March 2008

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Down For The Count

For the first time in five years, I called in sick yesterday. The dreaded flu had run me down like a Mac Truck. 24 hours ago, even the thought of moving seemed like a challenge. But I managed to drag myself to work today … martyr that I am. Let’s see if I can put a positive spin on any of this …

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Getting the Business Types and the Creative Types to Play Nice: Part 1

Imagine the Vice President of Client Services of an ad agency walking into an office and finding a man in ripped jeans, sandals, and a Ghostbusters t-shirt on the phone with one of the clients.

"What are you doing?" she might ask.

"I'm talking to a client about the best marketing strategy for their product," the man replies.

"But Jim, you're not on our business team. You're a network administrator," she says.

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Got an Open House? Use Direct Mail

We continue to throw out ideas and questions in an effort to elicit responses from the readers on how they have seen direct mail affect their advertising efforts – good or bad. A few months back, we threw out the challenge to get 10 responses in an effort to get a fellow coworker to dress up like a chicken. It didn’t happen. Regardless, we’re marching on with a new topic this month.

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PlattForm People: Joy Booth

Joy Booth"Does anyone want half of a sandwich? It’s really yummy!” These are actual words that rang out across PlattForm’s intercom system. They came as no surprise to the people who work here. It’s pretty common for the agency’s VP of Client Services, Joy Booth, to offer snacks over the loudspeakers.

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DC calling! NY calling!

Just call me Joe East Coast – as I’ve been on the road the last few weeks traveling for PlattForm. One of my first stops was in Washington, DC to mingle with muckety-mucks from various career colleges for “Hill Day”. Hill Day is kind of like a meet-and-greet for education industry professionals. Each year around this time everyone who’s anyone converges upon our nation’s capitol to dazzle their local legislators about pertinent things pertaining to the career college sector.

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In the Year 2058

Recently I was watching a program on the Discovery Science Channel about what life will be like 50 years from now. It looks like there will be invisible suits for our troops and magic elevators to space stations. Also: we will be wearing those futuristic jumpsuits that seem to be in every bad sci-fi movie. (Which I don’t believe with happen. In the past 50 years, the only major breakthrough in what we wear just may be the hoodie.)

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Brush with a Future Media Buyer

I recently had the opportunity to take a 4-year-old to a playground. I don’t have any kids of my own, so I hadn’t actually been to a playground for years. Things had changed … drastically.

In my day, if someone fell down playing tag, they had to dig the pieces of gravel out from the palms of their hands. These days, if a kid falls down, they just bounce right back up – the ground is made of this soft, springy material that looks kind of like burnt angel hair pasta up close.