research results, it's refreshing to see a brand that's growing based on what's true to it's heart and fans. That's a practice that many larger corporate brands could take a lesson from.

Oh, and...adding a little butter never hurts, either.

See our interview with Phil Peterman on the Humongo Nation Savannah wrap up video.

geek gatherings and twitter stars rock savannah

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We were stoked to meet Interactive Strategy Director Sloane Kelley from BFG. She's one of the people that everyone you meet in Savannah will talk about. "Have you met Sloane yet?" or "You've met Sloane, right?" were consistent quotes from the creative people around Savannah.

Sloane has helped bring GeekEnd to life, an annual gathering of geeks for Savannah creatives. Geekend is proof that Savannah's packed with a tight creative community of people willing to share, help each other, and grow together. It's inspiring to meet people that are involved in the scene.

BFG is also the hot shop in Savannah that employs our good friend Hal Thomas, who was hired via Twitter. Really. According to Sloane, they wanted to hire people with real social media know-how...and what better way to separate the posers from the rock stars, than to eliminate the resume from the process? Candidates were asked to apply via Twitter, and Hal Thomas rocked it out, landing himself a job at the agency.

We chatted with Sloane about small agency power, GeekEnd and their Twitter hiring process while hanging out on one of the picturesque squares that make up the downtown landscape of Savannah. See the interview for yourself in the Humongo Nation Savannah wrap up video.

meet your new r&d team

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Research and development is arguably the most important investment a company can make in its future. Product development and design is what ultimately drives a company's success, yet many firms don't have the proper resources to invest in formal r&d teams. Other companies could benefit immensely from additional perspectives or new ideas above and beyond what their internal or agency teams are doing.

Victor Ermoli, Dean of SCAD's School of Design told us about a new solution for brands looking to grow. SCAD's collaborative learning program partners design students with actual companies, to help firms gain new perspectives and solutions for their products.

This is a winning situation for everyone involved. Brands get perspectives that would never be possible with an in-house design team or agency. Students get real world experience. Users get better, more interesting products.

JCB is just one of the companies that's making use of this innovative program. Students reinvented the design of a new JCB bulldozer to be more rough and tough, so that it would have better appeal to it's users. They also took into consideration the work environment of the bulldozer's driver -- this is a place where he'll spend his entire workday, so why shouldn't this get the same industrial design love as the rest of the machine?

The end result went into production, and is now a flagship JCB product offering that differentiates them from their competitors. How many students do you know who have worked on the redesign of actual construction, agricultural and material handling equipment?

We've seen collaborations of this sort in technology, bio-tech, engineering and some other fields - but not so much in the creative industry. Schools, businesses - pay attention to what's happening at SCAD: collaboration is the new way, in a new economy and new world of business.

See our entire interview at SCAD in the Humongo Nation Savannah wrap up video.

imagine working for the company responsible for curly fries?

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:34:00 +0000

From the moment we woke up this morning, we've had curly fries on our mind. And once you think of curly fries, you can't stop. So we went to the mountain top. And by mountain top, we mean the world headquarters for Arby's.

Bob Kraut sat down with the Humongo team to talk about Arby's advertising, product offering, and the business of fast food. We learned about how the brand stands out in a cluttered landscape of burgers, milkshakes and fries. And Arby's is doing that by offering a different mix of tasty treats. In the process, their curly fries and jamocha shakes have become iconic products (couldn't you go for one right now?)

We saw the Arby's test kitchen, and dreamed about the concoctions that we might create using curly fries as a base. (Arby's wasn't interested in our recipes.)

We left knowing a little more about the fast food industry and Arby's unique position in the marketplace. And a craving for Jamocha shakes...

how anthropology can help your brand

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:47:00 +0000

Richard at Trend Influence is full of experience. He's one of the most traveled people you'll meet, and he's got the stories to prove it.

Trend Influence is in an interesting side of our business. The work they do includes research, strategic thinking and planning - but probably not the kind you're thinking of.

Does your agency have anthropologists on board? Are they embedding themselves into obscure cultures and societies? Trend Influence does all of the above.

They've helped major brands understand how their products impact cultures, how their products can evolve to become more than products, and what's important to humans as it relates to products. They're the agency that can take abstract, philosophical, and anthropological findings and lead them to real innovation and measurable impact for businesses and brands. They're unearthing opportunities that were never before visible.

