8 Jun
Listen, if a tortoise can do it…
We’re all going a million miles an hour these days, and many times our friends, family, clients and partners can get lost in the shuffle.
Take a cue from the tortoise in this video. First, slow down. Then, look around.
Notice somebody struggling.
Finally, give them a hand. (Or a head. Whatever they need.) You’ll both have a better day. We guarantee it.
Tags: fast paced, help, helping hand, marketing, slow down, tortoise
7 Jun
by Nathan Hartswick
So I have this buddy John. He has two adorable little boys who could not be more different from one another. One, the 5-year-old, is intellectual and wise. Sarcastic and acerbic. The other, the 3-year-old, is a bulldozer, a prankster, and a force to be reckoned with. Put them together, John says, and it’s like living with the Blues Brothers.
I hung out with the boys over the weekend recently, and watched as they discovered that game kids have been playing ever since there were grassy inclines on which to play it: rolling down a hill.
(Side note: you’re never too old for that, by the way. My girlfriend says she fell in love with me when I pointed to a hill we were walking by and said, “Let’s roll down that.” We did, and the rest is history.)
John’s kids quickly invented a variation on the game of rolling down the hill: rolling down the hill together. In a single, hugging mass of flailing arms and legs.
There was plenty of concern surrounding this activity among the adults (“Hey, don’t grab his neck when you roll, buddy, okay?”) and a bruise or two, but the two of them never stopped giggling the entire time. These two kids clearly have a lot of fun together, no matter how different they are.
Are you starting a business with a partner? Making a new friend? Courting a girl? Ask yourself if you could roll down a hill with that person. Depending on your situation, that might be a literal question or a metaphoric one, but the point is we don’t get a lotta time; the people you choose to share it with should make everything you do more fun.
And I think you’ll agree: playing a game this way makes it way more fun…doesn’t it?
4 Jun
Back in the day (let’s say 2002-ish), in a moment of desperation, I took a gig writing spam at an extremely sketchy company on Long Island. It was a horrible job, but it paid rent in my dingy basement apartment. (Have I mentioned how much I love Vermont?)
In our department there was this 19-year old kid named Jeff, a graphic designer who would come in, knock out his work in about 10 minutes, and spend the rest of the day swilling Starbucks and messing around with his own projects. He was so young and undervalued that he was the only designer there working on a PC laptop instead of a Mac. He was a glorified intern.
I always liked the guy, probably because he used to laugh at all of my jokes, so I kept in touch with him after I got fired from the spam company. (Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t even have the satisfaction of quitting.) Maybe I can get him a job somewhere, I thought.
How charitable of me, right?
It turns out that, uh, he didn’t really need my help. Jeff soon went freelance and started doing some of the most insane 3D work you’ve ever seen. When I needed a designer on something and called to offer him the project, the answer increasingly became, “Man, I’d like to, but I have this deadline for Mountain Dew…”
The lesson? Just because someone is young, or inexperienced, or seems lazy at work doesn’t [necessarily] mean they’re worthless. Like a prodigy in a classroom full of average kids, Jeff was just bored. Little did the spam company know he was using their time (on the clock, of course) to hone his craft – so he could leave them in the dust later on.
So if Jeff has the time (many times he does not) and you can afford him (I certainly can’t), I encourage you to hire him. As you’ll see by his site and the ridiculous 3D demo reel below, that kid I sat next to turned out to be one helluva designer.
Although he still can’t spell for shit – so I have that on him. And in my book, he’ll always be a snot-nosed little punk.
Tags: 3d, advertising, freelance, graphic design, marketing, modeling, new media, rendering, video game design, web
2 Jun
As we were taking a nice little stroll on the Winooski Riverwalk over the weekend, we passed under a bridge where someone had scrawled graffiti in white spray paint.
We stopped to read it. As you can see by the photo, it said “Big Lots.”
Unless that’s slang for a Winooski-based gang or some fat white Vermonter’s extremely lame rapper name, I assume the artist was referring to the department store.
The words are accompanied by a smiley-face, but it’s hard to know whether this graffiti was intended as praise or derision of the Big Lots brand.
I guess there’s always the chance the phrase was spray-painted there by the marketing department at Big Lots. In which case, nice job, guys: it reminded me I need to pick up some cheap plastic lawn furniture for my porch this summer…
29 May
by Nathan Hartswick
“Wow, you’re still in Burlington, huh?”
I still get this question once in awhile from my friends who have been toughing it out in NYC for the last decade, and I can hear the incredulous tone in their voices. Implicitly, they are asking, “Really? What the hell’s in Vermont? Buncha cows?” I think they expected, when I headed back to my home state after five years in the Big Apple, that I’d be back.
But I’ll never live anywhere else. I could write a million words on what I love about this town, but as I was meandering around the Lake Champlain waterfront last night doing a camera test, I realized that the footage does a pretty good job of capturing a small slice of what’s so great about this place. There’s no story; it’s just a little snapshot of the Burlington waterfront for anyone who may be interested in seeing it.
And to my New York friends: there’s room on my couch, if you wanna get outta the city this summer. Just sayin’.
Enjoy…
Music by Umphrey’s McGee. Go buy their album.
Tags: vermont, burlington, lake champlain, waterfront, green mountains, tourism, ben and jerry's, kayaking, sailing, lakefront, nature, hiking, beauty
25 May
Hey folks. Wrote this blog for Anna at winwinapps – thought I’d repost it here for those interested. Cheers – NH
So, admittedly I came a little late to the Foursquare game (though comparatively early for Burlington, VT). I didn’t see what all the fuss was about, nor did I feel too comfortable with others knowing my whereabouts all the time. But a few weeks ago I took it for a spin, and found I rather liked it.
My concerns about privacy were quelled when I realized that A) I make a really unlikely candidate for any stalkers using Foursquare, B) I get to choose who gets to follow me, and C) I can even do a “private check-in” if I don’t want anyone to see where I am.
I can see how the app would be a ton of fun in a larger city – especially if all your friends are using it. It encourages spontaneous meet ups between friends in the real world, which is a nice departure from most supposedly “social” media. (Apparently I just missed the Burlington Foursquare Day, which sounds like it provided some of the perks the service offers in larger cities on a daily basis.)
Here in Vermont, though, a lot of us seem to be going through the motions of checking in, earning badges, becoming mayors, and waiting for a critical mass of our friends to begin using Foursquare so we can start organizing flashmobs and getting free pizza. But what I’ve noticed is that even with a lackluster social aspect to the service here, I’m still enjoying the “game” of checking into places and receiving virtual currency for doing so.
Here’s what I estimate my brain is getting from this:
So setting aside for the moment the social and commercial genius of Foursquare (as I have here in Burlington, where there are still only maybe 50-75 Foursquare users), obviously there are other important features that contribute to the psychological stickiness of this app. The question is, how can you apply this to your brand?
In other words, what are you offering your customers – or what can you start offering them – to give them an ego boost, unexpected recognition, something they didn’t have before, and in the process, a little hit of dopamine?
Tags: Facebook, marketing, vermont, strategy, social media, twitter, foursquare, geolocation, web
