(Warning - will contain fun, clues and prizes.)
We are *most* excited at MOO Towers. Monday 3rd March is the launch of our MOO Egg Hunt and we are busy working with a wonderful man called Corvus - an awesome clue writer.
He's had us scratching our heads, pooling our resources, searching the internet and wracking our brains, as we try and crack his clues. (And umm - we're the people that know where the eggs are.) The clues are cryptic and fun - the kind that are mind-bogglingly complicated on the one hand, but oh-so obvious when you've worked it all out.
The Egg Hunt is going to be great fun - and more than that, there are over 3,500 prizes involved! We've got goodies from Blurb, Flickr, Ponoko, Picnik, Styleshake and Timbuk2.
There's also a a Grand Prize Draw, where you could win the Ultimate Egg Basket, worth $1000! It's packed full of goodies including a digital SLR, an iPod Nano and a handcrafted bunny - made by Kim, MOO's very own in-house bunny crafter.
Every day we'll be adding new clues in the Main Moo Blog. Eggs are hidden online (all over the place, not just on MOO), in MOO products and even in the Great Outdoors. Ho yes! We've got a little team of Egg-Hiders in different cities all over the world and they've been busy squirrelling away eggs for the last few weeks.
The first person to find each egg will win a prize - and 9 other winners for each egg will be chosen at random. There's loads of eggs and there's loads of prizes. Find out more details on the Egg hunt page, the Egg Hunt FAQs and the Rules.
Have a great weekend everyone - get your thinking caps on!
One of the cool things about MOO products is that you can hand them to new people to introduce yourself, and you have the immediate potential of making new friends. Making new friends is nice. New friends make you smile - sometimes they even make you laugh. (Occasionally they send you sweets... not that I'm hinting or anything.)
For quite some time we in the MOO office have wondered exactly who it is that works over the road from us. Their office kind of looks into ours, and we can see enough of theirs to know they have a huge map on the wall. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just reach over, hand them a MiniCard and say 'Hi! We're MOO, how do you do?' As it happens, it's not that easy, we're one story up, and the other side of a busy road. Reaching over and saying 'hi' will likely result in several broken limbs, possibly DEATH. We're a friendly bunch, but even we have our limits.
Luckily, an odd chain of events came to our rescue:
We have a little 'yay' sticker, stuck to the sign outside our office. It looks a bit like this:
If you look at that photo in detail, you'll see it's been fandalised (a word I've totally stolen from MiniCard 'leaver' Simon Dee). The person responsible? A one Kai Chan Vong, himself a maker of MiniCards.
Well, the above photo was spotted by Malinki, a MiniCard Trader, MOO Sticker maker and all round creative swapper. Malinki had been for a job interview in the very office opposite ours, and spotted the sticker outside our office as she walked past. Better still, she got the job!
A flurry of emails later, and we arranged a little window waving session, which sadly the MOO team managed to miss. The only answer was a TOP SECRET MOO signal. A smilie face made of Post-its:
Luckily, Malinki and her new employers - now our new best friends - responded in kind (actually theirs was a bit more creative than ours but we wont talk about that now).
So we have at last made some new friends, and we very much hope they're looking after their latest employee.
(There was actually a follow-up note, from Stef, our CTO - sadly, while they did have cake, it wasn't enough for us. All we can say is, buy more next time, and we might think about letting Stef out of the cupboard.)
Moo's having a party - and we want you to join in the fun! At our parties in San Francisco and London we exhibited just a few different people's cards. This time? This time we want to exhibit hundreds! We're going to thread them together to make a HUGE banner, showcasing your fantastic photography, illustrations, and designs.
Want to exhibit your card as part of the banner and show your work to the world? There are 3 easy ways to take part.
1) Post us a MiniCard to:
The SXSW Banner-maker
MOO Print Ltd.,
6 Baker's Yard,
London
EC1R 3DD,
UNITED KINGDOM
(please note, we wont be able to return your card)
OR
2) email the image you'd like on a card to sxsw@moo.com and we'll use as many as we possibly can to make MiniCards
(if you'd like a credit, please include it as part of the image)
OR
Track us down at SXSWi and give us one of your cards in person.
Then the fun begins.
The party is 'People Powered'! We've joined together with Etsy, Timbuk2 and Threadless to have a right 'ole knees up on Sunday 9th March, at The Tap Room, 311 Colorado St. Austin, as part of SXSW Interactive. Why 'People Powered'? Well, because it's the customers creativity (that's YOU) that make these companies tick, and we'd like to celebrate that by shakin' you buy the hand (stealing a MiniCard) and handing you a drink. If you're in the area, do come, we'd love to meet you.
Hope to see you there!
Or the Oyster, anyway. Not long ago, Meg Pickard, MOO friend, inventor of the anti-valentine card - and the MOOgnet - blogged about her Stickers, and the fact they're the perfect size for an 'Oyster' card holder.
For the un-initiated, 'Oysters' are a London thing. No, it's not a deep-seated love of expensive bivalve mollusks, merely the the crazy-spectacular name for bus/train pass, available from London Transport.
