Click on This: May 4, 2012 Edition
May 4, 2012

Every day the staff here at Click are finding and sharing links they find interesting. Some are industry relevant, some are just good for a chuckle. We’ve decided to collect a handful of them to share.

- This week, we here at Click are celebrating our fifth anniversary. Check out our blog posts: Five Year Flashback and Top 5 Clickster Countdown.

- Have you already seen The Avengers five times and you’re still craving your superhero fix? Check out this awesome font.

- Standing tall on the wings of my dreams!

- The month of May is going to rule.

- Today is Star Wars Day. May the Fourth Be With You!

-And, finally, Your Weekend Moment of Zen:

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

By: Scott Neumyer

Click on This: December 30, 2011 Edition
Dec 30, 2011

Every day the staff here at Click are finding and sharing links they find interesting. Some are industry relevant, some are just good for a chuckle. We’ve decided to collect a handful of them to share.

- Ready for one more holiday link? John Scalzi tells us 8 Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know About Your Favorite Holiday Music.

- Here are some great tips on How To Work From Home When Caring For Young Children from Saving Money Today.

- We here at Click love video games so we’re stoked to share Geekologie’s The Definitive Zelda Timeline (According to Nintendo).

- Are you already aching for more American Horror Story? Well, if you want a clue into season two, Ryan Murphy says you should look very closely at the penultimate episode of season one.

- Roger Ebert thinks he knows why movie revenues are dropping.

- This Is Why We Fight. Adorbs!

- And, finally, your New Year’s weekend Moment of Zen: What Are You Doing on New Year’s Eve by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Happy New Year and have a great weekend!

By: Scott Neumyer

Click on This: December 23, 2011 Special Christmas Edition
Dec 23, 2011

Every day the staff here at Click are finding and sharing links they find interesting. Some are industry relevant, some are just good for a chuckle. We’ve decided to collect a handful of them to share. With Christmas only two days away, this version is a rapid-fire, link-heavy Special Christmas Edition!

- NYMag’s Vulture examines What Movies You Should and Shouldn’t See With Your Family on Christmas.

- Scheduling your Christmas TV watching? Zap2It.com has you covered.

- Slate details The Man Who Told A Christmas Story.

- Want to read a 100-year-old letter to Santa that was found hidden in a chimney in Ireland. Thanks to the powers of the Interwebs, you can now do just that.

- Lisa Bettany gives you 10 Tips for Taking Great Holiday iPhone Photos.

- mental_floss breaks down 11 Memorable Christmas Episodes.

- Alonso Duralde literally wrote the book on Christmas movies. Here he writes A Very DVD Obscura Christmas: 10 Holiday Movies You May Never Have Heard Of.

- Flavorpill provides both their 10 Favorite Anti-Christmas Movies as well as 10 Truly Weird Holiday Albums.

- Jacob S. Hall details The Cinematic Evolution of Santa Claus.

- And, finally, Your Christmas Weekend Moment of Zen: The amazingness of Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from Vincente Minnelli’s Meet Me in St. Louis.

Happy Holidays and have a great weekend!

By: Scott Neumyer

Click on This: December 2, 2011 Edition
Dec 2, 2011

Every day the staff here at Click are finding and sharing links they find interesting. Some are industry relevant, some are just good for a chuckle. We’ve decided to collect a handful of them to share.

- Could the studios behind Twilight and The Hunger Games really join forces to become a Mega-Studio-Of-Unstoppableness?! Maybe.

- Stephen King fans need to check out the awesomely interactive website for Bag of Bones before the TV premiere.

- The holidays are here! Check out 10 Actors Who Have Played Saint Nick!

- The Cabin in the Woods is finally going to get a release in 2012 and it looks like it now also has an official website.

- Check out the 8-Minute Trailer for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

- i09.com will tell you How to Rediscover the Obscure TV Shows and Movies that Made Your Childhood Weird.

- BadAssDigest.com breaks down how David Fincher has changed the sound of movie trailers.

- And, finally, your Weekend Moment of Zen: Every Instrument in This Song is From an iPad App:

Happy Friday and have a great holiday weekend!

By: Scott Neumyer

Click on This: September 9, 2011 Edition
Sep 9, 2011

Every day the staff here at Click are finding and sharing links they find interesting. Some are industry relevant, some are just good for a chuckle. We’ve decided to collect a handful of them to share.

- If you’re a web worker (and even if you’re not), this could come in super handy: Skype now works with any home phone.

