The Salty Blog

Phase 1: Adopt lab

Phase 2: Get lab to enter water, gradually over head in pursuit of stick or ball

Phase 3: Get lab to stop splashing and begin the correct and efficient use of webbed paws while swimming

Phase 4: Lure lab onto boat with tennis ball

Happy to say Brewer’s first boat ride was a big success this past Saturday evening! He loved the flats at Sandy Neck during low tide, and he sniffed his first striped bass. He even rolled over on his back for a rub on the way back to the docks.

Success!!

It’s officially official. I’m happy to report that I’m starting with experience marketing agency George P. Johnson (GPJ) next month!

I’m very excited for this new opportunity. I’ve had a good few years at my current PR agency, but change is very welcome. GPJ is an incredible environment for me to stick around in for hopefully a long time, and that includes the fact that it’s an hour less of a commute and it provides me with a much more international career experience.

If you’re curious about what “experience marketing” means, it is a focus on customer participation and engagement across the entire range of face-to-face marketing and communication formats: trade shows, conferences, sports, entertainment, lifestyle, mobile and street marketing.

GPJ clients include many of the largest auto manufacturers, pharma, high tech… and namely RIM/BlackBerry, which GPJ hooked on with the John Mayer tours of 2007 and 2008. The creative space at the North Easton, MA mill building is just awesome, and the people are too. I can’t wait to get back there.

More to come when I start in July!

What an incredible weekend away with girlfriends this weekend. For reasons that are both happy and sad, and that bring a lot of change and transition into one’s life, Kim, Kim, Kelly, Tracy, Amy, Michelle and I descended upon Stowe, Vermont’s Stoweflake Mountain Resort & Spa this past Friday.

This was the first real spa experience I’ve ever had, and unfortunately I’m now going to have to do it at least once every year. We all had our massages, facials and other treatments, and then lounged throughout the facility in our robes and sandals for the entire day on Saturday. This included steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, hydrotheraphy waterfalls and a Hungarian mineral soaking pool, in addition to some sunning at the outdoor pool as well.

Thank you to Kim, and the others, for an unforgettable weekend. The next time we’re sitting in a dining room like that horrible Shed Brewery back room, it better be when we’re 80 in Florida.

Corporate participation in community service programs has increased exponentially in the last few years. My own agency, Brodeur Partners, allows its employees to participate in eight hours of community service on company time each year. I suspect a lot of companies do this, and it’s great. Our parent company, Omnicom Group, however, is setting a new standard for us this weekend!

This Saturday marks the 19th annual city-wide Serve-a-thon event in Boston, orchestrated by non-profit organization City Year. Omnicom is bringing in the largest corporate team and making huge investments in the South Boston community – namely the Gavin Middle School, the Old Colony Housing development, and the Old Colony Teen Center.

Financial leaders from Omnicom agencies all over the world are arriving in town early for a conference in order to join together to participate in this day of transformation. In addition, colleagues from all (well, almost all) of our Boston-area agencies are also ready to sweat it out for a great cause this weekend. We’ll have almost 300 friends, families and colleagues with us.

We’ll be painting murals, landscaping, building bookshelves, fixing fences, renovating playgrounds… I look forward to watching our progress throughout the day.

If you’re interested in more info, or in engaging with City Year yourself/as a company in the future, check us out at OmnicomCares.com.

It’s like this. Gary and I both seem to have this incredible ability to start projects. We’re impulsive, full of gusto, eager to draw pictures, and SURE that it’ll be gorgeous by the time X Event comes around (typically within two weeks from our start date and involving a minimum of 10 people showing up). Not only are we both impulsive, but neither of us can focus on one project for long. Something else comes up and we move on.

We have one coat of paint on the walls in the TV room. We spent over two years with no drawer-fronts in the gorgeous built-in bar. The wall we tore down two Thanksgivings ago is still painted with primer only. Our deck is stained everywhere but under the custom benches. And now, our upstairs bathroom has been gutted… since December.

One thing’s for sure though. We’ve definitely painted the upstairs hallway. Four times.

Now fishing season is upon us and time is short on home projects. But just for the heck of it, Gary tore out the driveway this weekend. He wants it longer, wider and made of gravel instead of the existing pavement (don’t ask).

I commend him for the fact that the boat is still wrapped up, though maybe that’s to keep the moth poop off of it. Pete’s coming from Cali this weekend to FISH.