I Win My First Advertising Award*

Last week at the Toronto Euro RSCG Christmas party, I was surprised to receive my first-ever advertising award. I guess if anything, my parents deserve it more than I do, but I've accepted it nonetheless. I won the award for "Best Name Ever". Not a bad start to my career, now is it?

Hit the READ MORE link to see pics!


Thank you Bekki for these pictures. Above is a picture of me receiving my award from Bill Sharpe, Chairman of Sharpe Blackmore. Watching in the back of this image is Tom Blackmore, the President of the company.


And here's a pic of me with my certificate. I will be framing it and displaying it on my desk at work. Here's to hoping I can win more awards in the future!

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A Word About Child's Play Charity And Donating This Christmas

This Christmas, there are a number of excellent charities to donate to, should you feel inclined to do so. I donate to a few assorted charities here and there throughout the year, but Child's Play is a bit different for me. In my experiences of donating, I knew that I was donating to a good cause, but never felt any personal or vested interest in the causes I was donating to. With Child's Play, for me specifically, I really feel like it's a cause I can personally get behind.

Since 2003, Child's Play has raised over $5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books, movies and more for sick kids hospitals around the world. As a gamer, and as someone with a lot of younger family members that I've taken care of throughout the years, its a cause I can really empathize with. Hospitalized children don't spend all day being treated, and the downtime can get boring and at worst, detrimental to the recovery of a child. Providing hospitalized children with any form of entertainment can go a long way to boosting a child's spirits and ultimately, their recovery. There aren't that many charities out there like it and this one is powered by like-minded people, which makes the act of donating to the cause more powerful to me.

Last year, I bought Rock Band downloadable songs where all the proceeds raised by the songs went to Child's Play. This year, I went through their Amazon Gift List system and donated Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii to The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto. While my contributions aren't nearly as large as the $132,000 raised by the Desert Bus For Hope marathon, I'm sure my contributions will go towards a few smiles for children that really need it. From here on out, I'll make a conscious effort to donate to the cause when I can.

With all that said, it would be awesome if you donated to the cause too. However, I'm not forcing you to do anything. I would be happy if you donated to any charity this holiday season, especially one you feel strongly about. Anything we can do to make the holidays brighter for others is a win for everyone.

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Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

While my blog has been fairly stagnant for the last little while, it's not because of a lack of effort. Okay, I probably could put in a bit more effort, but I've been busy with a number of personal and professional projects, such as the book I'm putting together for myself, working on career stuff and...being a rock star?

I have mentioned in the past that I dabbled in music. In my free time over these last few weeks, I've decided to learn the bass guitar. I'm having a lot of fun with it and even performed live at my local street party. Anybody looking for a drummer or bassist for next year's Battle of the Ad Bands in New York?

My other big "excuse" for not updating as frequently as I used to is, I've been busy getting career stuff together. In fact, I got a new job and am officially starting Monday! I'm really excited for a chance to live the dream of aspiring ad people everywhere.

If you still follow my blog, thank you for your support! I'll do my best in the coming weeks to make it up to you!

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Coming Out of My Shell

This video brought back a lot of old memories for me. Back when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were at their commercial peak, they put down the weapons, picked up some instruments, and hit the road. At the time, I thought that the Coming Out of Their Shells tour was the coolest thing ever. I had bitten on the Ninja Turtle cultural movement, and HARD. As part of my conquest to have everything Ninja Turtle-related, I made my parents take me to Pizza Hut to pick up the poster and album.

Until watching these videos on YouTube now, I actually never saw the concert. It's a really weird feeling of my life feeling one puzzle piece closer to completion, yet the piece doesn't fit quite like it should have back then.

Click on the READ MORE button to see how hardcore I actually was/am for the Coming Out of Their Shells tour.

This is me, at age 6 or 7. Not only did I have the official Coming Out of Their Shells tour poster on my wall, but if you look really carefully, there are Ninja Turtle drawings on there too. One of those pictures in particular was a picture I drew of the first Ninja Turtles game on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

I don't have any of those pictures or that poster anymore, but I still have this:


That's right, the original album on cassette. I still remember listening to this all the time when I first got it. I remembered each song word-for-word. Then for a long time, this tape was just lost to me and I forgot about it. But at some point years after we had moved, I found the tape in our new house. Of course I threw it in the tape deck to relish in nostalgia only to find that, the music now wasn't nearly as awesome as I remembered it.