- Nike has made a huge splash in the last few days with their announcement of a limited run of Nike Air Mag (AKA the Back to the Future II shoes). Not to be outdone, Kermit the Frog has decided to get into the kicks game with a limited run of Adidas Superstar green suede sneakers.

- Oh, how we love this Monsters, Inc. poster by Mondo‘s Tom Whalen. A thing of beauty!

- Great news! Lifetime Networks has picked up the previously-cancelled America’s Most Wanted. They’ve helped catch so many criminals, it would have been a travesty to see the show disappear.

- History re-imagined with monsters? Yes please!

- If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out this set of engagement photos that has been making the rounds on the Interwebs lately. Braaaaaaains!

- Guess what? Football is BACK! mental_floss breaks down how all 32 NFL teams got their names.

- And, finally, your Weekend Moment of Zen: One man does 34 Star Wars voice impressions in under ten minutes. Seriously. Part I and Part II.

Happy Friday and have a great holiday weekend!

By: Scott Neumyer

Web Working: When To Ask For Help
Aug 10, 2011

Help!

With the DreamWorks Pictures film The Help hitting theaters nationwide today, we thought it might be the perfect time to talk a little bit about help, when it’s time to ask for help, and the difficulties many web workers (and even typical office workers) feel when asking for the help they often need. You enjoyed our tips for being your own boss so much and now that we’ve boosted your ego, here are some ways to not bite off more than you can chew.

When you’re a web worker it’s easy to feel like you’re working in a vacuum. Even if you are part of a strong, stable team of workers in large (or small) business, the isolation of working from home can make it difficult to make connections with the people in your group. The feeling that you’re an island adrift in a sea of continually-piling-up work is not uncommon for a web worker. All this, however, should not deter you from seeking the help of your co-workers and superiors. Asking for help may not be an easy task for some people (for some, I’m sure, it’s a nearly insurmountable leap of faith), but it can be one of the most beneficial things you can do. Not only for you and your career, but also for the best interest of the company.

HELP So how do you know when it’s time to ask for help? Simple common sense can answer that question most of the time, but there are certainly tricky scenarios where you might feel that asking for help could put you in an awkward position. The general rule of thumb is: if you’re wondering if you should ask for help, you should probably ask for help. It may feel like a quick blow to the ego muscle, but it’s worth it in the end and most bosses will look highly upon you for asking for assistance before it’s too late. To get you started, here are five times when you should definitely press the help button.

  • 1: When you feel like you’re starting to drown. In fact, if you’re feeling like you’re starting to drown, you’ve probably waited too long. Ask for help immediately. In theory, you should be asking for help when you feel your legs start to cramp under you and your arms are getting tired. At this point, you can still tread water, but not for much longer. This is when the words “I need help” should start to form on your lips. Your colleagues are there for a reason and they’re almost always willing to help, especially if it means saving a sinking ship. Put your ego aside and ask for help early. It will save you (and your team) from missed deadlines, botched jobs, and a lot more work in the long run.
  • 2: When you’re confused and struggling to understand how something works. So your boss just gave you a big new project to work on and he spent about thirty minutes explaining every aspect of it in detail. The only problem is, you didn’t understand a lick of it. Uh oh! Time to ask for help. Call your boss back, explain to him or her that you need the details broken down in a less confusing manner, and make sure that you’ve got it right before you hang up that phone. They’ll probably praise you for being so honest and diligent. The truth is, you can’t do your work if you don’t understand what you’re instructed to do.
  • 3: When you’ve made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s human nature. Nobody’s perfect. The big mistake comes when you’ve screwed up but you’re still too stubborn to admit it. Suck it up, tell your boss, and ask for help. Trust in the fact that every single member of your team has made a mistake at one time or another. This time is yours.
  • 4: When you feel like you’ve hit a roadblock. We all get stuck sometimes. Even Stephen King gets writer’s block once in a while, right? Well, maybe not Stephen King, but 99.9% of writers do. When you feel like you’re blocked, stuck, or getting stagnant on a task, a little help with a fresh perspective can give you just the boost you need to tackle the project head on. Clear eyes often bring fresh ideas with them. That’s one of the major benefits of working with a talented group of people.
  • 5: When you begin to wonder if you need help. I said this before, and I’ll say it again, if you’re wondering if you need help, you probably need help. This is the earliest you can possibly ask for assistance and it’s the very best time to do so. It allows your co-workers (or boss) to evaluate the situation at its infantile stage, diagnose the problem, and put you on the right path to fixing it. Ask early and ask often. That’s the very best motto you can have when it comes to asking for help. You’ve probably heard the phrase “there are no stupid questions” about a million times in your life and there’s a reason for that: it’s true.