We've never met an agency in quite the same business as Trend Influence, and have certainly not come across a team of people with the deep level thinking, research and planning that they're capable of.

We think you'll really enjoy listening to Richard in the Humongo Nation Atlanta wrap up video...we know that we could have hung with him all day and chatted about people, brands and...anthropology.

what a great beer can teach you about business growth

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:09:00 +0000

Every avid beer drinker has fantasized about starting their own brewery. Highland Brewing Company Founder Oscar Wong turned this dream into a reality, and has since become one of the top three breweries in the southeast.

We interviewed Oscar at their headquarters while in Asheville, and learned how classic business smarts applies to any business - even a brewery.

Highland Brewing Company is located in an old movie studio campus in Asheville, former headquarters for the Blue Ridge Motion Pictures studio. The location is their second, and there's plenty of room for growth.

We chatted with Oscar about growing a business, and the difficult decision of a move for most growing start-ups. The challenge for most small businesses is that a new location can't be an incremental move. You don't want to move into a new location that gives your business 20% more capacity. In order to justify the expense of a new location, most businesses would require a space that expands their capabilities by 50% or more. That puts a blossoming firm in a dangerous position when attempting to grow. How do you expand your operation, without increasing overhead to the point that it's dangerous to your business?

Highland Brewery has grown their business more conservatively over the years - giving them an edge over plenty of other brands who have grown themselves out of business. According to Oscar, they utilized bandwidth from other brewers who had available capacity to take on other work. By doing so, they were able to grow their business without dramatically increasing their overhead, thereby stalling the bigger move until demand would more than support it.

Oscar's expertise is proof that regardless of how sexy your business might be, it's still a business. And the brands with the smartest business moves are the brands that are most likely to succeed.

Let's toast to Highland Brewery and smart beer business!

Millenials: classier than you thought

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:35:00 +0000

Here's just one of the many interesting things that we learned while interviewing Heather Jordan, Wine Marketing Manager at the Biltmore Winery:

Millenials are now the largest audience of wine buyers. More than baby boomers. More than seniors. This is a new, young, sophisticated audience of buyers that the wine industry hasn't marketed to before. Historically, younger legal-age drinking audiences have trended toward beer and mixed drinks, so this is an exciting opportunity for the wine industry.

Naturally this younger audience requires different marketing tactics than the older demographic of tourists who visit the Biltmore Estate. Like many beverage brands, tasting drives sales. While they're ramping up their social media efforts at Biltmore, they're also aggressively getting the product in front of their audience at festivals and outdoor events like never before.

What we learned: just because a product was traditionally consumed by an older audience, doesn't mean that it will always be consumed by an older audience. Stay in touch with your market so you don't lose them entirely.

See our entire interview with the Biltmore Winery on the Humongo Nation Asheville wrap up video.

Great podcasting takes time

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 03:59:00 +0000

We were pretty stoked to meet the world famous Bob Knorpp, host and producer of the Beancast, the best marketing podcast anywhere.

True to form, Bob arrived at Sticks and Stones (he knew we like to eat on tour, and invited us to one of his favorite haunts) with his new iPhone HD camera blazing. We're accustomed to arriving in other people's workplaces with cameras in tow - that's what Humongo Nation is all about - but this time, Mr Knorpp turned the tables on us. We were the subject of a Knorpp style video interview, a Knorpp-famous audio boo, and then proceeded to fill the world famous podcaster with beer. And some pizza. And some beer.

We got our turn too, and interviewed Bob for the Humongo Nation North Carolina wrap up video, and learned a few interesting things about the person who's always interviewing other people.

What we learned:
Producing a great podcast is a giant commitment. Each week, Bob books guests for his show, researches topics, and writes detailed show notes for his guests. This is all before the show's even recorded. Every Sunday while you're relaxing in bed reading the tweet stream, he's recording the Beancast. And hours of editing/finishing follow, so that the show can be posted almost immediately after recording.

We realized that Bob - a one man podcasting genius - pretty much does the same amount of work as a staff of about 12 people on the Jay Leno show.

Still want to start a podcast? Want it to be good? Or subscribed to? Then prepare yourself for a podcasting commitment. Podcasting's not a one night stand.

