as if austin wasn't cool enough

Now the Austin Statesman (yes, a newspaper) is using Posterous to allow their readers to submit photos to the paper.

By using Posterous , the publication eliminates the obstacles typically associated with submission. Readers can submit while on the move, from their cell phones, or anywhere with the magic of internet, since submitting content is as easy as sending an email. From Steve Rubel.

save california. one tweet at a time.

As California burns down and runs out of money, they need ideas. And what better way to solicit ideas than with the wonderous tool of Twitter. Governor Schwarzenegger launched MyIdea3CA so that anyone can submit ideas on how to save Cali.

(Maybe they could ask their residents to stop calling their friends back east and taunting with how warm, beautiful and perfect everything is. ;p) From Ben Kunz.

it's not cold until the can says so

David Deal from Razorfish writes about their work for Coors Light, the invention of a can with magic ink, and the site that asks users to show how they certify Coors cold. Nice work.

a lesson in street art

Back to school? Already? How about a lesson in street art?

Check out Skewville, which chronicles 13 years of amazing street art installations from across the globe. Amazing. Inspiring. Awesome. From MTLB.

fart jokes really never get tired

Here's a cute ad for the release of MySims Racing. (If by cute you mean a guy who can make any imaginable sound come out of his butt.)

this week at Plaid

Here's what happened this week at the world's most awesome creative agency:

I appeared on the Beancast podcast for the very first time! Needless to say, this was the best episode of the Beancast that ever was produced. Other guests included world famous Bill Green of Make the Logo Bigger and Kelly Eidson, a contributing writer for Advertising Age.

I also wrote another piece for Advertising Age Small Agency Diary. The post was featured in the AdAge email newsletter, and resulted in loads of comments, which means that it was the best post ever. (Technically, this happened the week before, but since we forgot to post last week, and it's important to brag about stuff like this, we're including it here. Stop getting all technical.)

Adrants posted about our G2G project for a division of the AFL-CIO that helps soldiers get great construction jobs when they return home. This is a really great effort for some really great men and women, so spread the word.

David launched a new site for Powderhouse Productions. This may have happened the week before as well, but we're too lazy to fact check stuff like that. Powderhouse produces some pretty awesome television, and now we're almost guaranteed a starring role in something. Someday.

Ausra's bobble head arrived! As you may already know, Plaid employees are bobbled and then featured on the Plaid website. Ausra's bobble features the thinnest body of all of the bobbles in our collection, so now we're putting the other bobbles on a training program.

This weekend, Plaidsters will be soaking in the best that hurricane Danny has to offer. Hopefully you won't be doing the same. Enjoy!

please stop having sex in front of the window

The Standard Hotel in NYC sits on top of the new High Line Park. The Standard also features rooms that are pretty much all window. And they actively promoted the possibilities that the windows present on their website.

The Gothamist reports that their Facebook page tells fans "We encourage you to exercise your inner exhibitionist," and their website asks, "Whatever you do, just make sure the shots are HOT and that you get them to us in whichever way you can. It's all about sex all the time, and you're our star."

And then families from Ohio became surprised at the live peep shows. Or maybe the highline was becoming too crowded with viewers. Or maybe it was just the NY Post article.

Now the Standard is changing their marketing message. They've cleaned up their website marketing copy, and now warn visitors that their rooms are essentially on display while the curtains are open. (Although the Facebook group still seems pretty sexy.)

Whatever the case, you can bet that the the hotel sex as marketing message has them booked through the end of the year.

what happens if you enter every contest on youtube?

Meet Jake and Will. They want to make a film, and need $100,000 to do it. They also realized that there are countless companies doing YouTube video contests, and giving away some sweet prizes. As budding film makers, they figured that they've got a better chance than most at winning, so they've decided to enter every video submission contest that they can find.

