Who are your career "heroes?"

Last night, I attended an event for the Minneapolis chapter of the Interpublic Group's Women's Leadership Network. A panel of three senior-level women, Nancy Knutson, senior marketing communications manager at Jack Link's, Maureen Bausch, executive vice president for Mall of America and Sona Mehring, founder and executive director of CaringBridge, shared the story of their career trajectory and advice for others wishing to benefit from their expertise. It was moderated by KMSP anchor Robyne Robinson.

In addition to getting multiple packets of Jack Link's beef jerky (a definite plus!), the event got me thinking about my career role models and mentors. One consistent theme among all four women was the role that mentors and their professional heroes played in helping them realize their goals. So, naturally, I started thinking about who my "heroes" are.

The list I came up with surprised me a little. One of them was an obvious choice as a leader in the advertising industry, but the other three were people I know personally who have inspired me - definitely not a conclusion I expected. The list below is in no particular order.

1) David Droga (the obvious choice): David Droga, the founder of Droga5, runs an advertising agency that consistently comes up with some of the most fun and engaging work in the industry. He's smart, creative and uses his influence for positive change (not something that is common in advertising). I love his work for the Tap Project.

Also, love the awesome viral stunt, "bike hero."
Plus, we can't forget the latest Puma website, which I just ran into today - Puma Lift. It's brilliantly fun.

2) Nick O'Neill, creator of AllFacebook.com and the Social Times: I met my friend, Nick, when we both worked at Fleishman Hillard Digital in Washington, DC. At the time, Nick was always talking about how he was starting his own company - not something you usually hear from someone in their mid-twenties with no expendable income. Nick went out, found funders and did it. Two years later, he's a successful entrepreneur.

To directly quote his profile on Facebook, "being highly active in the web and entrepreneurial communities, locally and nationally, Nick helped to bring the first Tech Cocktail to Washington, D.C. With the opening of the Facebook platform, Nick saw a huge opportunity and has become fully dedicated to covering the social networking phenomenon and developing creative applications for clients looking to gain exposure. Since the launch of the platform Nick has been featured on NPR, Fast Company, Practical Ecommerce, The New York Times and multiple other national publications." Nick sets goals and finds ways to accomplish what often doesn't seem possible.

3) Mark Clark, Deputy Program Manager at SAIC: Hands down, Mark is the best boss I've ever had. I worked with him originally at the Fund for Peace. There, Mark developed the Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST), a computer-based model to assess vulnerable, failing and failed countries. Even though, I was only an intern, Mark included me in the work, which ended up providing the background for my Master's thesis. When Mark moved on to his next job at SAIC, he brought me with him as a short-term contractor.

Mark is one of the most intelligent people I've worked with and inspires intellectual curiosity in his coworkers. In addition, Mark has been consistently supportive throughout my professional growth. He is a friend as well as a mentor.

4) Grant Eull, Senior Interactive Art Director at Colle+McVoy: Grant's passion for all things interactive is amazing. It inspires me and excites my passion for the digital field.

Grant was one of the best teachers I had in my time at Brainco. He brings excitement both about the field and his students' work to each class. He is an instructor who truly cares about his students. And, he's a creative who truly loves the interactive field.

I'd love to hear who other people's career "heroes" are. Who are the people that inspire you?

Social media for social change

Yesterday, it was announced that Hugh Jackman is pledging $100,000 to charity based off of Twitter appeals. This seems to be part of an emerging trend of using social media to impact positive social change.

Throughout my life, I've been involved in numerous charitable organizations. I currently volunteer at three - The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), Street Soccer USA and Global Youth Partnership for Africa. The emergence of social media has opened the door for organizations such as these to communicate with much wider audiences and connect more easily with interested parties on a global scale.

One program that has excelled digitally is the Tap Project, a UNICEF project run by the New York-based office of Droga5. The campaign is based on the following premise:

Every day, 4,200 children die of water-related diseases and nearly 900 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water.

Solution: Restaurants would ask their patrons to donate $1 or more for the tap water they usually enjoy for free, and all funds raised would support UNICEF’s efforts to bring clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world.

For this year's World Water Day (March 22) and World Water week, they created Tap Project Radio, an internet radio station to benefit the Tap Project for UNICEF. The project was a week-long collaboration between DJs, musicians, celebrities and advertising icons to raise awareness for the issue. DJs included OK GO, Rilo Kiley, Duran Duran as well as celebrity DJ’s like Elijah Wood and Rosanne Arquette. The goal was to raise $10,000 to give 10,000 kids clean drinking water for 40 days. In addition, they created a Facebook fan page and Twitter feed for the radio station.

There is also a Twitter account for the organization in general. And, they are currently running a video submission contest for "What Water Means to Me" to be featured on their YouTube channel. If you are interested in submitting, you can email your entry to tapproject@unicefusa.org.

More information on the thought process behind the Tap Project can be found here.

Social marketing as an integrated process

Frequently, when people talk about social marketing, the discussion centers on online interactions - facebook, twitter, all the usual suspects. While each of these are great mediums for connection and conversation about brands, these strategies rarely employ successful offline components and virtually never consider starting a social media/marketing campaign in an offline environment.

The Tate Tracks project by Fallon London for the Tate Modern does exactly that. The Tate Modern wanted to engage overlooked audiences in modern art. One main group was teens and young adults. "The Tate's in Southwark, which is a very poor borough, with a lot of disengaged 16-24-year-olds who were not using the facility," said Alex Sullivan, a partner at Fallon London. "So we knew from the off that we had to do something more than the weekend attractions the Tate had previously done. It was more to do with the Tate's main DNA, rather than something here this weekend and gone the next."

