2011 Year in Review: Personal and Professional

Before I go into my photos, emails and other ways to try and remember 2011 it feels like a small year. Looking back on 2010 2011 pales in comparison. It's also the first year I didn't take many photos so records of the year will be sketchy.

You can also see my other year's reviews here.

2003
2005
2009
2010

Personal Life

I was on a "reality" TV show.
Not strictly a reality TV show (more a doco type show) but they filmed Do or Die with me and 5 other Soapers in the middle of WA. It was "farking hot" but I learned a lot about myself and my team. I signed an NDA so can't reveal more but it'll air in 2012 in April on ABC2

Photos below from Matt who was part of the Soap team.

Had a proper holiday
Ervi and I travelled to Venice, Milan, Madrid and Barcelona Thanks to AirBNB and a strong AUD I had what I think was my best holiday yet. Barcelona blew me away as it wasn't even in my top 20 cities I wanted to visit. We were lucky that our trip to Venice coincided with the Biennale Arte festival.

A bunch of photos here on Ervi's flickr.

And yep I rode a Segway! It was awesome

The view from our rooftop in Barcelona! Thanks AirBNB

Joined Instagram
After joining instagram I then realised that if you want more followers you just follow people. So then proceeded to follow everyone and anything. I grew my followers from 130 to 700 in a matter of days. I also started posting my old faves from Flickr as mydaily life wasn't as photogenic. The interactions with my photos went well, but then I lost interest as I had "gamed" the system and got sick of photos of cats, food and girls getting the most popular photos. I was no better, I posting photos from my zoo visits or kitten photos to bait for hearts.

I was able to post one of my fave photos I've ever taken. This chance find i titles "I SEE BATMAN"

I joined Costco
And tried to make the best of it. I think this is the Housing Commission kid still inside me. Saving money on stuff, counting the cost per 100g but driving 50k there and back to do so :)

I would best describe the situation at Costco in Sydney on the weekend as a "shit fight".

Started Another Blog
I had finally secured areawesome.com and kicked off my world domination with.... bananas!

I have plans to expand but time has been short and this is always a side project just to see if it takes off. Even my link bait women eating a banana hasn't been the click avalanche I was expecting.

Went to E3
I finally attended E3. It was amazing. Even though all the industry veterans I met said "not as good as previous years" it was still amazing to me. Having an exhibitor pass (thanks Activision) meant I got access to anything fast too. As a gamer since the 8bit days this is a dream come true.

I also made sure to "document" the Booth Babes of E3. I just realised I haven't posted any other photos from E3! How sad.

Ouch!

Stayed in Venice, CA with Mike and Nick
Part of this E3 trip was staying with Mike and Nick at their place in Venice. I rode a fixie for the first time down Venice Beach (Garmin stats here). I'm not sure about other people but my balls could not handle the ride on a fixie. I usually stand up to pedal and also roll. No can do on a fixie.

Attended a Transformers Conference
I went to BotCon 2011. Working on the marketing for Transformers: Dark the Moon for Activision and having a conference "near" you was enough reason. Alex drove both of us to Passadena and we rocked out what was a "small" conference to put it nicely. I did get some great photos but I don't think I'll be back for Botcon 2012.

WOW! This was an epic Transformers tattoo piece.

I got an iPhone
After a year of using an Android phone (and being very happy with it as a phone) I got an iPhone so I could raid the App Store. I actually ordered the phone in Oct, it was delivered in November but to the wrong person. Fast forward to April!! and I finally got my phone from this wrong person. It took 6 months, 8 phone calls, 12 emails and a trip to a police but I finally got it back. Hey "wrong person" if you're reading this, you really are a douche.

Also by luck the power button broke just 2 weeks before the warranty expired and got a replacement phone at the Apple store on the spot. So I've essentially got a new iPhone now. I also made sure to tell the Apple "genius" that it's lucky Apple doesn't make cars, because replacing something because of a broken power button just seems silly.

Game Jam 2011
After winning the Global Game Jam Sydney 2010 (no prizes BTW) Soap decided to send another batch of people to the 2011 event. I attended just as a "coach / busy bee" while 4 other Soapers did the 48 hrs. One of the Soap groups had their developer up and leave in the middle of the night while Hendrik and Derek finished their Zombie Sheep game early, with less arguments than my team in 2010 :)

I also helped get some prizes for the comp securing copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops Prestige Edition for all the team members of the winning team. Thanks Arbie & Activision.

Bought a BBQ!
After many years of waiting (for no reason) I went all out and got a Weber Q. I no longer feel jealous when the neighbours fire up their BBQ while I eat wheetbix for dinner. I ended up using the BBQ every day for a good 3 weeks.

This is me BBQing in the park...

Got a new mouse
Goodbye Logitech G5 and hello R.A.T 7. I bought a bunch of these for guys in the office. It's the most customisable mouse but I've hardly customised it. But I like knowing I can. And it looks bad ass

Lanyard Collector
This year was a bumper year for lanyards. I also made my "laynyard collecting" fetish known to others and explained how I treated it like "game hunting". I want to collect them myself not have someone give me one.

Played some Poker
I played 2 matches in AU with the Soap team and came 2nd in my first match. This then set me off and I started playing on the Xbox constantly to skill up and then the next game I folded to death coming 4th but I never even really contended a hand. I then played in LA and came 3rd (I think)

Lee with his winnings from match #1

Ko with his winnings from match #1 in LA

Too many Games
2011 was a huge year for gaming and for the first time I had my games than I could play. I still have Dark Souls, MW3, Saints Row 3, Ace Combat, Rage and Assassins Creed Revelations to finish. Phew.
(Update: Since initially writing this in Dec I have finished Rage and ACR)

And that was it for 2011 on a personal level.

------------------- Professional ---------------------------

In terms of work this year it was actually a pretty strong year. Both on a business level and the individual projects I was able to have an influence on.

Awards
Adnews Agency of the Year & Finalist in the B&T Agency of the Year.
We're still Adnews Agency of the Year until Feb next year when the new winners are announced and we were also in the top 5 for B&T Agency of the Year. B&T also had us down for Employer of the Year too.

We didn't win anything "agency level" at B&T although we did pick up their Digital Campaign of the Year for Pac-Man and 5X picked up Media Campaign of the year. I guess the judges focussed on the other parts of the entry...?

We also won a bunch of other awards mainly for for PAC-MAN and 5X.

World's Biggest PAC-MAN
A combination of lucky brief and simple solution made this my fave project of the year. While no One Show or Cannes glory, I'm happy with the non industry response. Traffic is still solid with 3.4 million visitors in just under a year. Not bad for a campaign with no media spend at all.

We even got tweeted by Alyssa Milano (call me!)

Oh and our first Guinness World Record now! Woo

5X Mutant Gum
5X started in Nov 2010 and it all finished May 2011. It turned out better than I was expecting in some ways and not as good in others. Working with Alex Houghton at OMD on this (he came to us with the idea) was the best media agency experience I have ever had... by a long way. It was also great to see a client as excited by an idea as us.

Global Resistance
This was another project we started in 2010 only to finish in 2011. A companion game for a AAA console release. Dream brief! We pitched and won with a multi-player version of Risk with a PVP tied to a AAA console release! Global Resistance was born.

While the game only reached 63% of our initial scope it turned out well. Working with (and not for) Insomniac Games was pretty amazing too. I think it's the most laughs we've had on a conference call. If I wasn't for Michael Kordahi at Microsoft I'd say they were the most "kindred spirits" Soap have as clients.

I remember in the pitch Insomniac Games asking if we "would be able to keep the enthusiasm up over the long development period" and I'm happy to say we did this with spades!

Diggin' Dogs
Diggin' Dogs is finally finished. Soap's first real AAA iOS game. My hand in this has been minimal. When we wanted to change from steam punk styled worms digging into a brain (that was our original direction) I just said "make it POP CAP CUTE".