It's working. They've launched Video Contest Warriors, to document their progress and adventures. And - they may even enter the Riunite contest (a Plaid client) where they'd have a chance at meeting their short term goal of $10K, in one fell swoop. (Do people really say "fell swoop" anymore?)

walk, smoke and drink just like the madmen

Time Out New York has organized a self guided MadMen walk, so that you can experience NYC from an old ad executive's perspective.

From the bar that everyone celebrated Peggy's writing achievement in, to the hotel where Don crashed while kicked out of the house, you can see, smoke (outside anyway) and drink your way through Manhattan. Of course if you smoke as much as Don Draper, you won't be able walk this at all - so you might want to budget for cab fare.

what you look like naked, without skin

Not clear on the artist or background behind these Tibetan anatomical illustrations, but they sure are fun. Have you ever seen a more jolly skeleton man?

your social media calling card

Rails Rumble is a contest that invites a bunch of uber geeks to design, develop, and deploy the best web property possible...in one weekend. Our buddies at Koombea were up for the challenge. They've created Hi I'm, your nametag on the internet.

Genius idea. It's like your social media calling card. All of your feeds, and links to all of your profiles in one easy place. You can create yours today, or just vote for the tool when public voting kicks off later today. Can't wait to see this tool fully implemented. Good luck, Koombea!

friends help a friend tag a building across the street

Tony Quan, a recently paralyzed graffiti writer, has some pretty awesome friends. They hooked up a device that lets him tag the wall outside his window, while only using the movement of his eyes. Geek friends rock.

suburbs are so over.

If everyone's moving back into the city (and by the sounds of it, Brooklyn, specifically), what's going to happen with suburbia? How could suburbia be re-invented and put to a better use?

That's the premise of Re-burbia, a contest that asks artists to show their vision for a new burbia. The top twenty finalists are pretty cool. From Eyebeam.

the best gas ever.

A most wonderous collection of the most glorious gas stations you'll ever roll your chariot into.

the end is near.

Sony Pictures is doing a nice job promoting the release of 2012. They've created the Institute for Human Continuity, blogs devoted to the end of the world, a wiki for the IHC, and of course a Twitter stream. They even created Institute for Human Continuity street teams at ComicCon. You can be sure there's more if you have time to explore.

They also ask users to Google search 2012, knowing that the results of doomsday theories will feed interest in the film to those not familiar with the significance of the date. Nice.

what's for school lunch?

Ever wonder what school lunch really looks like? What's for School Lunch is a blog dedicated to documenting the photo goodness that is actual school lunch.

That taco salad pictured above looks utterly delicious. ;) Submit your own before you scarf down the meat object. From Coudal.

sh*t my dad says

"Your mother made a batch of meatballs last night. Some are for you, some are for me, but more are for me. Remember that. More. Me."

You're 28 years old, and living at home with your dad. How can you make the best of it? Tweet all of the funny stuff that he says. That's the premise of Sh*t my Dad says on Twitter. Totally awesome.

If your workplace can't handle the "s" word for poopies or the "f" word for (well, you know), you'll have to enjoy this one at home. From Angus Whines.

what would an apple site look like in 1983?

If the interwebs were around back in 1983, here's what the Apple website might have looked like.

Someone should create an entire internet of 1983, and link it all together, as part of a campaign. This could be loads of fun. From Nathan McDonald.

how to sell a bunch of books

Chris Brogan has a deal for you:

+ Buy 300 copies of his new book Trust Agents and he'll give you a half day of his consulting, gratis.
OR
+ Get about 100 of your friends together, and he'll fly in for a signing.

If you've been following Chris over the last few days, you've seen how he's expertly launched his new book. He doesn't ask much of his ginormous Twitter audience, so you could say he's built some trust. You could also say that trust has earned him a favor or two.

A few tweets and blog posts over the last few days have called in those favors (and fans), and have put his book on the Amazon charts over the weekend. And now he's snowballing that position and pushing it even further, with some fun promotions like the "deals" mentioned above. He's using his online audience of individuals to sell his book by the hundreds.

