Lemonade: Movie Review

After Eric Prolux, a 37 year-old copywriter, is laid off from a large ad-agency in 2008, he starts a blog for other unemployed ad professionals. Once the site launched, he decided to create a promotional video featuring the faces and stories of other laid-off execs.  Lemonade is NOT a film of people complaining about being laid off.  The movie is also a film for unemployed professionals in ALL industries.

Lemonade reminded me of when I was laid off in 2002.  At that time, I decided to make the best of it and pursue my interest of knowing what goes on behind the camera and entered the film industry.  It was one of the best experiences I ever had as it was freeing to be doing something that I wanted to do.  My time working at a small production company in TriBeCa made me realize that previous work experiences weren't as fulfilling as I had thought.  An element had been missing - my personal interests...my personality...ME.  It took a while before I completely jumped ship and dived into the world of advertising by attending the VCU Brandcenter.  The two year swim (i.e., grad school) was one of the most challenging events of my life and I enjoyed almost (let's be real about it) every moment of it.  Now it's 2010 and fast approaching a year after graduating from the Brandcenter and I have yet to secure full-time employment.

Am I bitter? A little. 

Am I scared. You're darn right I am. 

Am I doing something about? I was slow at the start, but picking up speed.

Lemonade is yet another confirmation that establishing a business was the right thing for me to do.  Here's how you can watch the film and get inspired too:
1.  Click to find a screening near you
2. Go to Lemonademovie.com and buy the DVD
3. Buy the DVD from Amazon
4. For those without a steady stream of income, watch it on Hulu below

A must watch film (less than 40 min):

The Person I Secretly Admire (or use too)

This post is written to recognize a person online who has positively influenced me.  Since it is difficult for me to select one, I decided to pick the person who has inspired me most recently - Ms. Lauren Hornes, Owner of BeSpoken Spaces.  

I first "met" Lauren via email in 2004 while she was attending our alma mater the University of Michigan (Go Blue) and after her initiation into Nu Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a public service organization I am still active in today.  Our communications would be sporadic at best the next few years.  Then in 2009 Lauren began sending out emails to reconnect, letting me and others know of her ambitions.  Last year she launched her professional organizing business - BeSpoken Spaces.  This is her SECOND business since graduating from U of M almost 3 years ago. 

It's amazing to me as to how much she has accomplished in such a short period of time.  Not only is her sincerity in thought, positive outlook, and constant enthusiasm for her business refreshing, it is also my own personal reminder to take more risks and demand more of myself. 

Although Lauren isn't the only person who motivated me into action, she is the person who got me to thinking long & hard "why the heck not?" and "what's stopping me?" As a result, I made it official and founded One Epiphany, a brand marketing company.  I'm still in the beginning stages of organization, but I have gotten over the first hurdle and for that I am thankful.

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This is a post for the contest Win A Free SOBCon Weekend #SOBCon2010. You can enter too. “Write a blog post about a person (or people) online who has (or have) made a difference in your life. Celebrate how they have made your life easier, better, smarter, more productive, more meaningful.”

We Are The World 25 for Haiti

The song gives me chills as did the original in 1985 and will effect so many lives with the donations.

Inspiration Comes From The Weirdest of Places

Today I read a MediaPost article on how social media can negatively impact small & medium businesses. Unfortunately, I felt the article was mediocre at best. Luckily, I did gain value from comments specifically the one written by Karen Renner. In summary, Ms. Renner questioned people's reluctance to communicate positive feedback as quickly as negative.

Ms. Renner has a point. I am definitely guilty of letting people know of a not-so-good situation with a brand. And although I do make a point of letting companies know the good and bad service an particular employee may have given, I rarely do the same with my social network. Therefore I have decided to change my way of doing things starting today. When a brand or company does something favorable for me, I will be certain to share it with my network, on- and off-line, because negative feedback should have all the glory.