The game has been an R&D labour of love for over a year now and something that's been hanging around the office since the 2007 "game in a day" challenge I set! Here is the initial prototype.

Will we make a shed load of cash? I hope so

The reviews have been great so far and I hope we can continue to support the game with the revenue it brings in.

Thumbzilla
We launched another iOS game which had been in R&D for quite a while. Thumbzilla was released in Dec with a soft launch. No trailer, no reviews and the game is 80% there. We're working on a new update and we'll use that 100% game and a trailer to properly launch the game. We actually had the name "Fingerzilla" on the app store but then let that lapse. (you get 6 months) only to see another developer release a Fingerzilla game, which was a hit. The developers name was "Inert Soap" as if it was some cruel joke about procrastination on ideas.

The game is built in Unity 3D so we're looping to port it to android which is much harder for Diggin' Dogs.

Note: Do NOT Google/Bing Thumbzilla as it's also the name of a porn site. Just go direct to Thumbzilla in the App Store and buy it :) This can't be helping sales :)

Got a PB at bowling at the Soap Birthday Party
No more lawn bowls this year we went with Ten Pin to celebrate our 9th year anniversary.

I got a personal best (180) and was able to settle the who is better between myself and Dave. Vote in the poll here about my performance. I also beat Dave again 3 months later in the northern hemisphere when I was in LA with a new PB of 187.

So I'm appointing myself the best bowler at Soap. Brad Coen, the only person to beat me, if you're reading this I want a rematch!

Below is me getting the LA symbol wrong at the Midwown Bowling alley

Soap's Youtube Challenge
I had the idea that we'd create a Yotube challenge to get staff creating content to win cold hard cash.

First to 20,000 views = $500
First to 50,000 views = $1,000
First to 100,000 views = $2,000

Anyone could enter and my entry below had over 100,000 views in 2 days and it took the steam out of everyone else's sail. There were complaints but I scripted, cast, shot, edited and graded this video myself so was within the rules. Never under estimate the power of boobs.

I've donated the 1st and 2nd prize back for someone to win which currently is still up for grabs. Sam's UFO entry is close though!

Shared Our Secrets on Slideshare
Our Facebook Brand Pages for Dummies guide was launched on Ad Age and then took off. It's since received 89,000 views and we've seen the techniques used everywhere. We didn't coin "link bait" but we certainly made it a popular term. One downside to this has been we've had two clients take over a Facebook page we were running for them and use this as the bible.

What inspired us to share so much was that we had seen other agencies in Australia copying our "techniques" and we thought we'd share the secrets with everyone.
Lame claim to fame: Before sharing this presentation there was very little use of "like this post/status if" but we changed that. "Like Baiting" is now a drug that most FB brand pages are addicted to.

Lynx Rules of Rugby
I had nothing to do with this piece but it was our first truly viral video. Yes it has babes but that's no different than having roller skating babies or singing cats. You play to what works for your target.

It was also banned many weeks later by the ASB. Lucky they didn't see our Cornetto clip from 2009!

Spoke at ADMA Digital Days
Carlson Choi (client from Namco) and I spoke in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney about Gamification. I had originally suggested Rajat from Bunchball but he was busy.

This wasn't my most prepared talk and the first time I've had to share the stage with another talker so the flow wasn't great. We got an average rating of 3.5 / 5 in the reviews so some people got worth out of it.

Soap's New Site
Design started in 2009 and it was finally launched in 2011. It already needs to be destroyed and redone for many reasons but it's done. And true to predictions I'm still the one updating it the majority of the time. The agency website is an interesting beast.

Social, Social, Social!
After the success of 100 Days of Summer for Foxtel the social floodgates seemed to open. We grew the social team from 1 to 4 in that time and brought on several new brands through the social gate. Personally social (read: Facebook) is like pop corn. You aren't left very filled at the end of it and it can get stale quickly. But we have been able to do some interesting things and the social foot in the door has opened up clients to other digital work. View our Social Media campaigns here.

I really enjoy being Kronjob on Xbox Australia with Jonothan keeping up my alter ego. It's the one profile where I get to be me. Oh that and responding to posts as Bubble O' Bill. Always a great way to get a laugh.

We also billed over half a million on Facebook ads which has been a real learning experience unto itself. The biggest learning was how to sell it to clients. Media agencies don't focus on results (they can't as they are usually pretty bad) so they focus on the sell.

Note: the same amount of sell and reporting is needed for a $3000 spend as it is for a $100,000 spend. No wonder media agencies are lazy, doing a good job just doesn't matter.

Famewhores!
We worked with a few celebs this year.

Ken Jeong reading my ADR scripts for the Hangover 2 iPhone game was funny even if only 2-3 lines made it into the final game. I need to put these up somewhere as they are LOL funny.

The "5 Gum voice over guy" did some extra Soap lines for us on the side. Oh and my voice mail message.

Kate Ritchie from Home and Away wished us a Happy Birthday

The Jacob's Creek team met Curtis Jobling who designed Bob The Builder! Here's Brad with the man below. Jealous

We Made a Billboard
To celebrate Bubble O Bill Facebook hitting 1 Million fans we created a bill-board (sic) that was just down the road from our office. It was meant to be up for 4 weeks and ended up staying for 3 months.

We made Grassy Street Art
I had little to do with this one but I was able to help it get on Wooster Collective and it's another interesting "non digital" project we did in 2011. Lots of photos here.

Soap Cross Fit
This has been the surprise of the year with the Cross Fit Personal Training becoming a huge success. Around 17 Soapers do this twice a week. After doing a few sessions of Your Shape Fitness and feeling totally knackered I have wisely decided to avoid killing myself at Cross Fit and will just do Your Shape via Kinect like the nerd I am.

Got a new Boardroom Table!
Gone with the old, water damaged table and in with the new custom built ping ping table. Even if you don't play Ping Pong it's a great looking table.

Pitches & New Biz
We capped off the last week of work with 2 new biz wins. We won ING Direct and the digital work for The Avengers for Disney Australia. I've been an ING customer since it first launched and it was surprising to them to see my customer ID # was so low. This wasn't agency BS I really did jump in fast.

2011 on a whole was a solid year for new biz with Ferrero coming on board with Tic Tac, Nutella and Kinder Surprise. Adding to the long list of brands that I use every day and happen to also work for. Seriously all we have to do is work for Milo again and there isn't a brand I use/eat/play regularly that we don't work for.

Jacob's Creek for Pernod Richard was the biggest win and has lead to a lot of interesting work. We've even done a fair amount of print work too! The big idea we won the pitch with will launch in 2012 and that is looking amazing.

No Rob
This was the first full year in which the other Soap co-founder Rob wasn't here. It wasn't as hard as I expected but his presence was missed.

5 Simple Ways to Make Facebook Better for Brands

There's no doubt that brands have drive the success of Facebook in the last year. Every major campaign is plastered with a Facebook URL and brands are pouring millions into advertising to grow their fan base and reach people who would never normally visit their boring brand websites.

But with all that support and money being spent I can't help but feel Facebook needs to up it's game to give brands a much better product. Sure for the users it's fine, people seem to enjoy the sub standard photo feature while Flickr cries in the corner. But for brands and those spending millions we expect a little bit more.

Here's my list on how to make Facebook better for brands. Anyone have other suggestions? I'll check in with my team and see if we can format this into a sexy Slidehare pres which have been quite popular lately.

1: Better Analytics
While Insights has been upgraded it is still pretty sub par. Google Analytics is the base standard these days and those with Omniture will be used to even more. Facebooks insights are poor in comparison. What's worse is this recent trend to consolidate all global pages into one mega page. This is a nightmare for region wanting their own little slice of stats.