Chris didn't mastermind this overnight. He didn't join Twitter yesterday and start hawking his book. He's spent the last however many years building an audience by providing something of value. And so when he does have something to sell, he's got an audience that's interested, invested and ready for action.

Nice job.

the limited lost their style guide

Blogger Chris Beesley is a fan of the Limited's design style. Elegant typography, clean design, nice presentation.

And on a recent trip to the mall with his wife, he found the sales flier featured above. Sloppy, poor typography and totally off what you'd consider appropriate to the Limited style guide.

Ever wonder if a style guide (or a single agency doing all of your stuff) has value? Here's proof.

the biggest house in the world

Our buddy Saul Colt wants you to know about the most incredible house that's for sale in Canada. It's kind of big. One bedroom, with 400 baths, 56 million square feet. Just the cozy kind of joint you were looking for in Toronto.

Actually, the clip calls attention to Zoocasa, a home search site for Canada that features properties of all sizes. Cute.

best marketing podcast ever

If you've never listened to the Beancast, here's a good reason to start: I'm featured in this week's episode.

You'll love hearing Kelly Eidson, an Advertising Age contributing writer and BrandFlake's colleague Bill Green from Make the Logo Bigger chat about stuff that's happening in the industry. But clearly the best part of this week's episode is my glorious voice.

In the "Risky Business" episode of the Beancast, we chat about taking risks, anonymous blogging, Twitter movie reviews, banner ads and the Brody PR blunder. We all go on and on as if we're experts in everything. Download it now - because you're tired of all the songs on your iPod, anyway.

local tv news is ready to die now.

We've seen the music industry implode. Newspapers close down. Local TV news is the next industry deserving a nice kick in the pants.

Local news stations have a bunch of issues:
+ Their stories were reported on the internet yesterday
+ Their weathermen think we're amazed at maps that zoom into a street as if we've never seen Google Maps
+ Video of a house fire every day is only so exciting, year after year

This clip from WJW in Cleveland is either a hilarious joke or proof that local news needs to be replaced by re-runs of Facts of Life. Or the A-Team. (That would be awesome.)

gamers get old, fat and lazy.

Wired reports about Computerworld reporting on a new study from the Center of Disease Control (!) that shows that pretty much everyone is a gamer. And we're all getting fatter.

The surprise that may exist in this study for marketers is the fact that gamers aren't just teens. In fact 25% are 50+.

The study also reports that gamers say they're overweight and have more "poor-mental-health days." (PMH?) Keep this in mind when you're composing that photograph of the living room scene for that new ad, and end up casting the 12 year old to play XBOX. Might not be as close to reality as you think.

apple engineers: you need this guy

BrandFlakes friend Lee Washington shows us a most awesome invention: a product design for iPod headphones that don't tangle.

Apple: please give this man a million dollars and get me these headphones. Mine are a tangled mess.

texts from last night

If you're stumbling in this morning all groggy and a little unsure of what happened this weekend, hopefully you didn't send any regretful text messages.

Texts from last night is a site devoted to collecting text messages that you kind of can't believe someone actually sent. But did. Beauties, like:

(201): I'm trying real hard to keep it on the DL how drunk I am at lunch with my grandma.

(Not all entirely work safe, if you get in trouble for seeing the F bomb in it's written form.) From Scott Monty

who is that stock photo girl?

Do you ever wonder who those people are in the stock photos? Meet Yvonne. She was in the right place at the right time and posed for a photo. Her shot has since been available and licensed as a stock photograph across industries, media and countries.

Yvonne believes that her timeless haircut has given her photo longevity that doesn't exist with other shots that were taken years and years ago. And so she continues to pop up in odd places. A friend of hers even found her image in a shop window in Barcelona.

Yvonne seems entertained by it all, and has assembled a nice collection of her shots in use. Pretty fun to meet the people behind the photo in your ad. From Waxy.

we've traced that tweet. it's coming from INSIDE the house.

