El Gaffney

You So Want My Job

Well, besides for mom and dad and Noah (who has got a cool new gig) and my rich private equity friends – oh wait, blogs and YouTube get blocked at your company. So when I print out this post and bring it to you at dinner tonight – oh wait, you work a 120 hours/week, so you won’t be there. So check your mailbox at your ridiculous, modern doorman building and then be jealous of my hours and freedom for about 3 seconds until you take the elevator up and turn on your 60″ plasma.

Anyway, Heather LeFevre conducted and finished putting together the results of the fourth annual Account Planning Survey into a sweet PowerPoint, which she then made available to all on SlideShare. With just under 800 completed surveys (up from 466 a year ago – congrats, Heather!) and questions ranging from salary to experience to blogging to schooling and even negotiating, it provides a global (US-centric though just to manage expectations) and detailed snapshot of the planning world.

This included the answers to one question I couldn’t help but notice…and be proud of:

To be clear, I was in the stay “where I am” majority (just in case my boss or head of HR is reading this and is thinking of an upgrade – it would not be an upgrade of an ingrate). I know why I’m a fan of this place but would still love to know what the outsiders think led to this lead.

Tags: jobs, planning, wk

The Girl Effect

You know I don’t often post Wieden work here but I just an all-agency about something compelling our team has been working on with The Nike Foundation. Asked to brand the idea of investing in adolescent girls, they—partnering with Glow Interactive—came up with The Girl Effect site and this video below:

Tags: charity, girleffect, nike, wk

Do Day: Jew-day

I make it a point to steer clear of agency-specific posts. For one, the risk-reward ratio just isn’t in my favor. (If that’s not clear, what I’m saying is amusing the small number of people who visit this is not worth losing my job because I violated some policy I didn’t know about or something was misconstrued and…you get the point.) For two, this blog often serves as a way to disconnect or escape from work. It is usually a place for me to establish my non-office identity. (Yet, the more W+K Facebook friends I tally up, the more obvious it is that there’s just one me out there.) For three, I’m still relatively new (4 months) and want to make sure I “get” the place before I start writing about it. (Being an informed writer matters to me!?! I learn something new every day.)

But—and you knew that was coming—sometimes I just can’t help myself. (Yes, the holiday sweater party was a prime example.) And—once again, no suspense created—today is one of those times. Because yesterday was Founder’s Day and 1. Some video footage is already on YouTube so I’m less scared about being fired; 2. This was the most unwork company function of which I’ve even been a part; and 3. It was so outrageous, yet so authentic to W+K NY.

As our offices across the globe celebrated the 26th birthday of Wieden + Kennedy, our New York office also turned 13. By the subject of this post, you know what that means. It was time to have our Bar Mitzvah (B’nai probably)…well, time to go out to Charisma Ballroom in Queens and have a Bar Mitzvah party. The theme…Ninjas. And that’s really all I have to say about that. (Still think some things should be left to the people inside these walls.) Except maybe that Coke and Pepsi was played, so the following picture makes some sense.

So forgive me for not doing much today other than recounting the day and night (which you’ve now gotten a glimpse into) with coworkers, looking at pictures, eating, and learning the words to Jay-Z’s verse in Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” (which I butchered at the after Bar Mitzvah bar). Okay, one more picture that must have been taken right after I shouted “the best fur – Chinchilla” into the mic and thought I was going to exit on a high note…only to realize I was just half-way through…

Oh yeah, and the other reason this is titled so broadly yet pointedly is that I just found out that an article I was asked to write (theme – post-Birthright experience) for Contact (a quarterly journal of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish life) was just published. Check it out by clicking on and downloading the PDF of Winter 2008. (Pages 13-14)

That’s all for now. Shalom. Ying-yang. Hov!

Tags: jewish, nyc, party, wk

Do Night: BehanceKlusterSleep

I know, I know. It doesn’t work so well. But I had to acknowledge that since it’s early Thursday morning, I didn’t really help anyone get over the hump via actions.

I did, however, check out Behance’s new site, which I know Michael’s been working on a ton since he moved here to NYC. And that ton he says, “is like the recorded time of Earth vs. our planet’s creation!” Holla at me/Get in my inner circle if you’re on the site and let’s make some ideas happen. For real. They have a great mission and great methods (in addition to their action pads as MK points out) to help you achieve productive creativity. Doing.

Also the TED conference has kicked off today, and if you like me didn’t have the 6000 beans to pony up I encourage you to check out the blog of W+K’s Global Director of Digital Strategies for updates. He talks about how using a crowdsourcing tool (Kluster), they are trying to develop a product over the course of TED (a single 72 hour period). Cool.

Goodnight.

Tags: action, behance, wk

Do Day: A Commercial or Two

I should have saved Sherlock for Do Day, but since I didn’t and I’ve been running around in the rain all day, I’m going to cop out a bit and pass along what I think are pretty strong spots our London office recently did for Honda.

Actually, as I was thinking about commercials that explicitly talk about “doing” (vs. commercials with a strong call to action), I couldn’t help but think about IBM’s recent campaign. So I went to find the latest spot I’ve seen called “Avatar,” which you can see here:

As much as I can’t help but take it personally that this is how most adult businesspeople view young professionals and our Web two dot zero ideas, I do admire that IBM (and agency) seems to really know its target. But as I looked for this video (and found a few that had been removed from YouTube), I also came across an interesting article on CNET showing IBM’s chief executive, Sam Palmisano in Second Life. In fact, it seems he has two avatars.

I read from an article that’s a little more than a year ago, “IBM foresees a sizable business in providing the software, computers, and chips that power 3-D worlds, and in advising clients on how to take advantage of them to market or sell products.” Now, either they are changing strategies (and beliefs). Or the point of the spot was to say that IBM can help you get more out of these virtual world opportunities. If it’s the latter, I have to say that message didn’t quite come through. Oh yeah, and young people explore, try, fail, learn fast, etc. etc. In short, we do!

Tags: action, genY, honda, ibm, wk