Meeting Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley

I’m in the middle of a pitch right now and as a result started looking into Foursquare. I needed to find out quickly what kind of partnership opportunities might exist so I reached out to my Twitter friends to see if anyone knew anyone there. Turns out, one of my friends here in Amsterdam had a friend who knew their Twitter IDs, which led me to find out that Dennis Crowley was on a plane to Amsterdam as I was trying to track them down. Destiny!

What I love about Foursquare is the ability to remove planning from your evening and give in to serendipity. The best nights out are not planned anyway. But putting that in practice proved a bit difficult when I tried to join a pub crawl of strangers midstream with only Foursquare feeds as my guide. After dinner, I hopped in a cab to meet the Amsterdam Foursquares and Dennis at Cafe Kobalt. I’d missed them by about an hour but their updates hadn’t come through the system yet when I’d started out. Now it clearly showed they were over on Wolvenstraat. Back in the cab. Get there and again disappointment. The bartender said we’d missed the group of Americans by about 15 minutes. Foursquare doesn’t have you check out, so you have to check in to your next location to be found. We had a drink but the next check ins weren’t coming through so the Dark Angel and I headed home.

Sunday met with better results and Dennis and I finally had a drink and a chat at the American Hotel. He’d had several ideas pitched to him for new badges by the Amsterdam Foursquares the night before. His favorite was the Drugs, Sex and Rock and Roll badge where you’d have to go to a red light location, a coffee shop and a music venue all in one night to unlock it. Sounds like a solid Amsterdam challenge.

I was really interested to know if people cheat on Foursquare. Dennis describes it as the wild west right now. People are setting up their living room, bathroom and shower as locations or their checking into real venues from their couch. He’s planning a clean up phase soon so all you cheaters beware.

I was also keen to know what the points are for. At the moment it’s just about bragging rights, but down the road they are looking into special offers to trade for points or making donations to charity. I wondered what orphans will do with the Foursquare points. Let’s just say it’s not all figured out yet.

It sounds like there are a lot of exciting things in the works for Foursquare. Some big brands are exploring ways to partner with them and their 5th employee starts work this week. Even better, this was (fingers crossed) the first weekend that the system didn’t crash from too much traffic. There are about 100K users at the moment with something like 80-90% in the US. Right now I only have 2 friends in Amsterdam who use it and maybe 5 in the US. It was pretty funny to see my former CPB friends becoming the mayor of the Burger King in Gun Barrel, CO, but at some point posting all these checkins to Twitter could get mighty annoying. Hopefully Foursquare will take off and perhaps we will all opt-out of letting everyone know our position on Twitter. Because really I only want to know where my friends are wherever I am in the world and the Foursquare app tells me.

Dennis was kind enough to offer me the Blackberry beta so I’ll be giving that a go. I don’t have an iphone (digital workforce sacrilege?) but I just don’t want to have two phones and I haven’t been able to get work to abandon the Blackberry yet. Maybe if we win this pitch…

Amsterdam Finds

My first year in Amsterdam has come to an end today and I want to share my favorite restaurant finds. If you know of some more goodies, please leave a comment and share!

First up is pizza. The Dark Angel and I are big fans, and though none of our favorite places are close enough to our place for take out or delivery, they are good enough to rate a night out. My three way tie for pizza goes to De Pizza Bakkers, Yam Yam, and Le 4 Stagioni. Pizza Bakkers have real pepperoni which is hard to find in this town plus several pizzas with truffle oil, Yam Yam has incredible tira misu for dessert and truffle oil on a few of the pizzas, and Le 4 Stagioni has real Italians (though call ahead because we passed by a week ago and they appear to be under construction).

A Saturday wouldn’t be complete without lunch at De Soepwinkel. The things they can do with a ladle. From Mushroom Chickpea to Lamb Apricot to Chicken Tikka – we’ve not had a bad soup here. Paired with a quiche lorraine and chocolate cake or cherry cheesecake you may be moved to tears. This is what I imagine the food would be like if I lived in a commune.

If you like middle eastern food we’re lucky enough to live around the corner from a really delish place: Revan. Two things make this place special – first are the warm stuffed grape leaves (as opposed to cold – so much better warm) and for the Dark Angel real Knaffe which is a dessert made of warm cheese topped with angel hair pastry and a sugar syrup. It’s not my favorite but he goes nuts for it. Then all of the salads and kebabs are very tasty.

This may seem a strange pick when you walk in, but Wok to Home is hands down the best noodle place in the city. The Dark Angel used to live above this place and now that we’ve moved in together in a different neighborhood we’ve tried without success to replace it with something closer. Make sure to get the Chinese noodles with either the oyster sauce or the szechuan sauce (spicy). The place is a hole in the wall, but the people are friendly and you can eat there or the noodles stay hot if you pedal fast.

Next up is Cafe George. They have a really nice bistro atmosphere and in nicer weather the six two-tops out front over looking the canal are the place to be. They have a nice club sandwich and burger but the best thing about Cafe George is that it’s the only place (I know at least) that has seasoned curly fries.