See our entire interview with Bob Knorpp on Monday, when it's published on the Humongo Nation TV dashboard.

Your customers don't always want to talk to you

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 03:51:00 +0000

It was fun to meet Christina and Scott, some of the team behind Progress Energy, the utility company responsible for delivering power to kabillions of people across the eastern seaboard.

They pointed out an important aspect of a social media relationship that a lot of brands forget about: your customers don't always need to chat with you.

A power company is pretty much invisible, until there's a problem. And then you want instant, accurate communication.

Progress Energy has learned that Twitter can be a valuable communications medium for some markets during outages or storms. Twitter users are quick to share knowledge, and everyone wants to be the first person among their friends to share actual facts. So Progress can be the voice of authority with real information in real time, and it's appreciated by the community.

But here's what's really important: Progress Energy understands that information during an outage is critical - but that on an average day, their customers may not want to converse with them. It's important for all brands to recognize when they need to be "on" and when they need to take a back seat in their customer's lives. Progress understands this, and respects the relationship they have.

Proof that good honest communication and information beats a bunch of shouting from the rooftop any day.

The Truth: pay attention to your demographic

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:35:00 +0000

We were pleased to meet some of the people at the American Legacy Foundation, behind the Truth campaign.

You might wonder how a non-profit with a serious message could promote itself with such a daringly hot creative campaign. According to Patricia McLaughlin, Assistant Vice President of Communications for American Legacy, they've done their homework.

Research taught them much about their demographic - and in this case, it's not just a youth population, but specifically a youth population that's in rebellion mode. This audience is not going to respond to a message that's talking down to them, or that's crafted in marketing educational-adspeak.

What can you learn from the American Legacy Foundation? Pay attention to your research. No, really. Tons of brands have the Powerpoint decks filled with demographic information about their audience that drills down to every detail. And then they'll produce creative that speaks to a committee of people from the marketing department.

The Truth campaign cuts right through the clutter, speaks directly to their audience, and hits home in a way that feels genuine.

Check out their latest campaign Shards of Glass, and then watch our interview on the Washington DC wrap up video.

How to turn your social media team into a social media army

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:44:00 +0000

Have you been saddled with the social media responsibilities for your brand? Are you a single person team in need of about ten additional team mates?

We captured a fantastic tip from the social media crew at Sprint while on our visit to their Washington DC offices.

They've deputized employees throughout their organization as their Social Media Ninjas. They've identified people throughout the firm that have the ability and skill-sets to understand the tools and the audience. Then they give them proper training in Sprint communications, the ground rules and game plans, and let them loose. Well, not exactly let them loose...these employees can identify themselves as Sprint employees and respond to conversations that are in their area of expertise. If they need to pull in someone from the communications team to take it further, they can.

This is an awesome practice that works for everyone involved:
+ Sprint customers get to connect with real people who are steeped in the experience and expertise of the topic at hand
+ Sprint employees become more invested in their customers, their product and social media
+ The social media team gets the resources of an army without breaking the budget

Could you use more help? Could your coworkers throughout your organization be joining your social media army? Maybe it's time to start recruiting...

See our entire interview with the Sprint team on the Washington DC wrap up video.

recalculating: this is a good thing

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:57:00 +0000

We were pretty stoked to find that the voice guiding us through the Humongo Nation journey - Australian Karen on our GPS - is the voice of Karen Jacobsen, an actress, voice talent and music artist who's headquartered in NYC.

We had to meet her, get to know her, and ask why she brought us into Manhattan on the east side instead of the west side. ;)

What we learned was that Karen's got a lot going on. She's managed to leverage The GPS Girl into an entire brand - with Broadway Shows, a TV travel show in development, and so much more.

Even better, we were inspired to learn how Karen has embraced her pop culture status of the guiding voice in our car, and helps others find their way in life as well. You've undoubtedly been on the way somewhere, made a wrong turn, and heard Karen say "RECALCULATING."

Karen likes to think of "recalculating" as open opportunity in life. Take a step back, look at where you are, and recalculate. Not happy with the results of your campaign, your situation, your lunch? Recalculate! Nothing is permanent, and we have control over so much...so let's get to where we want to be, not be afraid of a little recalculation.

Could your brand, job, office space or personal life use a little recalculation?

