Last week, the business world was stunned by the sudden resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple. Here is a link to a revealing interview with John Sculley, former Apple CEO, who speaks to Mr. Jobs’ genius, the twin pillars of design and marketing, and the remarkable bond that Apple has with its end users.

As a measure of the respect Mr. Jobs holds within the business community, Apple’s stock price closed 5% lower after the announcement. Stock price aside, those of us in the advertising and graphic design fields—not to mention anyone with an iPod, iPad, iPhone or Macintosh laptop—owes a debt of gratitude to the man for making our jobs easier and our lives that much more enjoyable.

Apple has always held a special place in my heart. I had the rare opportunity to work on the account for four years earlier in my career. Working under Steve Hayden (the author of the famous 1984 television commercial for Macintosh) I was part of the team that helped introduce the Macintosh SE and the concept of desktop publishing to the world.

Just as the computers were created with the user in mind, so was the advertising. For both, excellence was expected. Thirty-second TV commercials became mini-movies combining humor and emotion to make a human connection between man (and woman) and machine. With its clean, minimalist approach, current advertising for Apple is still as elegant as the products themselves.

I am not the world’s most technological man. In fact when my art director partner, Mike Campbell, and I first encountered the SE, it took the two of us to operate it. As a copywriter, I worked the keyboard, while Mike maneuvered the mouse. But we were both transfixed by the elegant design and incredibly intuitive nature of the Mac, both heavily influenced by Mr. Jobs.

It wasn’t long before we could point and click, cut and paste. Mike and I brought the first Macs to the BBDO office in New York, forming our own private little network, producing scripts, storyboards, and black and white layouts. We marveled at the computers’ portability, being able to carry the 20-pound units around in backpacks. I still have my SE from back in the day, its screen smaller than that of today’s iPad.

Steve Jobs has shown the world what could be done with unwavering vision and devotion to the end user experience; John Sculley maintains that by building perception you build reality. Both men have given us valuable lessons in how to approach our profession. For those lessons, as well as listening to playlists on my iPod and texting my kids on my iPhone, I join the millions of other Apple users when I say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

…With a haiku

From the murky depths
Our Mariners have risen
Victory at last!

Well, if not that Hodgson/Meyers house, at least the H/M home page.

S. Claus has made a guest appearance in the lobby of Hodgson/Meyers. His eyes, how they twinkle. His dimples, so merry. His cheeks are like roses, his nose like a cherry. His droll little mouth is drawn up like a bow. And the beard of his chin is as white as the snow.

In short, Santa appears just as one might imagine him to be—until the man opens his mouth. At which time deep rumblings are heard, a basso profundo performance of holiday carols that inspire not cheer but fear.

So disturbing is the man’s melody that babies can be seen and heard crying on the agency home page. In real life, the company’s security camera recorded the clean up crew approaching the diminutive performer with extreme caution, broom at the ready. An early morning eruption into holiday “song” caused a project manager to go into duck-and-cover mode, so frightened was she by the red-suited one’s warped warbling.

Despite his frightful renditions of seasonal songs, our Santa is quite harmless. The only question that remains is how does Tim Hodgson remain so motionless for hours while in the costume?

As Thanksgiving approaches, all of us at Hodgson/Meyers have joined together to help others have food on their tables. Our team contributed to the Emergency Feeding Program (EFP), a local organization that provides food 24 hours a day to families in immediate crisis.

Canned soups, juices, vegetables and fruits joined boxes of rice, jars of peanut butter and packages of pasta for a photo opportunity before their journey to EFP. Other businesses in our office complex also contributed to the worthy cause. Best of all, Spike, Hodgson/Meyers woodpecker mascot and chairman of the board, promised to match all agency donations.

As to where the food goes, the Emergency Feeding Program collaborates with social service agencies, food banks, schools, public health clinics, and faith communities to make food accessible in areas across King County and to get people back on their feet. Nearly half of all meals go to children. To learn more go to http://www.emergencyfeeding.org/index.html.

As Spike says, it’s great to donate.

I’ve played, watched or coached baseball since second grade. As a youngster, I collected baseball cards, caught my first major league foul ball in grade school, and still check box scores every morning. Baseball is in my blood. And if you love the game, you’ve got to fly the colors.

Which explains why I’ve got shirts, jackets or jerseys for the hometown Mariners, the teams of my youth (Giants and Athletics) and a host of minor league teams representing the Aviators, Beavers, Black Barons, Crackers, Crawfords, Indians, Pelicans and Rainiers of Wichita, Portland, Birmingham, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Seattle, respectively.

As you can see from the photos, when it comes to baseball, I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Make that sleeves.

Last night, a perfect storm converged over Atlanta that had huge ramifications in Seattle. The result? The Emerald City is home to a championship sports franchise. No, it’s not the Mariners. Nor the Seahawks. Not the Sounders or Huskies either.

By virtue of their 87-84 victory over the Atlanta Dream, our own Seattle Storm completed a perfect 7-0 playoff run and captured the WNBA championship.

While the Mariners have produced a season of futility, the Seahawks look to rebuild, the Sounders took a step back, and the Sonics have left town, the Storm won their second league title in the last seven seasons. Congratulations, ladies, for doing twice what our many men’s teams have yet to accomplish.

Led by All-Star point guard Sue Bird, scoring machine Swin Cash and dominant center Lauren Jackson, Seattle gave our victory-starved city something to cheer about. For those like me who lament the Sonics move to Oklahoma City, and the emergence of Kevin Durant as a bona fide superstar, take comfort. We have our own all-world wonder in Jackson, a three-time league MVP and MVP of this year’s playoffs.

