Today is bike to work day. I didn’t bike to work today I drove (I’ve been driving for almost a month) because I’m sort of injured, but for the last 6 years I have ridden my bike to work almost every workday. Despite being hurt I rode to work on Wednesday (because I enjoy riding my bike a million times more than driving…even if it’s pouring rain I would rather ride my bike) and on the way in I was waiting in line at a light (like a car) at 51^st and Airport. The light is timed really terribly so that at 8:30 am 2 cars can get through before it changes. So I had to sit through the light twice. While I was waiting the second time an older gentleman in a truck right in front of me says “hey” I didn’t know where the voice came from at first so I looked around puzzledly. So he says “hey” again. So I said “what?” Then he went on to thank me for obeying the law and told me there aren’t many cyclists that do, and that I was a shining beacon of awesomeness (more or less). I thanked him and we parted ways. Of course I expected him to tell me to get out of the road, but I rode the rest of the way to work thinking that dude was pretty ok. I used to run red lights and ride like a jackass, but after enough close calls I decided I should cool it. Besides cyclists riding like jackasses are a big reason lots of motorists hate cyclists. I read this article earlier about how to not kill a cyclist. I found it pretty right on and perhaps some motorists might enjoy it. When I see a motorist run a red light I think what a jackass, but I don’t hold it against every motorist because I am a motorist. When I see a cyclist run a red light I think what a jackass, but I don’t hold it against every cyclist because I am a cyclist. Anyway just try to be decent to each other out there.

It’s almost here. Tomorrow, May 18 the Facebook initial public offering (IPO) will hit Wall Street under the symbol “FB”  in what is perhaps the most hotly debated offering since the Google IPO in 2004. Facebook, with it’s 900 million users, is not just a platform for people to connect, but as a business it’s a battlefield for visionaries and futurists plotting their next move.

With the frenzied hype surrounding the IPO on Friday, investors are clamoring to get in on the stock. On Monday, the underwriters of the IPO raised the price range on the stock offering to $34 to $38 a share, up from $28 to $35 a share. Then on Wednesday, Facebook announced that 25% more shares of the company will be sold. The additional shares could fetch an extra $3 billion, bringing the total raised through the initial share sale to as much as $16 billion. This would give the world’s #1 social network a valuation exceeding $100 billion.

Zucks has said he is selling shares to cover his expected tax bill from the IPO that could top $1 billion. After the offering, he will hold 503.6 million shares, or about 31% of the company. That stake would be worth $19.1 billion if shares can maintain a $38 price.

Stock analysts have expressed concern over the public’s over-exuberance and believe that the pervasiveness of Facebook has led people to become too enthusiastic about the company.

Here is a 1 minute video via Reuters that looks at a few in-your-face(book) facts while providing a tiny glimpse into where the company is headed over the next 5 years.

Facebook’s goal? Pure global and mobile domination.

And, on the coattails of GM pulling it’s ad spend on the social network, let’s not forget the all-too-familiar concerns analysts and insiders have with Facebook’s (mobile) revenue model…

What say you? Is the price range of $34 to $38 a share a “good buy”, or will over-zealous investors drive the stock price up exceeding a reasonable valuation on Friday?

By Shannon Hollsten

I made lots of new friends yesterday. A couple of them were actually people.

In what I can only assume was an initiative to make faces hurt with happiness, GSD&M hosted the best day in the history of days: bring your dog to work day. For someone like me who doesn’t have a dog but really^∞ wants one, it was an opportunity to live vicariously through other people’s pets.

I was so happy when I went home, I forgot that I can’t draw and attempted to express my over-elated happiness through paper and sharpie.

If that picture doesn’t make you immediately want to do a happy dance on top of your desk….I totally get it. An artist I am not. (I’m actually pretty sure I may retroactively fail Art Direction 101 because of this.)

But what I think the giant cartoon face lacks in realism, likeness-to-a-human, or gender defining characteristics, it makes up for in size and depiction of joy.

