I am pleased to announce the launch of Thornley Fallis & 76design’s new online presence.

Our new websites, conceptualized, designed and developed by our team of creative masterminds and technology all-stars, exemplifies our capacity to push the limits of innovation in the world of social media and digital marketing.

Thornley Fallis & 76design is made up of individuals with fun, smart and professional personalities; personalities that have all contributed to the success of marketing & communications projects. To fully demonstrate the range of personalities, talent and intelligence our team has to offer, we’ve done something a little outside the box. Something very brave… or maybe something very stupid – we’ll let you know

We’ve created a live LifeStream for every one of our employees. This is more than just a standard funny profile picture and biography. It is an aggregate of their work and online profile, intended to paint a picture of who they are, what they do, what they think and what they are interested in.

To explore the diverse and unique characters at Thornley Fallis and jokers at 76design, take a look through our people profiles and find out who you could be working with on your next project.

Not only is our team exceptionally talented (and good-looking), we are experienced & passionate about the work we do. While adventuring through our People pages, zoom over to the Work & Services sections to see what Thornley Fallis & 76design has to offer.

My colleagues and I hope you enjoy perusing through our new sites.

Oh and one more thing… if you like what you see, don’t hesitate to call us, we’d love to hear from you!

I am pleased to announce  the launch of  Thornley Fallis & 76design’s new online presence.

Our new websites, conceptualized, designed and developed by  our team of creative masterminds and technology all-stars, exemplifies our capacity to push the limits of innovation  in the world of social media and digital marketing.

Thornley Fallis & 76design is made up of individuals with fun, smart and professional personalities; personalities that have all contributed to the success of marketing & communications projects. To fully demonstrate  the range of personalities, talent and intelligence our  team has to offer, we’ve done something  a little outside the box.  Something very brave… or maybe something very stupid – we’ll let you know

We’ve created a live LifeStream for every one of our employees. This is more than just a standard funny profile picture and biography.  It is an aggregate of their work and online profile, intended to paint a picture of who they are, what they do, what they think and what they are interested in.

To explore the diverse and unique characters at Thornley Fallis and jokers at 76design, take a look through our people profiles and find out who you could be working with on your next project.

Not only is our team exceptionally talented (and good-looking), we are experienced & passionate about the work we do.  While adventuring through our People pages, zoom over to the Work & Services sections to see what Thornley Fallis & 76design has to offer.

My colleagues and I hope you enjoy perusing through our new sites.

Oh and one more thing… if you like what you see, don’t hesitate to call us, we’d love to hear from you!

Readers can consider this a blog post by popular demand. The blogosphere and twitterscene (a word I hope I just coined) are small places; look around and you’ll see a familiar handle.

Futurecasting—something I enjoy as a mild hobby—is a career byproduct. Most PR counsellors practice it at some level. As a lazy blogger (I want to, but I find I don’t make time for it) I have been encouraged to blog more, worry about it less, and go for broke.

This, therefore, is broke. This is what I am following, noticing, observing and paying attention to across various media, scenes, sites and places:

The world’s greatest ponzi scheme is unfolding; Bernard Madoff (which google) is in jail and the legal entities of the United States and Elsewhere are now eyeing his family’s assets with narrowing eyes and a sceptical expression. In a time when many people are questioning how oversight bodies (SEC et al) failed to catch a theft of such magnificent proportion it behooves government agencies to now—perhaps “at last”—step in and show that they are up to the job at hand. That means that la famille Madoff can expect a large team of forensic accountants to exhume every cheque, chit, IOU and other financial instrument going back to who-knows-when and—I hereby predict—confiscate anything that isn’t nailed down. (Even the family piano, according to one report, is under threat of immediate confiscation.) Taking possession of Mrs Madoff’s piano will not nullify her husband’s crimes, but it looks good (the optics of it, if you will) for a public eager to see justice served no matter how late or cold.

Live cheaper to live better? When times get tough people turn to kith and kin for solace and comfort. What is more comforting than a home-cooked meal? A pleasant stroll through a local bookstore conglomerate reveals the new reality of kitchen fun: Cookbooks promoting casserole cooking, slow cooking (see: Futurecasting) and all manner of delectable meals on the cheap are currently in vogue. The very notion of “cooking” is now back in vogue after a long-ish hiatus as a pleasant pass time for busy people. Cooking—the dreary need to prepare meals for yourself or family—was a basic fact of life through much of history. In the latter end of the 20th century, however, cooking—the bane of housewives for eons—morphed into a soci0-economic totem of the good life. Cooking became an activity for couples to share as they entertained on weekends with artfully turned out meals paired with the proper wines, artisan cheeses and unique appetizers. By the turn of the century (that is, 1999 into 2000) fast food, take-out, home delivery, personal chefs and “assembled meals” had taken precedence at the family table and cooking was firmly established as a hobby.

