Today is the day! The Los Angeles Lakers will be celebrating their 15th championship starting at 11am in front of Staples Center in downtown LA, moving down to the Coloseum for a rally at noon.

It should be a pretty crazy day in downtown. Hopefully most of the knuckleheads will sleep through the festivities so we can avoid any burning T-shirts or Smart-car-tipping.

For me, this parade marks an interesting milestone. I last attended the 1999-2000 parade (the first Kobe-Shaq championship year). How things have changed. At the time, Sensis was still called Focus Multimedia. We were in Santa Monica (in an office that could best be described as a large room), with just about 6 employees struggling to make it in this business. Although the struggle never ends, it’s important to stop every once in a while and look back and see how far we’ve come. Hopefully Roy and I can stop by O’Brien’s today to celebrate, just like we did 9 years ago…

Jose

If you were in downtown today you couldn’t miss the 10th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Pershing Square Concert.  You may have been stuck in traffic or walking in the parade (all those wearing green were encouraged to do so).  During lunch several of us took the Metro to Pershing Square to watch the parade and nosh on a variety of Irish & American food.  The festivities last into the evening.  So if you’ll be out this way, join us at Casey’s Irish Bar and Grille or at one of the various restaurants/bars with “green beer” happy hour specials.

~Melissa Hart, Account Supervisor

Team Sensis recently got up early one Saturday morning and excited the kids and client folks of the YAAO project with their intital creative concepts. Here are some photos that I took with my trusty phone.

*RK – Creative

Javi giving something for the kids to aspire to with his orange Princeton sweatshirt

Javi owning the stage with a performance that brings even JV to his feet

I’m convinced Javier was a professor in a former life.

Eric was clearly impressed with the creative work.

Next week, IBM will be introducing their first ever “Virtual Mirror” kiosk at the National Retail Federation in NYC. What it does is take a digital photo (of the shopper) and scan in various makeup and hair coloring products that they may be interested in purchasing. Without having to actually try the makeup on you are guaranteed true colors and an accurate replica of your face. The EZ Face virtual mirror is already being used by Super-Pharm, one of the biggest drugstores in Israel, and will hit large US retailers sometime this year. – Source: Geek Sugar

- Aretta Frazier

One of the most thankless tasks for any ad agency copywriter rolls around in late fall, when clients soon realize they must write some sort of universally acceptable holiday message to feature in their annual greeting. The great irony is that the job request usually comes titled as “Christmas Card.” Everyone at the agency refers to it internally as the Christmas card. Even the clients talk about it as the Christmas card. Yet we’re all forbidden from actually acknowledging the offending holiday on the card itself, or so the job specs imply. Typically, the job request goes something like this:

“Need to draft a holiday message for [INSERT CLIENT NAME HERE]. Cannot be holiday specific (don’t mention Christmas or Hanukkah). Please avoid any related iconography (no angels, bells, Christmas trees, menorahs, Santa Claus references). Avoid snow/winter imagery since we’re in Southern California. New Year’s references are acceptable, but please avoid standard ‘peace on Earth, goodwill to man’ messaging. Need something memorable, fresh, and original that is universally acceptable. Please reflect brand voice, tone and manner…” or words to similar effect.

Now, I consider myself a fairly decent copywriter. I’ve been in the business for over 16 years, writing successful ad copy for sizeable portfolio of Fortune 500 companies, the federal government and even international non-profits. However, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how exactly to write a non-Christmas Christmas card. It’s like asking for a pepperoni pizza without the tomato sauce pepperoni and cheese.

Any suggestions?

Anyone?

Bueller…Bueller…

Javier San Miguel, Associate Creative Director

Gas prices and strict state budgets have prompted at least 11 states — Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee — to start regularly using teleconferences between judges and inmates. The move is seen as a way to both improve public safety and save cash. I suddenly feel safer?

- Aretta, Media Coordinator

So I will gladly take the credit for our latest office obsession… the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam. I saw a friend of mine put the url as her Facebook status two weeks ago and I had to check it out. I have been hooked ever since! For the past two weeks the puppies have taken over our office with almost half of our staff keeping a live stream of 6 adorable Shiba Inu puppies minimized on their computers for most of the day. It started off with just the folks in account services but the media and creative teams started watching and eventually a member of the web team sent the link to the entire office. There are days when you walk through the halls of the Sensis office and it feels like we have surround sound because so many people are streaming the antics of Autumn, Ayumi, Amaya, Aki, Akoni and Ando in their offices.

The site is a live video and audio stream of six Shiba Inu puppies (3 boys and 3 girls) who turned six weeks old on November 18th. The live video came as a result of a San Francisco couple who wanted a way to keep an eye on their puppies while they were at work so they used the free service from UStream TV to stream live video of the puppies over the internet. There really isn’t much to the site just a brief description of the puppies with their name, the color of their collar, weight, some space for comments and some links for more information about the breed. That is more than enough for the devoted fans of these puppies, the puppy cam has been viewed 6,447,396 times and 1650 people have commented on these adorable little guys. Even CNN, TV Guide and MSNBC have jumped on the puppy band wagon and dedicated time to covering this phenomenon.

I wonder what will happen to all of these viewers when these puppies go to their new homes!

To check out the puppies go to: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shiba-inu-puppy-cam

There is a lot of buzz today surrounding the launch of Blackberry’s first touchscreen phone, the Storm.

As a staunch anti-Apple person, I finally hope I’ve found the phone I’ve been waiting for, namely a business-focused 3G device that provides full Outlook integration, iPhone-like Web browsing experience, and some cool video and music listening capabilities, in that order!

We’ll see… I’m planning on taking the plunge this weekend. I have been suffering under the technological obsolescence of my Palm Treo 750P for a few years now… and I’m ready to move into the next generation of smart phones!

Jose Villa

Some would argue that this is the most advanced mobile hardware in the world. I would agree that the phone needs a few adjustments, only because I want the iPhone to be the best it can be. But it does have, well, issues that need tweaking. For example, Can you copy and paste? No. Do you have searchable email? No. Or what about Flash Compatibility? Again, No. This sleek amazing phone doesn’t even support MMS, which 90% or so of phones have been able to do since 2002.  So what’s a good way to go about letting Steve Jobs know what bugs you iPhone users most? www.PleaseFixtheiPhone.com is a start. 

This website allows iPhone lovers to have a voice and rank what issues should go at the top of Steve’s “Fix It” list. The poll has been open less than two months and already has almost half a million votes on “wishes”, meaning issues that need fixing. So what’s the #1 wish? The iPhone’s lack of MMS support. Hey, if I can listen to music while downloading a new app and surfing the web, I should at least be able to send a picture with my text right? Thoughts?

 Aretta, Media Coordinator

Earlier this year I noticed that Papa John’s offered a widget that allowed you to order pizza straight from your desktop or the social network where you have it embedded. Ordering pizza while I Facebook? Convenient but something felt very off about a fast food widget being placed next to my hobbies, work history and pictures of friends. And now you don’t need a phone, your car keys or even your laptop to place an order.

 If you own TiVo, you can now order Dominos Pizza from your o so comfy couch using just your remote. Orders can be just as specific as if you had called, choosing toppings, side orders and drinks for your local Dominos delivery or pick up. Orders can go up to $100……You got 30 minutes…

 Aretta, Media Coordinator