school #5

I was ahead of the game. Ramping up for portfolio review on the 14th. It was a 76 page file and 69 mgs. I saved. I closed. I right clicked. I hit save a copy. It said, cannot complete request. My file disappeared. Oh, dear! This is not how the weekend was supposed to end. I dare say that I'm glad I don't panic often. In this instance I should be highly upset. I admit that I am not thrilled, but it is not the end of the world. It is simply the end to a weekend. For the rest of my Sunday evening I will enjoy my margarita on the porch and perhaps at 8:00 I will venture in to catch the Simpsons. The lesson is found in Save As. C'est la vie.

a market fact

A siesta leads to a 37% reduction in the risk of dying from a coronary event, according to a U of Athens Medical School study. Researchers studied over 23,000 consumers in Greece, where naps are part of the culture. No participants had heart disease at the study’s beginning. After about six years, those who napped for at least 30 minutes on at least three days a week were about one-third less likely to have died of a heart attack or other cardiac cause.
14WFIE.com | 2.12.07

Thanks E. If I ever have my own business there will be a mandatory Siesta everyday.

for fun #12

I'm making the calls to plan the next trip. The pic is me scuba diving in Dominica. I surfaced and Zaid was completing his ascent. Zaid is in Miami for school, and I will be in Florida next month. Easy enough to plan a quick trip. Thinking about it makes me want to suit-up.

school #4

Update: I was driving home today and realized that some people may not know Mark Fenske. So, I've pasted a picture of his Adcenter bio at the bottom of the post.

About 70 students showed up to Mark Fenske's session this afternoon. I was impressed with the amount of people who attended from all tracks. I tried to take as many notes as possible. Please take into account that I missed some parts, but I was able to scribble all of his major points. He used the Elmo for his presentation.

As many of you know Mark Fenske loves to start his classes with a poem. This is the poem he started with for the "My Love of Planning" session.

Swordfish
by Andrew Hudgins

My fingertips marveled at the silvery shimmer,
already less silver, less shimmery than when it lived.
I never again should cause flesh this beautiful
to be less beautiful, I thought.
At supper
—swordfish—my brother offered up his neighbor
for conversation. He'd shotgunned every TV
in his house, even the puny black-and-white
on the kitchen counter. Buckshot shattered black
granite and splintered yards of Golden Oak.

It wasn't election time or football season.
Maybe his kids had watched Debbie do Dallas.
In the unexpected hush as we considered
slaughtered appliances, my brother's drinking buddy
told my girlfriend she was a pretty lady,
a real pretty lady. She looked like a dream.
One day she'd make a real man really happy.
I barked three hard flat laughs. The lit friend winced
as each blast turned his cheeks a richer red.
My girlfriend closed her eyes and opened them,
her azure eyelids shimmering with jade.
From Volume 189, Number 6, March 2007
Copyright © The Poetry Foundation

From what I gathered, the poem was Fenske's point about how the character in the poem didn't like his actions to the swordfish and didn't want to do it again, but his actions to his friend mirrored his actions to the swordfish.

My Love of Planning

What I Like:
1. Planners don't try to make an ad out of everything.
People don't like ads.
Planners possess a natural curiosity, which seeks the core of every new thing, which looks and appraises each product, each subject as if it could move what they must believe.

2. Planners converse
Argument is a means to wisdom

3. Planners tell the truth
...The most fertile ground is away from the doctrine. That land is all trampled in peoples minds.

4. Planners are schlubs
Planners don't try to be better than the rest of us. Real people don't live in NY, go to clubs, stay at La Mondraine, or drink $100 bottles of wine

5. Planners cry
Feelings are first. Feelings trump. If you ever want to win an argument, feel something.

6. Planners are ad people
"I'm not a planner." John Steele

Planners are good writers. ("I've met two that write better than me," Mark Fenske)
Planners know the game.


(This is where he went into the football metaphor.)
There are two parts to every business: Make and Sell

Football Team
Agency is the offense.
They have a ball and they want to score.
The client is on defense.
In order to get as good a deal and as good work as he can, he goes after the ball.
Each player is selected to do their job.
Blockers keep the defense from getting to the player with the ball.
(......I missed a line here.......)
Runners, throwers, and catchers handle the ball.

There's a breakdown when a person selected for their ability at one-job stops doing it because they want to do another job. In the middle of the play there are two functions on a team, when you do your function the team works.

Planners ----------> Creative
Creatives ----------> Performers

Planning invents something out of nothing.

Two things we aren't looking at:
How work is sold:
1. History - cause and effect
2. Finance of a company

What I Don't Like:
1. Planners think what they wear makes them something.

2. Planners don't read more than I do.

3. Planners won't risk.

There we have the session in a long nutshell. It was interesting. He is different from last year. Calmer...almost shy. Maybe that is because I say hello to him everyday, and he isn't used to such niceties. ha I hope this was fruitful for some. I think he does appreciate planning. He even mentioned his four favorite planners, which I was going to share but thought better. What I've learned is that Fenske simply wants us to get "it." Whatever it may be.

school #3

At noon on Tuesday our very own Mark Fenske is holding a lecture on why he loves planning. I am very curious. For a year and a half I've waited to hear his true thoughts on planning. Now that it's here, I feel it's a set-up.