I hope we have more days like this in the future. (If only because my drawing skills have no where to go but up.)

Check out all of the pictures from Dog Day here: http://gsdm.biz/L7fYxj

May 15th. PC and Mac (suffer XBox fools).

I

CANT

WAIT!!!

Editor’s Note: Re-posting in remembrance of Adam Yauch. Your legend lives on every street…even Sesame.

Because everyone needs some Beastie Boys for their Friday afternoon…

Video courtesy of Wonderful Creative.

…They never left.

I’ve been on the animated GIF bandwagon ever since I saw this during the GIF resurgence of 2007.  I find any excuse to embed them in emails, blog posts or daily conversation. They provide 4 seconds of awkward animation relaying a moment in time that relates (or doesn’t relate) to whatever emotion I’m trying to convey. The recent popularity of What Should We Call Me and When In (insert various cities/colleges/cult gatherings) are bringing GIFs mainstream again and I’m not even mad about it.

Here at GSD&M, the GIFs have been a core part to our website. For last year’s redesign, we asked our employees to take a series of photos to be featured on GSDM.com – Buster Bluth style. Employees racked their brains and took their turns working it for the camera.

I work very closely with the content on GSDM.com, so I have grown very close with lots of the photos. Here’s a look at a few of my favorite employees shots. NOTE: These are not my favorite employees. Ok – well maybe some of them are…

Check out the video below to learn about the history of the GIF from PBS. Spoiler alert: They tell you how to pronounce GIF and it’s pronounced like the peanut butter Jiff. And you can take it one step further by making your own GIFs with apps like Cinemagram and GIF Shop.

via YouTube by PBSoffbook

Which are your favorite employee GIFs on our site? Comment below.

By Matthew Childs

I have to admit that my interactions with Steve Jobs were limited to two email exchanges. But his life and values loomed large over marketing for two reasons. The first is that he put to rest the Fitzgerald proposition that “There are no second acts in American lives”. And second, because he believed design and quality mattered to the mass market enough to charge for it.

Yet, in practice, it’s amazing how few marketers have the courage and vision to take Steve’s path.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that brand doesn’t matter and that price is the ultimate driver in the _____ market (insert any category you like). But I believe Jobs (and Apple) made it clear that quality is something for which the mass market is willing to pay.  In fact, he (and they) created entirely new categories that continue to thrive on that very principle.

So what does all of this have to do with content? Well, for starters, the Apple ecosystem is really built around content creation and consumption.  But, also importantly, Steve believed that software is itself a form of content.   Software allows the user to not have to think about creating but just presents an intuitive canvas for her to create or consume at will.  Just consider the one button or the one-wheel iPod, for example.  But, perhaps more than anything, Jobs realized that Apple is an ecosystem; the hardware, software and content all need each other to exist.

Again, the quality of the total experience was much more immediate for Steve than the exponential growth of the company.  As we all now know, that growth would ultimately come in a way that only cancer cells experience. But if you stop to consider how much attention Steve paid to making sure that his ecosystem had incredible content — and think about the marketing opportunities that content provided for Apple — you get a sense of the importance it could have for many brands.

When it comes to content, quantity doesn’t equal quality in and of itself.  So buying content that is syndicated and published by your competitors — or could be — is at best parity because it can detract from the perceived quality of your offering. Just look how many exclusive deals Jobs did for exactly that reason.  In effect, Apple’s original content FORCED consumers to come to Jobs’ ecosystem because only there could they access its unique value.

Does Apple, now the world’s most valuable company by market cap, have a lesson for your enterprise? Maybe it’s that, when you’re searching for the road to exponential growth, revisiting and, if necessary, reinventing the unique value you provide to customers is an ideal place to start your journey.

