A few years ago I had the pleasure of hearing a speech from Cheryl Hornung.

Cheryl is the founder of a non-profit organization called Caitlin’s Smiles and she spoke about her organization’s mission of collecting arts and crafts supplies, bundling them up into individual care packages and distributing those care packages to children’s hospitals throughout the region.

Cheryl started the organization a few years after her daughter, Caitlin, lost her battle with brain cancer at the age of seven. Between chemotherapy sessions and throughout her many, many days and nights in the hospital, it was arts and crafts that brought a smile to Caitlin’s face and helped keep her mind off of things no seven year old should have to think about.

Cheryl has pretty much been running Caitlin’s Smiles herself with the help of friends, family members and local girl scout troops. Every month or so they meet in a church to assemble the Bags o’ Smiles and every month the word spreads farther about Cheryl’s work as more hospitals request bags of supplies for their kids. Cheryl always finds a way to honor their requests, but there’s not always enough supplies and volunteers to meet the demand.

My description of Caitlin’s story and the organization that lives on in her name might not make you misty eyed like it did to me the first time I heard it, but I have a feeling you’ll understand when I say that I knew from the moment Cheryl left the stage that if Caitlin’s Smiles didn’t already have some promotional support, I wanted Pavone to provide it for her.

Since then, the thinkbank has adopted Caitlin’s Smiles as the agency pro bono client. Some of us donate our time at various functions. Others donate their expertise behind the scenes to promote the organization. Like most advertising and public relations agencies, we realize our ability to promote businesses and causes that otherwise might not be able to afford professional services. It’s a civic responsibility we take great pride in.

Which brings me finally to the point of this post. It’s important, no matter how small or large your company is, to find an organization (or two or three) and devote some time to it. Give your employees a common cause to rally around. Take a half day off on Friday every other month if you have to. Because I can tell you from experience that the “lost working hours are more than made up in between with the pride your employees will feel after doing something worthwhile.

Our office mascot, Hollywood, will eat just about anything you put in front of her. Bulldogs aren’t the pickiest eaters. Here’s proof: one day, an X-ray at the vet’s office revealed a medium-sized binder clip had lodged itself near the end of her plumbing. The vet gave me two options: using an at-home doggy enema kit, I could attempt to remove the blockage myself; or he’d keep Hollywood for the day and do it himself. As much as I love spending time with her, I think it’s pretty clear which option I chose.

The point ‘m trying to make, in a somewhat convoluted way, is that little things can have a big impact. Like a company’s letterhead. Letterhead is so important that the International Journal of Visual Communication holds an annual competition to recognize the best “first impressions from around the world. This year’s collection will be featured an annual reference called Graphis Letterhead 7, which is used by designers worldwide for inspiration and reference.

Being in Graphis is a huge deal if you’re a graphic designer, which is why I’m very proud to announce that some of the thinkbank’s own design work will be featured in next year’s volume. It’s a package we created for a consulting firm based here in Harrisburg. Without getting into the specifics of what they do, they’re the last people you’d expect to have catchy letterhead (aside from maybe the IRS), which was why it was such a welcome challenge for our art director, Nicole Gable.

It’s been a good year for the entire thinkbank design team, whether it’s award-winning letterhead for a local client or producing head-turning work for national clients like Colgate (Softsoap packaging), E. & J. Gallo Winery (packaging for a brand redesign) or W.L. Gore & Associates (CROSSTECH brand design for graphic identity).

Great. Now my mind is racing with ideas for catchy IRS letterhead. Now that’s an organization that knows a thing or two about attention to detail.

Fall is here, which means several things.

It means the pace around the thinkbank will heat up as clients wrap up their 2007 marketing efforts and begin planning for 2008. It means my daily bike rides to and from work will end. Trading a 20-speed for an SUV also means our unofficial agency mascot, Hollywood, (that’s her at the bottom of this page) will once again be able to make the commute with me each day. Many members of the thinkbank team are looking forward to her return.

October also signals an end to the baseball season for most and the beginning of the playoffs for others. As a lifelong Phillies fan and season ticket holder, I was very happy to be a member of the latter group for the first time since 1993, but not so happy with the result in the first round of the playoffs.

Speaking of sports, the Pavone Bulldogs’ softball season is also behind us. It was, for lack of a better word, a wet year for the team. Our first four games against our annual rivals at Clear Channel were rained out. We finally squeezed in a double-header under the lights a few weeks ago. Let’s just say a season of rain and inactivity do not make for a well-oiled softball-playing machine.

Eager to put our 0-and-2 season behind us, the Bulldogs have joined an indoor dodgeball league. Honestly, I wasn’t aware that such a thing existed in the Harrisburg area. It’s even sanctioned by the National Amateur Dodgeball Association (that’s NADA to all of you regular d-ballers out there). Win or lose, it should be a blast and, as always, great for company culture. And at least we don’t have to worry about rainouts.

