If your cell phone surprisingly disappears, this video may explain where it went. Our Behavioral Research Department just loves conducting user experience tests on cell phones, PDAs, and touch screen iPhones. Check it out!
P.S. We promise to take good care of your devices! =)
Being the Creative Director for one of Atlanta’s top 5 largest web design and development company certainly has its challenges, but nothing could prepare Wade Forst for the barrage of mishaps he has faced in the past weeks. The first incident took place at his fiancé’s backyard where 3 of their dogs decided to share a meal of rat carcass and ended up getting poisoned. Next, he was at a local gas station fueling up when he thought that his fiancé was throwing water on him but quickly discovered that the hose actually came off from the pump and was shooting about 4 gallons of gasoline on him.
After a short period of normalcy, the third calamity dawned upon him like an inferno, literally speaking. A nearby tree suddenly broke in half and took down a power line, causing a fiery chain-effect that sent part of his house in flames. He caught a break of good luck because no one was hurt during the incident.
Now we’ll just top everything off with a stolen laptop and just call it quits, right? Not so fast. A few days after the stolen laptop, we heard him talking over the phone with the dentist and he’s scheduled for a root canal sometime this month. Ouch!
With all that has happened I cannot think of a more appropriate movie poster to describe it. I took the poster of Just My Luck starring Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine and doctored Wade’s face into it. You can view the original version here.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. Three little words that most everyone is familiar with. Like many other people, I feel that I do my part. I have a little recycling bin at home that I fill up each week and I carpool to work. However, I recently went and took a quiz on Earth Day Network’s website to tell me what my ecological footprint is. Yikes! To my surprise, my lifestyle is not as eco-friendly as I had hoped.
If everyone in the world were to live to my lifestyle, it would require 3.7 planets to sustain us. When I read further my footprint of 16 acres of biologically productive acres is actually less than the average footprint of 24 acres per person used by most Americans. Although I may be comforted by the fact that I am not as wasteful as many Americans, my 16 acres is still drastically more than the 4.5 per person that the world has to offer.
After the quiz, I was taken to a form that helps you set goals to reduce your footprint. The categories that are listed include food, mobility, and housing. That is great, but what about all the time that I spend at work each week. That was not even accounted for and it left me wondering what else I can do to help the community and our environment at work.
When Spunlogic recently took a step back and looked at how we stand as a company within the green movement and the global community, I was eager to participate. We identified many ways that we can improve as a company and I volunteered to lead up the recycling efforts. After all recycling is easy. It is such an easy and impactful way to help the environment, there should be no reason why anyone wouldn’t want to recycle. Well, so I thought.
There are many details that go into a recycling program, the biggest hurdle being logistics. What do you place the materials that you are recycling in? Where do you place the collection bins in the office? Who will take the materials to the recycling centers? Do you use volunteers or do you pay a service to empty the bins? How often do the recycling bins need to be emptied? Where are the recycling centers located? What type of materials does each recycling center accept?
I am happy to announce that Spunlogic is now recycling paper. After much research, I discovered that our building offers a service that provides bins and collects them at your request. In one day, the bins were placed in our office and we officially started the Spunlogic recycling program. It’s so convenient, but we never utilized the service before because it was not publicized or even known by many of the building’s tenants.
The main point is that while recycling and many other green efforts are easy to do, they do require some thought and effort. I challenge everyone to think of just one thing that you can do differently. No matter how large or small, I would love to hear what your personal or company goal is.
Next on the agenda for the Spunlogic recycling team: aluminum and plastic!
It was the best of times; it was the worst of hairstyles. It was the age of cornrows and bows; it was the age of perms and braces. It was the epoch of skater dudes; it was the epoch of tennis queens. It was, in fact, 1989 at Midlothian High School—go Trojans!
You see, Creative Director Wade Forst (proudly sporting the Bo Derek do in his senior tux) and I just discovered we share more than a perfect 10 employer. We also share the same home town—the village (yes, village) of Midlothian, VA. We even shared the same neighborhood for a few years…and the same street…and the same crib. (Well, I used it 3 years after he did).
