Cheers to a great 14th year- get ready for 2008!!!
--Diane
Since over 300 people attended this event, it was great to be a recruiter from Organic because there were a whole bunch of people with key positions at competing agencies that we had interviewed or are in the process of interviewing! The interesting part was finding a creative way to say hello to them without spilling the beans. The head nod was the most common greeting we received. Well, that and the secret Organic handshake every candidate learns.
The award ceremony was great and it was also a great opportunity to see who is doing award winning work in The D. Thank you to all the Organics who attended: Sam Cannon, Scott Lange, Dan Sicko, Adam Wilson, Kevin McElroy, Chuck Sullivan, Chris D’Alessandro, Heather Krentler and Alan Robertson.
Oh...and the answer to the question? Six bucks can buy you a can of Diet Coke at The D Show.
Diet Coke (center) enjoys the D Show accompanied by two glasses.How does Organic find exceptional talent across our office network? With multiple parties of course! New York invited digital talent to meet us for fun and drinks at Level V in Manhattan and over 50 candidates attended. The theme of our event was Organic’s 14th birthday. Networking leaders in the office mingled with candidates and our very own Millie Sensat, ACD for the NY office, provided the music for the evening. The guests enjoyed blue and green branded martinis and cupcakes. We toasted our past achievements and met with great talent to lead us into the future. This is just one of many events Organic’s talent acquisition team is producing to meet new talent and give them an understanding of what the Organic brand is all about. To learn about more upcoming events, please visit our "On the Road" page at Organic.com.
Carrie
Organic’s Talent Acquisition group recently invited candidates to a 14th birthday party at Cav Wine Bar in San Francisco as another technique to find exceptional new talent. Around 80 guests attended and networked with Organic leaders and recruiters. We all enjoyed an evening of wine, food and mingling. It was a great effort in raising awareness about Organic and building our candidate pipeline. Special thanks to Carrie Herron who took the lead on coordinating.
Traci
Click on Cartman for the full gallery!
Halloween is pretty much San Francisco’s signature holiday. Apparently, we like to play dress up and go drinking. Who knew? Sadly though, the annual festivus up in the Castro district got the kibash from the city after the revelry of the past few years got increasingly out of control. But San Frisco is not the kind of city that’s going to get all weepy and smear our eyeliner over a slap like this. We just move the party. And this year the San Francisco office—with a big assist from Fox and IGN—went a little big in doing so.
First, the prelims: the pumpkin-carving contest. Teams representing a variety of disciplines squared off an epic battle of creativity and execution. All except for one squad, that is. A certain baldy from the engagement side opted to jump the shark as it were, painting his dome traffic-cone orange in the interest of sport. Alas, this late entry wasn’t enough to dethrone the highly topical and Lite Brite-esque Aqua Teen Hunger Force Viral Bomb Pumpkin, which narrowly edged out Barfing Cartman for top honors.
Not satisfied with her team’s win with the ATHF gourd, Cori Rocklein also threw down a benchmark effort in the costume contest as well, spending the day artfully attired as a “dust bunny.” Over the course of said day she managed to accumulate a diverse array of office detritus in her dust, from Goldfish to paper clips. But this would only be good enough for second place. Mike Merit’s potentially career-damaging turn as Nicole Craine—replete with transbay and -gender BART ride—couldn’t be overlooked by the voters. The big risk gets the big prize it would seem.
But the risk-reward gambits weren’t over. The night concluded at Harlot, a newish South of Market night spot, at a party co-sponsored by Fox and IGN. Those who were still ambulatory attempted to keep pace with eventual prom king Jordan “Hips Don’t Lie” Gray, who apparently is not one to be concerned about being the first one out on the dance floor. The prom queen award could go to a bunch of worthy candidates, but Heather Wagner stands out for executing a full two minutes of choreography from the Michael Jackson “Thriller” video. And that was in the office.
I’m sure that there are other sundry details that I’m overlooking, but missed details come with the territory on Halloween. And special thanks to Jacob Ford for being the ringleader who put this circus in motion.
Turman
Update: Cori's comment alerted me to the error of my ways. Thank yous sure are easy to forget in an operation of this size. So let me take a moment to extract the hoof from my grille. Dawn Farrell was most certainly a superstar in orchestrating all of the moving parts of what became a pretty complex operation. Thank you much and apologies for the oversight.
