Assuming the Mayans miscalculated (at least that’s the attitude I’m taking), there is much to look forward to this year. With Portfolio Night 10 on the seems-far-but-will-be-here-before-we-know-it horizon, a new year of Tomorrow Awards future-thinking brilliance yet to be unveiled and new Giant Hydra projects starting to flow through the network, 2012 has all the makings to be a success.

Given our varying degrees of seasonal acceptance (i.e. disdain for winter), the IHAVEANIDEA team continues to work virtually, spread out across the U.S., Canada, and now the U.K. and South America. In addition to the core team you know and love, two new superstars are contributing to make this year’s Portfolio Night bigger and better than ever. Sarah West, who is based out of London as the Global Manager of Portfolio Night, has been behind the scenes, deftly readying our present and future agency hosts for the best event to date. Luis Oreamuno, who is based out of Panama, has joined the team as a contributing writer and will be bringing you all of the Creative Bites and Ready to Shine action on PortfolioNight.com from now until May 23^rd, as well as some content for How’d You Get In? and our Ad Celebrity Book Lists on IHAVEANIDEA.org.

Up-and-coming young creatives, have you been polishing your portfolios? May isn’t that far away!

Of course we can’t help but be insanely excited about Portfolio Night 10. With nearly ten cities signed up already, including Athens, Austin, Budapest, Helsinki, Montreal, Philadelphia, Stockholm, Toronto, Dublin (and a Mumbai agency host is soon to be announced), the roster is already shaping up impressively! Keep an eye on the City Page of PortfolioNight.com, the Portfolio Night Facebook and Twitter feed for the latest city additions. If you don’t see your city on the list and want to help make it happen, reach out to Sarah to begin the conversation. She would be happy to provide you with more information.

Speaking of portfolio preparation, Ignacio will be busy throughout the month of February, working with a team of Protégés through Feast by iStockphoto’s Mentorship program. The topic is communicating creativity and developing the portfolio of the future. Thank you to all who applied to the program; Feast had significantly more applicants than usual and reported it was some tough competition to create a shortlist of participants. Ignacio recently shared some thoughts on the topic here on IHAVEANIDEA, and will undoubtedly bestow the wisdom of his experience on the Protégés. We’ll share a bit more about the Protégés with you once their mentorship month is complete.

The HydraHeads have been gearing up for a busy 2012 with new Giant Hydra projects kicking off this month. With a network of more than 500 qualified, talented creative minds ready to contribute brilliance, the results are always spectacular. Brett is working hard to profile some of these talented minds on GiantHydra.com, so check in over there, on Facebook, Twitter or sign up for the monthly newsletter to learn more about what Giant Hydra can add to your work, projects and agency. If you’re not a HydraHead, but think you have what it takes, apply here: http://gianthydra.com/signup.php.

And the Tomorrow Awards. Ah, the Tomorrow Awards. After a brilliantly exhausting, fun and inspiring Conference and Ceremony in Amsterdam in November, we are already looking toward this year’s Awards. Looking back for a moment, did you ever see the video recap that our friends at Umbrella pulled together? Check it out and reminisce with us.

It makes me even more excited for the events ahead. Have you seen any work future-facing enough to garner a Tomorrow Award? Tell us about it. And who would you love to see speak?

And thus, we embark on the adventure that will be 2012, thankful to have each of you along with us. Ignacio, Brett, Nat, Brendan, Sarah, Luis and I look forward to crossing paths or working with you this year. Shaping the future of the industry we all love for the better; let’s make it happen together.

Brianna Graves
Operations Manager, Writer
IHAVEANIDEA

“Now I know why they are called the #tomorrowawards – I’ve awarded myself a lovely hangover today,” IHAVEANIDEA contributor and ECD at Tribal DDB Amsterdam Chris Baylis tweeted.

That sums it up nicely.

“36+ hours later. I think I’m just about over the #tomorrowawards,” event partner Kerrie Finch, CEO of FinchFactor, tweeted. “Congrats to #saturnproject, #Ihaveanidea &@edge_amsterdam.”