Oh well, strictly as a nostalgia piece, it's one of the best things ever to me. Now I'm gonna go back to watching the rest of this concert. I'm on part 6 and the Shredder has taken over the show. Will the Turtles overcome the Shredder one more time?

One more thing: no talk about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and music is complete without the following.

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I'm Big In Taiwan?

A few years ago, my brother and I posted this video of us playing Street Fighter II using DDR dance mats. We thought with such an original stupid idea, we were bound to skyrocket to e-fame.

We did. Sort of. But not how we thought we would.

Uhh...what?

As it turns out, a Taiwan-based video game website used our video, which through them has been viewed over 800 times. From what I gather, it was a rundown of every video game controller they could think of. Those two paragraphs above us? Here's what Yahoo! Babel Fish had to say:

A game's operating mode during like everybody knows, is coordinates in the picture the instruction and music rhythm, grasps punctually steps on treads fills up all around 4 directions to tread the spot, completes the dance step which the game assigns. Following and grows imitates innumerably, treads the pad also to grow each kind of variety disposition from the primitive section paper, until now is considered as on is one of as before popular game types. 　　

Because the home use version treads the pad usually is treads 4 directions the point correspondence to the standard controller's direction key, and provides confirmed that Niu with cancels Niu the control function menu, therefore plays the family will work as a volunteer the attempt with to tread the pad controller to play other type game, even challenges the instruction complex wrestle game, also will be the kind impractical, but the bountiful interest the kind will slight the law in addition.

I think whoever wrote that was trying to say that you can use DDR pads for games other than DDR, even if it's dumb and pointless. I'm not quite big in Japan, but Taiwan is close enough for now.

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Can't Knock The Hustle

I'm sorry.

For the few dedicated souls who check into this page every day, I owe you an apology.

My life over these past few weeks has been a whirlwind of professional and personal craziness. If you read my interview, you would know that I just got a full-time job. The transition to that has taken up a lot of my resources.

Also, I'm still working another part time job on top of that. And somewhere in there, I have to try and have a life too.

So I haven't been as prolific a blogger of late. I don't ever plan on stopping this blogging thing, but I don't make many guarantees as to when I'll blog either. All I can say is I'll keep this updated as often as I can, and I'll do what I can to make sure you keep reading. Please click "READ MORE" and accept my peace offering.





Image: Monsters And Critics

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Tips to Control Your Personal Brand

The idea of personal branding is extremely important to me. I started this blog as one way to control my personal brand, so that there were other things to find out about me besides a fake Amazon review under my name. I also started Leaders of the New as a way for other future advertisers to control their personal brand.

Yesterday, Mashable (which is quickly becoming one of my favourite blogs) posted an article about 5 ways to control your personal brand right now. If you have any sort of interest in controlling your personal brand, it's a must-read.

Thanks to the article, I signed up for a Google Profile, which will help bring up direct information about you when people try and search for you. For current and potential Leaders of the New, it wouldn't be a bad idea to post the link to your interview on your Google Profile.

I'm not going to run through all 5 tips, because the article explains it a lot better than I could. The one other thing I wanted to mention is that the E-elevator pitch is real, and happening right now.



There is a service called twtjobs, that allows users to create and distribute a resume through Twitter in 140 characters or less. When I first came up with the e-elevator pitch, I half meant it as a joke. Now it's real. Should I brush up my current pitch?

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Come Out And Play (Date)

True story: My girlfriend and I's first date was a play date. No, that wasn't a euphemism for anything. After a heated MSN conversation about whose wordplay was better, we decided to settle the score with a game of Scrabble. Controversial judging aside, we had a great time and Scrabble made for an excellent first date.

