I’ve had the pleasure of helping out with the organization of a fundraiser. I have learned that organizing a fundraiser is a ton of work, but knowing that all of the proceeds go to a great cause, the Casey House Foundation, makes it entirely worthwhile. Mind you, I’m not doing any of the difficult stuff – like canvassing in the rain for hours, or asking people to donate something for the event. Those tasks have been the job of the two thoughtful co-founders of the event: Jeff Tallon and Laura Darling.

The fundraiser is called Heart at Work. Heart at Work is a silent art auction at The Gladstone Hotel this Sunday, December 6. The doors open at 7:30pm and it fuses art, technology and music to raise money for the Casey House Foundation. Casey House is a specialty hospice that provides home care and outreach programs for people living with HIV/AIDS in the community.

Recently, Casey House had their annual contemporary art auction, Art with Heart. It is a huge event at the Carlu that showcases the best of Canadian contemporary art. Tickets are $125 to attend the event and the artwork sells for thousands of dollars, raising money for the Casey House Foundation.

Art with Heart is a great event, but Jeff and Laura thought that it would be nice to create an event for people who can’t necessarily afford to participate in a large-scale auction. However, the work that they’ve garnered for Heart at Work is very strong and this allows attendees to potentially walk away with a great work of art by a contemporary Canadian artist at a more reasonable price. So if you come to Heart at Work, you can enjoy a night of contemporary art, technology and music for just $10 admission.

So kudos to Jeff and Laura for creating a wonderful event for a great cause, and for those of us who would like to enjoy a more modest night out!

Best Buy, as example, views customer service as a marketing and brand building opportunity. They have created Twelpforce, a Twitter based customer service department. Twelpforce members do everything from route consumers to website content, demonstration links, or the latest Best Buy advertising.

What I like about this program is that it acknowledges that pain points are opportunities, and that the best way to nurture loyalty and advocacy is to show evidence that you are interested in addressing a concern, solving a problem or fixing an issue.

But these sort of opportunities to exceed customer’s expectations are not only reserved for retailers. Any company can make their customer’s experience a better one. As Best Buy shows, utilizing today’s social media is one example of several in the digital arena to immediately improve your customer’s experience.

So this begs the question, what is a brand? Let’s start with what it’s not. It is not your logo or advertising, nor is it your packaging or point of purchase display. Those are things controlled by your company. Instead, a brand is a customer’s gut feeling about a product, service or company. People gravitate to things that help define who they are or want to be. It also helps to bring order out of clutter.

If a brand is a customer’s gut feeling, then what is branding? Well, branding is a company’s effort to build lasting value by delighting customers. And to delight means to have more customers buy more products for more years at a higher price.

Companies serve at the pleasure of their customers – not the other way around. So when clients say they are focused on product development and improving distribution they are in fact also working on developing their brand. A point that makes peoples eyes widen.

So, what are you been doing to develop your brand?

Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, postulated that the typical human being could only have 150 friends. After that, we just aren’t cognitively organized to handle and track additional people. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter fly in the face of Dunbar’s number. They put hundreds or thousands of friendlies in front of us, people we would have lost touch with if it weren’t for the fact that they keep digitally reappearing.

Some people are trying to flout Dunbar’s number, and become connected and actual friends with tens of thousands of people at once – and surprise surprise, you just can’t do that. You might be able to stretch to 200 or 400, but there is no way you can have meaningful relationships with a thousand people.

So, how many “friends” do you really have?

Then I remembered the 44 uses for WD-40 and figured this could surely be #45.  I sprayed WD-40 down the back of the mirror and in no time, we had separated the mirror from the wall.  Using more WD-40 we cleaned the saw and our hands, and removed the thick tar from the wall without damaging the dry-wall.  Genius!

For those of you who are curious, here are the other 44 uses from a list that made the rounds on the ‘internet’:

