Regardless, I know I have at least one reader who is very dear to me (*cough* Google *cough*) so I will exploit the fact that I have this outlet to shamelessly and explicitly promote my newest creation (with a nice density of proper verbage tied in).

So, ladies and robotic server banks, without further ado, I give you the Tie Tee – a T-shirt with an attached necktie and my new company Formalitees. The idea for Tie Tees was born in a blinding blaze of creativity (actually, I was designing a graphic faux-tuxedo T-shirt that looked like President Bush’s suit with a “kick me” sign on the back when the idea to make the tie real struck…) while I was in the Adirondacks that fateful 2008 summer, and it’s been a slip’n'slide ride ever since.

Knowing nothing about the rag trade (or how to operate a sewing needle) I pieced together a prototype with scissors and safety-pins and deemed the idea worthy enough to be spared from the slaughter. Ironically, depending on your world perspective, the shirts I cut up to create the first version of what would become the definitive symbol of modern, holistically-conscious leadership were pink National Guard T-shirts. I mean, it’s said creation requires destruction, but some things were just made to be destroyed…

So there began my crash course in apparel industry – and in the high-end, sustainable part of it at that. I wouldn’t allow my shirts to be made in an irreprehensibly business-as-usual way like most other clothing companies, through the exploitation of economically-enslaved labor and the unsustainable pillaging and polluting of our planet – that would be completely unprofessional and irresponsible. I had to do it 100% right, and I was able to source organic cotton from Texas, get it turned into yarn in Georgia, and dyed and sewn into shirts in Los Angeles. Making the Tie Shirts in the USA out of the highest-quality organic cotton upped the cost, sure, but you get what you pay for – and if you pay less you’re externalizing the real cost through pollution and slavery. That’s not a good deal.

Of course, my desire to do it right made launching Formalitees a bit harder than it would be for those who do it wrong (how do you sleep at night, by the way?) and it took a full two years to go from idea to product. Needless to say, I am still completely unable to operate a needle, but I sure know a lot more than I did and am constantly learning more.

Anyways, back to the idea. Business suits have become tarnished through the actions of evil people – from lying politicians to greedy bankers to the executives of clothing companies that exploit the life out of entire cultures. Tie Tees are an alternative to being in cahoots with this evil, symbolizing the new kind of leadership the world desperately needs – people who care about the planet more than the bottom line. Combining the iconic power of a necktie with the sustainable comfort of an organic T-shirt creates an entirely new level of professionalism – a level of responsibility way more meaningful than business suits can attain tied down to their evil masters.

So, Tie Tees reposition business suits, making them suitable only for evil people or their servants. Is that unfair to all the nice, conscious, Prius-driving, Greenpeace-donating people that just happen to wear suits too? Yes, yes it is. But now they have an alternative. I like to say that the business suit is the flag that unites lying politicians, greedy bankers, and fascist CEOs – and I’m out to burn it, so you better take it off.

Anyways, by commandeering the necktie from the suit and creating a new symbol of professionalism we’re hoping to be a vehicle through which people open their eyes to the problems of business as usual, and of course we hope they’ll wear Tie Tees to show their commitment to a higher level of responsibility for their actions, because business suits suck. But that’s not (only) a marketing strategy; it’s the truth.

So help me fight the evil of business as usual – score a Tie Tee shirt from Formalitees.

This was a great experience. The Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst is a contemporary art gallery in Bremen, Germany. They came to my brainwashing institution asking for our help – they’re recognized internationally for the artists they exhibit and the careers they’ve helped launch, but nobody from Bremen supports them!

Working alongside the fantastic strategists Jonathan Chu and Geraldine Szabo, and the brilliant creatives Boris Grunwald, Florian Spielhofer, Penelope Abreu, Jen Maerkert, and Andreas Rasmussen, under creative directors Gerrit Kleinfeld, Nina Rieke, and Nina Jünemann, we discovered our client’s real problem, developed a clear insight, spun it into a big idea, and wound up with a creative campaign that wowed the gallery’s curator and won us a Top Dog award.

My favorite part? Testing our key human insight – if you tell somebody not to do something, they’ll definitely do it. To test it we created two posters, one that says “VISIT THIS WEBSITE”, and one that says “DON’T VISIT THIS WEBSITE.” With ridiculously amazing support for my ridiculously ridiculous tasks that have nothing at all to do with him, Hamburg’s Best PHP Programmer Jonas Franke created a pair of beautifully ridiculous web counters that feature the character GIR of Invader Zim fame doing a fancy dance (as seen below). Adding one dancing GIR per visitor allowed us to count how many people reacted to each poster. And I simply cannot imagine what these people thought when all they saw was 200+ GIRs dancing away on the screen. LOL!

And the results? Well, I told you not to read this presentation! (PDF)

The Teton Nordic Club is a nonprofit organization that provides after-school nordic skiing programs for kids…

This year, if the board of directors gets their $#*% together, we’re mixing it up a little with some Norse Mythology rebranding, from visual identity to general rediculously-coolness, like the FIERCE FACE CONTEST, which resulted in an awesomely mean-looking little warrior getting a prize package and a picture in the local newspaper.

Volunteer work is fun, as long as you can play with it and have fun!