September 11th is my 1st anniversary at Organic, Inc. yet as great as that is, I can’t help thinking back 6 years to the day our world changed.
I was sitting in Cadillac meeting with several dealers. We had started at 8 am as one of the dealers was flying to Florida to set up his house for his winter retreat.
I left the meeting to make some copies of the deck, when someone in the office yelled out that a plane had just hit a building in New York. The week or so before, some 16 year old had also flown into the side of an apartment building, so we joked “another drunk guy flying a plane”
Then the videos appeared. Someone had CNBC.com or something like that on their screen. We stood in shock as a video was played over and over again. No sound just these surreal images of a jet flying into the WTC tower and disappearing. Over and over again she played the video as if it was on a loop. I can’t actually recall if it was the first or the second plane that keep flying in and disappearing, just the horrible and sick feeling I got when I thought of what just happened.
If you recall the amateur video that was posted was raw, unedited, showing everything from the planes, the flames, the disintegration of the buildings and even the people jumping out of the building to avoid the flames.
Back to the meeting to announce what had happened, remember this all happened in a manner of 15 minutes, save the collapse, the room was in shock, the dealer who was catching a flight left to call the airport.
At this point no one knew why this had happened and what the news, every news source would be reporting over and over and over again.
We continued our meeting, partially out of necessity, but also for some strange reason there seemed a need to be around other people. At the breaks, we would call our loved ones and receive even more startling and shocking news about what had happened. By this time the towers had collapsed and the city of New York was in a cloud of smoke and ash, two more planes had been crashed – we called the meeting about noon. As we left the building, it was eerily quiet. We were not far from the airport but no planes were flying, there seemed be no noise, the air was still. Mr. Starr never made his flight.
To this day, the image of the owner of the trading firm on the 105th floor, haunts me. He told the story of how he was walking his kids to school that day and how every single person in his small company was gone, just gone without a trace. From that point on I realised that I will walk my kids to school on their first day – no matter how old they may be.
I guess it is one of those exceptional moments in history - the kind you never forget where you were, or some seemingly insignificant detail about that moment in time. For me it was driving home very slowly feeling as if the world had stopped but I didn’t know how to restart it.
Vito
Forrester held their first Forrester Marketing Forum conference in Miami last week. Organic was one of three Gold sponsors of the event and the only digital marketing agency on the roster. We had an action-packed two day session and Organic certainly generated a lot of buzz. Here are a few highlights:
- We had our first "unbooth" booth that was designed as a persona room (comfy sofas and chairs, a coffee table, and our virtual fireplace). It was the perfect non-threatening venue to engage prospects in relaxed and informal dialog
- Many people, including some key Forrester analysts, said they are active readers of our Threeminds blog and kept asking to meet with Misha Cornes, our brilliant and prolific Threeminds editor-in-chief who ironically asked, "Blogging can make you famous?"
- We unveiled our Blindspot offering (futurecasting personas) at the event and Mark Kingdon and Chad Stoller gave a wonderful interactive presentation to a packed room of almost 200 people. We handed out laser pointers and Mark invited everyone to play the "Have you ever ..." game where people were asked to use their laser pointers to answer a bunch of "Yes" and "No" questions as a dynamic precursor to the futurecasting discussion. It was awesome to see all those little red flying dots flying dots congregating on the "Yes" or "No" portion of the screen – a real time, interactive survey at its best
- The new Forrester Wave report was released at the event and, as you know, Organic has retained and advanced its leadership position
- On the final morning, Kerry Bodine, the author of the Forrester Wave, did a wonderful keynote presentation on, "How to Deliver a Great Customer Experience," and she showcased our process and the persona work that we did for Geek Squad; it was an incredible validation of our methodology and a powerful endorsement of Organic as a leader in customer-centric marketing.
Individually, each of these experience elements would have made the conference a success for me - combined they created a truly exceptional experience. A special thanks to Forrester for delivering an EE and to Mark Kingdon, Chad Stoller, Tim Armitage, Amanda Van Nuys, Ann Freccero, Tracy Richards, James Kim and the rest of the Organic cast and crew. Organic ROCKS!
David Feldt
Congratulations Detroit and congratulations to everyone at Organic who was promoted!