But really the congratulations extend to all of our partners, including Kerrie herself and FinchFactor, Conspiracy Concepts, Edge Amsterdam and Umbrella Post-Production, our sponsors, Creative Niche, Sid Lee and Amsterdam in Business, as well as our media partners, Amsterdam Ad Blog and Jongehonden. The Tomorrow Awards was an international effort that could not have been accomplished without the support of these folks, as well as Sid Lee Amsterdam’s Kris Eckman, who stepped up to technically run the show without a hitch.

The week was fantastic madness for Ignacio and I. From the moment I stepped off that ferry into Holland and he off that plane from NYC, where the Monster Judging had just wrapped up, it was full speed ahead at Mach One. With the support of our team, a million and one details were attended to and many a work-session was held in the café of Pakhuis de Zwijger, the site of the Tomorrow Awards.

The show was inspiring, with insightful presentations by TAXI Chairman Paul Lavoie, AKQA ECD (and IHAVEANIDEA contributor) Nick Bailey, Anomaly Partner Carl Johnson (who announced during the show that Anomaly has opened an office in Amsterdam!) and last, but most certainly not least, Sid Lee President Jean-Francois Bouchard. All touched on different aspects of the business with talks that energized the room.

Sid Lee set up an interactive installation at the awards that allowed for live search. One typed in a search term, entered the interactive box and watched as the search term was brought to life through video, photo and audio representations of the term. It was pretty phenomenally fun to experience.

For the first time ever for any awards show, the Tomorrow Awards was broadcast across the world live through UStream, allowing anyone to tune in and learn about the work of tomorrow and the future direction of the industry, a conscious effort toward a core value of the Tomorrow Awards: to teach and to learn. Keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks as the winners’ behind-the-scenes videos will be posted online, detailing the judges’ rationale behind why each winner was chosen to win a Tomorrow Award.

It was an extraordinary show. Thank you to all who attended, in person or virtually online.

Sadly we could not stay in Amsterdam forever. Mostly because it is way too cold and neither Ignacio nor I are a fan of those kind of bone-chilling temperatures. For Ignacio, it was off to South America for some well-deserved rest and relaxation, complete with 100% technology disconnection (it is still possible to disconnect entirely!) and I to Paris, France, where I will be visiting and profiling the Sid Lee Paris atelier. I look forward to meeting Sylvain and Saïd and learning more about their work, space, people and culture to share my findings in a new Agency Profile here on IHAVEANIDEA.org.

Meanwhile, back on the home front in Montreal, Brett has been in charge of Operation Benjamin Button, as we gave up our big office space to move in start-up style within the lovely walls of Montreal’s CloudRaker. Given that half our staff spends life in a plane, train or automobile rather than in the office, occupying a huge space for a couple of us did not seem sage. So back we go to the early days. It’s the nature of IHAVEANIDEA. Our network is global and our lifestyles nomadic, so we creep day by day toward a virtual model. Thank God for Google documents.

When not playing maestro of Craiglist, movers (shakers) and boxes (even on his birthday!), Brett has also been busy managing some awesome new Giant Hydra projects. More from him on that front in a later Inbox, but it’s exciting to see agencies, brands and Creative Directors grasp the power of a worldwide network of the industry’s best talent and just exactly what can be accomplished within a mass collaboration effort. It’s pretty mind-blowing.

What’s next? With the conclusion of one Tomorrow Awards Conference and Ceremony, we begin preparations for the next, which will be held in Montreal in Spring 2011. There are already tons of great surprises in store for that event, which are of course supremely top secret. You’ll have to join us in Canada to see just what will happen. Okay, we may reveal bits and pieces before then but you’ll have to tune in to the Inbox for the latest and the greatest.

And of course, we are ramping up for a celebration of a decade of Portfolio Night’s with Portfolio Night 10 on the horizon soon in May 2012. Ten years of uniting the industry’s up-and-coming talent with the industry’s most well-respected and established talent in cities and countries all across the world on one night. Check back as we disclose our global partners and participating cities. Will your city host a Portfolio Night? For more information on that front, contact sarah@ihaveanidea.org.

