Have you ever met a group of people and instantly known that you were meant to be in a zombie-inspired rock band together? I don’t know how to explain why once a year my agency channels all of its energy into costume makeup and hit-list mashups in an effort to become the #1 voted ad agency cover band in Los Angeles by drunken applause, but whatever the reason, it is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I was like Sandra Dee in Grease before my coworkers threw me into a sequin dress, ratted my hair, and made me conservatively hip-thrust to Thriller in front of Macklemore. Look how far we have come.
For those who don’t know, AdJam is Battle of the Bands with LA’s finest advertising agencies governed by three judges and an audience of over 1,000 people. Last year, we didn’t win on a technicality that our band had to play first. This year, AdJam is having people vote for the band line up based on music video submissions. I don’t ask for much (besides letting me throw up an absurd amount of Amazon affiliate links on my posts so I can fund my personal blog), but I would love it if you could vote for BLITiZen Kane this week to get us the ‘sweet spot’ at AdJam coming soon to a House of Blues near you. See our video submission below and click here to vote.
Props goes to the classy Jack Schlinkert for this video and copywriting as well as Ken Martin for changing the lyrics of ‘We are the World’ to something much more heartwarming for advertising professionals.
The STOP-IT office memo came at 4:55 today during a rainstorm of keyboard “click-clicks” and space bar “slams.” The chorus of computer taps could have easily been caused by a group of office junkies frantically putting together reports, but the memo knew better. So did Google. Google knew exactly what it was doing when it created the greatest threat to office productivity of all time: THE OLYMPIC GOOGLE DOODLE.
Today’s was hurdles. Tomorrow’s is basketball. We don’t stand a chance. None of us do. When you take an average joe chained to a desk and give them a chance to become an Olympic hero in the click of a button, what do you think is going to happen? It can take months of work, even years for some people to get recognition at the typical office job. Google offers you a medal an OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL in less than 10 seconds for hitting a space bar super fast. Which do you think is going to win?
Time will be wasted. Jobs will be lost. And Google is laughing somewhere as it designs more Olympic Google Doodles that will sucker us all into thinking we have a shot at beating the guy in IT who treats street fighter as a second job.
Since there is nothing we can do about it, here are best practices for Google Doodling
1. Stay calm
When you get the g-chat from your co-worker that there is an Olympic Google Doodle act like you could care less. Keep your cool and try to pretend that you aren’t concerned about the cartoon athlete’s long torso and short legs. Miraculously enough, his body structure does not affect his performance doing hurdles.
2. Try not to click in patterns
While you are competing in the Olympic games try to click extra keys to throw everyone off.
3. Resist the urge to yell. Also, take screen shots.
When you reach victory (the best score in your office) don’t yell or attract attention. Take a screen shot so no one can question you and let your victory dance out with emoticons slapped all over an email chain.
4. Keep an open mind
The best tricks may come from other co-workers. Don’t let your pride keep you from trying the double-tap technique or the space bar instead of the ^ key. You can cut a couple seconds off your score (and company time) by learning from those around you.
Trick: one of the key findings we discovered today is that left-handed players can gain an advantage by turning their keyboard upside down. Adapt and conquer.
5. Don’t Sweat
Dead giveaway
6. Get it out of your system during your lunch break
After 5 minutes, if you suddenly find yourself on a downward spiral toward addiction, take your lunch break early. Use that time to secure a high score that will keep you from questioning your self-worth the rest of the day.
Best of luck to you all. May Google have mercy. Comment below with your best tricks and score. Obviously.
Tweet Cred
Currently trying to build up my tweet cred. If you feel like doing a good deed follow me at @Carly_Bird. One lucky follower will be chosen on Aug. 15th out of a drawing to win a gift certificate to POLLO LOCO.
I am walking down the street with a grocery bag full of tacos when he stops me. “Excuse me, I just wanted to say I thought you had great style.” I stop and do a double take. His eyes get wide as he realizes why. Bless America because I am wearing this T-shirt….
He is nice enough to keep pretending,”Yeah you have total California girl style.” I smile as I try to count in my head how many women in LA I have seen with Myrtle Beach South Carolina written across their chest (or just the number of women in LA who have something covering their chests in general.) I pretend not to be mortified. He chokes and hides his rows of perfect teeth. END SCENE.
We can take two things from this experience: A) Mexican food is never a bad choice and it is more likely that this man was smitten by the smell of corn tortillas then he was my youth large t-shirt B) Despite the head-tilted puppies on this 100% cotton…I passed as a girl with LA style and have moved up to level 2 of amateur blogging to become: A FASHION BLOGGER.
Come on Vogue
As seen in the photo above, I am lucky enough to have coworkers that gave some great training and feedback on how to approach my first outfit post as a fashion blogger. If you are wondering how exciting the photo shoot was, here is VIP backstage access: VIP BACKSTAGE ACCESS.