Marketers are often expected to be in touch with cultural trends long before they become mainstream. It’s up to us at the thinkbank since we pride ourselves on being one cultural step ahead of everyone else to discover these movements in their earliest stages so our clients can harness the power of these potential marketing tools before they become oversaturated and, well, less powerful.

One cultural hot-button we’ve been in touch with for several years that has only recently begun attracting newsweekly feature stories is an online social networking community called Second Life. Many of you may already know about Second Life. Some of you may know it well.

The Second Life world costs nothing to join and is completely customizable by its users. Build a lemonade stand? Go right ahead. Create a movie set and shoot a film with other avatars? No problem, Spielberg. True, it may not be the real world what with the flying and teleporting and whatnot but it’ pretty damn close.

THE POWER OF $ECOND LIFE

If you can’t imagine yourself playing something like Second Life, chances are you soon will. In the past 12 months, registered Second Life users have soared from around 2 million to over 9 million (though it should be noted that several million of those user avatars are infrequent users). According to Gartner Research, by 2011, four out of every five Internet users will be active participants in Second Life or a similar virtual escape.

Four out of every five. Unbelievable as it may seem, that will probably include you, and that’s precisely why we’ve been paying such close attention to this phenomenon.

Here’s another reason we’ve made Second Life a learning priority: It has its own economy. You can buy things like clothes, cars and small, private islands using Linden Dollars (named for Second Life’s creator, Linden Labs). These Linden Dollars can be purchased with real dollars. For the growing list of Second Life entrepreneurs, Linden Dollars can also be cashed out for real dollars. The current exchange rate (and, yes, it does vary) is 270 Linden Dollars to one U.S. dollar. You can even get a virtual credit card to support your Second Life spending sprees.

• On an average Second Life day, $1 million is spent on virtual goods. Yes, real money is being made in a virtual world. But wait, it gets even more real. Consider this:
• IBM, General Motors, Coca-Cola and countless other companies have set up virtual communities for sales and marketing purposes.
• Anshe Chung buys and sells virtual land in Second Life. Today, she is Second Life’s first real-world millionaire. Her real company builds and sells virtual property and has a staff of 60 real employees.
• The thriving virtual real estate economy has inspired Coldwell Banker to set up a Second Life office. Your very own invitation-only Second Life island costs around 445,500 Linden Dollars (or 1,650 real dollars).
• Hundreds of universities across the nation (including Harvard and MIT) have set up distance learning programs in Second Life.
• Some companies use Second Life to screen and interview prospective hires.
• Sweden has a virtual Second Life embassy on Diplomacy Island. There, visitors can chat with a virtual ambassador about visas, trade or Swedish meatballs.

So what does this all boil down to? It’s simple: There are relationships to be built and money to be made in that vast and still-evolving virtual world. For marketers, the emphasis is on the relationships.

A presence in Second Life works best for brands targeting early adopters and other influencers. Companies with products or services that require a learning period can thrive there as well. For one Pavone client who’s leading the way in the hydrogen fuel movement, Second Life is a natural fit.

I’m not saying Second Life is for everyone. Just like television commercials or sports sponsorships, Second Life is just another marketing channel that may or may not fit into your overall brand objectives. I’m also not suggesting that Second Life is going to take over the world. But it’s good to know the thinkbank has a grasp on it just in case it does.

August has been a busy month at the thinkbank and, as is typically the case once summer ends, the fall will be even busier. One major project we’ve been involved with is something we’re calling Project Looking Glass.

Some of you may already know this, but earlier this year, Pavone created a marketing firm called Varsity, whose sole purpose is to help brands communicate with the oft-overlooked and mis-targeted 55+ audience. Some of the same people who make up the Pavone team are also members of the Varsity team.

On August 1, two Varsity researchers including Pavone’s own director of strategy and planning, Bob Fell moved out of their homes and away from their families to become full-time residents at a Lancaster County retirement community called Garden Spot Village. The goal is to gain first-hand knowledge of the real issues surrounding the life of seniors in order to help companies develop better products and services for seniors and to market to them more effectively.

So far during their 30-day stay, they’ve conducted qualitative and quantitative research with the community’s residents through surveys, interviews, casual conversations observations, and by working hard to become just like any other member of the community population.

The research isn’t just a snapshot of Lancaster County seniors. We’ve also opened up the surveys to retirement communities and consumers across the nation. After the project, the findings will be summarized and shared publicly with the marketing community. The results will also become the subject of a book.

According to Bob, life at Garden Spot Village isn’t all pinochle, mashed peas and Price is Right. Of course, those would be stereotypes, which is part of the reason why Bob is there to show the world what really motivates those over 55.

I won’t attempt to summarize the many insights gathered by the Varsity team here. Instead, I’ll direct your attention to the Project Looking Glass blog, where the team has been filing daily reports and observations during their stay at Garden Spot Village. It’s fascinating stuff really, and just tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s been learned so far. Don’t forget to check out the video of Bob showing off his whistling skills at a recent garden party.