Did you ever see that old episode of Star Trek with the scary aliens in the blue sparkly muu-muus who could just kind of pulse their giant brains at you and get you to do stuff? They were all like, “Paint our spaceship, Captain Kirk,” and Kirk would be all “No way,” and then they’d pulse their giant brains at him and he’d suddenly say: “How about a nice robin’s-egg blue with white trim?” That’s basically what we’re looking for, except without the oversized, pulsating craniums and sparkly muu-muus.

We’re Mortar, and we have an opening for a Senior Account Executive.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, we’re a different kind of agency – one that prides itself on building brands people love, as opposed to kissing butt and doing timesheets. That being said, you’ll still have to do timesheets. And budgets. And presentations. (And clean the sink if you mess it up. We’re not your mother.) As for the butt-kissing, our clients won’t stand for it, which is fortunate, because we’re terrible liars.

Anyway, here’s the job:

Respond here: iwanttowork@mortaragency.com

Did you know your power bill comes with options?
As far as we know, there is no "I'd Rather Pay With Candy Beans"-option as of yet, but…there are options. You might be eligible for a Low Income plan. Or a "Time Of Day" plan. There are all kinds of options out there. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Who knew? Apparently, Genability knew. So, they called us. Asked for our "I'd Rather Pay Using Candy Beans"-option. Mark agreed. We beat him senseless, and then got a more…traditional agreement agreed to. Then, we went to work.

The result? We are proud to present whatsmypower.com -  a brand new website that makes sense of energy costs. It's simple. It's pretty. And it's smart. Kind of like Mark. Kind of.

Anyway, if you use energy, you'll want to check it out.

GAMA-GO got with local letterpress house Hello, Lucky! to produce these limited-edition posters. All the money goes to relief for Japan. Check it out.

Had to reblog Atlas Ventures, Fred Destin's January 10 take on what makes for a great VC site.

Not only becuase he gushes about the Matrix site (thanks Fred):

"Best Overall Design Award: Matrix

You can take issue with the small fonts and the relatively classic feel of this website, but as a piece of VC web design the Matrix Partners effort does its job wonderfully well.  Lead with entrepreneurs, clear navigation bar underneath, direct access to subsections from the navigation bar, clean and clear interface etc.  It’s rich and deep and easy to navigate.  They even manage to make some of their quotes work, because they keep the endorsement implicit.   See Marc Fleury’s: “everybody told me JBoss would never succeed”.  Nice touch."

But also because he makes some great points about the lack of differentiation in VC marketing:

"One of the challenges that all venture capitalists are dealing with is that we are all peddling essentially the same product.  Funding “disruptive innovation” ?  Check.  Backing “world class entrepreneurs” ? Check.  Building “World class companies” ? Check.  Bizarrely no one wants to back dimwits with no ambition.  To make the copy less obvious, some firms like Flybridge tone the style down and talk about working with “great entrepreneurs to build innovative companies”.  At Atlas we went down the same route and talk about “partnering to solve difficult problems”.  And since “disruptive” is the most overused word in the history of innovation, we got cute and talk of “non-linear innovation”…"

Full post here.