"One critical area is your pitch criteria. Retained business is every agencies goal, but recession makes it tougher. It's wise to reserve special effort for projects more likely to lead to retained business. That's often an intuitive leadership choice, but equally you can have criteria. That might be around the sectors, incumbent agencies, marketing culture, top-level connections, etc. The most successful agencies seek a non-level playing field....they pick their battles and play to win."

Advice given to an agency last year, don't play fair.

Eyebrows of a thousand faces
Originally uploaded by ubermore.

Lovely project from the an RCA degree show animation student. It featured stereo eyebrow controls. The fader did the height of the eyebrows and the volume know did the angle. Had great fun making different emotional expressions.

RCA Show 2009

Creativesocial Antwerp @ Villa Tinto
Originally uploaded by ubermore.

Penthouse suite above the high tech legal brothel Villa Tinto in Anstwerp's red light district. Photo taken by Björn Höglund, Creative Director &founder of Daddy using his iphone & panorama iphone app

Panorama is easily the best Panorama iphone app according to Björn. He also highly rated PT GUI Pro for desktop stitching. Terrible name and awful interface, but he said the software rocked - just chuck a folder full of images at it and they get pieced together with great blends and color correction etc.

Amazon reviews have been raised to an artform by the Sandman. Can the hivemind find the funniest?

"I bought this ironing board hoping it would bring back some exitement into my life. It is designer after all! I placed it up against the lounge wall at a recent party in my house, and NOBODY commented on it! I was so distraught that I kicked everyone out and drunkenly set about the ironing board with a fire axe whilst crying hysterically. Apart from that its ok."

"As a very heavy drinker, I find this ideal as it slips into my suit pocket perfectly. I can sneak a slug of absinthe anywhere! At work, on the tube, at family gatherings, and they're none the wiser. Well, I think one person suspects at work, but im going to make sure they get the sack so its ok."



Update! Thanks to Rob Bevan for the bucket that changed my life

'Although I have used the Dover Parkerburg less since installing our new fangled "Water Closet", I display it with pride, knowing that I own the best 2 gallon galvanized bucket in town. '

SXSWi 2009: Sketchnotes: First Spread
Originally uploaded by Mike Rohde.

Twitter has been on fire with SXSW. So much so, that someone created a tool to filter the conference tweets out. Others started a global "I'm not at SXSW" party, http://www.notatsxsw.com. I didn't use the tool or make the party, but I did come across this great notebook on the interactive channel talks. Give yourself a headache and flip though it with cool iris, preferable on a very large monitor.

If you want more, read the excellent full blog post:
http://www.rohdesign.com/weblog/archives/003039.html