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  • Happy Halloween!

    Posted on October 31st, 2007 by Jennifer and currently 4 commenting.

    Well, it’s that time again! That time when we’re allowed… nay… encouraged to get all freaky with our bad selves. So here’s a little greeting in the Halloween spirit… from our team to yours!

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    Top row: Justin as the Redneck Zombie, Cordell as Keith Richards, Megan as Queen Elizabeth, Carrie as A Hot Chick, Alex as Harry Caray (minus the glasses), Joe as a Motorcycle Enthusiast

    Bottom row: Matt as a Guitar Hero, Jen as Rat-Tattooey (yup), Rhem as a Hunter

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  • Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

    Posted on October 30th, 2007 by Spike and currently 18 commenting.

    There are some new developments at the Brains on Fire lair.

    1) Happy new blog! Yes. It was time. So after ” what ” like 2.5 years, we’ve changed the design on the blog. (And we welcome your comments.) You’ll notice a few new things:

    a) The FIRE CAM is, indeed, our YouTube videos. Here you’ll find many random things, updated bi-monthly (or hopefully more often), included rants, insights and work that happens around these parts.

    b) The PHOTOS are, well, a Flickr gallery of ’slice of life’ images around Brains on Fire, our outings or just complete randomness. There will be two random images pulled from the Flickr gallery, but you have the option to go to the gallery once you open those pics. Make sense?

    c) Yes, you still can customize the blog (scroll down and find it on the right hand bar). But now, along with changing the color to the hyperlinks, it will change the background image as well. Each time you load the blog, the header image will change as well. These are also random images from our lives and the Brains on Fire space.

    d) There’s also a handy calendar of when and where Brains on Fire is speaking around the country (and the globe). Be sure and see if we’re coming to a screen near you.

    BOF_3.jpg2) You might remember the pro bono work we did for Justice for Children International - the organization united to fight the good fight against child sex trafficking. They have announced their new name and rolled out their new identity: Love146. Be sure and check them out ” and you HAVE to watch the video. (Brains on Fire didn’t do the video or the website.) Well, as a big ol’ unexpected ‘thank you,’ they cashed in all their frequent flier bonus points and got us a foosball table. It rocks. And it’s a great addition to our space.

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    IMG_0008.JPG3) Partner and lead design rockstar, Greg Ramsey (we call him ‘Ram’) got a-hankerin’ for popcorn. So did he go out and get some popcorn to put in the microwave? Yeah, right. He bought a popcorn maker. So if you come by our office in the afternoon and it smells like a carnival, then you know what’s going on.

    So consider yourself updated on all the goings on at the Brains on Fire.

    P.S. I hate popcorn.

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  • Have you seen the new Apple iTouch ad?

    Posted on October 30th, 2007 by Spike and currently 3 commenting.

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    It’s CGM, baby!

    Via Wired:

    After Apple fanatic Nick Haley posted his homemade iPod Touch commercial to YouTube last month, a few ad execs at the Cupertino based company saw it. But rather than send him a cease-and-desist letter, they bought his ad, flew him out to Los Angeles to reshoot it in high def, and will be broadcasting it during the World Series this weekend. THAT’S how you love your customers, people!

    From what I’ve seen of Apple, they don’t reach out to their customers like this very often. It’s part of what makes Apple, well, Apple.

    But yet another mega-corp jumps on the Customer Generated Media bandwagon. So what’s next?

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  • Lessons from Wood Prairie Farm

    Posted on October 29th, 2007 by Virginia and currently 1 commenting.

    I had the unique pleasure of spending this weekend in picturesque Bangor, Maine with a group independent farmers interested in how they might further grow their business through word of mouth marketing. Independent is indeed the key word here - these folks all run very different types of operations and take great pride in doing things their way. The independence also means that each individual grower is responsible for both the agricultural and the business sides of their operations.

    sampler2.jpgOne of the growers that I had the pleasure of spending time with is Jim Gerritsen who, with his wife Megan, runs the remarkable operation at the Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater, ME. Wood Prairie Farm is an organic family farm offering seed potatoes, tablestock potatoes, and a host of other grain products and organic gifts to farmstand proprietors, backyard gardeners, and gourmands all across the country through his catalog and website. Jim has forgotten more about potatoes than anyone currently reading this could ever hope to know, but that is not the sole reason for his success. He also brings a great amount of savvy and creativity to the marketing table.
    Top Lessons from Jim:

    KingHarry.JPGPotato postcards (a.k.a. Design Matters) - Jim realized that while his dozens of varieties of potatoes have different characteristics, they could look indistinguishable to the untrained eye so putting a picture of the end product on bags of seed was not enough. To differentiate between the offerings, each has an informative and beautiful “potato postcard” that is attached to each bag that goes out. These unique cards are so popular that they are also sold separately here.
    Kowledgable frontline employees are part of the experience - When growers - either backyard or professional - call Wood Prairie Farm, they want more than quality organic products. They want to hear a little “Maine speak”, talk about the weather, and be able to seek counsel from someone who knows what it is to grow something themselves. Jim also understands the power of surprising a customer by personally picking up the phone and hearing what the customers have to say. After all, they aren’t just calling for products & advice, they’re calling for a piece of Maine and to be a part of the Gerritson’s extended family.
    Testimonials work 2 ways ” We often say that customers don’t trust your company, they trust people like them.  This is the origin of the power of testimonials. What Jim has tapped into is that by incorporating scores and scores of testimonials into each of his beautiful catalogs, customers have become more and more inclined to send testimonials in and then look for themselves in print!
    ‘Sow 10,000 seeds’ - This is one of Guy Kawasaki’s lines to refer to doing good things wherever you go, because you never know which of your time and energy investments may flower. Jim practices an even more literal and productive version of this! When customers place and order, he will include a packet of seeds for one of his other product lines (lettuce, zucchini, pepper, squash, melon) that he know will grow in their geography. It is a low cost/high delight way to spread the word about a new offerings while giving customers something to talk about or share with a friend.

    I want to give a hearty thanks to Tessa at the Heart of Maine, John from the Maine Department of Agriculture, and all of the growers who were so generous with their time and wisdom in contributing to the day’s workshop!

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  • Just ask.

    Posted on October 25th, 2007 by Robbin and currently 6 commenting.

    I am sitting at my desk after having just read the results of an online internal survey we just did at Brains on Fire called a ‘happiness survey’.

    I got the idea from this article about Whole Foods.

    Basically we asked some simple questions: Do you like coming to work? Are you happy with your salary? Do you have enough to do or way too much? Is the office comfortable for you and our clients? What can we do better? What do you want to be doing in the next three years? That sort of thing. We took about an hour ‘off-the-hook’ one morning, put it on the schedule and asked everyone to take that time to answer in thoughtful detail.

    And I am just stunned. There is no other word for it. I am completely blown away. It is amazingly full of rich ideas and suggestions that will help us all grow as a company and individually.

    We are, of course, nowhere near the size of Whole Foods, so I have fooled myself into believing that everyone here is heard — and heard often. And to some degree they are — their happiness confirms that. But I was also just reminded by this simple little survery that everyone who spends their entire day (and sometimes night) here has great passion and ideas for growing Brains on Fire. All I had to do was ask.

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