Luxury that shows is no longer desirable. Famous brands (Royal Daulton, Waterford Crystal, Wedgwood) that reigned for the longest possible time in the finest homes and dining rooms are facing the sad fact that they are in trouble. Public Luxury—which used to something most people aspired to—is now unfashionable. While it is possible to hide your luxury at home (you can drink beer in a Waterford goblet if you draw the curtains) it is impossible to hide your luxury in public. Famous automobile marques (Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Bentley and so forth) will sit longer on the showroom floor while a careful public reconsiders its values. Marketing luxury in an economic storm requires a deft touch; the focus needs to change to “value” and “craftsmanship” and there can be no references to ego-features (custom stitching on leather seats, say, or engines with 8 more cylinders than are strictly required) as in the good old days of joyful and exuberant conspicuous consumption.

This blog is dedicated to Jason Ashton.

Last year, I did this post about Holiday/Christmas cards after receiving several crappy electronic cards, some of which were simply sad looking emails with “Holiday/Christmas” clip art in them.

As I said in my post last year, a Holiday card is an opportunity for contact with your network of customers, partners and suppliers, and like all such contacts with those parties, it is an opportunity to build the relationship, so it should be done right. 

When you meet a client for breakfast, lunch or dinner, you don’t go to McDonalds.  When take a client to a hockey game, you don’t buy seats at the top of the upper level.  And when you take client golfing, you don’t go to the $14 green fee municipal course.  So why then do some senior corporate executives think that it is acceptable to send out a Holiday email that clearly took no more than 5 minutes for their assistant with zero graphic design skills to prepare?

Anyone that has ever been in my office can attest to the fact that when comes to paper, I don’t want it around.  But I’m sure I’m not the only person that likes to put received Holiday cards up on the window sill.  Now I’m not saying e-cards can’t be well done.  I have seen several clever ones and even forwarded a couple to friends and colleagues.

At Thornley Fallis & 76design a lot of what we do is electronic communication (websites, multimedia, online communities, blogs, etc), but I still think its important for our staff to send their network of contacts a physical Holiday card that will stay around their office longer than the time it takes to open, maybe read, and delete an email message.

We usually start work on original concepts in October, we then have them printed, pull together about 1000 addresses/labels, and get them in the mail first week of December.  Over the years, I think we’ve come up with some pretty good cards that reflect the ‘personality’ of our firm and the people that work here. 

This year, our Creative Director Dom Coballe and Designers Shawn McCann, Jeff Young, Ben Watts and Meghan Gough took things to another level.  We asked staff to bring in personal Christmas/Holiday photos on themselves from when they were young.  We then designed a series of four retro-looking cards (shown below) that the photos were incorporated into.  We identified the staff members in the photos by name, current title at the firm and age at the time the photo was taken (e.g. Keelan Green, Vice-President & General Manager, Age 4).

We also produced a website so card recipients could view the other three cards in the series and we added in an interactive photo album so we could include more of the staff photos we collected.  The website address (www.onepiecesnowsuit.ca) is on the back of each card.

Now, of course, not every organization can design a card in-house like we can, but firms like 76design are available for hire. If you can’t do it in-house, hire a design agency or freelancer to help you do it right.  It won’t cost that much and it will enhance this contact with your customers, partners and suppliers.

While we can’t be accused of opening a hardware store, our front lobby has started to accumulate a nifty little collection of awards. Last week we were honoured at the inaugural CPRS Awards Gala when we won the PuRe Elements Awards of Excellence for Innovation in Communications (Water category). VPs Aimee Deziel and LeeEllen Carroll accepted the award on behalf of Thornley Fallis and 76design. They were part of a great team that ran the SHARP 1080pD82 challenge and helped Sharp succeed in getting Canadians to identify the Aquos television as the leader in high definition televisions. To take the TV from trade publications and into family living rooms, the team conceived and ran an integrated campaign which engaged first time bloggers in social media while reducing their carbon footprint.

Emcee Stephen Heckbert entertained the audience with his “Top Communications Moments of 2008″ presentation and he announced the winners of each category when he opened the sealed envelopes. “This was a creative ad compelling program with a great use of new technologies and an innovative way to involve your audience,” Heckbert quoted a judge as saying.

Canwest’s David Akin was the keynote speaker of the night. He regaled the audience with his behind-the-scenes take on CIBC faxing private banking information to a junk lot in West Virginia. It was a story he uncovered while working at CTV News. Listening to his storytelling was like imagining a kimono being unwrapped. Except this story involved the nation’s most trusted anchor.

Three other awards were presented. The Earth Award for Internal Communications went to the Queensway Carleton Hospital, the Air Award for External Communications was awarded to the Canadian Association of Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists, and the Fire Award for Communicator of the Year was bestowed on Robyn Osgood of Blueprint PR.

CPRS pulled off this inaugural event by pulling together a solid group of volunteers, led by CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau President-Elect Laurie Murphy, LeeEllen Carroll (Thornley Fallis), Leisha MacDonald (76design), Katie Boland (Algonquin student), Adam Weitner (Service Master), and Calline Au (Queensway Carleton Hospital).

“We have very talented public relations practitioners in this area who uphold the values of the profession and of our society through their excellent work,” said CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau Chapter President Danielle Côté. “It’s important for us to recognize their work and their contribution to the field of public relations. Awards like these allow us to celebrate this excellence and share it with other who can learn from their work,” she added.

