Mark Wanczak

Nick Feltron has for the past few years:

Each day in 2009, I asked every person with whom I had a meaningful encounter to submit a record of this meeting through an online survey. These reports form the heart of the 2009 Annual Report. From parents to old friends, to people I met for the first time, to my dentist… any time I felt that someone had discerned enough of my personality and activities, they were given a card with a URL and unique number to record their experience.

Nick then collects the data, graphically represents these interactions and sells the results in a print version that you can buy on his site. So very cool, can’t wait for mine to arrive in the mail.

And there is nothing quite like the feeling cracking a difficult advertising problem. What seemed impossible when you sat down face the empty white square now seems to obvious. It is this very obviousness of a great idea that prompted Polaroid camera inventor E.H. Land to define creativity as “the sudden cessation of stupidity.”

- Luke Sullivan, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This

Here’s what you missed this week:

1. Haven’t had enough of the AT&T/Luke Wilson commercial bashing? Read some more.
2. Google quietly releases Goggles, allowing you to search by picture taken from your phone. Sick.
3. If you had $500 to spend on a digital campaign, what would you do? I bet it’s not as smart as this.
4. Social media gives branding a bad name. The Grumpy Brit straightens it all out for us. (Love the last line of this)
5. How to make street flyers a little bit better.
6. Think online video is huge? Think again.
7. Dave Trott takes simple soccer advice and eloquently applies it to advertising. Love it.
8. Worst post of the week: 137 Twitter Marketing Tips for Small Businesses. 137? Really? Twitter is the simplest tool on Earth, don’t complicate it.
9. Best post of the week: The Content Strategist as a Digital Curator. Really unique perspective on managing online content. Long but certainly worth it.
10. Timely post of the week: The Art of Manliness Holiday Gift Guide 2009. Definitely asking Santa for that vintage tweed MP3/Radio.

Not satisfied? This 5-minute video of Dan Wieden should do the trick.


Between The Cracks is a weekly roundup of noteworthy links that you may have missed. It is most definitely not a weekly commentary on defecation. Get your mind right.

A brief round-up of what caught my eye this week, in no particular order:

1. Steffan Postaer over at Gods of Advertising nicely reviews Southwest Airlines’ new “Bags fly free” tagline.
2. The New York Times launched a new way to read the newspaper online. Big fan of this idea.
3. 10 Ideas for Transforming Advertising.
4. Want to know why Google doesn’t see your inbound links? Best SEO Blog breaks it down for you.
5. I loved the campaign and I love the car. Scott Monty summarizes the Ford Fiesta marketing effort. Pay attention, GM.
6. An illustrated guide of eight ways to kill an idea.
7. Warren Berger at the AIGA tells us about four things he’s learned about designers. (via @JasonSpector)
8. There’s a guy in a desert in Spain camping next to a pay phone. Call him.
9. To Hell With Personal Branding
10. Huge fan of McSweeneys’ ‘Lists” feature. This one is entitled, “My MFA Workshop Responds to My Twitter Status Updates.” If you laugh at this, we can be good friends.