A Positive Feedback Award goes to Layton Insurance LLC of Richmond, VA. I spoke with Ms. Summer Layton who answered each and every question I had (and there were many) with such grace and warmth. She looked up the answers that she did know off the top of her head and provided extra, valuable information so I could make the best decision for me as the consumer even if it meant she wouldn't get the sale. Ms. Layton even offered to pass on my information to a competitor insurance provider because she knew the other provider also did its best to give the most competitive rates available.

I will continue my hunt for the best insurance rate and to educate myself on the different type of policies out there. I will say GREAT customer service is something for which I am willing to pay a reasonable premium. However with Layton Insurance, it is offered free of charge AND the insurance rates quoted (home, landlord and auto policies) were the best I got so far!

Layton Insurance LLC

1308 W Main St
Richmond, VA 23220-4827

(804) 355-7444‎

Learn SEO without spending a bundle

If your company plans to do most of its advertising using Google AdWords, I recommend a free, readily available route instead - the Google AdWords Learning Center.

It has easy to follow instruction as well as quizzes at the end of each topic. If you so choose you can take the Google Advertiser Professional Exam too. It costs $50 and is part of the Google Advertiser Professional Program that its own set of requirements.

There is also a free electronic textbook Google provides as well that I believe goes more in-depth.

To the point of some, you may wish to have a course that explores other marketing concepts that can be combined with SEO such as social media or PR. However if you are just starting to get your feet wet when it comes to SEO, why not go the free route and see if "free" meets your needs. If it doesn't hit all of the points desired, at least you have better idea of the type of information you prefer to know and will be able to better select a paid resource and potentially get a higher return on investment.

Voter Disenfranchisement - 2000, 2004 and 2008???

Thanks to a dear friend bringing today's NY Times article to my attention. The article describes how tens of thousands of voters in at least six swing states have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering.

States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal - NYTimes.com

Verify Your Voter Registration

Not all states have online voter registration verification tools. If your state doesn't, you'll need to call your county election official to verify your registration. (We've included links to all relevant contact information). If you need to, you can look up your county here.


— Submitted by me as editorial comment to the NY Times on October 9, 2008

My immediate thought was "not again"! 2000, 2004 and now 2008? The fact that this is happening in the swing states is highly suspicious. One thing I do not understand is for a law/act that was put into place in 2002...why are states just now enforcing it (or trying to figure out the process) DAYS before an election? Shouldn't they have already created a process and gotten the bugs out in last 5-6 years with the help of local elections?

It angers me tremendously to learn the Republican party is trying to stop people from voting in Ohio. Yes, this is definitely a sign of a maverick. A maverick whose thinking (add entire Republican party to this) is COMPLETELY removed from that of the general population.

Please, please, please make everyone aware of this excellent piece of investigative news done by the NY Times. Not all news sources try to get relevant, timely and useful information to the public. Encourage and motivate all you know to check with the county clerk BEFORE Election Day to make certain their voting rights are secure. If you are able to vote early, DO IT so you will still have time before November 4th to correct any wrongs that may happen at the voting booth.

So Long, Farewell...

This has been quite a summer of discovery and as a result I feel it has been successful. There was definitely a combination of peaks and valleys, but I enjoyed every step along the way. Every lesson learned will only make me a stronger, better advertising professional.

Live, Learn & Move On

This was the week for final creative presentations. After an entire month of working on this intern project, you would have thought the team would have had grown breaking, revolutionary ideas to show for it. NOPE! This was a disappointment for me [particularly because I wished I was able to have thought of something truly amazing (rev. 8/5)].

Once again in a group of 7. This time the departments represented was post-production - editing & music (2), art direction (1), finance (1), planning (1) and account (2). The team was originally gung-ho until we had our first creative review and learned that none of our ideas were interesting enough to capture the attention of the creative team we presented to that day. This was the beginning of the end. If I didn't know before, I really know now that lack of motivation, especially for us beginning in our careers, is a killer of creativity. Every meeting we had someone would mention how our ideas weren't good and how the agency wasn't going to use them anyway so why go through the effort. I tried and tried, but I couldn't figure out a way to turn the ship around so it wouldn't remain in the land of doom. I admit...I almost succumbed due to the constant negativity.

