Last night, PLAY played host to an IF event called the ‘Funding Creativity Seminar’.

The event was an informal affair, where guests came along to PLAY HQ to ask a diverse range of industry experts questions about starting a business, being creative and secrets to success.

Panelists shared their inspiring stories with the audience and then opened up the event to audience questions. The panel consisted of The Loop founders Matt Fayle and Pip Jamieson, nerdi.com Co-founder Dan Solo, IndieGoGo’s Chief of Distribution Adam Chapnick and PLAY’s very own Founder, Johannes Weissenbaeck.

Ben Rennie, Director of 6.2 and Founder of Uncluttered White Spaces, played an excellent host for the evening.

About 50 people came along to ask the panel questions and listen to their tips (a crowd favourite was Matt’s advice on being creative which was “Quit your job”). We munched on pizzas and guzzled some lovely beer, thanks to Lord Nelson who kindly donated beverages for the event.

All in all, it was a fun and insightful night. We’d like to thank all of our wonderful guests for coming along, as well as Ben and the team at 6.2/Uncluttered white spaces for organising a great show. Finally, thanks to our awesome panellists for providing value to the audience and sharing your inspiring stories with us!

Last Thursday, the PLAY team celebrated our office-warming party, transforming the office space into giant, grown-up playground.

The night was a success, and the PLAY party committee did a wonderful job in entertaining our guests, and surprising our staff.

Our boardroom became the games room, which included an ever-so retro Daytona game (remember the 2 seater type that you used to play at the movies?), a Pacman table, and of course, the PLAY foosball table.

Our sunroom was turned into a dessert room, which was revealed later in the night – satisfying everyone’s sweet cravings, thanks to caterer Sarah French and PLAY’s very own Cake Boss, Elle.

Guests got to familiarise themselves with the PLAY team in our digital space, which saw our Creative/Production team assemble 30 computers, each of which contained a slide show of each staff member, along with a quote that best described us.

The PLAY team would like to thank everyone who came along, for making it such a great night!

The ride to work this morning was just like any other, fellow commuters hustling and bustling for their slice of real estate on the sardine-packed bus. And once huddled into their positions, always managing to squeeze extra pockets of space in which to engage their smartphone world of information that was seemingly too important to miss.

Being in my usual state of reflectiveness on a Monday morning, I was overly conscious of the fact that I was no different and my need to interact with my smartphone was like the need to scratch and itch. Through stoic perseverance I decided to resist the urge to scratch and kept the itch at bay.

I have heard many people comment on the urges of needing to use their smartphones at every given opportunity of downtime, basically when you are waiting for anything longer than 3 seconds (because that is how long it takes to reach into your pocket and unlock your smartphone) alone with your thoughts, and it has truly changed the way we satisfy our minds. Rather than being a small itch, it is seemingly becoming an epidemic with symptoms not too dissimilar to OCD.

I was only 10 minutes into the journey and after admiring the state of the weather for as long, I managed to catch a glimpse of a fellow sardine checking the morning news. It immediately triggered the urge to reach for my phone. What was it exactly that I needed to check on my phone was unclear to me. I just knew that I needed to, like junky needing a fix.

Again I resisted the urge, and drew my attentions back to the outside world. Almost immediately I noticed that the window of the Sportsgirl store has been converted into an online store, and again the urge triggered inside me to reach for my smartphone. I can categorically say that I have never been, or ever will be interested in women’s clothing. But the fact that something could be connected to through my smartphone made me instinctively want to scratch the itch.

Finally the bus sidled into my stop and I had managed a whole 40 minutes resisting the urge. All of a sudden my smartphone whirrs to life in my pocket, and faster than John Wayne in a western shootout, I unholster my phone to answer the call from a friend as though my life, or theirs, depended on it.

My friend called because they were on their way to work and had a little less than zero to tell me about anything remotely relevant or interesting, but at that instant, I had been infected by my friend through my smartphone with the virus that is clearly staying around like the common cold, only a lot more infectious.

We are excited to announce that PLAY will be collaborating with The German-Australian Chamber of Commerce to ‘Serve up Fresh Insights’ at The CRM Cafe – a series of breakfast seminars exploring the opportunities in the transition from Customer Relationship Management to Customer Experience Management.

The event , which is sponsored by SAP Australia, will provide an overview of innovative systems and how these can be applied to the planning and execution of good customer experience.

Our very own Simon Horauf, Creative and Production Director of PLAY Communication says, “We mix up the presentation sessions with interactive blue sky workshops and a yummy breakfast, so our guests will enjoy valuable experience.”

Want to come along?

CRM Cafe ‘Serving up Fresh Insights’ is on Tuesday 28 February 2012 at 7:30am – 10.30am at Baroque Bistro, The Rocks. Tickets are $55 including GST, and are available to purchase here

Hope to see you there!

It’s not often a day goes past when I am not surprised by a crazy, amazing, or in this case amusing, new app. Being in marketing however, I feel I need to justify this particular app to you all – using none other than the marketing model above.

The marketing model:

We all know that when we work on a brand campaign, feedback and evaluation is equally as important as the initial research and strategic planning. We need to learn from mistakes, not only to make sure we never repeat them, but also to improve and make changes for future campaigns.

Why then, when it comes to our personal lives, do we quite often fail to obtain that all-important feedback? I’ll give you an example of this using the model above. Let’s say someone has asked you on a date for Valentine’s Day this Tuesday…

1. Research
Social media (duh) – do a bit of Facebook stalking, maybe check out his or her Twitter feed and of course the classic ‘Google name search’.

2. Strategy
What am I going to wear, do I need to get a haircut, should I be fashionably late?

3. Implementation
Buy a new outfit, get a haircut, and make sure cab arrives 5 minutes late.

4. Launch
The actual date; had a great dinner, enjoyed his or her company – BUT they don’t call after what you thought was a successful night out… !?

Now you’re left wondering what might have been, no feedback and no chance for you to make important changes for future dates!

Introducing… WotWentWrong: the newest dating app to make sure you always get the feedback you need. Simply send an email or a text message to the person in question asking them to rate your date and let you know why they lost interest. While strangely masochistic, when comparing to a marketing model, it makes sense.

I know I laugh – but hey if it works for marketing, why shouldn’t it work for your personal life as well!?

Check out the app here and please do let me know how it goes!