Five things on Friday #47

Things of note for the week ending November 23rd, 2012

1. Hawkeye

I’ve been on a bit of a digital-comics-sabbatical of late (it’s far too easy to spend a lot of money, on a lot of comics, in a very short space of time), but what with it being my birthday this past Wednesday (more on that later) and a couple of iTunes vouchers coming my way (thanks Dad), it was high time I dived back in again.

My first stop? Hawkeye.

A new series launched to tie-in with the character’s new found fame thanks to a certain super-massive superhero movie, this standalone book is not only incredibly well drawn but also brilliantly written. The image above, taken from issue three ‘Cherry‘, gives you a bit of an insight on what I’m talking about but basically, what I’m saying is, if you’re looking for a new comic to get into, go and get Hawkeye. I genuinely lol’d about four or five times reading this month’s issue.

2. Corporate secrets (you can now disclose)
This Reddit thread is awesome –

American Apparel –

I worked at American Apparel for two years. During the time that I worked there, the company implemented a company-wide recruitment policy where any person applying for a position must be photographed (1 headshot, 1 body shot) The actual resumes were thrown in the garbage. These photos were then sent to a company email address where someone would either give a thumbs up or down to the photographs. Staff were encouraged to recruit instore and on the street and were given a $100 bonus for every person they got approved.

Walmart –

As a former cart pusher at walmart, one thing i always noticed was how they pushed all of their employees, i mean “associates” , to 39.5 hours a week so that they wouldn’t get full benefits. That and the 10% discount card only worked on taxed items.

Eye opening, and ace.

3. Russell ‘Fag Pimp’ Brand

via

4. Random Robot Shopper
Darius Kazemi has a bot that buys him random stuff from the internet. His first shipment arrived this week and it’s kinda cool to read about. I don’t have much else to add except that this is a delightful read and it’s probably something I need to add to my Trello (as it resonates with an ongoing conversation I’m having with Kai about sparking innovation with serendipity).

5. Birthday awesomes!
It was my birthday on Wednesday – WOOOOO – and an awesome day/week was had. At the time this post is scheduled to publish, I’ll be boarding the Eurostar en route to Paris for a long weekend of relaxing with my lovely lady.

Other birthday awesomes

Friends and loved ones are brilliant – thanks for an awesome birthday, you know who you are.

Bonuses this week are three articles that I enjoyed – a crackin’ interview with Robert De Niro; this dissection of the sorry state of pop marketing (via Rhianna); and this piece from the Atlantic – about Obama’s reelection – is immense – ‘The Hippies are punching back…’

Birthday Blog

Today is November 21st. My birthday.

Last year my other half laid on the best birthday experience ever; including all my friends, all my geekiness and nearly all of London’s Soho district.

It was fantastic.

This year has been – amazingly – even better. Friday night I was out with work for a huge, multi-celebratory knees up. Three birthdays, two leavers and one awesome award win meant that it was the perfect combination for getting the whole company out together. It’s a rarity for all of us to unwind like that and it was definitely well overdue for some of us. I guess I got home about 4ish maybe? But even then didn’t get to sleep until the very early hours (what with deciding to carry on partying with everyone at home way back in the vale). Brilliant.

Last night was my actual birthday party; friends old and new, a few work colleagues, best mates from home, some family (it’s my sister’s birthday today too) and it was one of the best nights out I’ve had this year.

A night of music from the 80s, filthy fairy cakes, beetlejuice-based hilarity, Marmite-flavoured chocolate… the list goes on.

Looking through my phone this morning there’s only a few photos to show off what a great night we all had (I’m sure others took many, many more), however I did find one video. One very special video.

Big love and thanks to Bryce & Camilla for today’s #vlomo10 entry. You guys rock… X

We've got some packing to do

You may remember that to celebrate our birthday last month we pulled together this rather tasty ‘What is WOM?’ infographic –

You might also remember that we also promised posters to anyone who wanted one too…

Well, they’re here.