Simple fixes for the insights team:
- Provide a way to segment all data by countries, gender, ages. Don't make this available in some 199 tabbed excel doc we want a dashboard for this
- Up to date data. Not 7 day delayed data. Real ltime would be great but we'll settle for next day and then 72hr locked in.
- Ability to add notes: Started campaign, TVC launched. A way to flag when a significant event happened to give the reports context.
- Mobile vs Browser stats: Seems a pretty simple stat to provide.
- Top users: (Privacy permitting) give us a list of the top users based on their interaction with the brand over 7, 28, 90, 365 days
- Let me specify a range greater than 89 days.
- Unique vs Total: Just show this basic stat on tab views.

2: Better Editing Options
Posted a typo to a post. Shit, do we delete it? We can't edit it..... argh! CODE RED.
Why not allow brands to edit posts easily and community managers around the world will have less worry lines.

3: A Better Spam Filter
I feel sorry for some of the larger pages (2 million+ fans) as they are smashed with porn and scam spam 24/7. While the wall allows you to choose what is seen by default online, on mobile it's all posts and no way to filter. This becomes a real mess.

Also there needs to be a way to ban pages from tagging your brand in a post too.

4: Let us upload a tiny profile pic. FFS
It's a little bit hit and miss right now creating a profile pict that works large and small. Why not let us just upload a 50x50 image? Do you not trust us?

5: Better Photo App
The easiest would be "be more like Flickr" but some simple fixes
- Let me edit a photo by uploading a new one in it's place
- Allow users to easily see bigger images. 720x720 isn't big enough sometimes

Seriously though we'd all just settle but better insights. It's also reduce the need for all the 3rd party apps and services that just present the same data in slightly better ways.

Donations, Money & Stuff

I have just finished my tax and reconciled all my expenses and earnings for the year and it's that time again to reflect on the money side of life. What's interesting is I spent a LOT of time thinking, talking and signing papers about money in 2011. Having two business partners leave a business is a very paperwork intensive situation. If you've ever bought property and think the paper work is overwhelming for a mortgage then never go into business.

So just over a year ago I shared some insight into my donations. This was partly to inspire people to donate more and partly narcissistic. But isn't blogging about yourself all about that?

Note: It's actually quite easy to donate when apply rules or siphon off money from you're usual spending.

2011 was a big year for donations for me. I think the combination of the usual guilt I feel (I stole $40 from the MS Read-A-Thon while a teen and still feel guilty), the whole Occupy Wall Street BS and the fact I had so many meetings with bank managers and lawyers on the business side had me feeling in need of a karma boost. Factor in I earned less last year than last year I jumped from donating 2% of my earnings to just over 6%. I was aiming for 5% but clients had a busy year with walks, fights,and moes that needed funding.

Break down from 2004 is below. I need to contact the ATO to get my data from 1995 onwards, although when I worked at McDonald's in '95 I don't remember giving to charity. But from '99 when at Kinkos I had regular donations.

One thing I did learn is that you need to be disciplined in keeping track of all your donations. Some charities are great and give you nice receipts for the end of year tax time while others you can easily miss their single, badly formatted email and that's it.

Charities I support regularly
MSF

UNCHR

Oxfam

WWF

Amnesty

Charities supported in 10/11 year
Beyond Blue
Cancer Council
Cantoo
Movember
Tassie Devil
Barnardos

So my message to anyone who reads this is; In 2012 donate more and buy less stuff.

Dragon Age 2 Review

I did a trade in yesterday and picked up Dragon Age 2. It was between this and Fight Night and I thought the guys in the office would rather play this in their spare time.

Here's a very quick review.

For context: I have played and really liked Mass Effect 2 but never played Dragon Age 1. I was a huge Final Fantasy Fan on the PS1 and I'm a fan of the Assassins Creed series. This is my gaming creds.

What I liked

- I bought it for $28 with the trade in

- It has Dragons in it (well I've killed one large one in the first 9 hrs)

- It hasn't crashed on me

- It's fun to totally smash big groups of people and the battle mechanics are enjoyable.

What I didn't like
- The graphics are ho hum. Made worse by the lack of detail in the environments. You play games like Uncharted 2 which poke you in the eye with awesome and then you get this which feels blocky, boring and generic.

- The voice acting is fucking terrible. In IGN's review they said it was "one of the hall marks of a Bio Ware game is that the voice acting is great". These are the same people who think the Transformers gave a moving performance. The voices either lack any emotion are cliché and ruin the experience. It's like everyone has aspergers syndrome. But that's being kind. They have "Keanu Reeves Syndrome"

If anyone disagrees then go play with your dog in your house and tell me that the simple acting task of "say something nice to your dog" is a complete fail for the main voice actor (male)

- To make the voices worse there is a lot of boring ass talking. I've started to skip all of it. Yay for B button. I realised I listened to all of Assassins Creeds story points but 5% of these.
Bu... Th.... Is.... wh..... That's all I hear now as there is just too much junk talk to pad this game out.

- The missions are boring! Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood had so many mission types you really felt like you were on an adventure. FPS break things up by letting you drive a tank of fly in a robot suit. Final Fantasy gave us little mini games but Dragon Age 2 gives you the same shit over and over. Just bigger enemies. I'm 9 hrs in (speedy 9 hrs as I skipped most of the dialogue) and all I've done is attack and collect. A band of kick ass delivery guys picking up shit from one area and giving it to some random NPC for 50 silver coins. We need a run fast button as 25% of the game is walking around to the next story point.

What's worse is all the levels look the same. IGN said this and I thought "that's because they are looking for it, it can't be that bad" but it is. It's a copy and paste job and get any level designer from Bio Ware drunk and they will tell you. "Oh yeah I dialled that fucker in for shizzle" (note Bio Ware people swear and use hip hop references when drunk)

The more I think about it the more I don't like the game. My hopes were too high and I think Mass Effect with it's sci-fi story had much more latitude to do interesting things with the story and the mission types.

Donations

I'm doing my tax for last year (yes I'm 7 months late as usual) and realised I have not updated my donation chart since 2009.

I dropped in the 08/09 year but came back in 09/10. I was actually way down until I found a random receipt for Fred Hollows foundation for a one off donation I did. If you don't keep track them them it's so easy to forget.

When I look at these donations as a % of my overall earnings it's pretty sad. Here's the chart for the 09/10 year

It's around 2% which is insignificant. I'd feel worse if I had spent more on drugs or alcohol but no, the guilt I feel which fuels my donations is my vice. Which I believe stems from when I did the MS Read-A-Thon as a kid and kept $40 of the money I raised and spent it at Time Zone. This has weighed on me for many years.

So I'm looking to boost my donations for the 10/11 year and I want charity suggestions. Nothing religious please but suggestions. Or should I put it all into the micro funding sites like Kiva?

I currently donate to the following on a regular basis
MSF

UNHCR

Oxfam

WWF

Amnesty

Fred Hollows

One thing I am annoyed about is the amount of emails and junk mail I receive from the charities I do donate to. Oxfam print a huge amount of stuff that I tossed into the bin every month. I've told all the charities that if I receive any junk mail they will stop receiving a donation. Only one has failed so far.

If you want to donate more to charity try looking at new ways to give. You'll be surprised how easy it can be.

Bananas Are Awesome

I've started a new blog network called AreAwesome.com. This is the second attempt after I sold my WTFcostumes site. This one will use subdomains to split all the different sites.

I've started with a pet project Bananas.areawsome.com which is a collection of funny bananas or bananas with drawings on them.

I also did the sexy women eating bananas gallery. Yep link bait but why not.

I doubt bananas will be a huge draw card like the costumes were but costumes.areawesome.com is coming.

2010: A Personal and Professional Wrap Up

I find these end of year wrap ups very therapeutic. These are more for me than anyone else so if you're expecting something insightful below don't read on. It's more of a diary entry with the facts laid out. No real reflections or insight.