As nerdy as our love story is, it turns out that we're not alone. There are many people turning to alternative entertainment options besides going out to the club or going to the movie theatre. In fact, there is a monthly social event in the US called "Play Date" that's built on the concept of adults getting together to play board games.


The concept was developed by Imari Harvard in 2005, when he had a network of 80 people coming to his house to play board games. The goal was to attract 25-55 year old professionals, singles, couples and those who don't normally go out to party. The unique alternative to a night out so far is working; it's now in 20 major US cities and expanding. The music isn't necessarily loud or trendy. The atmosphere is a lot more chill. And based around the context of games, it's a lot more conducive to social activity with your friends, significant other, or strangers.

For $10 admission, you get access to a ton of tables with games like Scrabble, Uno, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Taboo and more. They even play an "adult" version of musical chairs for those interested.

I hope the concept takes off. I think the environment coupled with more traditional games lend themselves well to a very cool vibe that's a lot more warm and inviting than say a movie theatre, club or pool hall. Most importantly, it sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Even if a branded Play Date doesn't make it to a city near you, why not consider getting some people over for a little Twister?

Image from Reach Out Michigan

Or depending on how close you are with your company, this type of Twister?

Image from Gadgets Shop.nl

Sorry, I just had to throw that picture in there.

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Jett, This Is Your Life

It is with a heavy heart that I find myself at the account status section of my old blog. I think it's time to pull the plug on an old friend.

Back in 2003, I was blogging before I even knew the word "blog" existed. To me, it was an online diary, and I treated it as such. Well, I treated it more like a personal diary, with the caveat that maybe someone else in the universe would find it.

As a teenager with a lot of pent up thoughts and emotions, having that extra outlet to vent worked wonders. Whether I was writing a happy or sad post, I could express that feeling and hit that "Post" button for closure. It was really weird going back and reading those old entries. It stirred up a lot of weird feelings in me. It also made me realize that I've matured a lot from the days of writing about lost love or random moments in life.

Writing that blog made me realize how powerful a blog could be. I thought nobody would ever care about what I had to say, but apparently a lot of people did. Many of my friends said they were active followers of my blog. Every now and then, I would receive random comments from people all over the world. What really freaked me out was the fact that I was ranked within the top million at one point on Technorati. To me, what I was writing was strictly for myself. The world thought otherwise.

From there, I decided to start a podcast to reach out to the world a bit more. Over 1,000 people subscribed to that before it had to end. It's still crazy to me to see the power you possess when you have an idea and an outlet on the Internet. It was through those "trial runs" that made me realize that I could achieve so much more if I structure it for a larger target audience while keeping the personality that made my old blog worth following.

Through that blog, I became a stronger person, found my voice in life and established a life plan. Ultimately, part of that life plan included starting a new blog that featured a new coat of professionalism and maturity. Since school ended, jettlandicho.com has been great as a tool with a much broader scope than my original blog. It's more than just a place to express my emotions. It's a place to create and build on career opportunities not only for myself, but for The Leaders of the New as well.

I'll forever cherish my old blog. I put in over 6 years of my life into it, with over 600 entries. It's hard to see it go, but it's for the best. The entire thing is backed up, should I ever choose to publish it or something. But it's time to move on, and I'd feel more comfortable removing it from public view than abandoning it for the cyber-squatters to tarnish.


Goodbye, old friend. Thanks for the memories. I'll do you proud on this one.

"I can't predict the future, but I can place myself in a position today where I'll be better off tomorrow."

- Me, "Coming of Age", September 28, 2004

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When Opportunity Knocks

When I first went to college for radio, I came in with a mindset similar to the one I brought with me from high school. Getting good grades was my top priority. And I got those good grades, as I always have. But did they help me get my first job in the radio industry? In a way, yes. But with years of hindsight to draw from, I got my internship and job for the following reasons:

1) I had a good relationship with my professor.
2) My professor was close friends with a program director.
3) I was willing to drive an hour every day to work in this piece of junk 1991 Ford Tempo.
4) My demo tape wasn't complete crap.

R.I.P. Jakemobile. Still miss you, buddy.

