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:

• HiPiHi
• Doppelganger
• Habbo Hotel
• ToonTown 
• There.com
• Entropia
• Kaneva
• RuneScape
• Whyville
• And of course, Second Life

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

OK Cafe - breakfast or lunch, take your pick

Thumbs Up Diner - for the East Atlanta crowd

The Flying Biscuit - my favorite is the one on 10th and Piedmont…

Anyone care to suggest a few more?

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.

Quick!  Match the following menu items to the type of food.  Your choices are: Burritos, Fajitas, Quesadilla, Salads, Nachos and Tacos.  GO!!

• Alfredo Garcia
• Art Vandalay
• Billy Barou
• Close Talker
• Fat Sam
• Homewrecker
• I Said Posse
• Joey Bag of Donuts
• John Coctostan
• Pinky Tuscadero
• Ruprict
• Sherman Klump
• The Full Monty
• The Other Lewinsky
• The Ugly Naked Guy
• Triple Lindy

So, how’d you do? 

Beyond the fact that these names say nothing about the food items they represent, I don’t even recognize several of them from American popular culture.  Imagine now that you’re a foreigner that has never been exposed to TV. 

To be fair, this menu has descriptions of each item categorized by type of food. But the point is that if you were just looking at the name of the item, you’d have no idea.  To top it off, you have no frame of reference for Pinky Tuscadero if you’ve never seen Happy Days.

I noticed this the other night when I went to order Chinese food.  I was using the menu I pulled off of my mailbox and noticed that they only had the title of the dish.  I have to tell you ‘Happy Surprise’ doesn’t sound like something I want to eat.   Sticking to what I know – beef with Broccoli, I may have just missed out on a yummy dish. 

Same goes for websites.  You may think that your product names or site navigation names are cute and ‘hip’ - but do they have meaning?  If they are cute and funny, is there some kind of context?  Does your audience understand the language you’re using?  Be careful what you call things on your site, you don’t want your customers missing out on that ‘Happy Surprise’.

Ok, I’m going to have a very hard time making this fit into interactive marketing. I’ll just start and see if I can manage to tie it back to the industry somehow but I have to talk about this show - here goes.

I went to dinner a few weeks ago with some friends and the bartender couldn’t help but interrupt our conversation to tell us about this TV show that he was obsessed with. I think my initial thought was, “That’s great, now could you please shut up?”  You know how there are some bartenders that know when to leave you alone and know when to keep you company?  Well this wasn’t one of those guys.  And in this rare circumstance I’m glad he wasn’t.

If you haven’t seen Man vs. Wild on The Discovery Channel, then you’re just not as cool or hip as I thought you were.  The show is described on the website as:

“In each episode of Man vs. Wild, adventurer Bear Grylls strands himself in popular wilderness destinations where tourists often find themselves lost or in danger. Once there he finds his way back to civilization, demonstrating local survival techniques along the way.”

That’s one way to say it.  I tell it a little differently though:

“Bear Grylls gets dropped into places that are known to take the lives of hundreds of lost hikers/travelers every year with just a knife, water bottle and a camera crew, and he’s expected to find civilization before he dies.  In the process, the dude eats anything he can get his hands on, including maggots, frogs, ticks, oh and a dead sheep’s eyeball , drinks things that you don’t even want to know about but I’ll tell you anyway (yes, including the juice from fresh elephant dung and at one point his own urine… I am not making this up) and sleeps in places you can’t even imagine.  It usually takes him three days of this stuff to find his way out.”

If you don’t believe me, check out some of these Youtube videos:

He does all of these things not because he’s a big Fear Factor fan, but because he’s trying to show the audience how to survive in the most desperate situations.  Plus it makes great TV.

Caution, lame attempt to tie this to interactive marketing coming in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

When I watch this show I can’t help but see a corollary between the desperate things that Bear does to survive and the way marketers today are desperately trying to figure out ways to make their ads relevant.  And the end results are often just as disgusting.  For instance… ok, I can’t even keep this up.  Just watch the show and you’ll thank me for it.

Spunlogic is going green! We’ve formed a team that will be responsible for helping to make the company more environmentally responsible. Our “Green Team” will be working on energy conservation, waste reduction, reuse and recycling, emissions reduction and water conservation.

Do you want to get more info on the Green Movement and/or how you can help on a personal level? Check out some of the following sites and blogs.

Green Web Sites:

• Green.Yahoo!
• Greenedia
• The Daily Green
• Be Green Now
• Lime.com
• Environmental Defense
• Conservation.org
• The Carbon Neutral Company

Green Blogs:

• Triple Pundit
• World Changing
• Treehugger
• Inhabitat
• Next Billion
• Grist.org
• Technorati’s List of Environmental Blogs

A month ago, I abandoned the “traditional” advertising world for an account management position here at Spunlogic. Years of being in the advertising box had narrowed my thinking. I began to realize that the manner in which I consumed information was online, and typically not in the form of what is considered advertising. I’m not going to throw dirt on the grave of mass media advertising; it’s still a great way to reach the most people in a short amount of time. However, as most of this blog’s readers certainly believe, the shift to consolidating things online is underway. Unfortunately for a lot of marketers, their advertising agency refuses to recognize this.

Ad agencies have been preaching media agnosticism for years, yet integrated marketing still emphasizes the same methods that have driven the industry for decades. Speaking from my personal experience, it’s not hard to notice that TV is still considered the Holy Grail of marketing. The idea of shooting a $2M TV spot gets people fighting to work on your project – detailed, tactical work – not so much.

So, that brings me to the point of this post. I’m three weeks or so into this thing, and I get the feeling that every problem at Spunlogic starts with a blank page and then gets solved from square one. There’s no call to immediately divvy up a budget into existing disciplines. Instead, we contextualize the problem by understanding how the user interacts with our client’s product and then figure out the best approach - not try to shoehorn the solution into something that fits within a comfort zone (either the agency’s or the client’s). This isn’t a novel idea. But saying you approach problems with an open mind and having the ability to actually do it are two different things.

In the past three weeks, I’ve learned more new technologies than I have in the past five years. That’s the biggest difference between what I’ve done for the last 8 years and what I hope to do for the next 8. Instead of finding new ways to use seemingly antiquated methods, I’m learning new ways to use an ever expanding set of methods. There’s a lot to learn - I’ve been starting with the basics and then asking a lot of questions and abusing the “define:” feature on Google – but people are passionate and patient.

Strategically, my role is similar to what it’s been throughout my career. My job is to bring our clients ideas that add value to their customers (internal, external, shareholders). What’s new is that there’s seemingly no limitation on what can be done. If an idea exists that fits strategically with what our client is looking to accomplish, we’ll try and find a way to make it happen. Now, if we can just convince one our clients to partake in the first Wii Advergame.

So, I’m excited to be in the interactive space. I believe that the power has shifted from the marketer to the consumer, and that companies need to have a well thought out plan for engaging their customers. Increasingly, the only place to accomplish this is on the web.