Looking back on a year (like 2003) is strange and fun at the same time. Here's the previous years for those interested.

2003 2005 2009

2010 was probably the weirdest year I've had professionally. While 2009 was the biggest personally, as I got married, this year was definitely a year of professional.... upheaval. I spent a long time in meetings with lawyers and signing documents and generally frustrated at how the "system" works. My own laziness and gullibility cost me a lot of money because the "system" doesn't run on common sense but balogna.

But lets concentrate on the good stuff...

Personal Life

I Entered the Red Bull Flugtag
This is one of those "Oh wouldn't that be cool to do but I never will" things. Luckily this year I was the pilot of team Fail Whale in this year's Red Bull Flugtag, Sydney. A big thanks to Robbie, Mark and Aaron for building the craft. And Brad for being the Jelly fish on the day. We were the only entry without wings and we still came 15th! The only other agency that entered Visual Jazz Sydney came 38th!

That's my feet in the photo below. I highly recommend entering the comp if it's on in your area.

I didn't have a costume as I was in the whale.

A New Car

After surviving quite well without a car for 12 years in Sydney we now have a new car. A brand new VW Golf. It's officially my wife's car as I was content to just use the fantastic GoGet service but as Ervi only just got her licence they won't let P's use the cars.

This new car resulted in the need to clean out our garage. Which was filled with empty computer boxes, filing cabinets, tyres, and junk from years of hoarding and collecting for Soap. Lots of visits to the bins, a truck pick up for Soap junk and a shit load of sweeping resulted in a usable lock up garage.

Having driven just 5 times in the last 12 years I feel like a learner again. When we filled out the insurance policy it asked "how many accidents have you had in the last 5 years" I put 0. It never asked a more appropriate question of "How many times have you driven in the last 5 years" which I also would have answered 0. Even Youii who's whole campaign is about asking the right questions didn't ask this. Fools!

The VW Golf is great but I still secretly long for the GTI or R. But I've always been one to live under my means and the nice little Golf suited Ervi's budget.

This was the odometer after the Soap Boot Camp trip to hunter valley. It ended on this as I parked to drop people off at the office.

My Best Presentation Experience: Ignite Sydney

After posting a joke about Google Trends in 2007 I was able to convert this into a presentation for Ignite Sydney. Again I pandered to what I thought the audience would want to hear about with a crowd pleaser topic. This is as close as I'll get to doing stand up, which is another life dream.

The talk is now on Youtube. I bluffed a few screens by going off script but I did well with the audience laughing. If only my voice didn't sound so weird. Ignite is one of the best nights for me, and it's pretty much free (I donated $5 at the entrance).

Here are my slides for those interested.

Below was my fav talk from the night. Again movies and psychology. You can't go wrong.



I probably wont be able to do another Ignite talk as they are trying to mix up the speakers and this was my 2nd talk. But I'll try to convince someone from the Soap team to talk in Feb 2011. The 15 seconds per slide and 20 slide limit is liberating.

Travel: USA Trip #7 was awesome
This time with Ervi. Most of my other trips have been partner free. Which is great for work but boring otherwise. The trip was for the Ad Age Digital conference talk and I added a personal holiday to the end of it.

This trip we visited Las Vegas. I had no idea it was so close to the Grand Canyon as I would have ventured there also had I of known.

Saw the LOVE show by Circ De Soleil

and the Blue Man Group.

Braved the crowds to see the Tim Burton show in MOMA NYC,

ate at Shake Shack,

stumbled into two art shows Mr Brainwash in NYC (we saw Exit Through the Gift Store that same night and the penny dropped who this artist was)

David Choe in LA

did the Top of the Rock

ventured to Brooklyn for the first time.

visited the Getty Center

and the Disney Concert Hall in dirty downtown LA.

Travel: Visited New Orleans!
I was voted onto the ANDY jury for 2010 (an awesome achievement unto itself) and like always met some amazing people and saw some great work. And as always was annoyed at how easily great work can miss out in awards due to political agendas or ignorance.

I even got to say hi to Shepard Fairey who was on the jury. His manager sent us all a hand pulled print. This hangs in the LA office now.

And got to go to a Jay Z concert and sit in a VIP area (fuck yeah!) and got very close to Beyonce
Yes, I seem much cooler than I really am.

Travel: Went to Brisvegas

I judged the Brisbane Art Directions club digital work. Didn't get to see much of Brisbane but did get to go to the video game Mana Bar. And saw Zero Punctuation guy at the door.

Travel: Went to Melbourne for an indie Games Conference

Also realized that indie devs need to suck it up and sell out more sometimes.

Made a good friend with a card carrying Mormon

Josh came over for a 3 month internship from the USA and we had a great time. He'll be joining the Soap LA crew in 2011 which is great. I say card carrying Mormon as I thought that was a figure of speech but it's true, all Mormons are required to carry a card.

Met Nathan from Deeplocal
Probably one of the nicest and most interesting people I have met

 

Bought an Investment Property

I became a landlord after buying a property in the same block as I live. So far it's been very easy as the real estate agent does everything and I can't be assed joining the body corporate. Oh and my first job as landlord.... was to up the rent $20 a week [evil laugh]

Did Movember properly
The previous years I have kept a beard and shaved at the end. This year I spent November with a full moe. It was itchy but we raised $1500 for charity

New Glasses
I didn't realize my old glasses were three years old until the paint started to peel off them. My new specs (see above) go for the big nerd look. They are also 5x heavier than my previous titanium glasses. My nose is slowly getting used to this.

Old glasses below:

Got a Valid Medicare Card
The new glasses prompted me to get a valid Medicare card (needed to bulk bill that eye test). The previous one expired in 2007. This also reminds me that I haven't been to the doctor in three years?!

Got a Smart Phone & used it like a dumbass
We got a free Nexus One in the office (thanks to a Unity licence) and I snapped it up. This was after having a Nokia 6280 for 4 years. It still works but I got sick of not having a properly synced calendar and remote email access.

I then proceeded to be an idiot and rack up $700 in data charges in 2 months! My tears to the 3 operator got me a 50% discount.... luckily. I'm now still waiting for my iPhone 4 because as much as I like the Android platform I want access to all the apps and games the App store offers.

Discovered new music I liked
I didn't post that much to Sleevage this year but I was able to discover some new music (well new to me) over the last 12 months.

Moderat
I put these guys on high rotation late in 2010.

Nina Simone
I'm probably the last person on earth to discover the name of the singer of so many classic songs.

The Temper Trap
Ok this is borderline but the wife likes them so I'll play along. They are Aussie so that helps.

Wax Tailor
This has been played a lot in the office and I finally asked "who is this playing?"

Santogold
This would be my karaoke song if it wasn't so embarrassing.

Broken Bells
This really grew on me. Thanks to Rob for the tip.

Saw a Double Rainbow
Didn't think to make a video of the experience. I saw this while at the Cockatoo Island for the Biennale.

 

 

Professional Life
As someone who is obsessed with work I find it hard to separate professional and personal life. I also find it hard to relax and not think about work. It's a hobby and a career. Here's some of the big events of the year outside of actual projects.

Won Digital Agency of the Year

After many years of being runners up or finalists in these agency awards we finally won Adnews Digital Agency of the Year. A huge win for the team who worked their asses off.
We were runners up for B&T Awards also. I'm still confused how they judge these things and believe you really can't win by being honest. It's more about the grand story than reality. One agency will win B&T Awards but then not even be short listed for the Adnews awards. How that happens shows you the impact the jury has.

We followed that up with not even being short listed for the 2010 B&T Awards this year :( I nice dose of reality.

Speaking of award blue balls we were shortlisted for 10 AIMIA awards this year and walked away with none. Luckily we called their bluff and didn't send anyone to the actual event. We spent that money towards dinners for the team.