Twitter has announced that they plan on launching a new feature that allows you to broadcast exactly where your tweet was coming from. That's probably the most significant feature release for the tool since...ever.

Soon you'll be able to see who's tweeting in your hood, where your friends are, and where to get the best bbq.

Third party applications have made this generally available for those tweeting from their phones, but this will apparently be incorporated into the actual Twitter API.

This opens a world of promotional and development opportunities. Treasure hunts, location based promotions, and whatever you might be able to dream up that includes GPS and Twitter.

Some will likely be creeped out by this, some will love it, and the world will tweet on.

nyc daytime vs nightime

Here's a cool graphic illustrating the difference in population for New York City in the daytime and night time. Looks like everyone sleeps in Jersey.

interns make more videos

The interns at Crispin, Porter & Bogusky made a video. Everyone in the industry reacted with "oooohh...Crispin interns can make video!!"

And now it's becoming a meme. Interns from agencies across the land are scrambling to outdo each other. The interns at Archival (both of them) took on the challenge to better the Crispin dudes, and created their own "we're interns" video (and at least on cinematography, killed it.)

What can your interns do?

come to the puma store. and meet puma employees.

Puma just launched a new campaign where they feature their employees modeling gear and sharing their thoughts.

American Apparel already did the employees as models part, but Puma took cuter people (sorry, AP) and made them less dirty and more flirty by sharing just a hint of their real personalities. I love the end of the video, which sums it up pretty well: "We all work at Puma. Come meet us."

san fran becomes candy land

Lombard Street in San Francisco was turned into CandyLand, in honor of the board game's 60th Anniversary. The photos and video are pretty awesome. I can't wait for the Mouse Trap version.

in the olden days, they didn't have photoshop

Someone's collected a sweet archive of shots by English photographer Arthur S Mole, and American colleague John D Thomas who created these massive human assemblies/sculptures/party of soldiers.

They served as inspirational images, and were produced during World War I and World War II. A Hawaiian division is pictured above. Thanks, Devon!

who are you on the internet?

The Personas project by Aaron Zinman analyzes your name on the internet and creates a handy bar graph showing how your persona is represented online.

It's not entirely accurate - especially if you have a common name or only a little Google juice, and that's exactly the point. The project attempts to shed light on the importance of a digital history, and the mischaracterizations that could be caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. Genius.

From Maura McGreevy

website takes a thrashing and keeps on clicking

Check out the latest Quiksilver site. It gets thrashed away by the Quicksilver skate team.

You've seen the concept before, but this execution is nice and audience appropriate. From Living Brands

second life still getting press

Second Life, that virtual community that took over every headline, blog post and marketing article for about a year is still alive.

It's always had value to it's audience, it's just the audience isn't what many brands or marketing people were expecting/promised/hyped.

A new piece in the Wall Street Journal shows the value of Second Life conferences, and how Second Life is enjoying a "second life" of marketing itself to businesses. Hmmmm.

Thanks, Jeff!

how designers travel

You'll be inspired by the manner in which Christine from LAMA Designs travels. In the digital age, it's almost expected that we document our travels on Twitter, on Flickr, Facebook and everywhere else.

Christine's photo essay shows how easy (and valuable) it is to document your travels. She emails her friends a daily journal while on the road, complete with pics and details of her adventures (I suppose Facebook would be better for this). Once home, she creates digital movies for each of her trips, complete with soundtracks representative of the journey.

From Pretavoyager, a blog devoted to the creative side of traveling. Found by Rosso.

spelling with trucks

The entire alphabet realized on the backs of trucks. Use this as a font set for the trucker in your life.

Or just be amazed that photographer/typographer/artist Eric Tabuchi was able to find enough trucks with enough letters to complete two entire sets.

what it takes to make a magazine cover

If you've ever wondered what it takes to put together a magazine cover (those paper things, that are like blogs), or maybe you've questioned why your creative agency takes so long to complete that ad of yours - then you have to watch this time lapse video of the creation of a MacWorld cover.