If you want one (and are yet to sign up) please go right ahead and leave a comment on this post and we’ll add your name to the list

πŸ™‚

Getting to know… the staff :)

We’re into week two of our month-long 10th birthday celebrations and this week we’re celebrating the people that really make things happen; our staff.

Before we start waxing lyrical about how freakin’ awesome they all are (they are, really) and generally start going to town on just how stupidly and ridiculously hard they all work (really, they do), I thought it would be best to try and find out a little bit about them.

Not all of them mind, just a few – i.e.: the ones that were still around when I ran around asking for blog names and addresses before I left the office!

There’ll be more to follow (at some point) I’m sure, but for now, here’s a teeny, tiny snapshot into just some of the friendly faces who drive us forward –

Tom is @tom_messett on twitter and http://www.tomsideas.wordpress.com is where he writes about, you guessed it, some of his own ideas πŸ™‚ Currently musing about BP & Social Media…

If you’re a regular reader here then you’ve no doubt heard about our very own @mollyflatt. Molly writes her own blog at http://www.mollyflatt.com, where you can also find links to her stuff on The Guardian, Finch’s Quarterly Review and so on. Molly sasy: “Be warned. It’s all very me.”

This is Sam. He doesn’t exactly run a blog but he has asked me to tell you that he runs his own website and forum here – http://forevermanutd.com and here http://fmuforum.com. “It is not the most popular theme however – being Man Utd.” – No comment Sam ;) 

Straight and to the point Ricc lists his details as: “My Personal blog: http://riccwebb.posterous.com. Slightly more serious blog: http://adinspiration.posterous.com. Twitter @RiccWebb – Thanks Ricc

When pressed for some online details Jacqui ran away and hid for a little while, only later emailing me to say: “I feel decidedly bad about my lack of online content: I do have a blog: www.jacquihill.com and a Twitter account @JacquiHill… But I’m not going to lie, last entry on blog was in January (hides face in shame).”

“Hi I’m Paul, I’m nonsensical and when I’m not sending spaghetti to people – http://chroniclesofspaghetti.tumblr.com – I like to write Acid Fiction – Which by the way I have a lot more written than is up on the blog at the moment ^_^ http://blog.acidfiction.com – Paul’s spaghetti blog is possibly the best thing on the internet. Probably.

Resident skateboarder Matt – “My own twitter is @lngbrder888 and also run www.longboardsource.co.uk which includes a technical blog (http://bit.ly/biHbs3) and a ‘Scene’ blog (http://bit.ly/ccetCb). There is also some shamefully ephemeral tweeting on @longboardsource.”

Oh.. and I nearly forgot –

Ahem. You can find me on twitter as @whatleydude and, when I’m not writing here at 1000heads, I blog about the other things in my head over at my happy place. Sometimes, just sometimes, I find the time to write about mobile too. I save that stuff for http://thereallymobileproject.com.

…………

Like I said, that’s definitely not everybody (in fact – we could make this a recurring feature!), but hopefully you can see we’re a passionate bunch who not only extol the virtues of blogging and tweeting at every possible moment, but also practice what we preach too.

We love our staff. They rock.

πŸ™‚

1000heads: What is WOM?

Diving into day two of our month long 10th birthday celebrations, we’re going to answer one of the longest-standing questions that we get asked almost weekly (if not daily)…

Exactly what is Word of Mouth?

Our creative team has been beavering away on a handy little infographic for your viewing pleasure –

Download the PDF from slideshare (recommended)

We’ll be getting a couple of these framed and put up in the office very shortly, in the meantime – if you’d like your very own version of this poster, leave a comment and we’ll get in touch when we start printing.

In the meantime take a look and let us know what you think, share and share alike πŸ™‚

“Word of Mouth: The Most Powerful Force in the World!”