Help!

Those five tips should get you started on your way to becoming a help-seeking machine! OK, maybe you don’t want to be asking for help from your boss and co-workers for every little situation that pops up, but it’s always good to err on the side of caution. If you trust your team and your own abilities to excel at the tasks given to you, it shouldn’t be any problem at all. It may, in fact, help you boost your presence in the business, increase your productivity, and ensure that you’re doing your very best work at all times. Give it shot. It’s easy. Just open up and say H E L P!

Oh, and if you find yourself in need of help pretty often, maybe it’s time to hire The Click Team to handle your integrated outreach! Wink, wink.

By: Scott Neumyer

A Fireside Chat with Tyler Gagnon
Jul 29, 2011

We’d now like to take a moment with one of Click Communications’ excellent staffers, Tyler Gagnon, to learn a little more about where he came from and how he gets by in the world of Click.  It may be nice and warm out, but there’s still nothing better than the crackle of a roaring fire. Let us begin.

What is your favorite thing about working at Click? My favorite thing about Click beyond the amazing crew of Clicksters is how my superiors value my input and ideas.

What skill has been most valuable to you while working here at Click? I am fairly tech-savvy, which has helped with the learning curve of working in online publicity.

What would you consider to be your area of specialty? Finding new outlets in the far corners of the Interwebs. I love to find a great site that I think we can use when researching a new genre of outlets.

What is the best part of your workday? My late afternoon coffee, which gives me a moment to relax and an extra boost to power through until the end of the day.

Which work event has been the most fun for you to be involved in? When Click sponsored the Entertainment Aids Alliance event. I am fairly new to the company and it was a great opportunity for me to get to know my fellow Clicksters.

What is the best advice you have ever received? People can only do to you what you let them do.

What are some of your favorite movies? Clerks, Pulp Fiction, Army of Darkness, Back to the Future. I could keep going and going.

If I looked in your DVR/BD player, what would I find? Breaking Bad on Blu-ray.

What book are you currently reading and what else might I find on your shelves? I am currently reading Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis. On my shelf you would find some Tony Fletcher, the Harry Potter series, and The Lord of the Rings.

Where in the world is your favorite place to travel or spend a dream vacation? I have always wanted to go to the Norwegian fjords, such as Hordaland or Sogn & Fjordane. To see what I mean, Google image search “the fjords Norway.”

Tyler in Orvieto, Italy

Obligatory super power question: What would it be and why? The ability to fly. Besides being totally awesome, it is economical and green. No more high priced plane tickets or gas prices.

By: Scott Neumyer

Click on This: July 22, 2011 Ultra Mega Comic Con Edition
Jul 22, 2011

This week is a week like no other. We’ve gathered together the juiciest and most totally awesome tidbits from this week’s San Diego Comic Con. Trust us when we say, they are epic!.

- The Annual Click Communications Comic-Con Survival Guide has not only gotten rave reviews from readers, but has also made its way around the web! Check it out featured on Wired’s Geek Dad, MTV’s NextMovie.com, The Comedy Store, Laughing Squid, and The Fire Wire. We have to say… We’re pretty proud!

- If you’re a Star Wars geek (and if you’re reading this, you probably are), here’s the full rundown of SW-related activities going on at Comic Con the next few days.

- Movies.com breaks down The 10 Most Anticipated Movie-Related Comic-Con Panels.

- Hollywood Reporter takes a look at TV’s 6 Most Wanted Women at Comic Con.

- Dressing up for Comic Con? How about you dress like a comic book geek according to Paul!

- IGN has an extensive Guide to Exclusive Comic-Con Swag that picks up right where the Click Communications Guide leaves off.

- FilmDistrict presented a panel for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Drive to rave reviews. Drive even got its very own red-band trailer.

- Are you a Twi-hard? If so, here are the Top 10 Quotes from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Press Conference.

- George R. R. Martin hosted a fantastic panel for Game Of Thrones which saw Jason Momoa speak Dathraki and a few other stars hint at things to come in season two.

- The Dexter panel unveiled a great trailer for season six.

- Joe Lynch‘s Knights of Badassdom makes a big splash at this year’s Con.

- Chucky! Freddy! Ash! Dexter! All as dolls!!