From photo shoot to published in three minutes. Wonderful and beautiful and you'll wish that we could time lapse every project like this.

entertain your friends with the squirrelizer.

If you do this, your normal friends will think that you've totally lost it. But your internet geeky friends will think you're awesome.

The Squirrel meme started as a freak photo accident and now entertains millions of bored internet citizens daily.

Finally, you can add the internet famous squirrel to any online image without the aid of Photoshop. Just use the handy Squirrelizer. (I've used it above to show the squirrel crashing a night out with coworkers.)

all the news that's fit to type

This one's tough to explain to someone who doesn't totally love typography and/or spends a lot of time at PopURLS.

Type Daily is an aggregator of all of the latest and greatest typography posts, news and entertainment put together in the exact same style as popURLs.

(If all of this confuses you, just move along...nothing here to see.)

that cereal you're eating is ALIVE.

If you like to think of your breakfast cereal as something living that you eat every day, then you'll love the new campaign for Corn Pops. Guaranteed to scare the kids and frustrate the teens. Everyone else is just a zombie.

send this to the teen driver you know

This isn't funny, entertaining or cute. It's a "scared straight" type of PSA geared toward showing the potential effects of texting while driving. It's only a short clip of a 30 minute piece that's shown to students in the UK. It's disturbing.

Once, while on the Plaid Nation tour this year, I counted the number of drivers on a loooong stretch of highway who were NOT texting or talking on their cells. The count rarely got higher than five consecutive "safe" drivers. Not science, just my own informal survey. I never found ten consecutive "safe" drivers.

Bill Green suggests we take it a step further, and create a campaign Ignore It or Turn It Off, (LOVE THIS) and have it funded like the drink responsibly messaging.

Until then, you can send the video edit above to the drivers you know. Especially the ones who love to text.

reinventing the resume

If you've wondered how your resume might stand out against a sea of similar resumes, you've got to check out Michael Anderson's "resume". He reinvented the presentation of talent, skillset and experience representation.

If resume "rules" didn't exist, what could yours look like? Maybe now is the time to think different. From @benkunz and the Denver Egotist.

this couch would look awesome in your apartment

Here's a smart campaign for Ikea that puts a couch in front of a billboard. The background changes every few seconds, perfectly illustrating how great this white couch looks in any environment. (Until of course, you eat chocolate and don't notice that a piece dropped on the couch and then you smear it in with your pants. Not that that's ever happened or anything...)

not your average feature release video

Who says that you need a fat production budget, killer effects or even animation to promote a game release? XBox 360 Achievements promotes a new "Slo-mo death match feature" for the game FEAR 2 with...a silly, low-budget home grown video.

30K views (so far) is not a bad return on the investment.

(If you work in an office that's not tolerant of moderate swear words, you may want to listen in headphones.)

how to make killer profile pics

This fun piece for Samsung shows you how to make the most awesome profile pic for the social network of your choice. (Of course it helps if you have the Samsung ST550 or TL 225 cameras.)

A fun play on what has become part of all of our lives. Thanks, Lee!

the apple store: your new production studio

There's something totally infectious about this kid, and the fact that he produces and broadcasts his videos from the Apple store.

He's evolved and has gotten to be quite good - look at one of his earlier broadcasts and you'll see that he wasn't always entirely comfortable performing in the space.

Just begging to be a part of a fun campaign.

the killers lend their voice to unicef

MTV Exit and Unicef have collaborated to produce some stunning work, the latest which features this video by The Killers. The effort looks to raise awareness of human trafficking and is not what it seems at first. Even more haunting on the second play.

this week at Plaid

Here's what happened this week at the world's most awesome creative agency:

We've sorted out tour shirts, conducted post-tour meetings and are already setting up plans for next year's tour. (We have a handful of small and medium PlaidNation shirts left - if you know of anyone worthy, give us a shout.)