The letter grades on my report card didn't decide my fate. It was ultimately that opportunity to prove my worth to my teacher and that program director that got me in. As I've learned through my successes and failures in my radio career, regardless of my talent or competency, making things happen revolves around opportunities and positioning yourself in a way that you're ready to make or capitalize on them.

So when I went back to school for advertising, the mindset was much more opportunity-driven. Instead of approaching homework as a way to get my marks up, it was an opportunity to learn, improve my skill-set and in some cases, network. It was an opportunity to prove to my professors that I deserved to be in their classes. And most importantly to me, an opportunity to prove to them that I'm worth referring to potential employers. When I networked, I used it as an opportunity to show my potential worth to them.

Has that mentality worked for me? I think it has. While it took longer than I had hoped to land an internship, it wasn't for a lack of opportunity and definitely wasn't because of a lack of trying on my part. My journey to land an internship included me sending out resumes and portfolios to multiple agencies, making phone calls, attending job interviews and even pitching a client.

It's a bit too early to say what the next big move is for me, and this may not be the venue to announce it, should I announce it at all in any public forum. But it's a really big jump from the classroom. If the standard advertising agency internship was the equivalent of learning how to crawl, then the position I'm in now is the equivalent of me being picked out of the cradle, placed on the ground and expected to dance like a member of the Jabbawockeez. As daunting as it may sound, a lot of great things could happen if I could in fact, dance like a Jabbawockee.

image from Kabillion

Even this blog is an attempt at making opportunities. I have the know-how to create one; why make something of it? I seem to be making some noise with it so far. Let's take this as far as it can go.

To wrap this whole ramble about opportunity up, three assorted pointers from yours truly that may or may not be helpful to you someday, as well as a bonus expression I learned from Anthony Kalamut that's as powerful as any :

1) Opportunities don't fall out of the sky. You make them.
2) Opportunities don't always follow your watch.
3) Whenever there's a good opportunity in front of you, make the most of it.

"If it is to be, it is up to me."

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Your Online Footprint

image from sing365.com

When you run a Google search for my name, an Amazon review for the album "rear end" by Mercedes shows up that I supposedly wrote in 2001. In the review, I supposedly said:

"This is NASTY music! I can't believe I wasted money on thi- OMG! OMG! I WASTED (dollar ammount)!! GAH! neway, the beats (...), and the lyrics are just too raunchy and don't even make sense! She'd be better off in the porn industry. GO BACK! GO BACK! (and give me back my fourteen dollars)"

Nothing too bad. However, I don't want to associate with it. Especially since it's the very first item that comes up on Google when anybody searches me. The big problem with this review is, I didn't write this.


I didn't have an Amazon account until 2004. My friend Ahmed wrote this as a joke. He denies ever doing it, but if you look at "my" profile, the nickname is his real name. The bigger problem with this is: it's eight years later, he lives in Texas and even if he were to finally admit he did it, he doesn't remember how to log in to remove the review. Unfortunately, that review will probably forever stand as a "scar" to me. I hope that it doesn't negatively colour the perception others have of me, but it's out of my control now.

That was an isolated incident. For the most part, we have complete control over what we contribute to the Internet. However, most of us don't always take precaution before we post. And in the age of "Web 2.0", the problem only gets worse when it's so easy to Tweet too much information or post a picture you think only your Facebook friends will see until it "magically" ends up in plain view of everyone.

What if your mother were to find this stuff? What if a future employer found this stuff? Employers do look up potential new employees on Google to find things you may not want them to see. I remember sitting in an informational with someone at an advertising agency with hiring power. This person would regularly search the names of applicants on Google to see what they could find. If this person found anything bad, they would print it out, and when the applicant came in for their interview, this person would present all the dirt on the applicant they found and use it as examples of why they wouldn't be hired. Imagine sitting in a job interview where the interviewer was presenting drunken pictures of yourself that they found on Facebook. The agony!

To me, one of the highest profile cases of falling victim to your online footprint occured in the murder trial of Stephanie Rengel. The girl convicted of nagging her boyfriend to kill Stephanie left an online footprint the size of Big Foot for the prosecution to present to the court. MSN conversations, text messages and Facebook wall posts flew right in the face of her "I only said it a few times and never meant it," defense.