Won the Sydney Global Game Jam
Hendrik and I spent 48 hrs locked in the Powerhouse Museum for the Global Game Jam. Our team (Hendrik & myself and a UNSW student Sash) actually made our game in 38 hrs for the Global Game Jam as we went home for a good sleep on the last night. The game was featured on Good Game and some other shows but I don't have video of that :(

Here's a video of the game play and you can play Tentacle Assassin yourself here. I did the majority of the code (AS2!) and audio and Hendrik did the art while Sash did support code.

And yes we chose a theme that would play to the audience as who doesn't love lots of blood.

Funny story: it was 1 hr before the final presentation when we were told out game could not be shown due to the small kids in the audience. After lots of protest (read: whining) we were allowed to display it with a warning to the kiddies.

It was a great event and I met Dan Graf from Dr D studios and Sash from Bit Battalion who I still talk to regularly. It got a little tense around 20 hrs in but we made it through.

Working 38hrs straight, after already doing a full day of work at Soap takes the wind out of you. Especially when Glenn is yelling at his computer every 5 minutes for his game Gnilley.

Ate a Shit Sandwich (but I ordered it)
When I launched the Hot & Cold list early in the year I did not expect the large amount of poo thrown my way. Some of it my own fault for trying to make everyone happy but I don't think I deserved it all. I was also personally hurt by the lack of support from a few people. But lessons learned are valuable;

• You will never make everyone happy, so don't try.
• Be 100% clear about what is going to happen. Leave nothing for assumptions
• Explain the decision process behind what's happening
• Organizing anything by committee is a waste of time. Nothing will ever get done otherwise
• Hypocrites don't like being told they are one, so don't bother alerting them to the fact

Read about the Hot + Cold list here

Had two business partners leave in < 3 months
Good things always come to an end but you are never prepared for it. Having two of my three business partners leave around the same time hurts a lot. Business is well but like in all breakups the financial and emotional burden of the departures will be felt for a few years to come.

I've delayed my platinum grillz for few more years. I also felt embarrassed that this happened. It feels like a failure to have this happen when in reality it's just part of business.

Spoke at Ad Age Digital 2010
I was one of the last speakers of the Ad Age Digital event so the crowd thinned out a little. I was happy with my performance and it was one of the first times I have rehearsed with a complete script (which is the only way to do this). I was happier when the presentation got picked up and viewed more than 40,000 times on Slideshare and Soap's #1 presentation (so far)

Soap White Papers: 10 Facebook Myths Busted
We made a big effort at Soap to knowledge share and raise our profile within the industry. The 10 Facebook Myths Busted was the first effort and it was received well. Other planned papers have been delayed until 2011 but they are shaping up nicely. Putting the time into these presentations, without the burden of a deadline, is tough. As there are multiple people who work on it without a proper owner it will never get done.

Soap Creative - 10 Facebook Myths Busted

Soap R&D
After so many years of being busy to the point of it being silly we had a couple of months where the work calmed down enough for us to develop some of the R&D projects we have had lying around and catch up on a elements like Iphone development which we had fallen behind on.

The Meeting Game
It felt like years because it was but The Meeting Game was completed in 2010. Born out of a few too many long meetings we decided to create a card game that you could play at any meeting. Selection, copy and illustrations all done by committee guaranteed this took much longer than it needed. Humor is a tough won to do by committee as what makes someone else laugh or a pop culture reference doesn't always translate. However it turned out better than I had hoped for and if you want a set send me an email, we still have a few hundred packs left.

Spin Da Wheel: Iphone
We actually had this as part of a pitch back in 2008, we wont the pitch and then the client disappeared. It was a nice simple app to test out our iPhone skills on. It's Spin Da Wheel and not Spin The Wheel as the latter gets cropped on the iPhone to Spin The Whe..

Lava Ball: Iphone
Our first game for the iPhone and Mark's idea which I remembered from a random conversation the year before. The game has had over 220,000 downloads due to it being featured by Apple. We also had a lot of hate on it with people calling it "racist", only in the US app store. I will admit when Joms did the first version of the character with bright red lips I made him change it. But no offence was meant.

Mower Race: Iphone
This is the nicest looking iPhone game we have made. Only problem is the game was way too hard. The game was a re-skin of The Chicken Race which we made for Ubisoft previously. I love the art style for this and hope we can do more like this in the future.

The iPhone app store is a funny beast and we learned a lot in 2010.

Projects lined up for R&D in 2011 are much stronger and a few have some real revenue potential. We have 3 iPhone games mid way through production, each of them completely different, and each I think could be winners. It will be interesting when one game/app does hit gold and we generate a wad of cash. Client work might not get the priority it does now.

We opened and closed an office
We counted those chickens before they hatched. But that's because we had a contract from the chicken's procurement department.... Soap briefly opened a Melbourne office and then then shut it. We're lucky the impact was minimal but it was one of those times when being a business owner sucked. A few lessons learned there also.

I Now Know Why Most Media People Are Lazy
Having now dabbled in media on a small level I understand now why media people are lazy. It's hard work optimizing a media plan mid campaign and clients care more about getting regular, easy to read reports than the actual results.

I'm sorry I didn't get that report done I spent all my time optimizing the media for better results. Oh you don't care...

It's must easier to give the standard template buy, so the results can be input into the standard template for standard results. Sad really.

Moved Desks into the "Management Area"

After sitting and working right next to everyone in the office for 8 years I finally moved to a new area of the office. I even made us of the whiteboard which sat outside to give myself a pseudo office wall. This protects me from the incoming ping pong balls (the ping pong room is also my new office area) and also I don't get distracted as much. I'm attracted to shiny things.

Previously I sat right in the middle of the office and I'd always try to answer other people's questions (even when not asked to me directly), check out other people's screens and basically keep distracted. This always reduced the actual amount of "work" I did during business hours.

What stopped me from moving earlier was I was afraid it would create an "us and them" mentality. This feeling subsided when I met Michael at the Firstborn NYC office. He has his own secret office on another level to get his shit done! The account management and other management staff have their own private office too.

Another reason was to make room for the new staff as we're running out of seats.

However the biggest reason was because I saw this 37 Signals talk on TED, saw Jason talk in NYC & read the book "REWORK".

He reminds me of Justin Timerlake meets Screech from Saved by the Bell. This really made me rethink how I work and I immediately sent this to all staff at Soap.

Unfortunately not everyone shares this simple idea. But for me it's worked. I regularly relapse and will walk around annoying people for no other reason than I want to say hi but I'm getting better.



Sharing my role

I promoted Mark Fennel to share my role with me and moved him away from the general production work. This has had the biggest impact on my daily work life. Mark has taken a lot of daily management of the dev team off my hands, he's taken charge on a lot of internal initiatives that I had let stagnate and also freed me up to think on projects in a deeper way, rather than skim across them.

I've known Mark since 1999 when he was running Flashkit. He was the guy who invited me for my first ever speaking event at Flashkit 2001. Mark not only has the skills to manage people and do the work himself he shares my attitude when it comes to getting things done.

Make it work,

then make it sexy,

then make it better.

It was hard to take him off production as he just gets shit done, fast. But it was the right move

The idea to share my role didn't come to me (arrogance I think) until I I initially interviewed someone for a general developer role. The way he described his experience at UK agencies had me excited that he could handle all the things that I was not good at and we could share the burden of overseeing the technical side so many projects. I then described to him my perfect role and how we'd share it. It would be awesome.

He took another job at a rival agency sighting "I want to have 100% of the responsibility and 100% of the success or failure". I then realized I had sold to him my perfect role, not his. Mark then approached me about the role and we went from there. Perfect timing.

