As Allen Stern noted on his blog, earlier this week The Media Kitchen held the Digital Media Venture Conference, introducing their clients to innovative VC-funded startups that are changing the media plans of tomorrow. The Media Kitchen’s Darren Herman approached us about helping them create an icebreaker video to kick off the spirit of the day, and we jumped at the chance to work with them on it, as Darren and The Media Kitchen have been big supporters and cheerleaders of our work.

After a bit of brainstorming with Darren and MK’s president, Barry Lowenthal, we came up with the video embedded above (here’s an HD version), featuring Gary, Indy Mogul’s incomparable puppet co-host (mostly because he’d be available for all the shoots) in a whirlwind tour of some of the better-known companies in Silicon Alley. All glory due to the amazing Justin Johnson, NNN’s superstar associate producer and first hire, who wrote, directed and produced the piece in a couple days’ time with no budget and a supplemental crew of one, which to me is just incredible.

Special thanks to Barry, Darren and Nicole DelVecchio from The Media Kitchen, David and Marco from Tumblr, Richard Blakeley from Gawker Media, Jake and Amir from CollegeHumor, Erik Beck, Derek D, Rob Czar and Corinne Leigh from Next New Networks, and Lindsay Campbell and Julie Alexandria from CBS Interactive for being such good sports, and to all the other people from NNN and Frederator who helped out as Rock Band partygoers or Gary stand-ins (especially Ben Ross). And special props to Kyle Fassenella, who DP’d and contributed all the amazing steadicam work; Rachel Garcia, for coming up with the idea to have Gary be the star; and Liam Collins, our super-nice VP of Finance and Business Affairs, for playing against type as the jerk who tells Erik to get back to work.

Tony Schwartz, 1923-2008: his ‘daisy ad’ changed political advertising.

Even though he became famous in an era of black & white and radio, Tony Schwartz taught core lessons of communication to everyone in the media. Whether they knew it was coming from him or not.

His most famous piece was this campaign spot for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, which, lore has it, ran only once (and never even mentioned the opponent’s name) but was responsible for defeating Barry Goldwater in a landslide.

My mentor, Dale Pon, not only insisted I buy and read Tony’s book “The Responsive Chord,” but that I should meet the man himself. It was an incredible experience, and I learned more in one sitting than in any other single experience I’d had. From then on, I made the book required reading among my promotion staff.

Check it out. The things you think you know because you’re smart are probably things that Tony was smart about before we were born.

Everyone here knows that Justin Johnson is the cat’s pajamas. After all, aside from being our beta colleague (he started doing promos for Channel Frederator almost 18 months before Next New Networks formed) and mentor to us all, he was the defining catalyst for bringing Erik Beck and Steve Nelson into Indy Mogul (aside from being a primary contributor).

But it’s great when others around the media world recognize how wonderful people around here are, like Tilzy.tv’s Josh Cohen has done with Justin. Tilzy’s the only place consistently writing intelligent analysis of internet television (I emphasize the ‘writing’ because, while there are a lot of words spilled on the web, very little of it is actually written well). So, we welcome them into our world with great joy, whether they like what we’re up to (often) or not (sometimes).

Thanks for the Justin shout out guys.

Justin and the gang made an interstitial promo for Ultra Kawaii — our new cute pet videos network — and it was so fun, we had to put it out on its own. Embedded below, or check it out here.

Ultra Kawaii Promo, “So Cute it Hurts” from justin on Vimeo.

It’s hard for Americans to pronounce “Kawaii” right — as one of our viewers on Bebo recently noted, if you pronounce it wrong (”ka-WHY”), it means “scary,” and properly (”ka-wa-EEE”), it means “cute” — but as this promo shows, there’s a fine line between cute and terrifying.

Check out the site and Share the Kawaii!

Real-life “Internet People” performed by NNN from justin on Vimeo.

Justin Johnson was Next New Networks‘ first creative hire, and if you’ve ever seen any of the amazing Channel Frederator promos he’s directed you can understand why.

