Our first class is Object Design: Sketch and Illustration (Tumblr Blog) and is taught by our friend Craighton Berman of Gravity Tank. It’s a great class on object sketching and ideation. It’s been great to work the brain with some free-form thinking about product design and usability. The class goes beyond that with exercises on communicating your idea through various media and building concept visualization.

You may ask…how will this help your clients? Simply put, by going back to basics…forcing us to breakdown our thought process from an old perspective from our college days — one that isn’t worried about budgets, billable time and deadlines. Taking a back-to-basics approach helps to gather ideas in a loose thought environment and will spawn new solutions or designs for our clients.

With just 3 weeks under the belt, I can tell this is going to help bring new insights to all of the future Stalelife projects. Check out some sketches and work from the first few classes.

Some notes and sketches from class.

Developing muscle memory for circle drawing.

Exercise with objects in 2-point perspective.

Around 240,000 people will benefit from the most recent Annual Appeal from World Bicycle Relief. If you don’t know them, WBR is a smart and well-run non-profit that provides sustainable transportation to help people go farther, carry more and cut their travel time considerably.

You can see our full case study here.

A lot of hard work and strategy went into this endeavor – a true team effort between Stalelife and the Communications and Development groups at WBR. Our approach was integrated with old and new tactics, and the results will make us stronger for years to come.

In the end, we surpassed initial goals by 25%, raised the total donation amount and nearly doubled the amount of advocates on the WBR lists. But most important, we helped the group that helps so many. And that feels good.

Tired of the same old Holiday station that plays the same Kenny G, Celine Dion and those other songs that make you want to throw the radio out a window? You know, the ones with the same song rotation since Halloween. (I’m looking at you 93.9 The Lite!).

Well we have the cure for the holiday blues…the WOXY.com Holiday Mixer. WOXY is the official radio station of Stalelife, Inc. (we are big supporters of the Cincinnati station) and the holiday mixer puts us in a great mood. It’s the perfect blend of old classics like The Waitresses (Christmas Wrapping) and Run-DMC (Christmas in Hollis), cult gems like Bob & Doug McKenzie (12 Days of Christmas) and new independent artists like (Hey Guys! It’s Christmas Time!) and The Raveonettes (The Christmas Song).

And if you want to take some of this wonderful music home, WOXY has partnered with the music blog Hard To Find A Friend to bring you the holiday compilation Peace On Eatrth: Vol 2 that benefits the Children Of Uganda Fund.

So visit our friends at The Future of Rock n Roll, give them a listen and stop by their store to pick up some holiday gifts and help support the children and one kick-ass music station.

Happy listening!

Public perception might not matter to a super established brand like IBM – wait, no, they really want people to like their products and services too.

Mid-sized companies, they need it.
Same with the SMBs.

So how can you improve perception? How can you show yourself as a company that cares, a business that has a human side that makes prospects and competitors say out loud “you know what, I really like them.”

Try social media.

It can be tricky – there are a lot of rules to it. Your presence has to be fun and upfront, caring, compassionate and you’ll need to contribute to your community. Your product or service must be up-to-par and able to withstand criticism (sounds like a general rule to me).

But the end results far outweigh the budget – social media is cheap and should be apart of your marketing plan. Especially if you’d like to find brand advocates who tell their friends why they enjoy what you bring to the table.

It’s almost like FREE advertising.

Here are some additional tips:

• Track your campaigns. All major blogging software can provide results on FREE Google Analytics pages. Plus sites like LinkedIN, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter also have tracking or search available. You can even create links that people can share with others, and you can track the usage.

• Let people comment and talk about you. Think about cultivating, not controlling. Encourage discussions on this two-way street.

• Watch the goodwill spread. It will take some time – you won’t see immediate gains. But like any part of a campaign, it needs to blossom to help build your name and your brand.

Here’s one example using something we love, the bicycle. The companies involved are MASH, an innovative cycling products company, and Mellow Johnny’s, a bike shop in Austin owned by Lance Armstrong.

Yeah, that Lance.