1.    Protects silver from tarnishing.
2.    Removes road tar and grime from cars.
3.    Cleans and lubricates guitar strings.
4.    Gives floors that `just-waxed` sheen without making it slippery.
5.    Keeps flies off cows.
6.    Restores and cleans chalkboards.
7.    Removes lipstick stains.
8.    Loosens stubborn zippers.
9.    Untangles jewelry chains.
10.    Removes stains from stainless steel sinks.
11.    Removes dirt and grime from the barbecue grill.
12.    Keeps ceramic/terra cotta garden pots from oxidizing.
13.    Removes tomato stains from clothing.
14.    Keeps glass shower doors free of water spots.
15.    Camouflages scratches in ceramic and marble floors.
16.    Keeps scissors working smoothly.
17.    Lubricates noisy door hinges on vehicles and doors in homes.
18.    Removes black scuff marks from the kitchen floor!
19.    Bug guts will eat away the finish on your car. Removed quickly, with WD-40!
20.    Gives children’s play gym slide a shine for a super fast slide.
21.    Lubricates the gearshift on lawn mowers.
22.    Rids kids rocking chairs and swings of squeaky noises.
23.    Lubricates tracks in sticking home windows and makes them easier to open.
24.    Spraying an umbrella stem makes it easier to open and close.
25.    Restores and cleans padded leather dashboards in vehicles, as well as vinyl bumpers.
26.    Restores and cleans roof racks on vehicles.
27.    Lubricates and stops squeaks in electric fans.
28.    Lubricates wheel sprockets on tricycles, wagons, and bicycles for easy handling.
29.    Lubricates fan belts on washers and dryers and keeps them running smoothly.
30.    Keeps rust from forming on saws and saw blades, and other tools.
31.    Removes splattered grease on stove.
32.    Keeps bathroom mirror from fogging.
33.    Lubricates prosthetic limbs.
34.    Keeps pigeons off the balcony (they hate the smell).
35.    Removes all traces of duct tape.
36.    Folks even spray it on their arms, hands, and knees to relieve arthritis pain.
37.    Protects the Statue of Liberty from the elements.
38.    Attracts fish. Spray a LITTLE on live bait or lures and you’ll be catching fish in no time.
39.    Ant bites. It takes the sting away immediately and stops the itch
40.    Removes crayon from walls. Spray on the mark and wipe with a clean rag.
41.    If you’ve washed and/or dried a tube of lipstick with a load of laundry, saturate the lipstick spots with WD-40 and presto, lipstick is gone!
42.    Spray WD-40 on the distributor cap, it will displace the moisture and allow the car to start.
43.    If you peel off a sticker from any container, mirror, automobile etc., it will take the stickiness off and leave it cleaner that you had ever thought possible.
44.    Keep a can of WD-40 in your kitchen cabinet.  It is good for oven burns or any other type of burn.  It takes the burned feeling away and heals with NO scarring. Remember, the basic ingredient is FISH OIL.

The first 3 weeks were spent local – refinishing furniture and putting in some serious time at the gym getting ready for week 4 which was to be spent at the beach!

Growing up I watched my dad spend countless hours refinishing old furniture, and as this apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I have inherited this hobby, along with a few other personality traits…

There are countless benefits to refinishing old pieces instead of buying new!

1. Saved on storage of the unused pieces (i.e. gave my parents back their garage – ok part of it anyways)

2. Saved the environment by not letting the unused pieces go to landfill (when said garage became too full to move around in)

3a. Saved money buying new pieces, and likely replacing them in the not so distant future

3b. Old furniture was built to last – these pieces are SOLID!

Plus, they have great history and stories to them – the little bookcase was made for me by my great grandfather who I had the honour of knowing through much of my adult life, the buffet mirror was a huge score at an antique show, the buffet was FREE and turned out way better than I could have ever imagined after having rescued it from the end of a driveway in the pouring rain, the dresser was my great grandparents’ and handmade, and the window frame-mirror was also FREE.

There is something to be said for peeling away the layers of history and starting from scratch again.  That little book case was repainted countless times as I grew up – going through my yellow, then blue, then white, then green phases… I even wallpapered the shelves once.  After lathering on layers of Circa 1850 Paint Remover, I finally get the pieces back to their original state – often uncovering notes left behind by the builder (my great grandfather) or stamps saying FRAGILE on the wood, as he often reused crates and odd pieces of wood.

The first three weeks were spent in town working hard on the abovementioned pieces, the last week was spent travelling to Low Country (Beaufort, South Carolina) to visit wonderful friends.  All I knew about South Carolina was what I saw in the movies, and now having been there, my visions were bang on. The homes, the trees, the people, the food, the weather – just like the movies.  Not knowing what to expect, I overpacked – threefold!  Did I really need 3 outfits per day or the necklaces or the numerous pairs of shoes??? Of course not – vacation is about getting away from your routine, your habits, your usual lifestyle and RELAXING – at the end of the day, all I really needed was a swim suit and my camera. It felt great to not use a hair dryer each day, or put on mascara, or worry about whether I was wearing my swim suit at the grocery store (NOTE: it looks like a skirt and halter top…)! It has been a long time since I have gone on a vacation like that – taking a plane somewhere, going through customs, hearing strange accents, eating unusual food (I tried grits for the first time), enjoying the company of family and friends, and swimming in the ocean!  To say it was FANTASTIC is an understatement!

Whether you stay in town or get on a plane the next time you take a vacation, remember to peel away the layers and start from scratch – you’ll be amazed at what you might uncover!

Fall cleaning

So the ex is winding down this weekend which signifies the end of summer – boo hoo. I personally have not been to the ex in many many years but it is a nice tradition for us Torontonians to remind us that we need to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of the last lazy days of summer. Wait, did I just say lazy?! Let’s back-up here. I can’t speak for all of you but my summer has been far from lazy.