Soap Got Broken Into

There seems to be a serial agency theft gang as Droga 5 and Design Royale also got hit less than 1 month apart. They took three crappy Dell laptops which we only got replaced this week. They wont be back again as we don't leave the good stuff in the office. If only they stole my old Mac laptop!

This was the one time I had my phone off for the weekend. And as I'm first on the security call list by the time the call got to me and I ran over to the office it was too late. I live 5 min (or 3 min when I run like a mofo) so if my phone was on I might have been there in time to see something.

Hey ladies... get funky [cow bell SFX]
We're not sure how it happened but Soap now has seven women working in the Sydney office. From the low of 2009 with two we have defiently ramped up the dosage of estrogen. The LA office has the token female Bianca who only joined last month so they still have a long way to go.

This male dominance is not by choice it's just how we have evolved.

New Soap Site!

Hahaha kidding, it's still not ready yet! After starting in May 2009 and then me finally saying "Fuck it there's an LOL cat on the site now lets get the new site up by March 21, 2010 fast to get rid of that dumb cat". Now after having that stupid cat sit there for 9 months Soap now has a new "holding site" which took exactly 10 hrs to put together by the LA office.

The actual site will launch Jan 7 after we took a knife and removed half the unfinished sections. I'm not sure whether I'm angry or disappointed it didn't get done earlier but I am still confused why the project was avoided. But that is the nature of internal projects, they seem insignificant and there are better things to do... like ping pong.

So that's basically 2010 for me.

A big year as always with highs and lows. I'm looking forward to 2011 as the major distractions for 2010 are all dealt with. There are still more challenges ahead but all seem small compared to 2010's.

A sad love story.

It has been a long time since we have seen each other. Have you forgotten about me. I feel neglected, dirty and used. I used to be your favourite.

Remember when we first met? That video store in the shopping mall back in 95. It was love at first site. You picked me up and we spent the entire weekend together. It was weeks before your smell came off me.

After that it was 3 even 4 times a week we'd be together. Friends used to comment that we were together too much but you didn't care it felt right. It WAS right. I loved those days. But now they're gone. A distant memory that makes me cry even writing this.

Have you stopped loving me because I haven't cleaned myself up? Those were accidents and I tried to get clean but it was so hard you know that you tried but it only made it worse.

Or is it because I'm getting old and you found some younger model to replace me?

You bastard... You fucking bastard!

I can't remember the last time you took me out. You just want to sleep with me and keep me locked up.

I had you inside me!! and you won't even take me to the fucking movies now let alone a restaurant.

It's over isn't it? I knew deep down it was over but I didn't want to face reality. I was warned this day would come. I heard the whispers, the stories but I never suspected it would happen this fast.

Please don't throw me out, I'll stick around. Just out of respect.... don't use me as a rag.

Dedicated to my old Akira shirt 1995-2010 (pictured) which has now fallen apart and is unwearable :( You were my fav.

links for 2010-10-19

• Pac Man and the ghosts costumes
  (tags: pacman)

links for 2010-10-17

• The Official Resistance Series Timeline - News - GameInformer.com
  (tags: resistance)

links for 2010-10-14

• Amazon.com: Moleskine Limited Edition: Pac-Man Gift Set Volant Large (9788862935623): Moleskine: Books
  (tags: pacman)
• Amazon.com: Moleskine Limited Edition: Pac-Man Black Ruled Pocket (9788862935586): Moleskine: Books
  (tags: pacman)
• The Pac-Man Dossier
  (tags: pacman)
• Iwatani toont originele schetsen voor Pac-Man | Control | Vakblad voor de gamesindustrie
  (tags: pacman)

Facebook Ads for Online Dating

Facebook has this great feature that lets you create run of site ads and it estimates the reach based on the data users have entered. This is also a fascinating market research tool as most people enter the correct data in on their Facebook account. With 9.4M users in Australia registered (40% of the population) this is like a free survey tool. Note: when there are multiple terms it combines them all. These are not &'s but OR's. So I thought why spend money on dating sites when you can use Facebook ads to target the person of your dreams. I do have sad news for the guys though. We are out numbered when it comes to niche "likes". So don't be picky
Some interesting findings. Note: I took all of these from Australia. You should try in your country. There is no money in a goth dating site Guys: You are 343% more likely to get laid at a Star Wars convention than a Star Trek convention. Ladies: There are more male Justin Bieber fans out there than there is women to go around. This could be some very smart guys tagging their profiles for the impending searches. Guys: If you ever meet a female single Linux fan in person propose to her on the spot. Ladies: there are 431% more gamers out there with a proper education (and I assume a job) so you can afford to be picky. The best thing about Facebook is you can really target the type of person you would like to meet. Once you have your target you create ads and go from there. Just direct them to your profile's custom tab explaining how much of an eligible partner you are. Im not sure anyone has ever done this but I think it's worth a test Here is a sample target I made up. I was looking for the type of girl you find in a Revenge of the Nerds film. There are 460 in Australia!
The biggest surprise was that from 2.1M women aged 18-30 only 700k are interested in men :( Ouch! Also with the Facebook suggested topics not many people like "afternoon sex" as it didn't come up in the suggestions. Oh if you are wondering 50% more women prefer "cuddles" over sex so make sure to mention that :) Like when I spoke about Google Trends at Ignite, one you start looking at this stuff it's addictive.

Ignite Sydney: A Look at Google Trends

My Ignite Sydney talk on Google Trends is now on Youtube. I bluffed a few screens by going off script but I did well with the audience laughing. If only my voice didn't sound so weird.

Ignite is one of the best nights for me as the speakers are always good. Below was my fav from the night and it's pretty much free (I donated $5 at the entrance)

I probably wont be able to do another Ignite talk as they are trying to mix up the speakers and this was my 2nd talk. But I'm trying to convince everyone I know to do one as it's a great experience and the 15 seconds and 20 slides rule makes it easy to stay focussed.

Random Thoughts

Having a Twitter account and other blogs (which I've also neglected) it's hard to find time to post on a personal blog. Every time I really felt the urge to go all "Doogie Howser" the subject I want to post about is better suited to a secret blog, one that isnt traced back to me as sharing more personal issues and problem would cause too many problems for me (in case the wife reads... hello Ervi) & Soap.

So I give you a grab bag assortment of thoughts in no particular order. Spelling errors and other grammatical mistakes are left in as Im too lazy to audit.

A New Car

After surviving quite well without a car for 12 years in Sydney we now have a new car. A brand new VW Golf. It's officially my wife's car as I was content to just use the fantastic GoGet service but as Ervi only just got her licence they won't let P's use the cars.

This new car resulted in the need to clean out our garage. Which was filled with empty computer boxes, filing cabinets, tyres, and junk from years of hording and collecting for Soap. Lots of visits to the bins, a truck pick up for Soap junk and a shit load of sweeping resulted in a usable lock up garage.

Having driven just 5 times in the last 12 years I feel like a learner again. When we filled out the insurance policy it asked "how many accidents have you had in the last 5 years" I put 0. It never asked a more appropriate question of "How many times have you driven in the last 5 years" which I also would have answered 0. Even Youii who's whole campaign is about asking the right questions didn't ask this. Silly fools!

The VW Golf is great but I still secretly long for the GTI or R. But I've always been one to live under my means and the nice little Golf suited Ervi's budget.

After driving to Ikea and Bunnings I have ticked off all the items I needed a car for. Now I sit around wondering where to drive to with no good ideas. I expect a trip to Palm Beach sometime just because that's what everyone recommended. But after living on the Gold Coast for 14 years a beach doesn't interest me.

Ignite Talk on Google Trends
After years of wanting to present this ( i posted about this back in 2007) I finally got to give my presentation (stand up routine) on Google Trends. See the slides and script here. It went down really well and now I don't really want to do a presentation again as I wont go as well.