We're now working with Riunite and Rosa Regale, which means that many of our brainstorms have turned into wine tastings. Not that that's a bad thing. :) There were several brainstorms/tastings this week at Plaid, resulting in nothing but pure awesomeness. (If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and we'll poor you a glass.) In the meantime, be sure to follow Riunite & Rosa Regale on Twitter.

We just launched a Facebook application for soldiers who are nearing discharge. The Good to Go Countdown Clock lets soldiers share their discharge date with family and friends, so that everyone can be ready for their return home. Send it to anyone you know who's serving! (We'll be sharing more about G2G and a cool program that helps soldiers find jobs, soon.)

We inflated the tires on our office Segway PT. For the first time ever. We love this magic machine that takes us from place to place like a magic carpet. It's extra cool that this is the only maintenance required, because we really don't like to get our hands dirty.

This weekend, Plaidsters will be enjoying the first heatwave of the entire summer with Oyster Festivals, bike rides, runs (the athletic kind, not the kind caused by Oysters) and of course District 9 viewings.

google street view as art

A wonderful photo essay on the observance of Google's Street View as a reflection of society, architecture, humanity and art. Nice.

the lazy guy's guide to cooking

Former Plaid intern and Plaid Nation pro driver Ryan Varjas has started a blog. Not about marketing, design, creativity or pop culture. But about cooking. And this looks to be unlike any foodie blog that you've ever encountered.

Lazy Cooking E/Z features golden tips like how to make a can of soup in a cheap motel during the middle of the night, or cooking hot dogs in a toaster.

(So we now know what Ryan was up to while the rest of us were locked in motel rooms editing video, photos and writing blog posts during the Plaid tour.)

Warning: language is not for everyone, so stay away if you don't like f-bombs or drunken shenanigans.

I smell book deal. Or maybe it's just burnt hot dogs.

boxers or high pants?

This spot puts silly kids with their underwear showing together with silly old men that wear their pants up to their chest. They both get a good laugh at each other and we get to think about boxers.

life before don draper

If you're counting down the days until Sunday's premier of the new MadMen season, this should buy you some time: A complete retrospective of Jon Hamm's television and movie career. Before he was Don Draper, he was a fireman, a boyfriend and a guy with bad facial hair.

watch coachella from the comfort of your desk

Couldn't make it to the Coachella music festival this year? Wonder what it might have looked like?

Now you can watch the entire festival from beginning to end, in this super cool time-lapse video. Half the fun, without getting your hair messed up.

brooklyn to create their own money

The Brooklyn Torch Project is looking to establish a means of currency to be used by Brooklynites. The currency would be exchanged with local businesses and artists, while boosting Brooklyn brand value and pride (they need more Brooklyn pride??)

You can even participate in the design of the new Brooklyn bucks.

Sound like a wacky artist's dream? It's been successful in Ithaca, NY since 1991. And it's completely legal says the Treasury Department. WOW. Time to buy a second wallet. From Gothamist.

everything is social

Google just stepped up the socialness of their iGoogle product - the start page for millions and millions of internetizens.

Right now, it's got a social graph, activity feed and applications. This could be an interesting place to keep tabs on your social self. Right now it's a bit clunkly and unintuitive, but if evolved could indeed become the center of everythingness. Go google.

gather all of your junk and call it an art show

Retail Design Diva points to a cool new exhibit happening right now at MOMA NYC. An artist took all of the contents from his parent's home in China, and put them on display. Everything.

Over 50 years of stuff, during “wu jin qi yong”, or "waste not", a time when individuals could not amass wealth, but could collect things in reciprocity. (CRAZY.)

If you've ever wondered what all of your junk would look like neatly arranged as if it were being presented in a catalog, you need to check this out.

bringing buildings to life

Here's another fabulous example of projection design in use on a building. Stunning, awesome, amazing.

that banzai pool is very little

What do you do if you buy a pool based on what you've been promised on the outer packaging, and then it's nothing like promised? Let your kids tell the story. And then write a blog post. Awesome.