Happy Friday and have a great geektastic weekend!

By: Scott Neumyer

Click Hearts Harry Potter
Jul 14, 2011

With Warner Bros’ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 hitting theaters today, we finally get to see the end of the historic eight-film series. To celebrate the occasion, I asked the Click crew to recall their favorite things about Harry Potter. It could be a memory. It could be a moment. It could be from the movies, books, video games, amusement park, or anything else Potter related. It’s all up for grabs. So check out our Click Picks below and feel free to hit up the comments to tell us about your favorite thing about Harry Potter!

Mac

“My favorite thing about the Harry Potter movies is the spot-on casting. It’s been brilliant from the get-go and everyone who’s stepped into the roles has really captured the character from the books.

As far as favorite memories go, when Order of the Phoenix came out, we were moving to LA from Seattle and some good friends of ours gave us the audio book. That thing SAVED MY LIFE. It got me through the cleaning of our old place, the drive to LA and setting up the new apartment. I barely remember any of the activities themselves, just the book!”

Dinah

“Perhaps my favorite thing about the Harry Potter movies is the score. There’s a short list of movies that have a definitive musical theme — Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Gone with the Wind — and thanks to the genius of John Williams, Harry Potter is on that list. Those first two haunting bars transport us to the magical world of witchcraft and wizardry better than any port key.

One of my favorite memories of Harry Potter goes back to when Mac & I first started reading the books. In January 2000, I moved from Denver to Seattle so that Mac & I could be together. Shortly after that, we took ourselves up to Vancouver for a weekend of shopping & Canadian fun. We picked up the first two Harry Potter books in paperback (which is why we have a copy of the Philosopher’s Stone, not the Sorcerer’s Stone). I don’t remember who started reading them first, but once we started, we couldn’t stop. One of us would finish a book and the other would immediately grab it. After burning through the first two we ran back to the bookstore to grab the next two in hardback. We barely left our hotel room, and while saying that about a young, newly-minted couple on a weekend getaway would normally infer all kinds of things that are totally inappropriate for a company blog, Mac and I are nerds. We couldn’t put the books down, and have been huge Harry Potter fans ever since.”

Scott

“My favorite thing about Harry Potter is probably the gutsy move Warner Bros. made by allowing Alfonso Cuaron to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Coming off what I personally felt was a lackluster effort (and my least favorite Potter film) in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I had my doubts about the rest of the series. Cuaron, however, injected the series with a brand new sense darkness and maturity. It was a breath of fresh air and easily helps …Azkaban continue to be my favorite film of the series. Those Dementors are just so damn creepy!”

Jackie

“Who wouldn’t want to throw a dinner party in the Great Hall at Hogwarts Castle with those endlessly long tables piled with trays of tasty treats, walls that reach up to the ceiling that look like the sky above and floating candles in the air where the occasional ghost or owl post drops by? Whether it’s a quiet game of Wizard Chess or a Sorting Hat ceremony, the Great Hall is a truly magical destination.”

Dre

“I’m a big fan of secret passages and things hidden in plain sight. So, Diagon Alley and Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross Station are probably some of my favorite HP elements! It reminds of celeb magician David Copperfield’s 1986 televised stunt “Walk Through the Great Wall of China.” I was 7 when I saw that, and spent my hours, when no one was around, crashing into walls and doors with the hopes of ‘passing through.’ These HP passages make me feel like maybe I just haven’t found the right passages yet, or maybe I just need the magic words?”

Emily

“My favorite book, by a landslide was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was the first time I had ever wanted to reach into a book and cause physical harm to a character. Dolores Umbridge was so deliciously evil! Order of the Phoenix was also the first time in the series that I really started to see Harry behaving like a stroppy teenager. It brought such a new element to his growth as a character for me.”

Tyler

“I love the way Rowling has cleverly crafted the character of Harry Potter. By including the common things an adolescent teenager goes through over the seven year course of his teenage maturation Harry’s character, even though he’s a wizard, becomes instantly relatable. Dealing with the mean kid at school, concern for his friends, starting to like girls, mean teachers, homework; all the issues a young boy goes through creates a character and a series that the reader can’t help but relate to. As the character matures so do the obstacles he must overcome.”

Julie

“In the world of Harry Potter, Hogwarts will always be a favorite! I couldn’t imagine a better environment for academia! You get to live with your friends, play loads of Quidditch, and learn incredibly relevant information! It makes me wonder why I ever wasted so much time on Geometry and Algebra, when I could have been focusing my attention on truly useful subjects – like transfiguration, potions, and flying! Gryffindor for life!”

