The Barbarian Blog

The Rise of Social Media Ad Spending

Aaron Perrino — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:36:00 -0400

Mixology Workshop

Erica Kelly — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:37:00 -0400

There’s nothing like a little mulling and shaking with your coworkers after a hard days work. For our August office outing, the SF office went to The Workshop to learn how to mix up a few farm fresh cocktails! Everything was dangerously tasty, which is why I’m posting the recipes here for one and all.

Note: when attending a mixology class with coworkers you may want to change out of your work clothes. Some of us did not dress appropriately for the sticky mess that ensued. Others just couldn’t resist the flounce of a floral apron.

Cafe of Equivalent$

Dom Goodrum — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:11:00 -0400

Playing around with the the concoction, fabrication of value in the global capitalist financial system, we engaged city workers with some simple truth derivatives during their lunchbreak, equating their salaried/bonus income with the cost of lunch for a worker in the producing countries ie Mozambique, Brazil, Indonesia, Bangladesh.

The Cafe of Equivalent$, a lunch food stall selling food at cost equivocal to food affordability in the producing countries – the research to tailor the pricing for the project is not complete but – soup and bread in Mozambique for a worker earning $2 a day costs 20 cents , 10%daily wage – applied to the average bonus-earning-banker soup and bread from our stall costs $181.67, £111.20.

The Answer

Dom Goodrum — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:27:00 -0400

Ray Winston talks to us about getting struck by lighting and the beauty of life in this promo film for ‘The Answer’ EP, from the forthcoming album ‘Day Dreaming with James Lavelle’, directed by John Hillcoat.

It’s Absolutely Awesome.

The Machine

Dom Goodrum — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:22:00 -0400

‘The Machine’ is a delightful steam punk horror show, made with love by the Flippers.

A Theory of Work

Frank Marquardt — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:02:00 -0400

What is the content of a career?

Agnes was a nice touch. (via alexbeingalex)

Ian Westcott — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:26:08 -0400

Agnes was a nice touch.

(via alexbeingalex )

Disk Drop

Ian Westcott — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:25:09 -0400

Disk Drop :p. I favorited a YouTube video: Fun with an old hard drive. Took the platters out of many hard drives and put them into one drive. Spin it up to speed and give it a nudge, then watch the fun.

"* 26% of Americans feel they can’t handle/overwhelmed by the number of emails they receive during..."

Rick Webb — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:43:22 -0400

“* 26% of Americans feel they can’t handle/overwhelmed by the number of emails they receive during vacation.”

- _p. Email Overload Means We’re Never Not Working: Techcrunch (TechCrunch)

For the last three nights (or four, I guess, counting today), I have basically forgone my social life, gone straight home after work, and just kept emailing and doing things. It’s been kind of awesome – and my inbox has been under 30 emails for four days straight, which is pretty great. I’ve been finishing up at about 3AM every night.

But it means I’ve literally done nothing but work while I awake – and 90% of that has been email. It’s ridiculous.

And a vacation? Forget it. if you don’t check at least once a day you are SCREWED when you get back to work. Every ounce of therapeutic benefits will be gone within seconds of checking your email monday morning. No choice but to hit it a little bit each day.

My partner, Keith, is on a two week vacation right now and seems pretty removed from email. I do not envy him. I also don’t expect to really be able actually talk to him for like 3 days after he returns.

We still encourage and allow this at work, but, man, I dont’ envy the off-the-grid vacationers.

Sometimes advertising works.

Sela Francis — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:34:00 -0400

"They don’t understand their audiences because they’re not used to using data aggressively. They..."

Rick Webb — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:21 -0400

“p. They don’t understand their audiences because they’re not used to using data aggressively.

They view their sites as mere brand extensions and fail to treat them as stand-alone media properties.

They don’t understand usability and make their sites pretty but impossible to navigate, and then naively think they’ll educate their users to find their content.

They don’t understand Web metabolism and produce content that’s stale.

They think Web content is inherently inferior when it’s merely different, and create inferior Web products as a result then wonder why they’re not succeeding.

They fail to monetize their products properly, then underpay talent and wonder why they can’t recruit good writers.

”

- _p. Elizabeth Spiers on how traditional mainstream gets digital wrong (via soupsoup )

I did a Qwith the Knoxville News on web media, etc.

(via spiers )

Bowling Team Week 1

G Scott Stukey — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:49:00 -0400

With an epic NYC Kickball season in the books, the Barbarian Sports Team looked for a new challenge. Would they succomb to World Cup fever and play soccer? Perhaps some casual indoor volleyball for some sloppy sets? Alas, their voices were heard and TBG was off to the lanes for some BOWLING ACTION!