Brands: the days of lying to your customers ended years ago. The internet knows the truth.

google testing search made from lightning

Those crazy engineers at Google have concocted an even faster search infrastructure. You can be the first in your cubicle zone to test it out. We think it's made from cheetah's, old race car engine parts and lightning.

how thin is your computer?

The MSI computer is soooo thin that you could catch it in your butt.

Dabitch points us to this hilariously funny promo for MSI computers. The concept plays on the original Ray Ban video which was later co opted into a jumping jeans video.

It's officially a meme people - so start catching stuff with your body.

stretch yourself.

Meet Sam Hill. Sam is exploring the theory he explains as Experience Value:

"Experience Value is a theory-in-progress that I've been developing for a little over a year now. It indicates that there is an intellectual, sensational and emotional wealth to be yielded from taking risks and by subverting preventative and protective systems through exposures."

Sam has taken himself outside of his comfort zones. (Well outside.) You've got to spend some time today reading through and exploring his site - where he takes a very scientific approach to stretching himself creatively.

This is fantastic experience that every person in the creative industry should take something away from. It's easy as pie to get stuck in your routine and do the same things over and over and over again. And then over again.

When was the last time that you did something embarrassing? Scary? Or way outside of your comfort zone? (Make it today.)

From Lee Washington.

go to playboy.com. it's work...really.

Ben Kunz over at Thought Gadgets points us to the new Playboy site. Not because there's almost naked girls on the site - but as an example of the changing landscape in the publishing industry.

As Ben points out, the main broadcast networks have sold $1 billion less in primetime upfronts this year, down from $9 billion in 2008. And we all know what's going on in the newspaper/magazine industry.

How to survive? Provide creative content and integrate your advertisers. That's what Playboy is doing. They've allowed the MadMen brand to takeover the site - and tailored their history of relevant content around the brand.

They've integrated their advertisers into the content (see the Southern Comfort screen shot above.) And they've backed it up with deep content. You can browse every issue of Playboy from the 1960's, page by page - including ads - which are just as entertaining as the pinups. For real. Sadly, you can't link to individual pages - which would have been awesome to show you some old Hathaway or Wrangler ads. Now you'll just have to "explore" yourself.

Go ahead...it's work.

a movie about advertising

Art and Copy. This is a movie that you'll probably want to see more than G.I. Joe. (And don't dare complain that there's too many commercials before they start the film.) From GreyNY Interns

would you let the internet pick your avatar?

This is an old story - but it's completely relevant to a decision you make all the time: your avatar.

We were joking last week about Plaid's newest employee Ausra, and how "difficult" she was being about picking the right headshot for her announcement on Brand Flakes (girls. sigh.) Ms. Herr quickly chimed in supporting Ausra with some background on how the Ms. Herr avatar came to be.

Like a true social media icon, Ms. Herr crowdsourced her avatar. Photographer Tyson Crosbie posted 16 shots, and the internet voted. The end result (while awesome) is different than what Ms Herr would have picked herself.

Would you leave your avatar up to the internet?

don't forget the elevator

Your lobby looks awesome. Your conference room kicks ass. Your workspace is inspiring. What about...your elevator? This is one part of the workplace that's often overlooked - mostly because companies with elevators usually share the building with other firms.

This elevator in Antwerp features the work of Darrin Umboh. If you also own your elevator space - does it reflect your brand?

(But really, you should do your lift like the Haunted Mansion elevator.)

it's time for blood.

Forget back to school sales...Halloween is around the corner, and that means it's time for another Saw release. One of the cool things they've done with the franchise is tying a national blood drive to each film's release. They get promotion, the Red Cross gets blood.

If It's Hip It's Here has posted the full series of posters for the events, and they get better every year. This year's nurse is hot and prickly.

lady gaga dressed by architects

Lady Gaga's outfits compared to architecture: nothing but awesome. If for no other reason, this gives you reason to stare at Lady Gaga's pics while at work, and wonder if she's sporting a disco stick. Go ahead, it's research.