Facebook Myths
It is so hard not to drink the Facebook coolaid. The dominance of the platform blind sides you to the fact that it is just part of the puzzle not the actual puzzle itself. Remember when blogs were cool? I do I was trying to sell blogs into clients back in 2003 (with no success). No one seems to talk about forums but they are still alive and strong. It just seems to be that if you tick Facebook and Twitter you're golden.

Remember when social media was new? I do, I remember Lara from Yahoo! asking me about in 2004! and I researched from there. If only I persisted... See the post about that here.

Classical Music
The two radio stations I listen to exclusively now are ABC Classical 92.9 and 102.5 (2MBS which I had to google I had no idea of the name)

Why? because if I hear the fucking Spaceship song again I'll go into a DJ rage. It'd hate it less if the filmclip was good but it's terrible.

This is how you do a Benny Bennasi filmclip (better song too)

Seriously though when your days are filled with meetings, proposals, code, questions, answers and business decisions the last thing you want to listen to is more noise. Classical music is great to just be alone in your thoguhts and relax. Just like a good session on the XBOX360 you can just focus on that for a few hrs to rest the brain.

Too Many Games
After winning Xbox Australia as a client I now get free games from 3 publishers Ubisoft, Activision and Microsoft). It's to the point where I look at a games catalogue and have played everything I wanted. Red Dead Redemption being the first game I bought in a while. I still have Transformers, Crackdown 2 and the last part of Alan Wake to go through. I do love spending my days talking about Halo Reach, Marvel characters and why Deadpool is awesome. Sad note is I don't have an unlimited XBOX points account so I still have to pay for games like LIMBO. Which was awesome BTW.

Movies
Inception is the first film in a long time I am super excited to see.
Still watched a heap of films with docos on popular culture always top of my list
Good Hair
Food Inc.
both deserve a watch

The Male/Female lead RomCom Action Genre
2010 is the year of the Male/Female lead RomCom/Action genre. 3 big films with 6 big stars all in a short time frame.

Date Night
Killers
Knight & Day

Date Night wasn't bad but it seems they all want another Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Foursquare: It sucks I want YELP!
After spending a week in NYC I came to the conclusion that YELP! is not only a much better service but it's used much more by consumers and businesses. I used a Foursquare deal at a Cafe and the 2 staff had no idea what it was. "Our boss does these things on the net and we don't know"... I still got 15% off by checking in.

I saw about 10 x "We're loved on Yelp!" stickers than I did anything related to Foursquare (even Facebook) at cafes, restaurants and small stores in NYC. So why does everyone talk about Foursquare? Echo chamber of BS

Any time I wanted to know where to eat I went to YELP! Foursquare showed me that someone had checked into a cab, a train station or multiple restaurants but I had to sift through all the tips (if there was any) just to see if it was good or not.

Please Google, bring Yelp to Australia we need it. UrbanSpoon on the iphone is terribly slow and not user friendly.

Mobile Food Vans
Why does LA have these amazing mobile food vans and Australia just get Mr Whippy? I enjoyed fresh spring rolls, burgers and other great food at these vans while in LA. I missed the Kogi van though.

Is there a law stopping this happening in Australia or are we just behind the times? Huge opportunity here

Thank god LOST is over
The show is finally gone from required viewing. The finale reminded me of Land of the Lost with the dodgy camera shake. The reason I watched Lost was because I thought it would lead somewhere. Damn them for wasting my time.

New Glasses or Laser Eye Surgery
After finding my fav pair of glasses I now need to get new ones. Knowing full well I wont find a pair that suit me as much. I could go Laser Eye Surgery but still too scared even though the 6 people I know who have have surgery had great results.

Lavaball Iphone Game

Soap's first iPhone game Lavaball is now in the App Store. It's free, its fun and it's easy to play. Waste 5 minutes playing Lava Ball. Part Monkeyball part Pocket God.

"You are Mr L'ava L'ava, volcano deity of the Pee Pee Islands. Once upon a time the Pee Pee feared and worshipped you, but times of peace have made them lazy and complacent.

Its time to remind them once again who is boss. Use your device to control Mr L'ava L'ava's fiery balls, smiting and scourging and smouldering all those who have forgotten you.

Eight tricky levels await, rock n roll time!"

I've seen images and a beta of our next game (a paid game) and it's looking awesome. And Mark's next iphone Unity3D game is looking even more fun. Again it involved killing lots of people.

We also have a useful app (we make those too) that's in the final stages. It's something I'd use daily.

Note: Our first app for the iPhone was Glass Busker but it's not really a game.

Damned If You Do

Today we launched the Digital Agency HOT+COLD list for Campaign Brief and Bannerblog.

The idea has been in flux for a while and after many emails between lots of different parties it's all complete.

Debate over how much awards should factor in (some wanted it 50-100% based on awards), should size be based off billings vs staff numbers (I pushed for staff numbers as a much easier figure to audit), should it be in Campaign Brief, let's get AIMIA or IAB involved, lets rate by technology, lets make it like the NMA list etc etc.

The NMA list in the UK bases all agencies on their digital billings. Agencies are ranked from 1-100 and NMA seem to have the respect of all the agencies and being on the list seems to be enjoyed by most. Even the ones lower down.

One thing I realised half way through the Hot+Cold process was that if I ever floated the idea of "a blog for banners what does everyone think?" the site would have never been made. It would have been just a series of emailed opinions about how it should work and how it wont work.

I also realised it's a major hassle to wrangle judges to do something. It's a real hassle chasing people for info, scores, comments. I should have charged for entries :) All the judges did their job though so I can't complain too much. It was also a good cross section. Some were very harsh while others were very lenient. The range of scores ended up at 21-79 so they all cancelled each other out into the middle.

So the list is up and come major agencies asked not to be part. They had their reasons but these are the same agencies that enter "agency of the year" comps but won't agree to be ranked with all other agencies. This seems like a double standard to me. Why enter B&T and AdNews with their secret juries and not Bannerblog and a known jury of peers? Anyway, I take stuff personally when I shouldn't.

The list would have been created with or without my involvement by Campaign Brief. I jumped at the chance to work on it for multiple reasons but mostly to ensure that it was judged by a proper digital jury and not just Michael Lynch's friends. No offence Lynchy :)

I could have just judged it all myself and done it as an opinion piece like this post by Visual Jazz's Stuart. My list would look a lot different from the one we ended up with and I also would not have asked for agencies permission and submissions. Much easier but meaningless. I would have also been influenced by 2008 work. Many agencies I thought were killing it a lot of the work I remember was form 2008. Other agencies I had never heard of had solid 2009 years.

I had best intentions when wanting to start the list in 2008 and still do. But with all the BS that comes your way (and my nature to take to everything to heart) it feels like it wasn't worth it. Hopefully after the next round of updates and more agencies are added people will start to see the worth of it.

It certainly has to have more worth than the recent Forester report of 6 agencies.

Next steps for me will be to talk to AIMIA and IAB and see if this is something they want to carry the torch for it and Bannerblog can just host it. This might convince the other agencies that it's something worth while being involved in. Before this there was comprehensive list of digital agencies in Australia and maybe I should have just started with that.

So damned if you do and damned if you dont. I've been in this boat many times and it always makes me feel uneasy.

Its much easier doing nothing that's for sure. I've had some tough decisions at work also with the same outcome. Either way I get a shit sandwich, only difference is you can choose which bread you'd like beforehand.

2003: Year In Review

While looking for an old document of junk I found this Year in Review document. I present it to you in unedited form. Note: If only I data vized my stats I would have had 3 years on Feltron.

I'm unsure why I didn't post this. It's quite funny to me now.

I did a year in review for 2005 and for last year.

2003 Year In review:

Soap went from 3 people to 2, then to 3, then 4 then 5.

The first full year of working for myself.