In the 4 minutes of company time wasted to take pictures, here is what we came up with. I created a collage out of the photos to illustrate that I may or may not be the next Twiggy and a shoe-in to be published on either Vogue or the WFCP (Women’s Fashion Category Page) on Pinterest.
A special thanks goes out to the Camera+ App for letting ordinary people hide behind strategic shadows and photo filters.
To Get This Look
Because lets be honest. You are all curious.
T-shirt from a legitimate gift shop in Myrtle Beach. Compliments of two really great friends. Nothing says, “I am a hipster” more than wearing a T-shirt that nobody has from a place that nobody will ever go.
Tiggggghhht pants from Urban Outfitters that function like a wet suit only for air.
A pair of Converse high-tops that I bought as a gift to myself if I promised to stop acting like an LA tourist and apologizing to street performers.
Vince. An accessory every woman should have.
To Get This Hair
Sleep on a fried bunch of curls for two nights straight without an air conditioner.
Put it in a bun and pretend that it won’t be affected by the mist from a sub-par shower.
Take out rubber band and untangle the very top layer of hair with your fingers (depending on your hair type there is a good chance a hair brush isn’t going to make it through.)
And there you have it. The first CarlyBird.com fashion post. Comment below if you aren’t speechless at this point.
Tweet Cred
Currently trying to build up my tweet cred. If you feel like doing a good deed follow me at @Carly_Bird. One lucky follower will be chosen out of a drawing to win a gift certificate to Pollo Loco.
Me and Jordan Christenson (the CEO of Pacos Dillas) had this great idea to audition for the Amazing Race. Unfortunately it failed. It actually never even got off the ground. To save you all future heartache here are four valuable lessons we learned during this character-building experience.
If you want a terrible audition tape:
Forget the deadline
Forget to put in some sort of effort
Record it after work on a web cam
Make sure your co-worker ruins EVERY SINGLE take.
So there you have it…four solid ways to guarantee that your audition tape is not picked for the Amazing Race. Enjoy the best of our efforts in the video above.
I honestly love the people that I work with. If it weren’t for my co-workers, I probably wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning…literally. I have a carpool that texts, calls, and gives inspirational speeches to help me drag my lifeless body out of bed and into the car by 7:45. And it doesn’t stop there. I don’t know anyone that gets personal street fighter tutorials from friends in their IT department or gets basketball coaching while playing endless PIG tournaments on the indoor basketball court. I once wanted to win a PIG tournament so bad that a co-worker spent the majority of his lunch break just re-bounding basketballs and showing me how to shoot.
These people have become some of my best friends over the past year. From saving skunks trapped in a trash can to flash mobbing office meetings there has never been a dull moment. Which is why it is so hard to see some of them go.
Over the past six months, a lot of my closest friends have graduated from the doors of One on One. In memory of the good times, here is a video I made of some of those co-workers I would consider to be company “legends.” Who needs boring, life-less employees when you could be hanging with the best of One on One?
One morning I found a flip cam on my desk with instructions from my boss to make a video for an upcoming conference. Have you ever had someone walk up to you and ask you to be funny on the spot? That’s what it felt like… and I panicked. Me, My friend Matty, the legendary Jeff Mills only had one day to pull this together so we decided to do a spoof off of the Old Spice commercials.
Things would have been great if.. A. Every special effect hadn’t gone terribly wrong and B. If we weren’t using a flip cam and balancing on moving office chairs (the camera didn’t have a zoom.) Luckily, two wrongs make a right and the video looked ABSOLUTELY AWFUL, so awful that it was almost funny. Mission accomplished. So here goes: One on One the job your job could smell like. Don’t freak out when you see how awesome these special effects are.
I would love to introduce you to the newest addiction in the office known as scooter dodgeball. And yes, its as simple-minded as it sounds. Literally dodgeball played on a scooter. Oh and don’t worry, even though it took absolutely no brain cells to make up the game, there are still arguments almost every day as to who started the whole ordeal. Regardless of its origins, here is how to play:
One employee rides as fast as they can on a scooter while 4 of their coworkers try to hit them as hard as they can with dodge balls. The goal is to either knock the person off the scooter or hit them super hard in the face. The person who can ride the scooter the most without getting hit wins.
The time has come for the awkward company video I make every quarter and this one is no exception. I had less than two days to put this together with no time to get inspiration. I was going to pull another company vid packed with buzz phrases like “we can do anything,” or “just do it.” But then I thought, why not tell it like it is?
I work with some of the funniest people I know and this video showcases just how great it is to work in the typical, average office scene. So here goes 100% transparency and a company motto that is less than inspiring. Honesty is the best policy right?
