The Curator’s News Feed: November 2, 2012
This week was another busy one for the books! The office (or most of the office rather) showed off their Halloween spirit with some very creative costumes, we celebrated two Curator birthdays and welcomed a new face on the Curator team, the lovely Jennifer Carroll. In other news, this week we also learned about talking whiskey, discovered a great new cookbook and observed some interesting PR implications for businesses affected by Hurricane Sandy. Check it out:
What’s better than a singing card? Ad Age. Answer: Talking whiskey. To be fair, singing cards are not hard to beat. Personally, I find them about as irritating as music on a website, but this is truly a great idea. As a Whiskey drinker, who loves giving a bottle almost as much as I love getting one, this personalization option from Diageo could easily tip the scales for me when I’m choosing a Father’s Day Scotch. – Matthew
Hurricane Sandy, @NYCMayorsOffice. As Hurricane Sandy barreled down on the East Coast, an RT in my Twitter feed pointed me in the direction of @NYCMayorsOffice, with updates from the administration of Mayor Bloomberg. It is an outstanding example of leaders communicating in the face of chaos and disaster. @NYCMayorsOffice provides a voice of calm to millions of citizens surviving one of the worst weather events in New York history. In the past week, it’s provided very specific directions on shelter and assistance, shared regular updates on priorities and progress as the city gets back on its feet, thanked first responders, and recognized all of those reaching out with help for New York. – Ann Marie
Smitten Kitten Takes the Fuss out of Cooking, NPR. We love food and love to cook in our house. All of us — my wife, me and our kids. And as such, I love leafing through food magazines and blogs for ideas on new dishes to try. I heard about Deb Perelman's new cookbook: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook while listening to the radio and was really pulled in by her description of making potato pancakes topped with a fried egg. The link here provides a picture and the recipe. Beautiful and mouthwatering! I'll be making these tomorrow morning for my kids’ pre-soccer game breakfast. Have a great weekend, friends. – Scott
Agency's epic job listing puts social media skills to the test, PR Daily. Wieden + Kennedy is arguably one of the best creative agencies in the world and they're looking to add a new social media strategist to their Old Spice team. The qualifications for this position are unlike any I've ever come across. Thank you, Curator, for making my interview process slightly less stressful. – Jennifer
How A Sandy-Related PR Nightmare Cost Startup Uber $100,000 In A Day, Business Insider. I am a pretty frequent Uber user, mainly because they are faster and more convenient that taxis and I don’t feel like it costs much more than most cab rides around the city. I know a lot of people share this sentiment, so I can only imagine the demand they had and are still having in NYC with public transportation being down. I totally understand from a business perspective how crucial it was to increase rates in order to have the manpower needed to serve the stranded people around the city. I think Uber’s candid blog post was well written and explained the company’s financial situation and reasoning for the pricing in the most honest and simple way they could have. It will be interesting to see the effects of the ‘surge pricing’ on the business in the city once things can return to normal. – Chelsey
An Unexpected Briefing, Air New Zealand. If you fly Air New Zealand any time soon, you might see what is possibly the greatest air safety PSA ever created. The airline teamed with WETA Workshop to create a Lord of the Rings-themed preflight video to coincide with the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey later this year. Even if you're just on the ground, at your desk, this video is awesome. – Paul
State Farm Sponsors Gawker's Backup Site, But Nick Denton Laments Lost Week Of Comments, Ad Week. The short version of this story: Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy knocked out Gawker's servers and crashed the site. Gawker staff responded by temporarily moving the site to Tumblr. I took two lessons from the switch. First, it's a perfect reminder of how having a social media presence on multiple platforms can save you before trouble hits. If Gawker already had an established Tumblog that was regularly updated and tended to, moving the site would have been a lot less painful. (As it was, Gawker's presence on other social sites, like Facebook and Twitter, made it easy to spread the word about what was going on.) The second lesson was provided by State Farm, which stepped in to sponsor the site for as long as it's in its temporary state (which sounds like it will be through the weekend). It's a relevant ad that's helpful to readers, and and that's really the best kind of ad. – Paul
Pinterest Pros, Creature Comforts Blog. I came across this series of recommend Pinterest boards to follow from one of my favorites bloggers and found it perfect for a crazy busy week like this. She has tons of suggestions of pinners with incredibly beautiful photos that are really nice to scroll through to soothe a long week. Whether you like food, fashion, design or photography, it’s all here. With the horrible news of Hurricane Sandy, I thought it might be nice to share something that at least I find relaxing and inspiring. – Julia