To make a long story shorter, I'm happy the second internship project is over. In general, I know you live, learn and move one. This is one experience of many that will help me become a stronger advertising (any industry truthfully) professional.

Lessons learned

This must be the summer for change. The account director decided to jump ship and head to another agency to man a technology account. One of the things I am learning about the ad biz is that to move up more times than not you have to move out.

Below is a quote I am going to make my mantra. It was a simple thought I had when responding to an email where the person wasn't certain I would have "fun" doing certain work.

Fun is not what I am looking for…it’s the experience I seek. If I enjoy the experience, the fun will come.
- Nerissa Marbury

As long as you give me credit, feel free to use it for I am quite proud of it myself.

Slow & Painful

The great part this week is that the team now has an Account Exec and an Assistanct Account Exec.

The bad part of this week has been lack of things to do. Why? Because there is now an AE & AAE on the account to do the things I was being given. So sad...less time and work for the intern.

Quiet Storm Before the Game

This week the entire account team was out of the office most of the week. The Group Account Director and Account Sup were in Los Angeles to shoot a TV commercial. The Management Rep was on vacation and the Account Exec and Asst. AE positions had not started work yet. So that left me...Account Leadership Intern to the rescue!

I mistakenly thought Week 6 would be rather slow since it was just me in the office. What I learned is that the momentum doesn't stop just because other people have. On Tuesday, there was a big client meeting. I learned the process of getting art work prepped, produced and packed to go. There were copies to be made and files to be sent. I emailed, called and picked up art work and made certain the Creative Director on the account approved the boards production put together in less than 90 minutes.

Wednesday before work I met with a VCU Brandcenter alumna who now works at Naked Communications here in NYC. I knew before arrival that I had one creative briefing to do in the afternoon. When I got to work there was already stuff waiting for me to do in my Outlook inbox. Help prep for not one, but TWO creative briefings. But guess what? We didn't know all the team members that were suppose to be briefed!! Once that little fire was put out, I met with the VP of Strategic Planning to talk about how we would conduct the meeting and make certain we were on the same page for what was needed. (Note: The VP was standing in while the account team was away). The VP was great to work with!


Thursday was busy even though it was a half day in the office. This was the day interns had 1st round reviews for the 2nd group intern project related to an upcoming cause marketing campaign. Once this was completed it was off to the ball park to watch the Mets play the Giants in Shea Stadium.

Friday? I used this day to meet with a few contacts at American Express and PhD. Simply put...I was networking.

Fireworks & BBQs Part 2

Speaking about social media, this was also a good week for me in other ways. You may or may not know, but my client has a social media page.

On this page there are several videos. The video topics are made relevant to current, new as well as never-evers and have been posted weekly. You know what that means....we need new topics to keep things fresh and relevant. As such, I participated in a brainstorming session for new video topics. This was during week 4. After the session, I took all of the ideas and expanded them to make them meatier and more descriptive. Next step was having our copywriter go over what was written and jazz it up before we met with the client for approval. Here's the good part...out of the 20+ video topics I wrote up at least 50% of what I wrote was kept as is. About another 20% the concept was kept, but the wording changed a bit and the remaining 30% was completely rewritten. Now to some that may not seem like a big deal, but to me when a creative director / copywriter keeps what you wrote word for word or keeps the overriding concept you wanted to communicate....that means they liked it. Yippee! This mean some of my ideas, words and thoughts will end up on a social media site. As they do, I'll be certain to provide a link so I can say..."hey, I worked on that!"

Til next time!

Fireworks & BBQs

I'm a little behind in posting especially since week 6 is almost finished. But what can I say? I got a little busy.