(Personally, I think they called it that because they planned it to go in a holder like this and they think that opening up the 'shell like' holder reveals the 'pearl' of a card inside. What do you think? Have I over thought this? Have you ever travelled in London? Believe me, there's a lot of time for thought.)
Anyway. This is Meg's holder
And this is mine.
So now we've shown you ours, I reckon you should show us yours. It doesn't have to be from London, but if, like us, you had a pack of stickers and a boring 5 minutes, where did your Stickers end up?
The arrival of a pack of MiniCards means different things to different people. For some, they're new business cards to put in your pocket or bag. You whip them out when you need them, to remind people who you are and how to find you. These are a nice example, by twofivethreetwo:
For others, it's a Valentine gift, like these. by The Warrior Design
or a wedding favour, like these, by Roger. (Who's just started working at MOO! Welcome!)
Cris Rose uses them as a Mini-portfolio, for his custom toy designs...
And many other people use them as tags or thank-you notes to put in with their Etsy Sales. These are by {sweeter than me}. (She made them in photoshop - and if you're going to to the same, don't forget we have templates you can use to make sure the size is right!)
And those are just ideas we've seen added to the Flickr pool in the last few weeks.
But you know what? There's *something else* going on too. There's the lovers n' leavers. The people who get a pack of MiniCards, and then leave them... EVERYWHERE!
Championed by EPMD, actually seen himself, in this rare shot, the lovers n' leavers, hide MiniCards in places you wouldn't expect.
macwagen has left his cards everywhere from grocery stores...
to bathrooms.
While Simon Dee has been leaving his 'Flash Photography' cards all over the new H&M store in London...
cthopper93 has stayed in a few hotels, and left a card behind each time:
While SL Galvin started this little project with Text MiniCards a little while back.
So the question seems to be, where will you leave yours?
If it's going to be SXSW - don't forget to make your cards now! It's only a few weeks away, so get your orders in now.
Eeek. We're a bit late to wish you Happy Valentine's Day in Europe, but don't think that's because we don't care. We do. We've just been busy wading through all the piles of roses, chocolates and flowers delivered to the office... you know how it is. We're such a good looking bunch it's hard for people not to fall in love with us, really.
But enough about us, and more about you. Our designers have a few things they'd like to get off their chests...
In the grand scheme of things, and scientifically speaking, you've definitely achieved rock star status in our eyes. Yep, you really are more 'B' than 'A'...
...So much so, you should probably get this as a MiniCard, if you're making some new ones.
In fact - high fives all round, dude!
We'd like to say
because we like you no matter what the official occasion.
We'd like to give you some love in an understated, kind of funky way...
Because without you, we feel like somethings really missing...
You're all royalty in our eyes...
Oh look. There's no point pretending... if no ones asked you yet, will you be MOO's Valentine?
A lot of hard work, a lot of late nights, and quite a few take-away dinners... but you knew that already, right? Ryan Carson has made video with a few more useful tips - and includes MOO in the mix, which certainly brightened our day. As a (slightly ageing) web start-up ourselves, it was nice to know we can help other people out along the way.
MOO customers are people of many talents. Today, we salute those with aching legs, steely reserve, and warm clothing. Yes, we're talking about the people in training for The London Marathon. (You need steely reserve and warm clothing to train in the not-so-sunny British weather. It's freezing out there.)
The London Marathon raises millions of pounds for charity every year. Runners are actively encouraged to run in support of a charity, which really means getting people to sponsor you by any means necessary. Just Giving have taken a lot of the hassle out of this for people in the UK in recent years, by providing a simple way to enable friends to sponsor you online. You get a unique url, send it to everyone you know, and they can donate online whenever they're ready. No scruffy sponsorship forms - and no chance of sticking it in the washing machine in the back pocket of your jeans by accident.
Once you've got your Just Giving page though, how on earth do you get people to remember your url? Well, we spotted these cards by Marathon runner-to-be, Francis Stor:
And it seems we're not the only one who spotted them - look - here they are at the 2008 London Marathon Golden Bond Training Day!
If you fancy sponsoring Francis, head over to his Just Giving page - he's also made some lovely little cards which he sends out as a thank you.
We were also sent this photo by Brighton running duo, Emma and Zoe. Emma, a designer, made full use of the Text MiniCards, by making a set featuring the different emotions and expressions they'll be going through on the day itself. With so many different cards, she can let people choose the one they like best, and demand sponsorship in payment!
As this duo are both Marathon newbies, they've been keeping a weekly blog of their training, and the MiniCards have come in handy as a banner across the top of the page too. If you'd like to sponsor Emma and Zoe, head over to their Just giving page.
There are of course other things you can make to encourage people to sponsor you - no matter what type of event you're doing. We've made a little page with a few ideas, incase you're looking for inspiration.
But whatever you do, good luck! And if you're training for the London Marathon, drop us a little hello in the comments, we'd love to know how you're getting on. We're right behind you all the way, quite literally.