Judging by the raucous response from fans all around the Puget Sound area, the Seattle lady hoopsters have captured Seattle by Storm. To paraphrase Eric Clapton, Let it Reign!

Recently Dodge ran a commercial for their summer Tent Event in which a chimpanzee, dressed a la daredevil Evil Knievel, celebrates by detonating a miniature cannon loaded with confetti. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) lodged a complaint against the auto manufacturer for using a chimp in the ad.

Rather than engage in a war of words, Dodge remained invisible on the issue. That is, they digitally removed any trace of Suzie the chimpanzee leaving only a walking daredevil outfit, now referring to the non-chimp as an invisible monkey.

This brilliant solution accomplished two things. It appeased PETA. And generated a great deal of free publicity for the carmaker. Among other respected sources of news, The London Daily Mail online and the Los Angeles Times—not to mention the Hodgson/Meyers blog—have reported on the event.

Kudos to the car company and its advertising agency, Wieden + Kennedy, for taking the complaint seriously and for using it to increase awareness for both PETA and the sale of Dodge cars and trucks.

Today, August 13th, is International Left-Handers Day. It’s estimated that between seven and ten percent of the world’s population is so inclined. At H/M, southpaws constitute a full 25% of our staff, proof positive that our Business-to-Business agency is at least 250% above average. This is the type of statistic that only a left-hander could conceive, and I should know because I am one.

One more thing: It’s been scientifically proven that creativity resides in the right side of the brain, which controls the left side of the body. This explains why so many creative people are left-handed. Skeptical? Famous left-handers of the world include Einstein, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Worcester, as in our own senior art director, Charlie.

To say Hodgson/Meyers’ account manager Gina Auffant is a quick study is just the half of it. Or to be more accurate, just the halfathon of it.

Sure, Gina got quickly up to speed on the Fluke clamp meter, calibration and network accounts, not to mention Douglass Interior Products and Webasto truck parts. But she also fast tracked the Seattle Rock and Roll Halfathon, helping to benefit the American Cancer Society in the process.

Competing against more than 17,500 other runners, Gina clocked a rapid 1:32:32 over the 13.1-mile course, good enough for 44th place among all women finishers, and 192nd overall.

Gina first found her stride playing soccer at Lewis & Clark High School (Spokane, WA) as an outside midfielder. Seeing her speed down the sidelines, the school’s track coach recruited her for his girl’s team. Smart move. By the time Gina was a senior she regularly qualified for the state track meet in the 400 meters. And more than 10 years later, still holds a number of the school’s top marks in the 400 and 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 relays.

“I just love to run,” says the trim 5’6” Auffant. “My competitive juices get going and I just can’t help trying to pass the runners ahead of me one by one.”

After passing thousands of runners in Seattle, Gina was so encouraged by the experience that she’s planning to run the Girlfriends’ Half in Vancouver WA later this year to support breast caner awareness. Seems not only is Ms. Auffant a quick study, she’s quick to support worthy causes, too.

In the world of business-to-business advertising, every so often client and creative planets align just right so as to produce a sterling piece of work—one that turns out exactly as it was drawn up. Such was the case when agency Hodgson/Meyers teamed up with client UC4 to produce a flash video as a showcase introduction to the latter’s website. Take a look for yourself: UC4 Rethinks Automation

With blue chip clients from Siemens, Shell and Suzuki to GE, Gucci and Goodrich, UC4 is a global leader in business automation software. For B2B Top 100 Agency Hodgson/Meyers the task was to develop a Web video that not only explained what UC4 did, but do so in an accessible and entertaining fashion.

As with similar success stories, this was most certainly a team effort. UC4 Chief Marketing Officer Fred Kahout and Director of eMarketing Paul Rosien provided company insight. H/M Director of Account Planning Jason Frummet and Project Manager Lea Loya gave strategic guidance, while partners Tim Hodgson and Gary Meyers offered brand direction. All that was left to do for graphic designer Charlie Worcester, Web master Craig Labenz and writer Gary Graf was translate those marketing thoughts into creative genius.

Key to the concept was the combination of rhythmic—dare we say, poetic—copy and imaginative—nay, truly inspired—design and flash animation that brought to life the difficult-to-convey concept of business automation.

(From top left, moving clockwise: The word “communicate” connects two animated servers; Servers rotate and mesh as if gears in operation; Camera pulls back from a line of servers to reveal a conductor’s baton as enterprises orchestrate; Black and white server squares make up a city skyline and cloud, showing that UC4 works on site, in the cloud and everywhere in between.)

Agency and client collaborated on the project through a sequence of storyboards, test footage and refinement. UC4’s graphic standards (developed by Charlie) provided the color palette for the animation. Mr. Rosien’s background as a drummer influenced the techno-percussive beat. And UC4 voice Kevin Crawford provided the narration.

The result? A lively, engaging animated story that visually reflects the power of UC4’s ability to integrate and orchestrate business processes, all to help automate and accelerate companies’ growth.

All in a day’s (well, several days’) work for the team at Hodgson/Meyers

UC4 Flash Video Script

We’re UC4.

We help servers communicate

systems operate

applications integrate

enterprises orchestrate

processes automate

and companies accelerate.

With UC4,

computers know what to do

and when to do it.

Every time.

Automatically.

We’re on the job 24/7:

on site,

in the cloud and

everywhere in between.

We’re UC4.

It’s time to Rethink Automation.

Take a look for yourself. See how UC4 Rethinks Automation.