The goal of this week was to complete a deck on social media. For this deck, I researched the Internet high and low, read numerous blogs, flipped through articles and expensive research reports trying to discover the next social media trend.


My deck provides an overview of...

• Social Network Leaders
• User Attitudes & Behavior
• Trends & Opportunities
• The Competition
• The Client
• Case Studies

Although I found TONS of information did I find anything spectacular? A new hidden gem? Not really. Even still I was really excited about working on this project given its relevance to digital, interactive, social media, or whatever you want to call it. If you can't tell, Interactive is an area I've want to learn more about.

Well, once I get the okay perhaps, I will share the final deck with you. It will probably have some omissions to keep select information confidential, but the remaining information should be good nonetheless.

At the Movies

As you know, the start of the week commenced with the pitch presentations. Thinking about it...still don't know who "won" the pitch competition. Guess they will tell us eventually. To celebrate or by mere coincidence, we also had a movie night planned at Bryant Park. That night the feature was "Bride of Frankenstein". I went to it, but didn't stay for the actually movie since I already had plans that evening between me & some cocktails. Oops I mean friends! :-) For the two hours I was there (if you stayed for the movie you would have ended up being there for a minimum of 6hrs), I had a good time. This was the first time I was able to hang out with other interns who did not sit in intern row on the 26th floor with me. So it really nice to be able to get to know the gang a little better.

During week 4 our next group project was assigned. I have a new team that includes 2 account, 1 strategy, 2 creative, 1 finance and 1 music production person. The task is also a little "easier". We basically have to come up with creative ideas to promote an upcoming cause marketing campaign. First review is July 10th so wish my team the best!

Week 4 was suppose to be my week to pick up speed and work on making a footprint on my account. I provided a couple of ideas for the client's fall campaign and added my input during a brainstorming session for new video topics for social networking. If any of my ideas are incorporated, I will be certain to let you know! Unfortunately, week 4 ended kinda light since I was not able to work on Thursday due to the extra hours worked. Since I was told literally the night before, I didn't have time to make any plans to meet with people to use the time productively. What I did do was provide a status update to my contacts at LinkedIn.com. (I'll tell you more about this site in another post.) So perhaps it was productive after all.

Brainstorming & Stormy Nights

Week three was full of daily thunder storms that I luckily avoided each and every time. During this week I was able to sit in on a brainstorming session for the naming of a cause marketing idea. Here are a few tips I learned from the account supervisor who organized and moderated the meeting:

1. Send homework questions for everyone to answer a day or two before. It helps get the session started with ideas instead of a lot of silent thinking.

2. Try to think up idea buckets that are relevant to what you believe you will end up with. This will organize your thoughts and help those involved generate ideas as well.

3. After all ideas are up on the boards, give participants dots or markers so they can note which are the top 3 ideas.

4. Finally, and I guess it should be first, make certain all the right people are invited. For this session there was creative, strategic, account, client and public relations present and fully participating.

Week 3 also involved a lot of work on the new business pitch I mentioned before. The dynamics were great with my team members even though I ended up I putting in more hours and had to become more of a manager rather than remain a fellow intern. Once I was able to gather information and advise the team players who needed it on what they needed to do, I was then left with putting the presentation together. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining as everyone has to learn at some point. However, it is just frustrating that I get called out for working overtime because of others not delivering their portions of the project. In the real world, this happens and I am okay with it. But in the intern world, this is a no-no since OT may cause the company to go over-budget. So now I have been told not to work over 35 hrs a wk (what agency employee REALLY works as little as that EVERY week???) and that I must take a day off in order to offset the extra time earned.

So what have I learned from this project??
First, don't be afraid to step on toes especially when it's obviously team members don't know what they are doing. I tried so hard not appear as if I was trying to take over (believe I didn't want to do all the work myself), that I was a know it all (this was harder only because I had a better understanding of what was expected of us thanks to Brandcenter training) or that I wasn't willing to let my team members to learn that would be beneficial to them such as using an IMS database. With all my trying, I realized a little too late that because all were more than willing to do stuff, I should have taken the initiative and showed them what needed to be done how to do it as well.

