AIAIO: Our Blog
The pulse and reviews of Alexander Interactive
Noble. Magical. Enchanting. New Jersey. Well played team. Well played.
The lines were drawn. The Houses were declared. Onward
A joyous feast of texas toast, chicken and meat water soup.
House of Ai prepares for battle
This month’s Careers issue of Time Out New York includes a special feature titled “Cool NYC Companies: Behind the scenes at New York’s best companies”. Ai is pleased to announce that the Immaculate one, Mayor Jack Reynolds, was invited to be included un the TONY gallery of New York City’s cutest and hardest working office dogs.
For our Careers issue, we asked our friends at various digital and media companies to send us photos of their four-legged colleagues, many of whom hold important positions at some of the city’s top publications and agencies. Click through our slide show to meet some of New York hardest-working pups and find out what they do.
Once news of the slide show broke, the Mayor’s public responded immediately.
“This is great,” says Alex Schmelkin, President and co-founder of Ai. “It really is.”
“He’s kind of a big deal,” I said.
David Ow, Director of Project Management, really put it all in perspective: ”The feature is referred to as “Cute Office Dogs”. Look, this is fantastic and all but lets call it like it is, kids with ice cream on their face are ‘cute’. The Mayor is exquisite… magnificent.”
Much thanks to Time Out for including Jack in the slide show. He is honored to be included in such an accomplished and hard-working group.
"Who the hell is that red headed kid?" commented Brad Borman, VP of New Business Development.
Thousands of children live in homeless and domestic violence shelters throughout New York City. One of the devastating consequences of homelessness is the impact it has on a child’s education. We wanted to help. For most of July we hosted a backpack and school supplies drive in partnership with Volunteers of America’s Operation Backpack.
The drive started slow. But the IT Director stepped it up when he ordered 10 backpacks (!!) for his team to fill with supplies. Once the ball was rolling, we had some contributions from the creative and tech teams. However, it was the account services team that took the lead with only a few days left. These 6 people (including our summer Project Management intern) generously each donated a bag stuffed to its brim with the recommended supplies.
Backpacks were labeled by gender and grade and many of our contributions were coincidentally geared towards elementary school-aged kids (our inner 3rd graders peaked their heads when purchasing Spiderman or neon colored bags). Suggested school supplies to fill the backpack included loose-leaf paper, pencils, pens, markers, pencil bag or box, rulers, glue sticks, folders, three-ring binders, notebooks…and the list went on.
These backpacks and supplies mean a lot to the children, helping them go back to school with all of the material they need and a boost of confidence! We are proud to have made a small contribution to Operation Backpack, especially since we know it will make a big difference to the individual families and children who receive our bags.
GO ACCOUNT SERVICES TEAM!
Our tradition of Hamster Time lives on at Ai. Last Friday’s theme took a more physically active twist.
In honor of the Crossfit Regionals and a Ragnar Relay that took place last weekend (and our fond memories of American Gladiators and Battle Dome), we decided to host Ai’s first ever Hamster Time Relay.
With teams of three or four, Ai’s finest took on the following challenges:
Challenges
Highlights
Results
The team that completed all activities the fastest won. Times were not revealed until the last team was finished.
Six teams competed, but there was one clear winner – Team Canopy, comprised of Terran, April (Producer), and Jesse (Visual Designer) took home the 2012 Ai Hamster Relay title with a time of three minutes and 15 seconds (3:15). Almost four minutes separated first place and sixth place.
Video, including interviews with the winning team, to come.
* Our conference rooms are named as follows – (Wilbur, Piglet, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, Boat Drinks, Lamb Chop) – because why shouldn’t they be?
April means a lot of things both good, start of major league baseball, and not-so-much, rain showers and tax deadlines. But for us at Ai it also means supporting of March of Dimes, March for Babies.
Each year Team Levine, Chief Experience Officer and cofounder Josh Levine, his wife Paulina and their two (adorable!) children, raise astronomical numbers towards preventing premature births and finding solutions to the problems that threaten our babies. This year is no different, and Ai is there to join the fight.
This past Friday’s Hamster Time was March for Babies themed including strawberry milk baby bottle contests and a variety of baby foods. For any contest winners (and even those activities which there was no clear winner), Josh donated $50 to the March of Dimes, raising $350 for the cause.
The fight doesn’t stop there- many Ai-ers will attend the Team Levine Annual Fundraiser, Thursday, April 26th at 6pm at Traffic bar & Restaurant, 986 2nd Ave. This weekend Ai will take the campaign to the streets as we proudly stroll beside Josh and his family at the walk on Sunday, April 29th at Lincoln Center.
For more information about the cause, fundraiser or walk, or to make a donation check out the Team Levine website: http://www.goteamlevine.com/.
At Ai we pride ourselves on having cross-functional skill sets. Our front end developers know how to design, our project managers study up on back end development and our Office Coordinator knows how to rap.
That’s right; our ridiculously awesome office coordinator Alex (aka A-Mike, aka my fellow Tar Heel) knows how to rap. To remind the office about our weekly refrigerator purge, she laid down some rhymes to advise the crew to name and date their foodstuffs.
You can check out her sick skills in her Hamster Time performance of “Straight Outta Flatiron” (to the tune of NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton”) below. You can see the full lyrics after the break.
The man with the master plan turned the big 1-0 last month. Folks at Ai get a day off on their birthday, but the Mayor passes on that perk. Sure, he could have kicked it at home and watched Boy Meets World on TGIF, but he has a company to serve and protect. A true security professional never puts down his guard.
Join us in song to commemorate our loyal, precious piglet. Happy birthday little man!
(Make sure you listen to his emotional birthday speech)
Continued Mistakes is written and drawn by Jeremy Hitchcock, just one of the many supporting pillars of Alexander Interactive, he’s not sure how.
Last week was our NYC Social Sports Club Kickball finale. While the overall season results were a bit disappointing (see re: Winning Run Goes Through Basketball Hoop 40ft Away from Kicker), we did finish out the season with a bang, bringing home a win in our very last game. Everyone who showed up played spectacularly. For a star-by-star breakdown, check out the details after the break.