The Disney ride is right. It’s a small world after all. And, thanks to the web, it’s all the smaller. With just a few searches and clicks, we discovered even Midlothian has quite the online presence:
So I have traveled a little recently and I always wonder what goes on at the office when I’m out. Well, let’s just say that I’m not sure how much traveling I’ll be doing in the near future based on what our Creative Director and Director of User Experience were up to while I was gone. Luckily someone at Spun caught it on video and slapped it up on Youtube for the world to enjoy.
Jeff Hilimire recently blogged about how great our company and our office space is. Well, frequent commenter (and goddess of all things social) Sherry Heyl suggested a site called OfficeSnapshots.com. Apparently this got their attention, because Stephen from Officesnapshots.com was kind enough to comment that we should send some pictures over.
So, we did just that. Amy Griswold and I (mostly Amy) took pictures of the Spunlogic office and I sent them on over to Stephen. (Check it out.)
Now our office rocks, and if you read OfficeSnapshots.com, then you’ll know our office rocks.
Within the past year, Spunlogic has jumped from 30 something employees to around 70 employees. In the two years (or so) that I’ve been with the company we’ve only had one microwave. When we moved from the Zonolite location to our Midtown location, it came with us. Of course, until recently having only one microwave was not an issue. One generally only had to wait a few minutes before they could warm up their coffee or lunch. Now that we’ve doubled in size, the queue generally built up quickly. Because of this, someone recently started a “Second Microwave Fund” via a Styrofoam cup on our sole microwave.
The last time I checked, there had been 35 cents donated, we were on our way to getting a second microwave!
Yesterday, as I went to warm up my leftovers from the night before I noticed there was a second microwave that had magically appeared!
It was donated by our fantastic Project Management intern, Katie. Katie joined us this summer after her trip to Spain, and has been a tremendous asset to our department. We’re really sad that she’ll be leaving us for her last semester at Mercer University (Go Bears!). Thankfully, she’s leaving us with a “warm” daily reminder in the break room.
On behalf of Spunlogic, I’d like to say “Thanks again, Katie!” Have a great semester – come back and see us soon!
This week, the Behavioral Research Department says goodbye to our summer interns – CarterAllen and MetalStorm001. Both have played key roles in the success of our summer Virtual Worlds Research Program. Together, they have conducted research on marketing, branding and avatar behavior in a range of virtual worlds including:
MetalStorm001 and CarterAllen have become so immersed with in-world experiences that I refer to them by their avatar names here. But just before I send them back to school and back to the realities that come with the real world, I wanted to ask them a few questions about their virtual world experiences so far. Here’s what they had to say.
What is your favorite virtual world and why? CarterAllen: Kaneva was my favorite, mainly because they seemed to merge the real world with the virtual world. Many of these worlds, like RuneScape or Entropia, are so far out that they hardly seem possible, and these fantasy aspects are why they’re such a big draw for many users. However, Kaneva combined aspects of a virtual world like Second Life with aspects of a 2D social networking site like MySpace, and this made the world a sort of halfway point between the virtual world and the real world. It’s targeted specifically at users who are less interested in extensive fantasy worlds, but more interested in spending time online for social interaction.
MetalStorm001: I would choose There.com. There are several reasons. A) There is a very large area of land to explore and many cool themes for islands and such. Such as an island designed to look like an alien planet and a city called Saja, which is located above the ground, floating in the sky. B) I like that in There.com, if you do not pay for the subscription, you can level up your skills to get awarded free stuff. That way, even if you don’t want to spend money on the game, you can still customize your avatar and have your own house. C) I also enjoy that there is always an activity being held somewhere in There.com pretty much all the time, all you have to do to find people is look for an activity in the activity bar. D) I also love that real bands come into the game to play in concerts that you can attend. E) I also like the ability to customize your avatar in many ways, from changing their appearance, to whatever you want them to wear, from goofy clown noses to cool t-shirts.
What is the most surprising thing you learned in your virtual worlds research this summer?