However, the enthusiasm from the NYC office was enough for not 1, but 2 bowling teams (and ginormous teams at that!). The split group is now known as “The Barbarian Group: Team EPIC!” and “The Barbarian Group: Team AWESOME!” respectively. The Sports Team tried to expand to Boston & San Francisco, but was unable to secure the personal in time.

EPIC! and AWESOME! went into batte last night for their first matches of the season – AWESOME! was matched up against the “Bowling Stones” and EPIC! was matched up against MSKCC (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center). The Bowling Stones, with their decked out custom jerseys, were too much for AWESOME! to handle. The Bowling Stones was able to roll through to victory 612-530. In the other match, EPIC! bowled lower than AWESOME! did in their game, managing only to come up with 507 pins. These 507 pics as it happened twas more than MSKCC could muster. EPIC! went on to win 507-484. At the end of the first week, TBG managed a split of the 2 games (pun intended).

Members of the Century Club (Bowling 100+):

EPIC!: Phil (114), Kyu (109)
AWESOME!: Ian (111), Brethel (111), Joanne (110)

The next match is on Wednesday, 10/15 @ 8p. All spectators are encouraged to head out to the lanes to drink with the team (176 oz towers of beer!) and root them on.

nevver: Stamps of Disapproval |...

Rick Webb — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:31:04 -0400

nevver :

p. Stamps of Disapproval | design work life: designworklife/dwl (design work life)

My job was to game Digg using infographics, voting networks, and bait-and-switch. It was the company's core business, and it was sleazy as hell.

Rick Webb — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:31:03 -0400

My job was to game Digg using infographics, voting networks, and bait-and-switch. It was the company’s core business, and it was sleazy as hell. :p. tedr :

p. If you don’t know that using infogrpahics to game digg and google was a highly employed technique, then this whole thread will be fascinating to you. (Scout’s honor, we’ve never done this, but have mapped out doing it. Where the whole infographic-strategy got whacky is when sites would make entirely unrelated graphic topics that still linked to their site, such as the history of the candy bad that links to a cash-for-gold site)

We’ve been approached a number of times to publish a infogrpahic that someone would get on digg for us. It been a cottage industry since the beginning of the year.

Also fascinating the read is the raking-over-the-coals the reddit community thinks they are doing. The ‘facts’ they think they are pulling out, when this stuff happens all the time in their community as well. But it’s nice to see earnestness none the less.

Woah. Crazy.

Form Code book launch party at Telic Arts Exchange, Los Angeles

Benjamin Palmer — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:33:56 -0400

@barbariangroup CTO Chandler co-wrote this rad book, go to the party in LA if you can !

formandcode :

p. Chandler and Casey are happy to announce a book launch party for Form Code in Design, Art, and Architecture at Telic Arts Exchange in Los Angeles on Saturday, 4 September from 5 – 7pm. Please join us. We’ll have a toast at 6:30 to thank the many book contributors who’ll be there. Champagne and snacks will be served and we’ll have copies of the book on hand. Directions to Telic (951 Chung King Road Los Angeles, CA 90012) are available on their website .

FORM CODE is the totally fucking awesome new book by...

Benjamin Palmer — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:28:40 -0400

FORM CODE is the totally fucking awesome new book by @barbariangroup CTO Chandler McWilliams, its basically the new encyclopedia of code-based visual design

latecapitalism: Sick Video David Altobeli directed for Philip...

Rick Webb — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:00:45 -0400

latecapitalism :

p. Sick Video David Altobeli directed for Philip Selway of Radiohead. By Some Miracle Video by Philip Selway – MySpace Video

TBG needs an equivalent of Colbert’s “Friend of the show.” Long time associate, Mr. Altobeli. We are big fans and supporters. Congrats!

Just finishing up the first month of my friend Buster’s...

Rick Webb — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:11:06 -0400

Just finishing up the first month of my friend Buster’s new website Health Month. It was a good time. Challenging but helpful, and I am definitely healthier for it.

He’s gearing up for the month two beta. If you want in, let me know I have some sponsorship tokens.

"In all my years in business, I have yet to hear someone say: “I love corporate politics.” On the..."

Rick Webb — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:10:47 -0400

“In all my years in business, I have yet to hear someone say: “I love corporate politics.” On the other hand, I meet plenty of people who complain bitterly about corporate politics—sometimes even in the companies they run. So, if nobody loves politics, why all the politics?”

- _p. How to Minimize Politics in Your Company // ben’s blog

This is a great article about managing office politics. (via Fred Wilson)

(Not So) Annoying Places

Benjamin Palmer — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:20:41 -0400

Annoying Places :p. Hi, I blog for ADWEEK sometimes, this is one of those times.