Do you have FUN in your workplace? If not you need some.

Fun is everywhere at Current. Playing together is key at Current. We do adventures together like white water rafting, competing at volleyball or racing around an obstacle course every year at the Run for The Rose. Lisa Koier, our COO, AKA “Culture Queen," always endorses fun and excitement around the office.

Here are a few tips to add some FUN in your workplace:

1)    Nicknames. Everyone MUST have a nickname. It is much more fun to greet around the office with names such as “The Bomb," D-Meister” and “Smarty Pants." Don’t you agree?

2)    Treats. Dogs and cats are not the only ones that need treats. Offices do as well. Be spontaneous and plan an ice cream party day or a popcorn hour.

3)    Gatherings. Treat your office to a fun outing, like Movie Night, Roller skating or a Comedy Night.

4)    Lunch. Yes, Food again. It is important to try and lunch with everyone on your staff at least twice a month. This allows you to catch up and get to know your co-workers on a personal level.

5)    The final tip for today is Animals. Animals you ask? Every office needs a pet. A fish, a ferret, a bird, your choice. Our shop pet is a dog. Her name is Mona. Our office would not be the same without her. She is a permanent member of our staff. Oh, and my nickname for her is M-Dog. Seemed like a natural fit.

Remember, have fun in your life, even at work.

I would like to take this opportunity to share with everyone my favorite Friday pick-me-up. Everyone is excited for Fridays, this is no secret. But how many people do you know are excited for the drive to work on Friday morning?

Every morning I go through my typical routine, but never am I more excited to get into my car and head to work than I am on Fridays. Sit down, shut the door, put the seat belt on, and then the magic happens. I turn on B96.5 between 8:00 and about 8:20a.m., and they play the Wrong Song.

During the Rus Parr Morning Show's Wrong Song, DJs from around the country send in their best mixes that include everything from Sting to Biggie. Within seconds you find yourself laughing and dancing in the car, which only stops when you feel that driver to your right staring at you like you're crazy.

Lean on Me, Don’t Stop Believing, Tootsee Roll and Men in Black… it just keeps getting better! There is no double mocha latte that can replace the jolt in the morning the Wrong Song gives me. Join me every Friday, and see if you love the Wrong Song as much as I do!

Not everyone gets an Oscar nomination in their first big screen role. (I'm looking at you Ed Norton.) For most professional actors, their careers progress in stages and they spend a lot of time paying their dues. Before they get their big breaks, even some of cinema’s most respected actors will make ends meet by shilling for pretty much anything.

Some of the biggest names in Hollywood, like John Travolta and Morgan Freeman paid the bills by pitching soap and mouthwash. Before staring in classics like Legends of the Fall and Fight Club, one of Tinsletown's hottest hunks, Brad Pitt, made his mark selling Pringles. And nothing sells burgers like a cute kid, especially if that kid grows up to be a hot vampire-killer.

One of the funniest guys in Hollywood, Paul Rudd, took a turn as pitchman for Nintendo, with mixed results. But one of my all-time favorites has to be this gem from smart aleck actor Seth Green.

Wow, I miss the 80's.

MSN recently published an article entitled "The Top 10 Social Networking Annoyances," a few at which I laughed out loud because I experience them every day. "LinkedIn is uptight" - totally!

While this article is a great one, I thought it was missing just a few:

- Friendfeed feeds too many friends
Aggregators are now so complex that I need an aggregator to aggregate all of the information that is being aggregated in my subscribed aggregators. Jiminy Crickets.

- I may soon be a Twitter Quitter
I do love Twitter, I must say. I can't explain what makes it so fun and addictive -- it's, well...fun and addictive.
But, it's so buggy. There have been numerous excuses for this unexplained phenomenon (too many people following Robert Scoble or the technology was never built to handle so many followers, blah, blah, blah). The bottom line is that there are too many competitors popping up and if Twitter can't take the heat, it needs to get out of the kitchen. Our CTO suggested that Twitter limit the number of people you can follow. Not the number of people who follow you, just the number of people you can follow. So, 2,000 people might follow me, but I am only allowed to follow 20. It would certainly make us all a bit more selective about who we follow and thus unburden the Twitter bandwidth.
A second annoyance about Twitter is that I have a saddened sense of humanity every time I read the Tweets of certain people I am following. I know, I should just stop following them. But, it's like a soap opera! One gentleman lamented the fact that he was forced to get off Twitter to take his kids out to dinner. Oh my.

- Facebook should just tell me what Gem I am
I know this is the way Facebook stays in business...but, I vehemently dislike (I am trying to eliminate "hate" from my vocabulary) that I have to force 10 of my friends to take the "Which Gem are you?" quiz in order to find out my own results. Yes, that's right, I do want to know which Gem I am. I will certainly use this valuable information at some point...like on my wedding anniversary or in my annual performance review. "Did you know I am a diamond? That means I deserve a huge raise!" It could work.

- ncludr has not caught on
Despite my previous blog entry, includr has really not caught on like I thought it would. That's an annoyance. If more people used includr, we wouldn't need bumper stickers with sayings like "Visualize Whirled Peas."

It's a phrase that's been used around the office quite a bit over the years as technology has gotten more and more advanced & crept into our daily lives. With the official announcement of Apple's 3rd generation iPhone looming, speculation of its improvements has been rampant on various blogs & chat rooms. In addition to some cosmetic modifications, one that seems universal is a real GPS navigation feature. It kind of seems a bit like a no brainer since the technology seems to be fairly common these days.