And with that, I bid you adieu for this week. A la prochaine!

Brianna Graves
Operations Manager, Writer
IHAVEANIDEA

For those still interested in attending, there are still some tickets left. For all the details, visit the Conference web page.

Of course, in order for there to be winners announced on Tuesday, there has to be a shortlist. Fortunately that’s where you, the loyal IHAVEANIDEA fan, came in. Last week, you and hundreds just like you went through tons of entries and selected a collection of 56 kick-ass entries that moved onto the Monster Judges on Monday.

Some notes:

• USA! USA! American entries took home almost half of the shortlist positions, with 27 pieces making the list. This was followed by Canada, with ten, and Brazil, with seven.
• The Yanks may have had the most entries on the shortlist, but the Brits were batting 1.000. Every single entry from the United Kingdom made it to the shortlist.
• Ogilvy Brasil had the most entries survive to the shortlist, followed by perennial Tomorrow Awards darlings Google Creative Lab, previous Tomorrow Award winners AKQA and previous shortlister Cole & Weber United.

THE SHORTLIST

(sorted alphabetically by country & agency)

“Heineken Rugby Clubhouse”
Holler
Australia

“Come Back Ferrorama”
DDB Brasil
Brazil

“Virtual hang-gliding – Rio The Movie”
Morphy Interactive Agency
Brazil

“Drunk Valet”
Ogilvy Brasil
Brazil

“Lift&Laugh”
Ogilvy Brasil
Brazil

“Live Frog”
Ogilvy Brasil
Brazil

“Parental Control”
Ogilvy Brasil
Brazil

“Whopper Face App”
Ogilvy Brasil
Brazil

“Touch The Rainbow”
BBDO Toronto
Canada

“Nabit”
CloudRaker
Canada

“Show Your Colors”
Commun
Canada

“SUDOKU | JAMAIS SEULS”
Commun
Canada

“Tourism Toronto – The Cheating Wall”
CP+B
Canada

“Tourism Toronto – Toronto Trending”
CP+B
Canada

“Sideway – IGN rated 8/10 Game for PS3”
Fuel Industries
Canada

“Red Bull Amsterdam”
Sid Lee
Canada

“Sid Lee Collective Bootcamp”
Sid Lee
Canada

“Internet Explorer 9 – Battle for Beauty”
TAXI Montreal
Canada

“Stefan Becker”
BUZZIN MONKEY
Germany

“The 250km Wave”
Dentsu Inc.
Japan

“androp ‘Bell’”
Party Inc.
Japan

“365 Campaign”
LEMZ
The Netherlands

“KLM LIVE Reply”
LEMZ
The Netherlands

“The Status Improver“
Garbergs Reklambyrå AB
Sweden

“Ariel Fashion Shoot”
Saatchi & Saatchi
Sweden

“The Vaccines ‘Wetsuit’ Instagram Music Video”
Anomaly
United Kingdom

“Skype in the classroom”
Made By Many Ltd.
United Kingdom

“Nike Bootroom Reactive touchscreens”
OMM
United Kingdom

“Kaiser Chiefs’ Bespoke Album Creation Experience”
Wieden + Kennedy
United Kingdom

