by peter

CM1 Asks What’s in a Name?

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The most surreal moment of the first CM1 Community Manager Conference, held last Thursday in Toronto’s Second City Theatre, came when the cosplay characters filed onto stage. Speaker Jonathan Sy, senior director of Edelman Digital, showed that he had taken his crisis-management topic to heart, “When Shit Hits the Fan,” by continuing nonplussed after the unscripted intrusion had ended.

Apparently the costumed heroes were part of a stunt to promote Best Buy Canada’s Reward Zone Gamer Club. But bizarre events didn’t end there. Many in the conference followed the public dissolution of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford on their smartphones. There was the remarkable image of city councillors turning their backs on Ford as he spoke. And how about when the leader of the country’s largest city clarified whose pussy he liked to eat? The silver-tongued devil.

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by peter

The End, My Friend

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A feature that I wrote for the relaunch issue of Applied Arts Magazine, featuring a new editorial focus and design.

In the beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble . . .
—T.S. Eliot, “Four Quartets”

This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
—Jim Morrison, “The End”

In the beginning, advertising made a choice that it would one day regret. In 1877, former bookkeeping clerk James Walter Thompson bought New York-based Carlton and Smith, which sold advertising space in religious journals. He paid $500 for the agency, and $800 for its furniture, and renamed it after himself. After starting to place ads in women’s journals, JWT came up with the bright idea of developing creative content for clients, so he could sell more ad space. Creative services, acting as a kind of loss leader, became part of the agency’s offering.

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by peter

Remembering Theo the Great

Published on Friday, January 20th, 2012 on the  blog.

This is how I remember Theo Dimson, an elegant and accomplished  designer, known especially for his posters. I was waiting for him for lunch at a suburban Toronto restaurant, in the 1990s, with business types in suits sitting all around, chowing down on the catch of the day. Theo walked in and all conversation stopped and all eyes followed as he walked to my table. He was dressed in black leather, black hat, his fingers and ears heavy with silver jewelry. A man of unique personal style, he was oblivious, or pretended to be, to all the attention focused on  him throughout the meal. The men in business uniform would have related better to Theo’s conversation, often about his beloved Buffalo Bills football team.

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by peter

House of the Sun’s Forever Glide

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As kids on bicycles we dream of downhill glides that go on forever. These fantasies become particularly intense as we struggle later to bike up a steep incline.

Haleakalā, the massive volcano that dominates the Hawaiian Island of Maui, forming more than 75 per cent of its landmass, may be the closest you can come to realizing this downhill dream. The tallest peak of Haleakalā, Pu‘u ‘Ula‘ula (Red Hill), rises 10,023 feet (3,055 meters) above sea level, looking down into a massive crater seven miles (11.25 km) across by two miles (3.2 km) wide and 2,600 feet (800 meters) deep.

In Hawaiian folklore, this crater is home to the grandmother of the demigod Maui. She helped her powerful grandson to capture the sun to slow its progress across the sky and lengthen the day. In fact, Haleakalā  means House of the Sun. . . .

Read the blog post I wrote for  LaCure, North America’s premier villa rental company.