Not even the delete button can save a person (or in this next case, a company) from falling victim to their own online footprint. Back in 2006, a website popped up called "All I Want For Xmas Is A PSP". Supposedly, it was made by a bunch of guys who were trying to convince their friend's mom of buying her son a PSP. However, the Internet community got suspicious and revealed that it was in fact Sony that made the site. Sony deleted all traces of the campaign, but savvy users saved everything. To this day, the video remains as a scar on the face of the company.

I've spent most of this entry talking about the bad side of our online footprints, but the idea of an online footprint in general is fascinating to me. What about the millions of abandoned blogs? Most of those don't get deleted, they just stay there as "online artifacts" of sorts. Maybe I'm alone in this, but sometimes I'll read a blog that hasn't been updated in years and wonder, "What happened to the user?" Why did they stop? Where did they go? Where are they now?

We can even take this discussion into the afterlife. Odds are, everything you post on the Internet will stay there longer than you stay on the Internet. What then happens to everything online you left behind? There's been a lot of hot-button discussion as to what to do about social networking profiles when that person passes away, but we'll save that discussion for another day.

Before I go, I'll leave you with this question: what does your online footprint look like?

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Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

Welcome to my blog!

While this is my first post under this name, I'm far from a newbie when it comes to blogging or creating content for the Internet. I've been blogging personally since 2003, with hundreds of entries under another alias, along with some experience corporate blogging. Check out of one of my entries I did for the radio station Z103.5 here.

So why am I here starting yet another blog?

Well, I have a few reasons:

1) I have to for a school assignment.
2) I want to help my professor and fellow blogger Anthony Kalamut properly format his blog and I couldn't recommend any solutions without using the Blogger interface myself.
3) I want to build a more professional web presence for myself.

Back when I started blogging, my mindset towards the medium was different. I treated it as a personal diary that just so happened to be on the Internet. I never thought anybody else would ever find it.

Then I found out that some of my friends were regularly checking it out to see what I would write about next. Then I started getting comments from people around the world. Then I found my blog on Technorati, and saw that my blog was ranked within the top 1 million in the world.

Normally, it's not that impressive to know that there are close to a million people more popular than you. However, in a blogosphere that has well over 100 million bloggers, it was a cause for pause.

"Wait a minute," I said to myself. "People are actually reading what I have to say?"

For better or worse, there were people that did care about the musings of a high-school-turned-college student venting about his day-to-day drama. It got me really conscious as to the contents of my "online footprint", to the point where I almost went cold turkey. I didn't want to jeopardize myself by posting something on the Internet that I shouldn't. So, I just stopped posting.

The problem with that mindset is, I'm striving for a career in advertising, with aspirations of someday specializing in online, interactive and social media. I'll gladly work with traditional media; I've spent the last 4 years of my life working in the radio business and got into advertising in the first place to further explore roles I could do within the traditional media realm. But my knowledge and passion for online, interactive and social media are arguably the biggest assets I can provide to a company and the assets that set me apart from the rest.

So lets bring it back a bit. How then, do I then sell myself as someone in touch with the online world without anything online to show for it? The answer I came up with: start fresh.

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Yes, it's corny that I pulled out the Spiderman quote, but it's very fitting in this case. A blog is an extremely powerful tool of communication that can change the world. I want to continue using it, but more wisely. No more "hacker aliases". No more muttering under my breath online when I really want to shout out loud. No more trying to hide from accountability. There's nothing wrong with shouting out loud. It's just a matter of making sure I can stand behind everything I shout.

This is my blog, in my name, for the world to see. My goal for this blog is that I want this to be valuable to everyone; from my friends, to my family, to teachers, to future employers. I want this to be the culmination of my writing ability, my creativity, my thought process and my skills working with online tools. I want to be in a situation where anybody that searches my name on Google will find this blog and see the best I have to offer.

Is my answer the right answer? I don't know. But I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Over the course of time, I'll be posting about a variety of different subject matter using different media to help me express myself, such as video and possibly a podcast. Hope you stick along for the ride.

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