“Audi Road Frustration Index”
AKQA
USA

“Great. For the price of good.”
AKQA
USA

“Halo Reach”
AKQA
USA

“‘Up All Night’ Fan Montage Video”
BBDO New York
USA

“Google Chrome: It Gets Better”
BBH New York
USA

“Google Chrome: Lady Gaga”
BBH New York
USA

“Star Wars”
Big Spaceship
USA

“What Do You Love?”
Big Spaceship
USA

“HBO Game of Thrones – The Maester’s Path”
Campfire
USA

“Microsoft OneNote ’40 Days Around the World’”
Cole & Weber United
USA

“Microsoft Outlook “Creature Creator””
Cole & Weber United
USA

“Washington’s Lottery “Learn to Lottery” Hulu Game”
Cole & Weber United
USA

“Hyposurface”
dECOI/MIT
USA

“Social Hackathon”
Deep Focus
USA

“Les Paul Google Doodle”
Google Creative Lab
USA

“Rome ’3 Dreams of Black’”
Google Creative Lab
USA

“Verbalizer for Google Voice Search”
Google Creative Lab
USA

“WebGL Bookcase”
Google Creative Lab
USA

“Jane’s Addiction Comes Alive in UG3D”
Momentum Worldwide
USA

“Cisco’s The Hunt Transmedia Experience”
No Mimes
USA

“The Inside Experience”
Pereira & O’Dell
USA

“Mercedes Benz Tweet Race”
Razorfish
USA

“Jeep Ops @ Call of Duty XP”
Relevant
USA

“Nike Black Mamba”
R/GA
USA

“U.S.Design iPad app”
Socialistic
USA

“The Last Exorcism: Chatroulette Video on YouTube”
The Visionaire Group
USA

“Airwalk: Invisible Pop Up Store”
Young & Rubicam New York
USA

Isn’t this where Brett posts fresh-squeezed commentary on some of the latest and the greatest campaigns to hit the market?

Typically and historically, yes. But change is good and IHAVEANIDEA is changing things up in the Inbox, starting now, to give you a weekly glimpse behind the wizard’s curtain. Things like where in the world is Ignacio? Or where am I, since Ignacio and I are in a high-stakes travel competition (Ignacio is ahead by one. For now.). Or where is Brett, for that matter, who also took to the friendly skies to visit Seattle last week while Sean, Nat and Brendan held down the fort back home, with their stakes firmly planted across Canada.

Why so much travel? Well, it’s the IHAVEANIDEA way to connect with the best in the industry across the world as often as possible, of course. So, where in the world is the IHAVEANIDEA team?

Ignacio just returned from Budapest where he was a featured speaker at the BrandFestival, sharing the potential of Giant Hydra and opportunity for agencies and brands to use mass global collaboration to achieve greater creative results. If you haven’t heard of it, the BrandFestival is an annual two-day event that focuses on the current direction of engagement and brand strategy, and its future potential through the voices and opinions of the industry’s leaders (go Ignacio, our fearless leader!).

Photo: BrandFestival 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Ignacio landed back in Montreal at the exact moment I was boarding a plane (literally 20 gates down the terminal) to London to visit with some of the city’s hottest shops. Lean Mean Fighting Machine stepped up to the plate to host me first and I spent three days last week diving into what makes them tick. This week I’ll stop by Dare to chat with Flo Heiss, pop in to glue Isobar for a conversation with Seb Royce, speak with Damon Collins at RKCR Y&R and then head to St. Luke’s for a tete-a-tete with Al Young. The result? Shiny new Agency Profiles for IHAVEANIDEA.org and featured content for The Saturn Return Project, to bring the London market to life as the fourth stop on my journey around the world.

Lunch time fun with the Lean Mean Fighting Machine Crew

Meanwhile, Brett was out in Seattle at Cole & Weber United, helping them celebrate their astonishing 80th anniversary by moderating speaker panels made up of past employees, which he reported were (and I quote) “amazing.” While in Seattle, he also covered a little Giant Hydra, a little Portfolio Night (who wants to see Seattle back on the map for Portfolio Night 10?) a little highly predictable rain and a lot of local brew. The Toronto native even found a baby CN Tower.

Next week, it’s off to the big city of (Tomorrow’s) dreams for Sean and Ignacio, who will head to New York City for the Monster Judges panel. They will lock themselves in a room for a day with seven top-notch Monster Judges who will choose the top five winners of the Summer/Fall 2011 Tomorrow Awards, and three cameramen who will film the entire judging process behind the scenes. Ignacio will reveal the premiere Tomorrow Awards documentary footage in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam? Yes, that is the next destination on the round-the-world IHAVEANIDEA fall tour. Ignacio will hop on a plane from NYC and I will hop on a train-ferry-train combo from London, and the two of us will converge on Amsterdam for the event of the season: The Tomorrow Awards Conference and Ceremony on November 15th. If you haven’t snagged a ticket yet, what are you waiting for? Get them here, as it’s going to be a phenomenal event and there are a limited number of tickets. Our sponsors have outdone themselves this round with some very cool installations and networking fun, and we’re really looking forward to connecting with both the international and Amsterdam-based communities that will be in attendance.