Bloomberg: finding new products and markets in sports

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:37:00 +0000

When you think Bloomberg, do you think baseball? Maybe not today, but you will soon. Bloomberg Sports is taking sports statistics and data visualization to a whole new level. We had the pleasure of chatting with Head of Sport products, Bill Squadron while on our visit to NYC.

Bloomberg is already a trusted brand in the financial news and data world. They've reinvented the manner in which this information is consumed. So why can't that knowledge, experience and technology be put to use in a new market?

That's exactly the plan with Bloomberg Sports. What they've perfected in the financial sector will now be available to fans, fantasy sports players, and pro-sports users like never before.

In the old days, two sports fans might find themselves arguing in a bar about the stats of a particular player. Now they'll consult their Bloomberg Sports iPhone app and settle the score on the spot. Not only that, the stats are updated in real time, as games are completed. Imagine having the entire history of sports data, current to the minute, in the palm of your hand.

Data visualization and data tool sets are the new geeky sexy for sure, but there's another lesson here as well: Bloomberg found a new product by doing what they do best in a different vertical market. Could you be doing the same in your business? What opportunities are waiting?

See our entire interview with Bill Squadron and tour of the Bloomberg building on the Humongo Nation NYC wrapup video.

micromarketing: small stuff is really big

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:02:00 +0000

While having treats at NYC's legendary Doughnut Plant, we caught up with Greg Verdino from Powered. Greg's a long time social media friend of Humongo's, so we were excited to learn about the premise of his new book, MicroMarketing.

We think he's onto something. If you look at macro, micro, economic and consumer trends of the last few years, everything is going small. Or smaller than small. From film, to tv, to YouTube. From Newspapers to blogs to tweets.

How is a brand supposed to market in this environment? MicroMarketing points you in the right direction. (We'd tell you how, but then you wouldn't need the book.) Get a preview of what it's all about in the Humongo Nation NYC video wrap up! Smart people are pre-ordering so they can beat their competitors silly on release date.

Wingate: internet nerds change everything

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:30:00 +0000

While enjoying our stay at the Wingate by Wyndham in Manhattan, we were introduced to Bill Hall, Brand Senior VP at Wingate.

We sat down with Bill to find out more about the Wingate brand. As one of our tour's sponsors, we were already fans. They've created a wonderous experience for business travelers in markets throughout the country by taking care of some of the important little things. Little things that geeks like us don't take for granted: power outlets where you need them, great internet that's free, and hot breakfast in the morning.

Chatting with Bill, we learned that it's a more complex offering than you might think. Traveler needs are changing, and technology is key. While on the road we're cranking out presentations, uploading videos, photos, downloading movies, blog posts, YouTube videos...you get the picture. Now multiply that usage across rooms and rooms and rooms...and we're talking about serious bandwidth.

We learned that offering great wifi to hotel guests isn't as simple as a router behind the front desk (trust us, we've been on the road in less desirable hotels, and seen this). Wingate's adapted their service to accommodate the growing bandwidth needs of today's business traveler. Internet bandwidth. Something we don't take for granted, and that we're happy the folks at Wingate have our (and your) backs on.

See our full interview with Bill Hall on the Humongo Nation NYC wrapup video. Thanks for the bandwidth, Wingate!

Sometimes the best social media plan is just to be social

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:41:00 +0000

Our meet up at New Balance started with a shopping trip at the New Balance factory store, across the street from their corporate headquarters. The store was a quick reminder of how deep the New Balance brand is. Thousands of products. Multiple brands within the New Balance family. We were excited to learn how they might be using social tools to cover so much brand real estate.

Kelly Gray, Associate Manager, Digital Brand Marketing gave us some great insight into the iconic shoe brand's philosophy with social media. In essence, the New Balance philosophy hasn't changed at all - they're all about connecting with their users. New Balance has been entrenched in the running community for ages - sponsoring races, clinics and other community running events.

They're using their social tools to connect with their users in as personal way as possible. They're partnering with tools like MapMyRun. They're connecting with fans on Facebook with custom applications built for the way their customers use New Balance products. Most importantly, they're available for conversations with customers who don't want to pick up the phone.

The best thing to learn from New Balance? They aren't using social media as something new. They're using the tools to do what they've always done, but in new ways. Sticking with a plan works.

