Remember Jim Motley? He was the entertaining product manager for TC Electronics, known for... exuberant trade-show demos. He writes from his new job at the fantastically high end SSL...
"I thought I might let you know about a new practice instigated at SSL - "Pirate Friday". This all started one particular Friday when I decided on a whim that I was going to be a pirate for the day.
"This seems to have hit a soft spot in SSL's character. Our late founder Colin Sanders had a similar outlook and often spent Fridays not touching the floor. To get around the office he was climbing over desks, hanging off doors, etc. From a small one-man 'arrgh-harrgh' fest it has turned into a company-wide phenomena. SSL Japan celebrate Pirate Friday, 'Arrgh-Harrgh' is used by the US team as a motivational sales shout. At AES show last October Pirate Friday was honored on the booth with eyepatches, cutlasses, and bandanas. Our MD has even been seen getting the bus to work on a Friday with a large cutlass hanging from his belt!
"All of this reached a high point recently. We are working on some presentation videos, and in a last session of an afternoon the idea came to us of making a "pirate" version of the Duende presentation we had just recorded."
There are way too many pompous and lame marketing campaigns in the music tech biz... anything that goes against this kind of blandness is to be encouraged IMHO. And yes that does include 'zany pirate' stuff.
: 2:29 am