Oh, and if you are a Public Judge for the Tomorrow Awards, get ready to start your engines. The judging is this week and your input will determine the top fifty entries that will be debated by the Monster Judges in New York. No pressure, but you have a say in the winners of an international awards ceremony, so choose wisely.

Keep your dial tuned in to next week’s Inbox to see what is new within our family of companies. Not only IHAVEANIDEA, but also the Tomorrow Awards, Giant Hydra and Portfolio Night and Adland.

Wait, Adland? Yes, we’ve added to the family and you might have read about it here. But more on that in next week’s Inbox.

Brianna Graves
Operations Manager, Writer
IHAVEANIDEA

Well a new company  called Drop Drinks has gone and put that great taste into a soft drink, and the folks of JWT London invite everyone “turn the air pear” in pretty much the grossest way possible.

Nevertheless, it’s time to shake the grinning rictus of a plastic king from your minds, and behold a new era, that of McGarryBowen. Over the weekend they launched there very first TV spot since winning the account. No kings, no sacrifices, no freakouts, now it’s food porn onions, seasoned bacon and guacamole.

Okay, maybe this isn’t bringing home a Titanium Lion next year at Cannes, but maybe this is just what the brand needs, a focus on the food over Flame cologne.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Five Guys.

But it’s a new day, a new rum, and a new direction as they announce Bundy 5, an all-new white rum. I could talk about the fact that it’s filtered five times and aged in white oak barrels, but really, none of that is important. All that matters is… well, just watch. But not if you’re some nancy dandy poseur.

Playa.

We may be a few months from Advertising Week in New York, but The Big Ad Gig, the annual competition considered a highlight of that event, is well under way. This year, the rewards are similar — a 30 day paid internship at either Atmosphere Proximity, Facebook, CP+B, Ogilvy or the Martin Agency — but the challenge is a little different. Aspiring interns are expected to create a video showcasing “a moment in advertising history.” I suppose that’s kinda vague, but it does leave you with thousands of possibilities.

Better pick your moments quickly; the deadline to get your video submitted in order to be considered for the Advertising Week throwdown is August 25th. For all the details, visit the site.

Well after nearly eight decades of making ads, Luke has finally decided to start a new path as Chairman of the Advertising Department of Savannah College of Art & Design. Of course, he had to first quit his current job over at Austin’s  GSD&M, and it looks like they’ve had their fill of the guy anyway.

Introducing Whipple Roast, a site where ad people the world over can write, film, tweet and basically sound off on how much of a rip-off his book was, or any other bon mots you can think of to send Luke on his way.

Of course we at ihaveanidea have nothing but good things to say about Mr. Sullivan. He was our muse when we created the hit Burn Back song “Squeeze My Whipple”…

… and he didn’t get mad when he found out about it after the fact…

…so we will leave it to the rest of you to go to town on Mr. Sullivan

At 1:00PM this afternoon, the campaign will be officially launched in New York’s Times Square in front of the Spectracolor Board, where onlookers will be asked to observe a “moment of stillness.” Those unable to be there are encouraged to visit the website and donate stillness from in front of their computers. The initial goal is to reach 180,000 moments of stillness, representing the number of people either lost, or displaced by the tragedy. The second more lofter goal is 1,031,704 which represents the population of Sendai, the nearest major city to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The ultimate goal and hope is to stage a “worldwide moment of stillness” on March 11th, 2012, on the first anniversary of the disaster.

This effort, which will also include the above commercial and a short documentary to be aired in Japan, would not be possible without the dedication of Kaede Seville of Kaede Media, recent VCU grads Sarah Kraus and Joe Hall, and first year students Ernesto Campabadal, Nick Maschmeyer, Lydia White, Lonnie Elliott, Paul Davis, Andrew Quay, Ernesto Campabala, Jake Mitchell, Tedd Wood, and Amy Matheu. Kudos to your work, and we know the ihaveanidea community will spread the word to meet and surpass your goals.