CarterAllen: The most surprising aspect for me is how fast these worlds are growing. For instance, Second Life has grown from 6 million avatars to 8 million avatars (a 25% increase) in the last two months. Yet, more than anything else, it almost boggles my mind that people are willing to spend their hard earned dollars on virtual items (land, houses, clothing, concerts) that don’t even really exist. More than $1.25 million real dollars are usually spent in world in Second Life on a day to day basis. This is proof more than anything else that virtual worlds are more than just a passing fad.
MetalStorm001: First, I’m surprised that so many people take virtual worlds very seriously and spend a large portion of their time in world. Second, I’m amazed that the amount of custom made items is almost infinite… I mean, I have ridden on everything from a sports car to a giant floating Great White Shark! Thirdly, I learned that no two virtual worlds are the same, even though some strive for the same goal as their competitors.
Will you go in world after you leave this internship?
CarterAllen: Honestly, probably not. This is partly because I think if I picked up virtual world browsing as a habit, I don’t know how I’d ever get anything else done at college. The other part is that, while I’ve immensely enjoyed researching and learning about these worlds over the last three months, it’s still not something where I’ve then felt like, “Wow, this is something that I have to get into.” For me, the concept of a virtual world where people actually interact, much less spend money, is in itself almost surreal and challenges our traditional view of reality.
MetalStorm001: Yes, There.com is entertaining and I would like to continue playing after I leave my internship here at Spunlogic. Probably, because I have it on my computer and a couple of my friends play. If my friends didn’t play, I probably wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t know anybody and it’d be complete strangers online. I will also go into World of Warcraft after my internship, because I’m currently paying for that game and I find it very entertaining and fun to play.
What are your thoughts on the future of virtual worlds? How will they change or evolve?
CarterAllen: I think the evolution of virtual worlds over the next five years is going to be very interesting. Like most somewhat controversial issues, there are distinct positives and negatives that come with these booming virtual worlds. On the positive side, worlds like Second Life have created virtual meeting spaces for businesses. This never before has been possible. Two people from opposite ends of the world can now interact and hang out in the same club, side by side. The social networking possibilities are limitless. At the same time, virtual worlds may open up a new can of worms that even ten years ago we never could have envisioned. There was an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal about a man whose real-life marriage is on the ropes because of his Second Life relationship with another woman. I think it’s a given that virtual worlds are going to grow like wildfire in the next few years. Whether that’s such a good thing or not remains to be seen.
MetalStorm001: Virtual Worlds will never die. They provide us with an alternative with which to escape from reality and become someone other than ourselves. I think more companies will get in, even though a lot of companies are already in-world. People will always play, but if they keep making more virtual worlds, eventually there will be too many. There are already some that aren’t making it because there aren’t enough people going in them. With more and more virtual worlds popping up, they’re going to continue to run into that problem.
Valleywag has a post about the hotspots in Silicon Valley, and instead of going into my typical meditative state where I hum loudly and picture myself in Silicon Valley in the midst of all things online and cool (ok, I don’t really do that…much), I thought I’d maybe point out some of the hotspots in the ATL. Below are four of the most popular networking spots to grab a bite, each with a little something different to offer.
The Silver Skillet - mostly breakfast networking but you can find everyone here
I was just in the middle of writing an email to our HR Director about how I keep seeing agencies post Youtube videos of their office space and that it might be time for us to do the same. We’ve got great space and I know that the work environment is very important to people - which is why we try to keep it that way. Then I thought, why not share the thought with the readers of this blog and see what they think. The email went like this:
=============================================
To: HR
Subject: recruiting / our office
Hey,
More and more people coming in to interview with us have researched us heavily on the web (or more and more people are admitting that, maybe they always have). And one of the things I have heard that impresses people the most about their first impression of Spun and subsequently one of the reasons they like being here is how cool our office space is.
Also, more and more agencies are doing things like this to show off their office space: (see the NY office of R/GA).
What do you think about us throwing something like this together? I think it might help people get a feel for what its like to work here before they even step in the door. We’d have to be careful not to create one of those extremely self-involved, “Look at me, look at me” videos that a lot of agencies create and make sure we do it for the right reason.
At Spunlogic, we have a lot of great experience and unique ideas to share. From work with clients to new approaches and trends, in this award winning blog you'll find Spunlogic experts sharing their opinions and ideas on all aspects of interactive marketing.
