Technicalities Sept 17, 2000 *) Count Your Blessings I know there has to be a reason we keep changing seats. It must has something to do with getting a fresh perspective, of helping everyone to look at the world in different ways. I'll bet it's just one of those Creative Department things. Keeping it all new - I'm sure it has to be something like that. Since no one knows where anyone is, nowadays people refer to where people sit by talking about whomever used to be there. The problem is, which generation seating plan? "Oh, she sits near the cubicle that Ritesh is moving to. You know, the one where Anna used to sit, after Heather moved out." Amusing to think that we've been in this space for a total of 9 months. The cubicle I now sit in is the worst one in the office. Okay, I'm kidding here, it's not one of the ones that actually has a pole where the chair is supposed to go. But it _is_ the one the company reserves to punish former vice presidents. (Vonciel used to sit here.) It is on 13, facing the hallway, where every single person who walks to or from the kitchen or the stairs gets to walk past me. It's fine. It's not like I had anything important to do anyway. *) A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss We now have a Tech Director that most people in the office would not recognize. It's Deb Ronsvalle, who was promoted during the July review period. It's not Deb's fault no one knows who she is, she has spent most of the last few months jetting back and forth to Chicago and other points midwestern to work on the Imation account. Deb knows everything there is to know about all the roles in our company - she did all of them during that project. But now she's back in New York, at long last, and she told me she's looking forward to finally having time to clean up her apartment. *) SHTTNTDM Everybody say hello to Sundar Jayabose, who recently joined our ranks. He is on team Catalyst, working with Dante Gomez on the Sprint account. Evidently the projects he's working on are called NCO and NIS. One of the first things he has to do is learn what these acronyms mean. When he finds out, he can tell me. *) The Debate Rages Evidently the Woodbridge folks have polarized into two views of the author of these notes. There are those who hold that I am a twit. There are others who think I'm "utterly harmless". My question to the readers is, Are these mutually exclusive? *) The Decline Of The British Empire Well, the BBC has pinpointed what has gone wrong with British education in the last decade. They've finally explained why boys are now getting lower scores than girls on the UK's standardized A-level tests (http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid%5F889000/889972.stm). It seems that all the blokes have taken to reading James McHugh's internet column in the magazine Front (http://www.frontmag.com/), and their brains have all turned to mush. According to the BBC, James is an anti-intellectual who can't use any words longer than the title of the magazine. (Those of us who work with James know that this is blood libel, because "Scotland" has more letters than "Front". And James is a pretty litigious fellow, so they'd better watch out.) I know what James would say in reply: "You've either got it or you haven't, and right now it's in your face." *) Too Much Information Ever wonder what the people you work with do when they are released from the constraints of office propriety? A bunch of us got the opportunity to take a peek into the inner workings of Jamil Ellis's mind this past weekend, when we went to see his improv show. The play was at the smallest bar in the tristate area - slightly larger than the average bathtub - and the 20 or so of us who showed up created a fire violation just trying to get inside. So now we all know: Jamil is one twisted bastard. He and his compatriots took all sorts of wholesome suggestions from the audience, and turned them into the sort of debauchery that Joe Lieberman has turned into a campaign issue. You should have seen what they did starting from just the single word "dog". Who hired this guy anyway? (Those of you who weren't there still have the opportunity to learn something about the nature of psychosis; there's a second show next Saturday. It's at 8:30 PM, at Upstairs Rose's Turn, 55 Grove Street. Get there early, or you'll wind up sitting pressed against the spigot.) *) Our Editorial Policy It seems that there are a certain number of Project Managers who are attempting to do something to get written up in Technicalities. One of them recently told me all about her parents and their opinions of her boyfriends, then thought the better of it when she realized that her mother might actually get forwarded a copy. I must say I find all the attention amusing, but I want to remind everyone that these notes are about the Tech Department. As Eugenia Antipas can tell you, the main thing you have to do to get a mention herein is to join our group. After that, as Eugenia will also tell you, you may want to try pretty hard to _avoid_ the attention. *) A Least I Still Have The Shoes As most people have probably heard by now, Gucci has told us that they have chosen to build their e-commerce site with Sapient. I feel terrible about it - I'm sure I singlehandedly blew up the relationship with the client when I sat stonefaced during a meeting with Rick Swanson and said that I "didn't get it" after he told one of his jokes. Ouch. Now I am taking solace in the amusing image of Terilyn Georgi and Rick having to explain to a _new_ group of folks all the stuff Marysia Woroniecka and the rest of us have learned about Gucci in the 2 1/2 years. Thus - a Sapient Creative Director during the kickoff conference call: "I don't understand. What does that mean, 'you will get paid'?" All kidding aside. Usually I am all business about this stuff, and the comings and goings of clients are just part of the way things are. But I have to say I am especially attached to the Gucci clients and the Gucci team, and I will miss working with them. I have learned something important about our business too. When we all go on pitches, AGENCY and our competitors always talk about our wonderful methodology and management. Of course we have both, but in the end they are never as important as something else. In fact the top of the list on a project is having a team that really cares. For Gucci the last 2 1/2 years Gucci definitely had someone who really cared: Marysia. Marysia is the kind of Account Director who knows exactly what the client wants and is smart enough to express opinions on everything from the creative treatment to the database design. While this sometimes means that she can be a pain in the neck to work with - and she is annoyingly loud on the phone too, take it from one who sat next to her - in the end I have a tremendous respect for what she did for Gucci. After AGENCY.COM bought out my business, some of my former business partners went to work for a well-known toy manufacturer. Conflict of interest rules prevented them from engaging us, so they hired Sapient to build a new online business. Sapient was fired after four months, having failed in my ex-partners' opinion to deliver either on time or on budget. From what I've gathered, the key missing factor was having someone like Marysia. I wish them better luck this time around. So life goes on, and I am working on other big projects. But I doubt I'm going to get a trip to Italy from my new clients.