While the city played host to a plethora events ranging from Austin Food and Wine Fest to Eeyore’s Birthday to Austin Psych Fest, I had a chance to check out the Fusebox Festival in downtown Austin. The mystique lying beneath the title of “contemporary art and performance festival” appealed to my thirst for unlimited options: who needs a festival that ONLY focuses on one thing like music or food, or EEYORE! I need my options of artistic mediums, people. Ok, but really…

Other than hearing about Fusebox in brief passing on KUT, I had no clue what it was. The purpose of the festival is to offer the public a week+ exploration of the arts spanning across music, dance, theater, cuisine, and performance art realms. Each day is something different with more than 50 events taking place in 15 different venues. The featured shows, music, studio art and lectures come from a diverse mix of local, national and worldwide backgrounds. According to Fusebox Artistic Director Ron Berry, “Fusebox champions adventurous works of art across a variety of different mediums.  We think there’s something inherently exciting and powerful about this collision of different ideas and perspectives.  This notion of hybridity is central to our understanding of creativity.  The festival is also a great opportunity to engage with new, emerging artists as well as renowned masters. We hope you can join us.”

A friend who is very active in the San Antonio music scene was participating in this particular Fusebox event which he described as a “rad interactive chamber music thing”. I was instructed to go to the Terrazas Branch Public Library on East Cesar Chavez where I would check in and get instructions on where the event was happening. Once I arrived, I found the Fusebox set-up in a small room in the library. I traded in my ID for a map and a small FM radio with headphones, which I was told would be my source of stimulating artistic wonder for the next hour. From there, the event was set up like this: Within the radius of about a mile, houses surrounding the library were hosting 10 or so musicians who were all given the same composition to play on their respective instruments. By tuning in to the pre-set radio station, you could listen to the hour-long performance while walking from house to house and watch each musician play the piece. The musicians aren’t given a radio and cannot hear what the others are playing – they have to rely solely on time and their own mental capacities in these dead-silent rooms. The composition was very mellow and drone-y, reminiscent of something I would expect to hear a performance art exhibit (appropriate in the given context here). My friend did things on his violin I had never seen before, including some interesting circular bowing intervals. Watching each performer play the same thing within their own context and interpretation was like hearing a different song with each step into the next room. I give Fusebox some great kudos for making this crazy form of art a real deal.

Although this was the only Fusebox event I managed to catch this weekend, I would strongly suggest checking out some of the other things they have to offer. It’s things like this that really work to push and challenge us to go forward and re-invent what we deem “traditional” and “conventional” forms of art. Fusebox runs until May 6 and can be picked apart in full detail here.

Photo courtesy of The Horn

Twitter co-founder, and Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey sat down with Charlie Rose last Wednesday to talk about the two companies he’s developed as well as Facebook’s $1billion acquisition of Instagram and the “digital revolution.” The entire interview is 17 minutes and is definitely worth watching  Here’s a clip, with a link to the whole chat after the jump:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12322

To prepare for Earth Day last week, a few of us got together to talk about a revolutionary idea.

What if we took all the paper out of all the printers?  What would happen?

Mutiny?  Riots?  Chaos?  Probably.  But what about adaptation?  If necessity is the mother of all invention, and we forced ourselves to work within the limits of restricted resources (e.g. no paper), could we invent a new way to run our business as an advertising agency?

I think so.

Undoubtedly, there would be growing pains, but what else might happen?  We would probably be more cost efficient, but more importantly we would be forced to come up with innovations.  We would find more effective digital solutions for internal reviews and brainstorms.  We would find new partners who would influence our thinking in all sorts of exciting new ways.  We would generate buzz as the first agency in this paper-intensive industry to have the guts to at least try to go paperless.  And if we were successful for that one day, we could try it for a week.  And then a month.  And then a year.  And then we could become a consultant for other agencies interested in going paperless, the same way that Nike and Interface have become consultants for other businesses in the sustainability arena.

Of course, there are a lot of people in this industry who would say that trying to go paperless would be too disruptive.  But that’s what this business is all about.  Creative disruptions that lead to breakthrough innovations.

So what do you think we would need to do to in order to go paperless at GSD&M?  It all begins with your ideas below.