Kim Wetter
With the temperature at -20 degrees Celsius (that's -4 Fahrenheit!), we decided that the Holidays had come early this year!
Time for us to celebrate the huge growth of Organic Toronto in style.
Yes, there was karaoke involved. Check out the rest of the pics here.
Jay Swaby
It was a cool and beautiful Wednesday evening in New York City. As you entered the Sandbox Studio, you could see the sun setting in the west. Orange and pink light filled the room. You could hear hip, cool music playing intermingled with lively conversations and laughter.
Welcome. You have just entered the Organic/Media Bistro Recruiting Party.
As visuals of our New York team filled the huge back wall, along with some of the employees personal artwork and photography, people mixed, mingled, and networked. The beer and wine flowed and everyone was in a relaxed and friendly mood. Soon those same visuals were replaced by current work from Organic: Bank of America, ShopVogue, and Mitsubishi, just to name a few. Several people stopped by to look at our work and you could hear words of acknowledgment.
The purpose of the night was to get Organic's name out there and to let people see what kind of outstanding work that we have done to hopefully attract top talent.
I think our mission was indeed accomplished and the party a big hit. As the night came to an end, business cards were exchanged, hands were shaken, and people were making plans to see each sometime in the future.
Then, the lights dimmed down, the music became softer, people filtered out, and the night ended on a very productive and energized note. Organic made an impression.
Benny Campa
P.S. Check out more party photos!
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Omma Awards with two of our clients from Sprint (one of whom is a 2006 Mediapost All Star) and several great Organics. Organic had seven finalist entries in six categories and took home three Best-In-Category awards:
- Best Flash or Rich Media Interstitial or Over-Page Unit -- 20th Century Fox -- "X-Men: The Last Stand"
- Best Campaign in Social Networks -- 20th Century Fox -- "X-Men: The Last Stand"
- Best Rich Media Campaign -- Warner Bros. International -- "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"
It was nice to be recognized by our peers in the industry and fun to see old friends at the show.
Congratulations, Team Organic!
Mark Kingdon
Saying that rotis are “tasty little bundles of love” at the Toronto office would be somewhat of an understatement. Many of us revere and understand Roti Fridays as a way of life, a way of being. For months now, Roti Friday has been cherished by us in the Toronto office and each week I gather the orders and try to recruit more and more Roti Lovers. Almost every week, groups as large as 19 of us get together and treat Roti Friday as a fantastic way to get together. Roti can almost be called an internal networking tool within the Toronto office.
So, to commemorate all the roti emails sent out to horde of new Roti Lovers or to remind Roti Veterans that the roti orders are due by 11:30, I’ve put together a small flash movie to remember the good times.
Phil Garwood
Update: Today we have 29 people doing the Roti thing! (October 5, 2006)
Argggghhhhh!
Avast me hearties, it's International Talk like a Pirate Day and ye take it seriously or ye walk the plank. We broke out the grog, cookies and had a fashion shoot. This year, we went all out; Pirate Hester the Engorged was in full garb, while I chose a tasteful mustache and eye patch. From now on please only refer to me as Pirate Jackie the Scab.
For information about this important international holiday check out:
Talk Like a Pirate Day
For lessons on talking like a pirate, check out:
Talk Like a Pirate Movie
Kari Girarde
We came together to work out our minds for the first (of hopefully many) Pop Culture Trivia contests in the SF office. The first order of business was to come up with a clever name. Given that I'm in HR, this proved to be difficult. However, we came up with Harsh Reality. (Get it? HR--Harsh Reality? Funny. Well, that's why I'm not part of the Creative team). The other teams were: Ed Rooney's Goonies, Everyone's Workin' for the Weekend, Eye of the Liger (Yes, Ligers are real. Look it up), No Whammies, and Philip Drummond's Funk Machine.
I loved this event. Everyone got into it. Eye of the Liger dressed up. Harsh Reality had t-shirts and their own cheerleaders. Go Yehji! The questions were hard, the environment intense, and then a false fire alarm went off. We persevered.
Harsh Reality came on strong. We were in the lead until the music category. I'm not ashamed to say that we didn't know that the answer was, "Part-Time Lover," by Stevie Wonder. We could have recovered, but the crippling blow that took us down hard was the sports category. Who knows about Argentinean tennis players? Apparently Eye of the Liger, because they won.
Kari Girarde