So what’s the window gonna be this week?
Posted by: Carl Smith on Friday May 18, 2007
Yep, that’s a question we’ve asked ourselves for almost 4 years now.
Yesterday somebody asked me why we put messages in the window at all.
I’m not sure what my fellow nGeneers would say, but for me the window was always about the best way to make noise and get people to know there was something going on inside.
For years on my way to work I drove by Tom Trout, a local Jacksonville business with great visibility. He had, and probably still has, this sign on top of a crazy tall pole that everyone driving on I-95 saw. And as dry and silly as some of those signs were they always made me laugh. I thought it was brilliant that he never had a sales type message, just something anecdotal. It wasn’t until years later I found out he sold real estate. I always thought he was a plumber.
Which interestingly became a problem for us. Nobody knew what we did. Unlike Tom Trout where people drove by on the interstate, we had people stop in and ask. Which was sometimes cool, and sometimes not. This one time a guy came in with a 5-year-old in a stroller and . . . well maybe I’ll save that story for later.
The first window was appropriately enough “Hello.” Both a nod to Apple and our first communication with the people stuck in traffic.
I once had a girl read back the first 20 signs or so to me, there have been close to two hundred by now so who knows what all we’ve said.
A car dealer once called and asked if they could buy the space for their message, that was funny.
A few years ago we put “This window has performed an illegal operation and must be shut down.” Which led to a lawyer coming in and asking what happened.
The window has also been the cause of some uproar, especially when we got caught in the great sidewalk debacle of 2006. As I recall, the city was beautifying San Marco by destroying the sidewalks in front of our building and replacing them with dirt paths. After a few months of tracking in mud, we used the window to ask the construction crews if they would be so kind as to finish our freaking sidewalk. We even went so far as to post lost sidewalk posters around our area of town. Seems some of the city officials got upset. Oh, and the construction guys started staring us down. In the end we got a nice sidewalk, and TV and newspaper coverage to boot. So it wasn’t all bad. Now if they would just water the poor trees they put in holes surrounded by concrete, but let’s get back to the window.
A lot of people ask if we ever got any business out of the window. The answer is yes, if you trace it back. In fact one of our biggest clients found us that way.
Perhaps my favorite windows were pong. They rocked. I really thought Nolan Bushnell would call. But he didn’t. Jerk.
Other people have favorites too. In fact, a few people take pictures of the window. Especially over the last few weeks. A mysterious dark haired girl who walks toward the lawyers.
If mysterious girl is reading this, here’s our flickr feed of the window. Not that we don’t like seeing you, but it’ll save you a trip.
We actually had someone get upset with us when we put “Back to the Grind” after Christmas one year. They said the window was a positive place and that was a negative message. I guess I never read the terms of use for the window, but we took it to heart.
Personally though, nothing will ever come close to when we asked traffic what we should do with our intern. I swear the people at Steinmart don’t work. They just think of ways to torture interns. That poor bastard had to plunge a port-o-let. Even we weren’t cruel enough to make him put on a thong and ride down Hendricks on a moped with a rose in his mouth though.
So as long as we’re at 1807 Hendricks we’ll be putting stuff in the window.
Feel free to post comments with ideas for future window. Or, if you have a favorite let us know and maybe we’ll bring it back.
Oh, and just so you know we can see you reading the window. So don’t do anything rude. Yes you, I’m talking to you.
Filed under: nGen News
Dennis
05.20.07 at 5:44pm
Pong FTW!
Chris Bultman
05.22.07 at 12:01pm
lol- the new years resolution is classic!
Keep posting the pics – I don’t work on that side of town :)
Carl Smith
05.22.07 at 5:42pm
Ahh yes, our new years resolution. Some of the undocumented ones were classic to. A personal favorite, “Dragons is so stupid.”
Dennis
05.23.07 at 7:52pm
Some LolCats refrences would be good or the dork classic “All your base are belong to us”
Carl Smith
05.23.07 at 9:53pm
All your websites R belong to us.
Rhea Drysdale
05.25.07 at 10:01am
Not sure what you’ve done that wasn’t on the feed, but what about…
42
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923
078164062862089986280348253421170679…
Google is Watching You
Personal faves: pong, new years resolution and save the cheerleader. Thanks for the mental break!
Carl Smith
05.25.07 at 10:51am
42, now there’s a reference.
Check back for new windows every few weeks, you never know what might slip through.
And thanks for the kind words on the new site.
Doug
06.24.07 at 8:24am
Actually, “Tom Trout” http://www.tomtroutinc.com is a remodeler. I read the sign every week and when I am rolling on Hendricks I look for nGen.