His Creative Thinking class in the Fall of 2005 became in my mind, the Class of Humility. Every morning we showed up and every morning Fenske made us feel inadequate. In the end, we pulled a legitimate fast one on him. The news was out that he was going back to W+K in Portland. We royally pissed him off with the last project, so he made us redo the assignment for our final class. We all got together and decided that instead of a redo, we wanted to play. We each picked a town that touted THE WORLD'S BIGGEST ________________. (ex. I had LaCrosse, WI with the World's Largest Six Pack) In the middle of each person showing the map and the World's Largest, Fenske stood up and started ranting about how we were crazy and how much trouble we were in. We told him to sit down and be quiet (yes, we did). He sat down defiantly and watched until the final presenter, Cliff, showed a map with all of the cities connected and the final destination as Portland. The city of Portland with The WORLD'S BIGGEST ASSHOLE MARK FENSKE. We presented him with a bottle of Asshole beer. His reaction...silence and then laughter. A defining moment for all of us.

**I should have prefaced and mentioned that I do enjoy Fenske. His love of poetry is something I admire. I learned from his class, and I took away the "getting it" part that we all seem to neglect. I even learned the beauty behind humility.

make you laugh #2

Animal Auditions


This made me laugh. I thought other people could use a laugh after the intense week. Enjoy!

he said she said # 2

Conversation between Richard the Art Director and Dalynn the blogger.

Richard: "Oh, show me that FIFA stuff on your blog."

Dalynn: "I took out the website pics because of the massaging you wanted to do for the final work."

Richard: "Sweet. What is that gray thing." (referring to the blog post on Blipfoto)

Dalynn: Proceeds to show the Richard the Blipfoto website.

Richard: "Oh, that is so cool. Usually we think of planners as boring. I mean...uh...well, you should tell people about these websites: your blog and pictures and stuff. I think it makes you really interesting. It shows you are umm...not boring. I mean the person we know you aren't because we...uhh...know you. I mean usually we thinkg of planners as boring and you aren't. Tell people."

Dalynn: "Umm...thanks. I think."

for fun #11

My professor walked into the building with this boombox in hand. All I have to say is AWESOME.

for fun #10

To Blip is Divine
My name is Dalynn, and I am a blipper. There is small community that exists. It's a community that works and often obsesses about finding the perfect blip of the day. I started blipping in February, and now it is one of my favorite things to do each day. You find yourself searching all day for the best blip. The anticipation when you upload: color, clarity, interestingness. You start to check your blip more than your email. What have your subscribers uploaded? What is Kamran's POV today? How many people have viewed my blip? How many people have commented?

Try it! I think you will find yourself drawn to the community of kindness, and eventually you will call yourself a proud blipper. To Blip is Divine because it gives you unlimited power to make someone smile.

for fun #9

Nothing like a Peep Show.

for fun #8

Something Awful

research

I've been doing research on mobile technology lately, and I ran into this video. It's pretty scary to think of the attachment we develop with our material devices. When I worked at Tech Data, I remember coming in some mornings to a full Inbox. After awhile, I realized it's just as productive to visit my co-worker on the third floor, instead of sending an email. Often times that personal interaction is the key to a more successful project. Visiting vendors and greeting our resellers when they were on campus made for better business interaction than sending a thank you for doing business or thank you for attending email. Don't get me wrong...I'm addicted and going a week with only a land line (I don't even own one) would be extremely difficult. I would hope I could make it longer than 40 hours.

It's one of those things you pass along...



Via: Ayasha Alghas > Fallon Planning > Plannersphere

for fun #7

1. go to www.maps.google.com
2. click on "get directions"
3. type "New York" in the first box (the "from" box)
4. type "London" in the second box (the "to" box)
5. click on "get directions"
6. scroll down to step #23

Click on the picture below to see step #23. It's a decent laugh...

quote

I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.
- James Thurber

explorer

I'm stealing this from Ayasha Alghas' blog. She is a wonderfully brilliant planner friend of mine. Ayasha showed this to me on a scribbled piece of paper during our Russell Davies seminar. I took a few pictures of it that day, but they did not come out well. Searching around her site today I found it and had to repost. Thank you Ayasha. I cannot get the image larger, but I suggest a click, print, and post in your office. Explore the world!

for fun #6

I found POPURLS through a friend from school today. It lists popular urls such as digg, Slashdot, FARK, and flickr. It then takes those popular urls and categorizes the most popular pages on those specific sites. They also have daily comics on the bottom from BLAUGH. Fun enough to share if you want to remain updated on the most popular sites. Enjoy!

startling

** This post contains a video with disturbing content.



The first time I saw this commercial I worked for Tech Data. It was my lunch hour, and I was perusing through my AdRANTs daily. (I had time to peruse in those days ;) I saw this post for the UN Mine Action and clicked on the commercial above. It's been burned in my mind since 2005. Yes, it uses a startling situation that is meant to burn and scar an impression. For me, it is not a negative tactic. The UN flipped the switch and made me think about the simple nature of walking down the street without a risk. Every time I come across this spot, I am compelled to watch.

articles

New York Times, April 1, 2007

I read this article from the NY Times over the weekend. The girls seeking “perfection” are living the life of an adult before they even turn eighteen. As a teenager my parents gave me the freedom to be a young adult. My dad always said, “ I don’t care what you do, I only ask that you graduate college.” Once I got into college, he said, “ I don’t care if you get married the day you graduate, but I only ask you have your diploma in hand first.” My parents never put me in a position to only be number one. They were okay with number two, three, or four. The girls referenced in the article are achieving and learning things under enormous stress and pressure. Number one is their track record. The ultimate goal is to get into an ivy league school, get the best job, live in the best neighborhood, and give their children the very best. I do not think having or being perfect is a bad thing. You can strive to be perfect but perfection doesn’t equal happiness. I simply want to be happy with life. Happy is my success.

My favorite quote from the article: “The bar for achievement keeps being raised for each generation, he said: “Our children start where we finished.”