1AmongMany

For the holiday season, we set out to create a “holiday greeting” that would be a bit more exciting and engaging than the standard card or funky video. We’ve all seen those. They’re fun – for about two minutes. Then they’re just boring.

Obviously social interaction on the web is a big part of what we do and what we talk about at POKE, so that was a prerequisite for whatever we created. After much concepting and discussion, we decided to put our own twist on a holiday tradition by creating the Global Naughty or Nice List. Add your friends and vote them naughty or nice for the holiday - then send their profile around and let everyone else contribute as well! To help the idea along, we also included a Twitter component to allow people to tie their profiles to their Twitter accounts.

And, the Global Naughty or Nice List was voted “the best agency holiday greeting card” by Mediabistro in 2008!

agency: POKE NY

In partnership with Droga 5, we set out to rescue and revolutionize the New York City public school system. The idea: take the most hated object in classrooms across the city, the mobile phone (which is currently banned from school grounds), and turn it into a learning tool that neither students or teachers could live without. As part of the Million program – named for the one million students currently in attendance in NYC public schools – students receive a free Million mobile device and earn points toward talk time, txt messages, discounts, and freebies based on their academic effort, attendance, conduct, and grades.

To back the pilot launch of the Million, we created a website to serve as the home for the 10,000 mobile devices already active as part of the program. We utilized the notion of “the Million” in conjunction with the logo to create a motion design piece which now lives as the entry to the millionnyc.com homepage. This short, narrated story explains in concise terms exactly what the Million project seeks to accomplish: the creation of a merit-based reward system that will encourage and entice public school students to gain a greater appreciation for their school work.

We also created a comprehensive strategic plan that outlines the full-scale launch and development of this extremely ambitious program. Deploying a network of a million mobile devices is no small task, but the possibilities for true integration into the education system are nearly endless and will only continue to grow as technology and adoption gain momentum. We designed a long-term roll-out plan outlining the potential partners available to increase the academic potential of the Million device, and the steps necessary to put an education-specific mobile device in the hands of a million students. If you’d like to flip through the strategy, it can be downloaded here (be forewarned, it’s a 25MB file and is very long).

To date, this highly ambitious effort has been awarded:
•a Titanium Lion, Cannes
•The Richard T. O’Reilly Award for Public Service, ANDY’s
•The Innovation Award, ANDY’s
•a Gold Pencil, New Media Innovation & Development, One Show Interactive
•a Bronze Pencil, Innovative Media Single, One Show
•a Gold Clio, Innovative Media, Clio Awards
•a Black Pencil, Integrated, D&AD Awards
•a Yellow Pencil, Integrated, D&AD Awards

agency: POKE NY

How can a brand tell you what “sexy” should mean? Is it the perfect bedroom, with the curtains drawn just so? Can you narrow it down to a hair color or a specific body type? No. “Sexy” is personal – and something that only you can define. Keep Life Sexy gives everyone a chance to stand up and shout to the world: “SEXY IS _____!” This site marked a new beginning for K-Y – an effort to reach out to the world and redefine what “sexy is” on everyone’s terms. This is what it looks like when a brand stops shouting and starts listening.

After viewers submit their thoughts on what “sexy is” to the Keep Life Sexy site, they can sort through the data by age and gender, allowing them to gain a narrower perspective on what men and women in specific age groups believe sexy is. Of course, this also becomes a wealth of information for the K-Y brand to use in its development of new products and messaging. The Keep Life Sexy site is a social experiment that doubles as a research project for the brand, and its value to the end user keeps people coming back to continually add to, and explore, what sexy is.

agency: POKE NY

Saving Grace, a new drama from TNT, gained popularity beyond anyone’s expectations throughout its debut season. To support the launch of the second season, TNT wanted a place where fans could connect, discuss, and dig deeper into the messages of this dramatic, and sometimes controversial, series.

Embrace Your Grace does just that, inviting fans to embrace their inner Grace and share with the world the moments of their own lives that make them feel more like the hard-edged star of the show. The site takes the standard blog platform and stretches it into a far-reaching invitation for discussion and drama, even amongst the ranks of its visitors. It also brings the notion of competitive commenting into blogosphere by introducing point/counter-point arguments for every post, as well as giving visitors the ability to demonstrate support for comments from other readers (in addition to the standard commenting mechanism found on most blogs).

agency: POKE NY

How do you make a digital purchase experience that feels as close to a physical experience as possible? For Teroforma, a new tableware company that brings together designers and craftsmen from around the world, the answer was simple: the table. Teroforma has designed a line of distinctive tableware created through a marriage of new ideas and age-old traditions. They’ve partnered innovative young designers with skilled craftsmen to bring you mouth-blown glass from Bohemia, silverware from Portugal, and bone china from, not surprisingly, China.

And, of course, if you’re buying dishes, isn’t the table exactly where you want to see them? You want to be able to mix and match, see this plate next to that mug and decide whether the blue or the green linens work better with that pattern you love. At Teroforma, that’s exactly how you shop.

Teroforma was a finalist at the One Show.

As part of an interview process, I was given the following homework assignment:

Please take a look at the Bourbon category and imagine that one of the brands (pick any you like) is your client and that they are looking to create a major new product.

*Where do you think the opportunity is? (Describe how you uncovered this opportunity and why you think it’s a big opportunity for your client.)

*Write a short one-page product concept that brings the idea to life (be sure to include the consumer insight, the key benefits, and the reasons-to-believe in the concept).

My recommendation was the creation of Angel’s Share, a new bourbon from Maker’s Mark targeting women. Feel free to view my response below or download a copy here.

Launched in June of 2006, the Nike+ system has been called one of the most successful social experience sites on the internet. The Nike+ website offers users a method to track their personal running progress, but more importantly, it creates an outlet for people to connect around their passion.

In July 2007, I participated in the Nike+ Summit at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. I and eleven other runners from across the US were selected because we were knowledgeable, savvy, early adopters of the Nike+ system. We met with product developers and designers from Nike, Apple, and R/GA to share our insights about the positive elements and the flaws in the system. Based on my professional background, and my familiarity with the Nike+ system, I was uniquely positioned within the group to speak for Nike+ users in general, and the under 30 market in particular.

During the summit, the Nike+ team expressed an interest in becoming more relevant in the digital space, especially among the youth market. With those interests in mind, I put together a strategic document outlining a series of ideas and tactics that I believe would strengthen the presence of Nike+ in the youth market. A copy of the presentation is available for download in .pdf format here.