Last night at the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce Business Achievement Awards, the Ottawa office of Thornley Fallis & 76design won Bronze in the Professional Services Firm of the Year category.

 While it was great just to be one of the 8 finalists, it was even more rewarding to be one of the three businesses selected for an award.

Other finalists in the Professional Services of the Year category were:

• Gansen Lindsay Design Consultants Inc.
• Genivar
• Gladstone Aerospace Consulting
• Hendry Warren LLP Chartered Accountants
• Herzing College
• Royal LePage Performance Realty
• Stevenson & White Inc.

Congratulations to fellow award winners Gladstone Aerospace (Silver) and Hendry Warren (Gold).

I just received my welcome package to Fairmont President’s Club Premier.

I don’t normally get excited about stuff like this, but this was a very impressive, first rate effort by Fairmont.

Included in my package (shown spread out on my desk in the photo above) was:

• My 2008 Membership Card,
• Three room upgrade certificates,
• Two certificates for $25 off lunch or dinner, and
• Three luggage tags with my name on them and a Fairmont phone number and email address. If someone finds my bag(s), they (presumably after removing any valuables ) can contact Fairmont who will contact me to arrange for my luggage to be returned.

This is the type of customer service/relations that guarantees I will always look to stay at a Fairmont Hotel when travelling.

For me, nothing says “I refuse to put any effort or expense whatsoever into this” quite like an e-Christmas / e-Holiday card does.

I’ve received quite a few e-cards this year.

Some are well done and you can tell the sender/sending organization actually put a fair amount of time and effort into creating something clever and memorable, like this one from McMillan, an advertising and design agency here in Ottawa – I don’t mind those as much.  In fact, I liked McMillan’s so much I forwarded it to a few people.

However, others have (pardon the expression) been STRAIGHT SHITE!  And worse, a lot of them have been very similar: a winter scene with the ‘cutting-edge animation’ of falling snow and some generic, unoriginal greeting.

Christmas / Holiday cards is a contact with your customers, partners and suppliers, and like all contact with those parties, its an opportunity to build the relationship, so it should be done right.

Now, I’m in favour of electronic versus paper when in comes to most things, but I’m sure I’m not the only person that likes to put received Christmas cards up on the window sill in my office or on my fireplace mantle at home.

Further, at Thornley Fallis & 76design a lot of what we do is electronic communication, but I still think its important to send our clients, partners, suppliers and other contacts an actual card that they keep longer than the time it takes to open and delete an email.

We usually start work on original concepts in October, we then have them printed, pull together about 1000 addresses/labels, and get them out late November/early December.  Over the years, I think we’ve come up with some pretty good cards that reflect the ‘personality’ of our firm. Last year our card included a line of perforated gift labels.  With concept development, design, printing, envelope stuffing, labelling, postage, etc. it’s more costly and time consuming than an e-card, but I think it’s worth it.

Of course, not every organization can design a card in house, but firms (like our design studio) are available for hire. If you can’t do it in-house, hire a firm or freelancer to help you do it right.  It won’t cost that much and will enhance this contact with your customers, partners and suppliers.

I thought this was a pretty good CSR / marketing initiative by Banana Republic.  Bring in a gently used sweater that they will donate to Goodwill and receive 30% off a new one. I brought in a sweater that I hadn’t worn for a while last week and picked up a new one.

I travel a bit, sometimes more for my volunteer activities than for my work (sorry, kids!)

A recent trip left me with a great impression of Detroit, and I never even left the airport.  Indeed, the last time I travelled to Detroit in 2003, I did not really think much of the airport, or of the city. 

This time, however, I was impressed with the quality of the airport facility itself and with some of the little touches they have that indicated to me that the airport authority is thinking about marketing the city frequently.

Airports are the welcome mat to your community, and that’s why they are such a key piece of infrastructure.  People who don’t travel often may not appreciate it, but airports have an impact on investment decisions, on future partnerships, and on a whole host of intangibles that you would not sense from looking solely at the airport — itself — as a business.

Detroit’s welcome mat is now very impressive — bright, airy, modern and spacious, with a look and feel of a city on the move.  Kudos to the designers, etc., although there’s probably been cost overruns, and other challenges, as there always are on these types of projects.

To be honest, however, the thing that stuck with me was the number of languages the airport used to broadcast the kinds of general announcements airports always announce — you know, the “the Detroit airport is pleased to offer a non-smoking environment” ones.  They announced these in six languages, and that told me Detroit thinks of itself as a city of the world.

So why does that matter?  It matters because that’s where the world is going — major urban centres that will thrive are the ones that can welcome diverse cultures and welcome the business they bring.  Airports are hubs of economic and social activity, and they must demonstrate a recognition of their role as a network hub for a world in motion.

In short, I think Detroit gets it, and for all of the city’s challenges in recent times, the airport – at least — told me the city was headed in the right direction.  Indeed, it made me want to come back and visit, and when was the last time you said that about an airport?