Most importantly I realized that even though the agency wanted to provide "a real agency experience" by shortening our time to work on the project (the client had also given the agency less time), that did not mean to work like one would in an agency. We were expected to work on our primary accounts and the new biz pitch and get it all done within a total 70 hours or 35 hrs each week. So from this I learned, it is better to eat hours and not get paid, than to document the truth and be "talked to".

For those of you who are in the ad business and even those of you who are not, is it realistic to put different requirements on an intern than on an employee, but still expect a similar quality of work? Then again, maybe that's it. Maybe the agency wasn't expecting a high quality of work from the interns and this was just a way to take us through the motions of a pitch.

Drinking on the Job

During my second week at big agency I had the pleasure of using some of my valuable graduate school training. Scott P. would be proud...I used IMS / Simmons, read media flow charts, and looked at TV rotations without blinking an eye.

I had the opportunity to be a stereotypical ad intern as well. I needed to print out 10 copies of a presentation for a client meeting the same day. Now in true fashion I must see how well my Brandcenter training specially delivered by Prof. Just does me. I have one week before a new biz pitch and the team doesn't really have much done.

You know you are in advertising when you get to leave work early, go to the bar, and drink on the job for the sake of research. I will say the time at the bar was the most productive time for the team. Let's just hope the momentum continues.

SIDEBAR: I'm not necessarily worried about my ability to do the work, but I am concerned about being able to motivate the rest of the team. This is an area of improvement for me. Although I have managed people for years, it was brought to my attention that I still have much to learn. It took a few weeks after receiving the feedback and at least one book on leadership, but now I know what I lack. I must develop my ability to quickly identify what drives individuals. Once you have this key, you can use it motivate and encourage. I am a HUGE cheerleader and have been told by many that I seem to know what to say at the right time. However, this is in my personal life. I still wonder why it never crossed my mind to blend the two. I've always tried to keep the two separate. But you know what? Now that I am trying to blend some of my personality into what I do for a living, why shouldn't I blend my values, traits and common sense, too?

Still Smiling

I have successfully completed my first week at my New York internship. If you don't know I am working on a great account and so glad I am. The size of the account, talent on the team and work being performed will offer me experiences I desire out of an internship.

Unlike some interns I have spoken to so far who work not only at my agency but also at a number of other agencies, not many had a ton of stuff to do this week. I have been assigned 4-5 different projects. Three are thinking projects and two are more busy work, but nonetheless will allow me to better understand the client and the advertising history & process that much better.

In addition, I will have two additional projects working in groups with agency interns. The first project is a pitch. I can't tell you who the pitch is for due to confidentiality reasons, but when the gag order has expired I won't mind sharing the details. The pitch project has 7 of us working together. My group has 3 account people, 1 copywriter, 1 art director, 1 broadcast, and 1 planner. We range from a history major working in advertising for the first time to a person who took time off between high school and college to decide on his path and now nothing will stop him. I think we have a strong, interesting group.

Another reason why I look forward to the group summer projects is because it will give me an opportunity to become a better leader and team player. You see, I can become intense. I'm passionate with my work and have high expectations of myself and those who work with me. I have always been one who will do whatever it takes to get the job done...that will never change. I just have to figure out how to transform my drive into motivation for someone who may not be as driven as me.

If you have any tips...definitely send them my way.

How little bit of info can go a long way....

"I'm so excited and I just can't hide it
I'm about to lose control and I think I like it
I'm so excited and I just can't hide it
And I know I know I know I know I know I want you"
- Pointer Sisters, 1982

This is the song singing in my head right this moment. Why? I learned what account I will be working on while an account manager at a big agency this summer. Now I have the right motivation to finish all my "other stuff" so I can make time to research my account. Wow! I swear I feel like a kid again.