Merry Christmas.

The wall below is outside my office at Martin. When we re-imagined our workspace and moved in a year ago, we changed much more than the desks and chairs. The new open space is the perfect metaphor for how we work now. Collaborative, free, a living canvas for all of us to easily interact with. (The impromptu mural here was started and added to by agency staff over the past week.) The space has changed how we work and best of all, what the work has become. The past year, I've seen more truly integrated work than ever. We've added talented people to an environment designed to bring out the best work of their careers. Here's to a strong 2011 and even better 2012.

Frank. The gift no one wants.

Our first "planned" viral for WM: frankthefruitcake.com. He's part fruit, part nuts, all annoying. Frank is voiced by Bobcat Goldthwait and sits on your Facebook wall just begging to hang around for the holiday. But like all fruitcakes - real and digital - he just isn't very likeable and eventually you send him away to annoy friends. Thanks to Unit9 for making Frank so, well, charming. Case study attached.

Our tribute to simplicity.

When Steve Jobs passed away, all of us Apple devotees felt a huge loss. A strangely personal loss. Most of us never meet him. But that was the power of his products. They are "personal." Like no other machines before them, they are an extension of our loves, dreams, hopes, fears. Jobs brought a simplicity and elegance to our lives through his thinking that we don't have in most every other aspect of our lives. So that's what inspired to create whatwouldstevedo.com. A simple link shortening of crowd-sourced submissions, aggregated on a Twitter feed, for things that need to be simplified. Submit your own at: wws.do

Welcome home.

Troops are coming home from Iraq and that's good news. For Veteran's Day, we created this tribute for Walmart. For me personally, even though the war was fought under false premises, the sacrifice of the troops and their families will never, ever be questioned. Thank you.

Wild about Harry.

Every few months I have lunch with Harry Jacobs, One Show Hall of Fame member and the guy who basically put Richmond and Martin on the ad map. Harry is in his eighties, but more passionate about this business than a lot of ad people I know in their twenties. Every time we get together, he talks and I listen. My favorite from this lunch: It's the early 60's. Harry's agency Cargill Wilson and Acree, a precursor to Martin, is being courted by DDB. Harry is invited to NYC to meet one on one with Bill Bernbach. Yikes. Imagine having to show your book to Bernbach with the agency purchase in the balance. Well, it worked out and Cargill was bought by DDB. I'm blessed to have Harry in my life. Who knows. Maybe I wouldn't be here if Bernbach had hated Harry's work.

11 in 2011.

"Dance" is the 11th Walmart conveyor spot to be posted on the respected site creativity.com. An amazing achievement. Congrats to the team.

They keep coming.

A couple new favorites in the "Every cart tells a story" campaign. More in the works.

50 years ago.

Class differences. Race tension. Multiple wars. Economic woes. Political battles on the left and right. 1961 looks a lot like 2011. We're looking back at how JFK handled it all in a new series for the Presidential LIbrary and Museum in Boston. Art Director: Brian Williams.

A good show.

15 finalists at The One Show this year. The encouraging thing: first time finalists in Design and Entertainment, plus multiple nominations in innovation and use of social media. That's exciting. Photo credit: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images for One Show.

Re-imagine, re-think, re-____________.

That's the theme of the Art Gallery within the new space at Martin. We're kicking off the first show June 22, featuring artists Robert Coover, Dalton Ghetti, Charles McGill and others. The invitations we're created in the Gallery space when a couple dozen Martinites silk-screened hundreds of pages from old art magazines to create the invites. Re-create, re-use, re-visit.

Every cart tells a story.

One of the first spots in what we hope will be a nice, long campaign for the world's biggest company. The idea was simple: Walmart has low prices on everything you need on your shopping list. What if told funny stories using the random contents of those lists? Many thanks to our huge team, but especially to the client for having a little fun.

Hit it Bubba long.

A lot of fun directing this package featuring pros Bubba Watson, Lee Westwood, Louis Oosthuizen, Marc Wilson and Hunter Mahan. Worked with DP Tami Reiker, just a beautiful shooter. Used the Alexa with a series of 70s lenses.

Cancer meets Bieber fever.

On March 1st, Usher wished Justin Bieber a happy 17th birthday by posting this re-mix music video by Mysto & Pizzi on Facebook and Twitter. Bieber re-posted the video and thanked Usher and our client, the American Cancer Society. It went to over 45 million Usher and Bieber fans and received over 40,000 Facebook 'likes' in the first five hours.

His speech is now our speech.

Long time, no post. Up to my eyeballs in production since January. So let's catch up. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of JFK's famous "Ask not" speech, we invited the world to the podium. Go to ourJFKspeech.org to deliver a part of the speech via Twitter, FB or your webcam.