By: Scott Neumyer

Web Working: Being Your Own Not-So-Horrible Boss
Jul 8, 2011

Working From Home

With the Warner Bros. film Horrible Bosses hitting theaters nationwide today, we thought it might be the perfect time to talk a little bit about bosses and their role for you as a web worker (or someone who just happens to work from home). No, no… We’re certainly not going to rail against our bosses here at Click! We have two amazing bosses in Mac and Dinah McLean. They are the epitome of everything you’d want your boss to be; communicative, helpful, straightforward, and the perfect mixture of hands-off and hands-on. But, as a crew that works primarily from home (aside from weekly conference calls, meetings, and the occasional check-in at the “home office”) we also have an additional boss: Ourselves.

To be an effective web worker, it’s absolutely essential that you also be your own boss. You need to stick to your own schedule, produce work that would be up to any boss’s standard, and essentially manage yourself on a minute-to-minute basis. It’s a lot of pressure, to be sure, but something that’s becoming more and more common for workers who now find themselves working directly from their homes. If you want to turn out stellar work, you need to be your own stellar boss.

Working from Home.Managing yourself (especially if you’re new to web working) can take some getting used to. It’s an adjustment that doesn’t exactly come naturally. Most people who have worked since they were teenagers are used to having a boss that tells them what to do, where to do it, how to do it, and when it needs to be done. Now that you’ve joined the work-from-home team, you need to do all that yourself and if you don’t know where to start the task can be daunting. That’s where we come in. Here are a few tips on adjusting to working from home that, as your own boss, should help make the transition a little bit easier. That is, if you follow them just as strictly as if any boss assigned them.

  • 1: Create a work schedule and stick to it. If you don’t have a work schedule, you have nothing. Working from home takes an insane amount of self-discipline. You need to be able to know what you need to do, when you need to do it, and you need to stick to that schedule like glue. It’s incredibly easy to get distracted and derailed when your office is also your home. A schedule will help you keep those distractions to a minimum.
  • 2: Get showered and dressed as if you’re going into a normal office setting. Yeah, we all know that one of the perks of working from home is the ability to work in your pajamas and we’re cool with that. Every once in a while, that is. You see, when you never get changed out of your jammies you tend to let other things (like that schedule we mentioned) slack as well and that’s a slippery slope for a web worker. Being dressed also helps in the event that you need to run out for some reason.
  • 3: Have a dedicated area of your home that is for work only. It’s fine if you want to work on the living room couch, in front of the TV, every now and then (if you have something to do that doesn’t take deep concentration), but having a dedicated “work area” in your home will allow you to close the door and enter “work mode” every day. It’s a great form of muscle memory that can help you kick it into gear the minute you step in the door. It’s also a great tool to help you balance work and life as you can breath easy and be with your family once you shut the door to the work area behind you.
  • 4: Don’t procrastinate. Duh, right? Yes, this can really work for just about any type of work, but it’s especially important for the web worker. When you are your own boss, procrastination simply leads to more procrastination, which leads to missed deadlines, poor work, and maybe even loss of job. Don’t do it.
  • 5: Stay connected. Everyone needs some kind of human interaction. Some kind of connection to someone outside of ourselves. In a typical office setting, you get this every single day (whether you like it or not). When you first start working from home, the break from this interaction can be exhilarating. “Wait, you mean I don’t have to hear Tommy belch after lunch every day anymore? Yes! Sign me up!” But after a while, the lack of connection can be a detriment not only to your emotional well-being but also to your work. Stay connected via IM, telephone, email, Skype, and whatever else you think will help you be as close as possible to your co-workers and management. Interaction goes a long way toward being a great team.

There you have it: five tips to get you started on the path to becoming your own not-so-horrible boss. Of course, there are plenty of other little tidbits of information that can help you successfully transition to working from home, but we’ll save those for a future blog post. These five are a good primer and should have you well on your way to doing some of your best work yet…from home.

54 gratitude: working from home day

Web working (and working from home in general) is easily one of the most rewarding and gratifying things you can do as a professional. It not only instills a sense of complete responsibility over your own destiny, but it also teaches you brand new ways to creatively connect, intelligently produce fantastic work, and flourish as both an individual and part of a larger team. If you have any tips on successful ways to work from home, please feel free to leave them in the comments. We’d love to hear what you have to say!

By: Scott Neumyer

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