How a workplace reboot creates swagger.

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:10:00 +0000

We were excited to stop by the new Mullen headquarters in Boston, and meet up with Edward Boches, Stuart Foster (above) and crew.

With recent new client wins of JetBlue, Zappos and Martha Stewart, you could say that Mullen is on fire. Not long ago, they moved their headquarters from the suburbs of Boston to downtown. This confirms a trend that we've been reading about for a while: people are escaping the suburbs for the cities.

Plenty of Mullen staffers that we met confirmed that the move created a new confidence within the agency. Their old space featured a lot of closed off, independent space. The new digs are more open, and as Boches says, "creates collisions." Collisions in a creative agency are a great thing. Collisions put together unexpected people, circumstances and ideas. Collisions bring things to a new level.

While the move happened only a year ago, the resulting culture change has been tremendous. Employees who have recently joined the firm refer to people employed prior to the move as "old timers", and the Mullen of today feels like a new agency.

Been in your space for a while? Worried about the stress that a move to a new location might cause? Take it from Mullen, a new work environment is an opportunity to reboot your workplace in a grand, new way.

What is your office like in a thunderstorm?

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:24:00 +0000

When a thunderstorm comes rolling through your state, most office-based businesses trudge along like any other sunshiny day. But the crew at Unitil Energy, a utility company headquartered in New Hampshire, snaps into action.

At Unitil, their communications team has to be ready for any potential situation. And at a utility company, much of the action centers around weather. Snowstorms, thunderstorms and heatwaves all take their toll on the power grid. If you're responsible for communicating to hundreds of thousands of customers on a moment's notice, you've got to be pretty organized, and prepared for things that hopefully don't happen.

Carol and Stephanie from the Communications and Public Relations department of Unitil invited us by on our way from Maine to Boston, and shared some great insight to a communications challenge that plenty of marketing people never have to deal with: emergency and contingency situations.

Space. It's what you want it to be.

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:46:00 +0000

We discovered a vibrant arts scene in Portland, and plenty of artists in the scene have great things to say about Space. The Space Gallery is a non-profit art gallery that serves as a multi-purpose venue that features fine artists, sculptors musicians, street artists and anything else that the community will support.

The space itself is pretty awesome, conveniently located a few doors down from the Maine College of Art, and in the heart of the arts district in Portland.

We got to chat with Events Programmer Ian Paige about the gallery, the scene, and what it takes to make an art gallery a success in today's marketplace. See Ian's interview in our wrapup video of our Portland visit on the Humongo Nation tour dashboard, and checkout the upcoming events at Space if you're anywhere near Portland, Maine.

The greatest store that you'll never shop in.

noreply@blogger.com (darryl ohrt) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:18:00 +0000

The Nu Penny Store is quite unlike anything you've seen before.

From the outside, it looks like an interesting boutique toy store...and then, you might stop to peer in the window. You'll look into the scene to discover that the whole place appears in grey tones...as if you've entered a black and white episode of the Twilight Zone. Even more curious - each of the pieces featured on display have typography of some sort, that feels almost alien.

A pull on the door will surprise you, as the store is never open. It's an odd store of wonderness, that you can't get into. When you continue to peer through the windows, you'll notice the detail of the individual masterpieces on display.

This is the work of Randy Regier. An installation titled the Nu Penny Store, in the heart of Portland, Maine.

We learned many things in our chat with Randy (see the video on Humongo Nation - Portland), but one of the most inspiring pieces of knowledge he shared was how he's broken down the barrier between the artist and "the man."

Plenty of artists see "the man" as an obstacle. The reason they can't get proper funding. Or great space. Or community support. Randy's learned that by spending time getting to know the people that don't share your same perspective, you can better prepare yourself for a connection with this person, ultimately leading to the cooperation and/or support that you're seeking.

It's this attitude that's won Randy grants to fund his artwork, space to build his installations, and community support and respect within the Portland art scene.

Randy is truly one of the most talented and brilliant artists we've ever met, we know that you'll thoroughly enjoy our interview with him in our Portland wrap up video, and the photos from our rare glimpse inside the store.

The Nu Penny Store will be traveling to other cities in the U.S. later this year - so stay tuned to the website for details. This is a must see if you're in Portland!