I finally went to Door 74 recently. Really great atmosphere and excellent, creative cocktails. Because they work on a reservation system you actually get a place to sit. It’s not very well marked and the door next to it has a funny little sign that says “this is not Door 74, honest” which is amusing.

And last but not least is Kitsch on Utrechtstraat. I’ve only eaten here during restaurant week so it was a set menu but was very nice. What I like best about Kitsch are the sgroppinos. These are lemon gelato/vodka/sparkling wine concoctions that go down great with a group of friends in their animal print booth.

That’s all I have for now, but I’ve tried so many places and been disappointed so I’m hoping you have some other favorites to add to my list.

Want to work in Europe?

Seems a lot of people do because I’m getting a load of emails lately asking me how I got over here, if I have any advice and if I know any recruiters. So I thought I would share what I know.

Having an EU passport would make your wish a reality a lot faster. It does cost the company money to obtain a work permit and involves quite a few man hours to maneuver through bureaucracy. So if you are fresh out of school there’s perhaps less motivation for them to do this than if you have a few years of experience. Language skills are also very valuable, but you need to be fluent in order to operate “in country.” International work is done in English, so you’ve still got a shot if you are not multi-lingual. I speak some Spanish and know a few phrases in other lanuages but do not use this in my work other than building rapport. London is the largest English speaking/working market, but not the only place to go. Amsterdam for example has about 20 or so international (thus English speaking) planners. I imagine that there are jobs like these in most major cities but there probably aren’t a lot. Having good agency experience and client experience will help.

I got really lucky and was asked to come over based on the exposure I had through the survey and the fact that I’d worked at Crispin. But I was aiming to live over seas for 2-3 years before I came here. I was looking into the peace corps/foreign service and had thought I decided to take a year off and travel through South America. I was saving money for this plan, my boss at Crispin knew that’s what I wanted, and I had been aiming for May of this year to do it. But then another opportunity arose to come to Amsterdam and I had to jump on it. I am a big believer in leap and the net will appear. If you can afford the time and the cost and could come over that would be the best way to meet a lot of people.

I’m willing to connect people via LinkedIn who have taken the survey. If you and I are linked, you can look through my connections, craft your note and ask me to forward it – all in LinkedIn. I’m afraid I can’t do much more than push the “please forward” button.

*Update* – whenever people tell me about jobs and ask if I know anyone, I post it as a gig alert on Twitter. So if you want to know what I do, follow me (hklefevre).

And last, here are a couple of recruiters who I have heard good things about.

Trevor Cook
tcook@tda-group.com
TDA Digital
www.tda-group.com
Office: +44 207 382 7483
Mobile: +44 7824 874 133
Linkedin

I wish you lots of luck in reaching your dreams. It has been really satisfying for me – in fact, I’m not sure I will ever return to the States…

Copying should at least rate some in-school suspension

Have you seen the first episode of the new season of CSI? Not only are they using the same frozen scene to tell a story, but there are many too similar elements to Philip’s Grand Prix winning Carousel to just be inspiration. Would have felt like pop culture had adopted it and ran if they’d just tipped their hats. Watch for yourself.

Junior Planner Gig in Dallas

My good friend Christie just put the call out for a freelance junior planner. Here’s the skinny:

Freelance Junior Strategic Planner
October – December ‘09

Role: Support department-wide strategic initiatives through intelligence gathering, research design and analysis, creating strategic support materials (i.e. trend reporting, videos, briefing materials, etc.).

* Do consumer insights oddly excite you?
* In you spare time do you dream of emotional spaces between brands and consumers?
* Does the creative process get your blood pumping?
* Are you in tune with what the next big thing is online?
* Is challenging convention just part of your DNA?

If you’re a proven strategic problem solver who wants to make a difference, you might just be who were looking for. We are TracyLocke, the Brand to Retail marketing agency that moves people to brands. Our Dallas office is particularly interested in meeting aspiring strategic planners with a “roll-up-your-sleeves-and-dive-in” attitude to compliment our planning team in a freelance role from October to December of 2009 (tenure subject to extension based upon agency need and performance). $20/hr @ 20 hrs/wk.

Check us out: http://tracylocke.com/

Please note that we are only looking for passionate, unexpected thinkers to help us grow our clients business. If you’re that person, submit your resume to Christie Butcher at christie.butcher@tracylocke.com

Can I get a grant

And study the effect of Michael Jackson music being played in stores on purchase behavior? I think this factor alone will pull us out of recession. I hate shopping in Amsterdam because the stores aren’t open after work or on Sunday (generally) so every Saturday is like being in a Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving. And yet, even I linger when I hear a little MJ in the air. I didn’t notice it at first, but now it’s just too obvious that I’m being manipulated.

Navel gazing

I received an email yesterday from Wouter, a fellow Amsterdam planner, and he thought it would be interesting to know all of our definitions of planning. Several other people mentioned this in their comments as well.