We launched a new website in December which we started in January.
Had a client get arrested and go to jail for importing $100M+ of Ecstacy. We never saw our money.

We bought a heater, 3 Emacs, 2 PC's and 2 printers. And numerous software. We also bought numerous chairs which will all be obsolete in January 2004

Did our first eyeblaster banners with Syrup.

Completed our first commercial CDROM job for Contiki and HOST.

Built our first flash desktop app for Big Brother 03.

First mentioned in B&T for Moboy and Big Brother

Got the Flash Forward award we won last year from Leo

----------
I retired my laptop to work on a Emac. The took my laptop out of retirement with OSX 10.3 to work occasionally at home.

Bought an IPOD. Converted all my CD's to MP4's. Realized Itunes was useful.

TOP Songs/Albums of 2003: According to Ipods Play Counts:
24 Doves: Lost Souls: Firesuite
22 Coldplay: A Rush of Blood: Clocks:
22 COldplay: Parachutes: Shiver
21 The Prodigy: The Fat of the Land: Climbatize
The Shins: Og Inverted World: Caring is Creepy:
AIR: Moon Safari: Sexy Boy
Cat Power: Moon Safari: Cross Bones Style
Eels: Novacaine for the Soul
Easy Me: Faith No More
Oh Yeah: Yellow

Faith No More is the only artist i own a CD off. The rest I burnt from friends. Weird they should make up the top 25 in my Top played songs:

Only Smashing Pumpkins with 1979 and the before-mentioned Faith No More are the lone artist's in my Top 40 of which I own CD's of. I guess my friends have good taste and I'm a stingy bastard.

Finally understood XML and it's worth

The first full year in sydney I have lived in the same apartment.

In December I finally bought a PS2 and tried to make up for lost time.

I raised $2,150 for Oxfam to travel to China only to have SARS and work interrupted plans.

I Visited Melbourne for the first time.
Visited QLD twice

>> Spoke at 2 conferences this year: Flashklt and Digit. Both ill-prepared but went down well. Also got asked to speak in Singapore (free flight) only to have a job due the same day. Then find out the job is delayed.

My little sister moved in to live with me for a while.

Still haven't got Private Health Cover, Insurance or Laser Eye Surgery.

We bought a new kettle.

Bought a DVD player to go with the DVD's i own.
http://www.theslipperytruffle.com/v4/archives/2003_06.html#000972

Finally started paying for dialup after my free UUNET account stopped working.

Realised i can make good smoothies. Made and consumed around 50

Bought my first ever suit for Robs wedding.

Finally got a electric toothbrush

Realised i like Felafel Kebabs from Ali Baba. Bought and consumed about 15

Sworn off soft drink about 10 times

Got a new mobile phone (Siemens S55) and have hated it ever since.

Number of times vomited: 4
Number of Migraines: 3
Number of fights: 0
Distance i drove a car: 0km
Number of Weddings Attended: 1
Pairs of Shoes bought: 1
Pairs of Shoes worn: 3
Number of times rent paid late: 18
Number of times sunburnt: 1
Allnighters at work: 3
Number of times went to bed before 12am: 50

won ticket to premier of Matrix 2. 1 ticket!!!! I sat behind Jimmy Barnes and next to 2 suited people. I saw the president from 24 on the Red Carpet

i made a google #1
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=bored+stiffy+in+public+places&meta=

Photo Round Up

Here's a few photos I forgot to post until today.

Havainas Thong Challenge Bondi 2010
One of the best brand PR stunts/promos I've seen. Great vibe, well organised and a huge success.

Moldy Science Project Cheese
Found in the fridge today! WTF the dust that came off this was insane

NYE
The fireworks were as they have always been. The same. At least this guy was entertaining for 5 minutes.

Xmas Lunch
Kastengels (buttery and cheesy indo cookies) made with a secret family recipe. So secret when people ask for it they get a "different" one.

Sharemate Wanted
You had me at free toilet paper!

Min 2 weeks Max 3 weeks! Wow that's some tight restrictions.

Fail on the way the phone number is typed and pre-torn. I want to ring just to tell him he's an idiot.

My Lanyard Collection
Including my name badges from all my casual jobs. View on flickr for notes with most detailed. I hate when I visit a company and they make me give these back.

Coffee Cup with a Moe
How adding 5c of fabric and some glue can turn your coffee mug into an interesting selling point for your cafe. I don't drink coffee but I wanted to buy a cup

A Sad Case of Blog ADD

toothpastefordinner.com

I have a serious case of Blog ADD. Here's my train of thought for a typical lazy raining Sunday. Part of getting over this problem is sharing the problem so here goes.

I'll get a list of posts I need to do for Sleevage (including ones that I have promised bands and designers sorry guys) and start researching a post. I'll then end up with 25 tabs open and then see something about an underground dance party and start to flag that for the underground blog. By this time I've forgotten about Sleevage. Either that or my tabs crash and I lose all the links.

I'll then see a banner on one of these sites that reminds me to audit the submissions for Bannerblog. I'll look through those which is also littered with viral videos and campaigns. While checking out them I'll see something which triggers a thought for this site.

It's usually a pet peeve or something stupid yet insightful so I open up the admin here. But opening up this admin reminds me of all my other posts I promised myself I'd do. I search for an old list I did somewhere. Google Docs or Toodloo.

I can't find that list but see another list of the collaborative posts/articles I have on the go for Soap Creative and my real job! Oh yeah that Community Post with Matt! I totally forgot. Oh the white paper on Micro Transactions. This is why we got the 2010 Digital Predictions doc done in <5 days because it would have dragged on otherwise.

Thinking about this then reminds me that I should tend to HeroHQ while we're in hiatus awaiting the new game to be announced (soon guys!). I'll check there and someone will link to a crazy X-Men related costume which reminds me that no only did I sell WTFcostumes too soon but my other 3 blog ideas (secret ideas right now) haven't even got off the ground.

The one blog that did get off the ground is the neglected Cool Shit You Can Buy. On official hold due to a blog embargo by my wife.

I then check my email to see another request for a custom Mr Potatohead. I look to my left and see a box of Mr Potatohead parts and piles of clay that have been untouched for almost 2 years now. I resist the urge to make a Predator potatohead yet again.

Looking at my Mr Potatohead photos reminds me that I still have thousands of travel photos to process. It makes me reminisce when I had a proper photoblog back in 2000-2004. Ahh Happy Snaps I miss you. I also find it funny I used to post images 320x320 size. I was worried when I went above 40k for a photo. That was dial up in 2001 I guess.

It's about this time I realise I've done nothing, I'm still in my underpants and I haven't eaten anything. Oh and it's time for bed.

The only saving grace is that Bannerblog has a solid team of editors who keep the site rolling along and Ross, Alex and Matt continue to hold the torch for Soap on the blogs even when I don't.

I hope others out there share the same problem. Maybe I just need a personal assistant?

Disclaimer: Facts may be exaggerated for dramatic effect.

Fruit vs Junk Food A stalemate

The problem with fruit is that you can never guarantee it's going to taste nice. There's nothing I hate more than buying a shit load of apples or oranges (grand plans when grocery shopping) and then finding out I got a bad batch. I've never had a bad Oreo or potato chips but I'd say 20% of the oranges I've had lately were tossed in the bin.

Now I have no junk food and no fresh fruit!

It's the ultimate slap in the face by a piece of fruit. You're made to feel guilty about eating junk food so I buy none and then the fruit at home just gives you the middle finger.

If the fruit had feelings it'd be pretty bummed also. It's entire life was preparation for the ultimate honour of being eaten. Then when the big day comes it gets one bit and unceremoniously tossed in the bin. Poor bastard.

I can now feel the hard stare of the ice cream sandwich in my freezer! Must resist!

Human Flesh Meat Hook Tug of War

Ouch!, Ewww and fuck that!