And now he goes and does this video. A tour de force, one shot, three minute, live action video of “Internet People” with our Next New staff and interns. Wow.

Thanks Justin.

There’s been a curious twist in my home video production in the last week, with inspiration coming serendipitiously from objects around me.

While cleaning out my kitchen cabinets I happened upon a box of brownie mix that expired in the last years of the 20th century. Mixing the batter into a thick glob, I recreated an unfortunate curbside incident I had while stepping out of my car. A Channel Frederator promo was born.

When our street was being repaved, a steamroller parked overnight in front of my house became the impetus for a Fast Lane Daily spot. Later the same day, an empty detergent bottle being readied for the recycle bin sparked an idea for an Indy Mogul segment.

I learned that this ass-backwards approach to production has mixed results. Detergent bottle (good), brownie-mix dog doo (maybe), steamroller (better luck next time), though the sight of me sitting high in the driver’s seat (seemingly talking to myself) with a laptop and camcorder did catch the attention of the neighbors.

It occurred to me at a lunch last week that Next New Networks had something going on for it that we’d been taking for granted. So spontaneously during a meeting I sent an email a few folks around the office:

“Subject: An unpromoted ‘network’

“I think we should non-launch a new network. ‘Non-launch’ in the sense of put up a page with our platform, put the video on, put it out on our distribution platforms that will take it, blog it, BUT don’t particularly work hard on it.

“Oh, the network? The NNN Promo Network.

“Once a day (a week? I don’t know) post three (four, two?) Of our coolest promos.

“Why? Why not? They’re cool, it’ll make NNN and each of our networks look cooler.

“Our promos are assets. Let’s use them in another interesting way.”

So, we’re starting. Spot Crunch will be rolling soon. In fact, we’re already posting on YouTube.

My media “career really took off as a promo guy and I’ve been enjoying thinking about them for many years. Our team, superbly led by Justin and Alan, is doing work that blows me away. So, instead of just using the as promos the way they were meant to be seen –in the middle of networks– why not show them as interesting entertainment in their own right? It’s the web! Try it differently.

Will anyone like Spot Crunch? Will you like Spot Crunch? I guess we’ll see.

Prior to my lengthy stint at MTV Networks, I spent about 2 years on and off working for the producers who made the commercials for the regional electronics chain, Crazy Eddie’s.

If you’re over 30 and grew up in the New York area, you’ll probably remember Jerry Carroll, the Crazy Eddie’s spokesman ranting into camera and ending each spot with “his prices are INSANE.” The spots were occasionally memorable, but totally unavoidable if you spent any time watching late-night television.

I would find myself preparing crew lists one day, and up in the studio rafters the next, dumping bushels of artificial snow on Jerry while he carried on about Christmas in July. If a take got botched, we’d all climb down, sweep up the mess and reload for the next try. When extras were needed, we were elves, Easter bunnies, or whatever the particular season required. The pay sucked, but it was the one job where I could actually turn on the TV and see something I had worked on.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the experience shaped my way of thinking about promotion. Crank ‘em out, make ‘em cheap, and make ‘em iconic and recognizable as all hell. Crazy Eddie’s was out of business by the late 80’s, but nearly 2 decades later we still remember the commercials. How crazy is that?

I came across the phrase “expression over virtuosity” in a story about punk rock I saw in the New York Times a while back. Musically, it made a ton of sense. In fact, it changed my life. Punk made it so you didn’t need to be a guitar virtuoso to express yourself. Get angry, thrash out your 3 chords, share your anger with the world. The Ramones, The Sex Pistols. They made my head explode with possibility back in the day.

Expression over virtuosity has equal relevance in the promos and branding pieces I have been making on the weekends for NNN. It’s like punk rock… a message and some very basic production skills. A cheap video camera is my electric guitar. I don’t need to perform sweeping guitar solos to get the message out (not that I could). It’s Expression over Virtuosity. Got an idea? Take a camera, shoot it, cut, share it around. I love the shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach. Sometimes this place makes me feel like Johnny Ramone.