Between the social obligations (weddings, weddings and more weddings) and the many projects I’m working on at Design Lab, my summer has flown by. Look, I’m not complaining since I have a job in this economy that keeps me busy and creatively stimulated, and lots of friends and family to include me in their celebrations, but I would just like one weekend where I can take some time to myself and get to everything that I have been putting off all summer.

So with my husband gone on a stag this weekend, I’m doing just that. Time to organize, de-clutter and take some much needed me time to kick back and relax. Perfect timing with the beginning of Fall just around the corner. To start I took one hour out of my day and cleaned my desk at the office. It sounds simple, but so liberating!

So my advice to you before things get hectic again is to take just one hour out of your day in the next couple of weeks and clean up the mess in your life.

Let me know how it goes!

Now I have experienced panel interviews, most recently as a few years ago when I was headhunted to be CMO at Laura Secord. I spent three hours one day being grilled by five Board members about my qualifications and what I would do as CMO. I guess I did okay because they offered me the job – but I digress.

One of the questions they asked was what sort of websites we liked and/or frequented. An unusual but great question – and it really made me think on my feet and later that day. I never really realised it, but I spend a lot of time reading blogs. You know, the kind that actually teach you something or provoke your mind to take another point of view. After all, isn’t the internet supposed to solve your problems?

I’m a personal fan of Scott Kelby (photography – www.scottkelby.com) and Seth Godin (marketing – sethgodin.typepad.com), and read them every morning. Why? Well Scott helps me solve my photography problems and Seth makes me think differently. That’s pretty simple and straight forward, but it’s the truth.

Seth recently wrote an entry where he asked if marketers are creating solutions or fixing problems. He believes that this disconnect is caused because people focus on the solution instead of the problem you were given to solve. I couldn’t agree more.

We spend our week working with clients to better understand and uncover their problems. Surprisingly, many clients aren’t really sure what their problems are but believe they know what the solution is. I believe that the more clarity you can get about what a successful solution looks like (i.e. What’s the actual problem to solve), the more likely you will be to have a delighted customer when you’re done.

A former colleague from my Bata days used to ask, “Are you a part of the solution or a part of the problem”. I used to think I knew the answer to that question, but now I’m not so sure.

What do you think?

Be prepared also applies to your job as well or in my case my job at Design Lab, as an Interface Developer. One of the best ways to be ready for anything in the world of CSS/HTML is template, template, template. Make templates of the work you always seem to be doing, lists, drop downs, image with text beside it, image with text beside it that wraps around the image, pagination, gallery lists etc.

I have a cheat sheet on my desktop of CSS code that I use all the time to save on time, along with Latin text to fill out sites to see how the code will re-act to large and small copy.

To stay on the ball and out of your PMs bad books keep the following cheat sheet on your desktop.

1. A full paragraph of Latin text or filler text to test out your work. Try to stick to dead languages, no Klingon please.

2 . An HTML template page of your designers favourite layouts / call outs / promos or common website architectures.

3. Instant Messenger -  to access other ID/Designers you work with or used to work with to bounce ideas off of or just double check your work.

4.  Any URLs that help you with anything and everything CSS/HTML w3schools.com, www.smashingmagazine.com, etc.

5. Toys. You need them. Be it Transformers, Tokidoki figures, or whatever, these items give you a quick break and let you relax before diving back into the storm.

The side of Dundas Square Hotel

 

 

Many designers and artists will most likely agree, sometimes we can find inspiration in the strangest things.  

What I love best about walking around the streets of Toronto is that it gives me time to look around and see things that I wouldn’t normally see if I was driving or taking the TTC.  Often times I get creative ideas that pop into my head; by looking down alleyways, at billboards, at textures that emerge from every neighbourhood.  Most of the time they are fleeting ideas and if I don’t write them down they will vanish from my memory.  This BIG Inspiration though, this is one that I cannot forget.

Every week I walk north on Church St. to the grocery store and just before approaching Dundas St. I walk past Dundas Square Hotel. On the side of the building is a very interesting wall that looks as though it may have once contained a large advertisement and now has been ripped down.  Or maybe there once was another building here and this is what remains. I have seen this type of beautiful wreckage before, in many areas of Toronto. 

Has anyone else noticed this wall? Does anyone know what it once was? If you have noticed it, please comment below and let me know what used to be there.  

When I walk by this wall, I think to myself; “that would make a really great artist mural.”  If the city wants to beautify areas of Toronto, I think it can be done not just with trees, shrubs and flowers, but also with murals.

I see HUGE potential in this BIG wall of shapes. I think the shapes should definitely be used in the artwork, for example, as a mask over a realistic scene, or as a complimentary pattern of a pop art inspired mural (see my three examples below).

I would assume it would take a lot of paint, large brushes, cooperative weather conditions, a few artists and a forklift.  Oh, and likely a permit or a signed agreement to use this space.  The city could even commission that talented portrait artist who does chalk portraits outside of the Eaton Center! He’s amazing! I am also willing to participate in this mural if ever it were to happen.  I would love to be a part of this BIG inspiration.