See you back here tomorrow, for more Birthday shenanigans…

There always seems to be alot going on

And November is going to be very busy indeed…

I’m hoping to get as much in and done as humanly possible this month but, as it stands?
It’s not going too bad so far πŸ™‚

This week I finished work on another project with MTV’s HIV and AIDS awareness charity, the Staying-Alive Foundation.
This time building around and about their online activity for their latest campaign, (the full details of which you can read over on Big Talk), …and by way of a thank you for all the hard graft, the guys at Staying-Alive secured me a VIP ticket to the MTV European Music Awards!

– Yep. That’s right. V. I. P. –

The Killers, Kanye West, Take That… (no, really).
All. Brilliant.

No pics unfortunately, but I did take a bunch of video mind – like loads – so will have to get some up sharpish I guess.

In the meantime however, back to that busy November I was talking about;

What with today being Sunday, thus follows – tomorrow shall be Monday and tomorrow night is in fact, Mobile Monday (MoMo) London.

Not just any old MoMo event mind, oh no.

Tomorrow just so happens to be MoMo London’s 3rd Birthday Celebrations.

They’ve been going for THREE YEARS! Fair play to them.

Should be a giggle.

We, (as in ‘We, the team from Mobile Industry Review‘), have been asked along to film the show there throughout the night… and I just have to give you this quote that went out on the invitation:

…We will have the MIReview Show joining us too and in the spirit of the evening, they will be presenting and filming some of their show LIVE on stage. (If you don’t know them already, think Top Gear but about mobile technology instead of cars)…

Best. Compliment. Ever.
Love it.

So yeah, MoMo tomorrow… Then worky work work until Thursday, whereupon I’m off to Europe for a few days to meet up with Journalists and Bloggers alike, spreading the SpinVox gospel as it were…

(and I think… I THINK… that may well be my overseas travel for the year… Done!)

All being well, I should be home the following Sunday and the Monday after that, (November 17th), I’m straight into The Future of Mobile Conference, where I’m taking part in the ‘6×6 UK Bloggers Perspectives’ section speaking alongside five other [and I quote]

…of the UK’s most interesting technology and mobile bloggers present a short insight into a mobile topic. This session will provide truly independent points of view on some of the major topics of continuing discussion in the mobile industry.

Yeah. So no pressure then.

Not when I’m in with such fantastic ‘names’ as Helen Keegan, Jemima Kiss, Vero Pepperrell, Andrew Grill and my Editor-in-Chief over at Mobile Industry Review, Ewan Macleod.

There aren’t really any words to describe how flattered I am to be bundled in with such esteemed folk, all of which I have masses amount of personal and professional respect on many levels… and that’s before we even start on the way I’ve been pitched!

Yeah, no pressure whatsoever.Β  Heh. πŸ˜‰

Where was I?

That’s right. Monday 17th November. Future of Mobile. Check.

That same week, on the following Friday actually, November 21st, I celebrate my birthday.
Yep. My birthday falls on a Friday. Rock on.

I’ve no idea what I’m planning on doing yet but I’m sure I’ll talk about it eventually…

Moving swiftly onward to the evening of Wednesday Nov 26th I’m hosting Mobile Geeks of London V. Woo! πŸ™‚

MGoL has always been one of my most favourite things to do and this, the fifth event in London of its kind, is no exception. I’ve talked about my love for MGoL at length before and no doubt will again soon.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in attending, get yourself along to the MGoL V facebook event page, put your name down and MAYBE I’ll see you there! Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Bring it.

Hangover depending, November 27th sees the first everevent themed around ‘The Network of Networks’, notionally entitled ‘Amplified 08‘. I HONESTLY do not know enough about this event to do it justice.

All I know is that there’s some bloody interesting people pulling it together and that I will move hell and high water to be there.

I might nip over to their About Page once I’ve finished this post actually, do some reading… Hmm.

And finally, bringing November to a close I’ve actually gone and booked myself a well-deserved weekend relaxing holiday break to somewhere secret, secluded and so completely offline I’m midly concerned I’ll get withdrawal symptoms…

Heh.

Joking aside, this rest has been a long time coming… and I can’t wait.

Buckle up kids, November’s gonna get hectic!

πŸ˜€