Fallon London came up with a great idea. They invited famous musicians to come to the Tate Modern, stroll around the gallery and find a piece of art work that inspired an original song. Rather than allowing the music to be available online, each track was only available in the museum, next to the piece of art that inspired it. To hear the music, teens had to physically come into the Tate Modern and walk through the galleries to find the pieces of art.



The music from Tate Tracks was placed online after the initial success of the offline campaign, giving people around the world access to the tracks and the artwork that inspired each of them.

While bringing musicians in to compose songs based off of art work is not a new idea, the implementation of the project was. Fallon/London won "Best of Show" honors at the 2007 One Show for the Tate Tracks project.

Fallon's Skimmer - Cool app to keep up with your social networks

Today, Fallon launched Skimmer, an Adobe AIR application "designed to streamline, beautify, and enhance the experience of participating in your most frequently used social networking activities." Skimmer streams Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger onto one desktop dashboard. This feed content can be filtered by service, by group, or by keyword. In addition, you have the ability upload pictures and videos to Flickr and Youtube.



I immediately downloaded it to see what I thought. I have to say it did make things a lot easier. I could easily follow what was going on with all my friends on Facebook and Twitter, as well as any blog updates. For me, the only downside was that it got a bit overwhelming since I hadn't grouped my friends yet.

Apparently, (via Creativity Online) the app has launched in conjunction with Fallon's new corporate Web site — employees’ social media activity will be published via Skimmer within Fallon.com. In some ways, I see this as the next step in the evolution of agency sites from the traditional to a site like Modernista's where a floating menu bar that superimposes its logo and a small clickable menu over the top of whatever referring page you clicked from to Fallon's where all employees' social media activity is openly published on the site. While I think this is an interesting idea, I wonder how much monitoring it will take as employees come and go and if it will force employees to be much more private since their whole lives are now fully connected to their employer.

I still don't get Australian Football

I don't understand Australian football. I've watched on TV a few times and found it fascinating. It's a blend of rugby, soccer, and American football, but even after several hours I had no idea what in the world was going on. This ad by George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne, is a lot like that. The ad is for the Australian Football League and does a great job of juxtaposing Australian football against just about any other major sport. So, while I have no real idea what the rules of the game are (yes, I have read the Wikipedia entry on it), the ad is fun and makes me want to watch the sport or even, play it.



Probably the added bonus for me is the use of the Dropkick Murphy's song, Shipping Up to Boston. I love that song. Either way, this ad definitely gets me to agree that the AFL is truly in a league of its own.

Here's a list of the credits:
Client: AFL
Agency: George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne
Executive Creative Director: Ben Coulson
Copywriter: Katie Britton
Art Director: Frank Muller
Agency Producer: Romanca Jasinski,
Mandy Celms
Production Company: Revolver
Director: Steve Rogers
Executive Producer: Michael Ritchie
Producer: Georgina Wilson
Director of Photography: Greig Fraser
Editor: Alexandre De Franceschi
Editorial Company: Guillotine
Post-production: Fin Design & Effects
Flame Artist: Justin Bromley
CG Supervisor: Stuart White
Executive Post Producer: Emma Daines
Post Producer: Billy Becket
Sound Design: Nylon Studios
Sound Designer: Simon Lister
Composer: Cornel Wilczek
Music Company: Level Two

My team won an award!

Last night, my design team won an award from the annual AIGA Minnesota Design show for a piece I conceptualized, the Weber Shandwick Calendar (also known as the Weber Shandwick Minneapolis 2008 Holiday Card). The winners from the juried show were considered some of the “most exceptional creative in the upper Midwest.” I feel very excited that a concept I came up with won an award as well as thrilled that the amazing design work of my team was recognized. The team includes Teri Firkins (our design director), Angie Koehn, Rachael Lybeck, Gerardo Obieta and Leslie Sorum. I feel this was a great showcase of all of their talents. I'm very proud of this piece. The piece will be on display at the Weisman Art Museum through this Sunday, March 22.

Here are the designs for those of you not in Minneapolis.

I've always loved a good competition

I've always loved a good competition. So, it's not surprising that the new Nike ad for Nike Plus strongly appeals to me. The commercial is part of the Men vs. Women virtual running campaign. The race, which started March 13 and ends on April 20, will add up all the kilometers run by men and women across the globe to see who’s the winner, men or women. You can join the virtual running race at www.nikeplus.com, something I'm strongly considering. The ad features Eva Longoria, her husband, NBA player Tony Parker, tennis ace Rodger Federer, Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, long distance runner Paula Radcliffe, hip hop dancer Sofia Boutella and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres (a favorite of mine).



What's interesting is the each celebrity's own point of view on the Men vs. Women rivalry. "Women are generally better organized and more consistent," said marathon world record holder, Paula Radcliffe. "You might see the guys start off a bit faster and probably running at a quicker pace, but they're fair weather runners. If the rain or snow comes in, the guys are going to bottle out!"

Inter Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic countered with, "Men are better competitors. We're more powerful and, mentally, we're tougher ..."

The champion will be determined by winning two of the three categories: total kilometers, average kilometers per runner and the most kilometers run by an individual in a 24-hour period. Throughout the competition, participants will be encouraged to create individual consequences and rewards against their friends and partners, based on the overall gender winner.

The Men vs. Women campaign was created by 72andSunny. The TV ad was directed by Tim Godsall and the music track is Gnarls Barkley's "Run (I am a Natural Disaster)." 72andSunny is also responsible for other creative elements such as print, out-of-home, online films and retail. AKQA created the digital aspects of the campaign.