I think there’s a bit of a hole in our collective psyches for much of the navel gazing that happens at the planning conference or when we’re lucky enough to speak to a group or interact with student planners. So if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to wax poetic on the topic today.

There are a couple of core ideas I have about planning. The first I took from Diane Miles, the VP of Human Resources at one of my first jobs between undergrad and grad as an HR recruiter at SicolaMartin in Austin. A really beautiful person, she had me screening resumes, scheduling interviews and checking references. Seeing all those resumes for jobs across the agency really helped me with the soul searching I was doing at the time to find where I fit in to adland. She taught me a lot about proactivity with this great Texas phrase – “get your fingers in the chili.”

Just get started, make some noise, offer to help. All those kind of projects and directions were followed by “you know, get your fingers in the chili.” I think planning is a lot like that because ideas are going to happen without us. Anyone too full of themselves to see that is plain wrong. If you read any London creatives’ blogs it’s their position that better ideas WOULD happen without us. Planning is about adding something to the chili to make it better. Hopefully you all know that chili is this Texas stew-type food, made of tomatoes, meats, beans, other veg, spices. There are all kinds of variations inspiring many a chili cook-off to find the best. Every Texan has strong opinions about what makes for good chili.

If planners come from the perspective that we are additive and unnecessary, I think only then do we have the proper mindset to really make a difference. I’ve always seen my role as a muse. Not the fickle ones that poets bemoan the absence of, more a modern muse who can actually see the synapses fire in the minds of others and adapts her methods to provide inspiration.

Posted to Flickr by Elana777

And hand in hand with that is the need to be a magpie, collecting stories and thinking from across your world experience, finding joy and purpose in that collecting, so that you have the ammunition to change the way other people think.

Wrong, right?

Take a look at this video. Now this is a tempting if morally questionable idea – if I skim off even 10% of my salary could I get someone else to do 80% of my work? Could be awesome. But wrong, Heather, wrong!

Could it actually be done? I looked at the salary data and though there were only 19 Indian planning brothers and sisters, the salaries varied widely. I don’t think it will compromise anyone’s anonymity to say there’s a planning director making 12 million rupees (approximately €175 thousand) but there is also a planner level person at 600,000 rupees (approximately €10 thousand). So any takers?

(Please note, I’m not – generally – a sick person. Just thought this would be a fun way to share a taste of the information from India.)

Survey Results!

Fresh as they come people. I’ve just emailed the I’s through the M’s, I’ll email the other parts of the alphabet in the coming days.

Lots of news in here. I’m starting a competition to select two additional authors for the survey, I’ll write more about that later. And the survey is crossing disciplines. Mariota Essery is taking on an Art Director Survey. See her note:

Hello Art Directors,

I’ve created a survey that’ll hopefully be useful to all of us. Have you ever wondered if what you are making is fair? Who we all think does the best work, and who we all want to work for? How about how many years it usually takes to get to the top and if your agency has cool benefits compared to everyone else?

My friend Heather has done a planner’s survey for the past 5 years and it got me wishing there was one out there for art directors… I know surveys are boring to fill out, but there are only 22 questions, and it’ll take about 5 mins.

Please could you fill it in, pass it on, tweet, blog and facebook it. The more people who take it, the better info we’ll have. If you’ve been sent this link, pass it on to any art director you know!

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229FWPBYVMH

A big one to remember – send me your email if you want the results (mariota.artdirector@gmail.com) – and THE SURVEY IS ANONYMOUS – I won’t even be able to know who has filled this out.

Please note – if you are an intern, a freelancer, a recruiter – the survey isn’t designed for you, but I am happy to share the results so send me an email.

Thanks for playing

Mariota Essery

Crowd sourcing the planning survey

Going to have to try something new because I’m about to break a promise and get on the plane tomorrow without finishing. There just haven’t been enough hours in the day but I know you guys understand. I thought perhaps the best thing to do was share some of the info I already have compiled and ask for some help in thinking through stuff.

I’ve already decided to change some of what I “report” this year. Because of the number of people participating has grown so much, the final doc could easily be 100 pages. I want to keep it around 40 so I’ve decided I’m going to make this more of a living thing than only a once a year report thing. There will be a report, but I’m prioritizing the key money stuff for the US, Brazil, UK and the best I can do in terms of sharing ranges from other countries. By adding countries, it multiplies the number of hours I’m sitting in front of my spreadsheets, so some of the things I’ve done in the past like comparing NY with the rest of the US (which I don’t think is that fair of a comparison anyway) and the male/female (which I do find really interesting) will wait and be blog entries.

I’m also asking for help/conversation on the open-ends. I’m going to post all of the open-end responses on slideshare in word documents. If you’re up for it, I’d really love your interpretation in the comments section here on the blog. You can download these documents – you don’t have to look at it through slideshare unless you want to.

First up are three questions I only asked the planning directors. I asked them to help tease out what the different skills are among levels by telling us what skills they would need to see in an assistant planner to promote them to a planner (or what you would look for in a planner level hire) and so on for senior planner and group planning director. So let the games begin…