We’re not sure who started this conversation, but somehow these two places got together and before you know it Lance is riding a fixed-geared bike all over the city of Austin with guys from MASH. The only real sign about the shop is his hat, but it’s in there.

And once the video was up, it spread like gangbusters. Blogs. Forums. Twitter. 25,000 people saw it on YouTube. Eventually people all ended up at MASH and probably said, “what is this company?”

Now they know. And they think it’s once cool place, that’s for sure. Who knows, they probably even bought an innovative new product or signed up for email alerts.

15 people took the day to celebrate a year of smart marketing and advertising with our crew. It was a good mixture of clients, cohorts and friends. We even saw a SOX 13-8 winner over the Pirates.

Good thing the SOX got that winning idea out of their system before the weekend Cubs series.

See you next year!

We met near the statue dedicated to the 2005 World Champs!

A new Stalelife tradition – wish organist Nancy Faust
a good game for good luck.

All eyes were on the board in the 3rd. Woot!

No doubt Kurt and Matt were discussing the finer points of editing video.
Matt’s recent creations all feature his newborn son, Rylan.

What a good looking crew. Missing a couple of folks from the
full roster in this one.

Stuck with driving duties…thanks, Sid!

We put it on the White Sox scoreboard, but here is
actual proof – our clients rock!

Monday night I caught “Manufactured Landcapes” on the Sundance Channel (it’s OnDemand for Comcast users). It’s a documentary about photographer Edward Burtynsky and his quest to show the impact of the natural landscape and how it’s been changed by industry and population growth. The film strides to not be preachy and let’s the photographer’s work speak to the subject matter.

Burtynsky’s work and vision come through as you see him thrust his camera into the various locations throughout China, Bangladesh and other parts of Asia. The photos show you the impact that the world has with demand for oil, new technology and energy dependence.

One segment that struck a chord, was when he traveled to rural China to a town that breaks down e-waste (old electronics, computers, etc.) and recycles the metals used in manufacturing them. This may seem like a good notion until you learn that they were improperly disposing of computer monitors. Unknown to them, the monitors had harmful chemicals that have seeped into the water table and polluted it beyond human consumption and have it shipped in.

Knowing this makes me want to skip buying any new computers or cell phones and ride my bike everywhere. Please take 80mins out of your life and watch this movie. It’s will change the way you see your impact on the world.

Buy the DVD

But how did this little block influence us? For starters LEGO taught us symmetry, balance and basic building instructions while leaving the floodgates open with our imagination. All of this applies to the foundation of design and creative thinking.

It’s not all kids games. At last years South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival, there was a 6-foot table filled with the childhood staple to sit at and converse the day’s topics while keeping the creativity stirring with the help of LEGO. Even Google is celebrating their imagination’s roots. In fact every couple of years, my brother will buy me a small pack of the latest LEGO set to keep on my desk to help remind me of a time when bills, deadlines and relationships were a forethought and imagination rules my actions.

What’s in store in the wonderful world of LEGO? For starters they are re-issuing early play sets from yesteryear and having the likenesses of both Batman and Indiana Jones in the form of the popular LEGO video game series.

Keep on building, I say. We can’t get enough of the little blocks. Check out the LEGO timelime by clicking here.

I would start college with my sights on one thing, getting into the design program at University of Central Florida. Which was a small and somewhat elite program to get into. (At the time, they only let 48 students a year in the program.) Once in the program, I loved it. Every facet of design I craved…type, color, composition, balance, form…I couldn’t get enough of it. I also love reading about the agencies and their philosophies about design. That sparked another dream, “to someday own my own agency.”

Which brings us to today. All of my dreams are here. I have my own successful agency with one of my closest friends and I love doing it. But as I reflect on my dreams here on Martin Luther King Day, I must pay homage to him because he just didn’t dream for himself. He dreamt for us all, no matter who you were. He inspired us all to not just achieve our dreams but to rise above them and evolve into a better person, a better world. He gave humanity one of our greatest assets…hope.

And for that, we thank you Dr. King.