Although I will have to admit, the current quasi-GPS isn't bad. On a recent trip, I found it hugely helpful in finding my way around & getting me pointed in the right direction. It may not have pinpointed my exact location, but once I found a cross street or two, I had no problems. Plus it kept me from carrying the massive map that just screams tourist - ok, I like to blend in & feel like a local.

But to me, the most exciting speculative new feature is an improved camera for video calling. Seriously, video calling. I remember watching all of those great 1980's SciFi tv shows as a kid that all spawned from the popularity of Star Wars & ALL of them had video phones of some sort. If rumors are true, in a few months we'll all be walking around having video calls with our handheld comm devices. Can the flying bubble cars and Gary Coleman inspired butler robots really be that far behind?

In Kentucky, we Democrats will pledge our allegiance to either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton on Tuesday.  Personally, I haven't completely made up my mind yet, although I'm about 75% there.  In addition to painting my bathroom this weekend, figuring out what each Presidential candidate is really about is next on my list of things to do.

When deciding who to vote for before the last Presidential primary I relied on information compiled on local websites and news stories to get the facts.  That helped although it wasn't really something I could relate to.

Today, there are so many social networking sites that people are obsessed with, it's possible to connect to your favorite candidate's site and be notified every time they do anything. Social networking is something that people can relate to have come to rely on as a source on information.

Social networking sites have allowed potential voters, especially young voters, to get to know the Barack and Hillary on a more personal level.  Both have profiles on the mainstream sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, however both are expanding beyond those sites to include LinkedIn, Eons and Twitter.

These are great ways to target younger or first-time votes who do not take part in traditional campaign activities, such as attending rallies or reading the newspaper.  Many younger, potential votes spend a significant amount of time on Facebook and MySpace anyway, so why not target them in their own environment?  In Kentucky, there are nearly 250,000 people on Facebook aged 18-65 and 44,400 people aged 13-17.  It's a great, viral way to reach potential voters and even get the attention of people who haven't reached the legal voting age yet.

Given how much of an influence emerging medias have had on society in the past two years, I really wouldn't be surprised if we can text in our votes for the Race for 2010!

Part III
Sitting at a red light on a main traffic artery in Louisville's working-class south end last night, two small business signs caught my eye.
One was for a neighborhood bar:  D.T.'s
You're joking, right?  A bar? With the same name as a symptom of alcohol withdrawal?

Wow.  Either somebody has a wicked sense or irony or black humor, or....ok, nevermind, I'll go with irony.

Part IV
How about this one for a used car lot:  Circus Auto Sales.

My first mental picture was 14 clowns piling out of a Gremlin.  I had to laugh out loud.

Then I though, "who's the king of the Circus?"  Of course it's P.T. Barnum.  And we ALL know what P.T. (not D.T., mind you) said about used car buyers, right?

Microsoft has had a lot of press lately, and none of it very good. First, they were sued for certifying computer components as "Vista Capable" when they were clearly not; next, they announced the closing of the MSN music store, thereby orphaning thousands of legitimately purchased songs; then they were publicly told to speak to the hand by Yahoo; and now it's rumored that MS will install filtering software as a part of a future update that will not only scan your Zune (OK, maybe not your Zune, but the Zunes of the 12 people who have actually purchased one) for "unauthorized" content, but then delete any music or movies not purchased from the Zune store. One has to wonder, what in the world is going on over there?

Granted, Microsoft is not hurting. They still print money in their headquarters in Redmond, WA. But when you're fined by the EU for anti-trust violations, caught gaming your sales numbers and being dismissed as irrelevant by Motley Fool, it might be time to think about some fresh leadership. Bill Gates was wise to split when he did; perhaps he saw the writing on the wall. In any case, it is upon Steve Ballmer's shoulders that the blame for the morass that Microsoft has become will fall.

Microsoft is a gigantic ship, widely perceived as unsinkable. However, as we learned from watching Titanic for the 152nd time over the weekend, we know that there is no such thing. How much longer until Ballmer walks the plank? And at what point is he going to throw up his hands and say, "What the hell?! I'm a billionaire for God's sake, I don't need this!" My prediction is that within the year, Steve Ballmer will either have engineered a hostile takeover of Yahoo and mounted Jerry Yang's head on his wall, or Bill Gates will be back in the CEO's hyperbaric chamber in Redmond, cruelly plotting the overthrow of free software.

The annual Run for the Roses came and went last weekend and with it went the Kentucky Derby Festival chaos that we always welcome in our shop. I'm sure we'd all like to say we are cooling down after the Race, but no such luck! We are in full gallop on a ton of new business and current client organic growth...and it ROCKS!

This is what we live for in the agency world, right?!? The thrill of the chase, the exhilaration of the gate opening, and then laying down $1,000 across the board on your creative idea - YEAH! But, sometimes you gotta relax the reins a bit and have some fun in the paddock, which is what we did at the Run for the Rose last week!

In case you were stalled in the stable last week, the Run for the Rose has a corporate division in which company teams compete against each other through an obstacle course with a tray of plastic glasses full of wine. The team with the most wine in their glasses and the shortest time through the course wins. We put up three teams for the race and kicked some major hind end, as you can see from the photos below.

Can’t read it.
So I shred it.
Everywhere.
Lap paper is best.
It smells good.
Like pizza or ham.
I grab it & run.
Tear it to bits.
They all laugh.
Pay the lady!
Hot dogs please.