Learn about the PepperDigital team

Jacqueline Kolek 
1. What’s your greatest digital/ 2.0 achievement? 
Developing and launching a microsite for Marsh, riskinsights.com.  We were able to develop a program that captured and highlighted their incredible depth of expertise while creating a valuable tool and resource for media.   

2. What’s your favorite aspect of digital marketing/communications?
There is a cool new thing to learn every day and trends are always changing.
 
3. What’s an example of how a digital tool was used effectively by a business or enterprise?   
It may be kind of old, but I loved OfficeMax's Elf Yourself.  Great example of creating something that users could personalize to drive a truly viral program. 

4. What’s your favorite digital hobby?   
Reading spoilers of my favorite TV shows.  I can't stand the suspense of watching LOST, I need to know what to expect!  Also, Doc Jensen's TV recaps on Eonline.com. 

Steve Cody
1. What’s your greatest digital/ 2.0 achievement?   
Having my Repman blog twice nominated for "best digital marketing initiative/best blog" of the year (Holmes and PR News). 

2. What’s your favorite aspect of digital marketing/communications? 
Its immediacy. One's image and reputation can be made or destroyed in a nanosecond. Love IMing and text messaging with my kids as well. 

3. What’s an example of how a digital tool was used effectively by a business or enterprise?   
Burger King's subservient chicken was one of the best, early web 2.0 examples of viral marketing and helped put Crispin, Porter, Bogusky on the map.

4. What’s your favorite digital hobby? 
Googling former employers, clients, high school and college classmates (and extended members of the Moed and Birkhahn families).

Sam Ford
1. What’s your greatest digital/ 2.0 achievement?
Honestly, while this is fairly broad, I think the greatest achievement I had a part in was in launching and managing the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium as a place for academics, media industries employees, marketers, fans, and a variety of other parties to come together and discuss the "convergence culture" we live in today, through venues like the Consortium's blog and our annual Futures of Entertainment event.

2. What’s your favorite aspect of digital marketing/communications?
I think the digital world we live in today provided a diverse range of new venues through which citizens have a chance to respond to, complain to, or criticize companies.  That should be greatly celebrated, because it means it's now more imperative than ever that companies communicate honestly with their audiences in transparent and efficient ways, and that the conversation now flows in both directions.

3. What’s an example of how a digital tool was used effectively by a business or enterprise?   
The best digital solutions are the ones that are carefully and strategically integrated into that particular company's approach.  To go with a few very different examples, see the Netflix Prize contest where the company crowdsourced finding a more accurate recommendation system, with ongoing prizes for teams competing in the process; the way that World Wrestling Entertainment uses a transmedia approach through their Web site as part of the fictional narrative world their television shows create; and developments among fan communities (such as the Organization for Transformative Works, which archives "the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms") and among scholars (such as the In Media Res project that redefines how media studies scholars do their work in a digital age).

4. What’s your favorite digital hobby?
That's a tough one.  I spend most of my time online in e-mail, and I believe in preserving the lost art of letter-writing as much as possible, so I'm not a fan of the one-liner e-mail unless it's purely pragmatic.  I spend a lot of time reading and writing blogs.  But I'll have to admit that I also spend a whole lot of time in soap opera discussion boards and fan sites.

Rob Longert
1. What’s your greatest digital/ 2.0 achievement?
Creating my first ever AOL screen name back in ‘93 was the beginning of the end for me.  I’ve been hooked to the net ever since.

2. What’s your favorite aspect of digital marketing/communications?
Digital communications mimic traditional communications in many ways, and I enjoy helping to build the bridge to link the two together, and I crave the learning process that goes into it.

3. What’s an example of how a digital tool was used effectively by a business or enterprise? 
I love the way that digital photography websites have changed the way we print and share photos.  Shutterfly was an early adopter, and they continue to provide a place for us to store, buy, and alter our digital photos.

4. What’s your favorite digital hobby?
Social networking, finding online a.k.a http://www.visualthesaurus.com/, and keeping up on my favorite sports teams (UAlbany, Knicks (yes I am serious) and, the Yankees).

Johnny Sha
1. What’s your greatest digital/ 2.0 achievement?
I can't tell, saving this idea for Google or anyone who could find me a really good nato like bean paste.

2. What’s your favorite aspect of digital marketing/communications?
It separates companies that have genuine brands versus companies that have off-the-shelf, quick-fix branding.

3. What’s an example of how a digital tool was used effectively by a business or enterprise?
Cell phone in Asia that could read 2D barcodes making accessing information faster than the fastest-text-messaging champion: Mr. Ben Cook.

4. What’s your favorite digital hobby?
Tracking the various emerging communication mediums.

Lawrence Hahn
 1. What’s your greatest digital/ 2.0 achievement?
Getting on Facebook before it was opened to the entire world and started getting national attention.

2. What’s your favorite aspect of digital marketing/communications?
It’s always changing and there is no limit to the way you can use the resources available.

3. What’s an example of how a digital tool was used effectively by a business or enterprise?
Office Max’s Elf Yourself campaign.

4. What’s your favorite digital hobby?
Listening to bands’ songs that I’ve never heard of on their MySpace page.

 

Tim Mambort
1. What’s your greatest digital/ 2.0 achievement?
Setting up my AOL screen name in 6th grade that was based on a nickname at the time and proudly having the same screen name today. This opened up the vast digital world to me at a young age.

2. What’s your favorite aspect of digital marketing/communications?
The simple fact that the landscape is always evolving and there are no “set rules” to really follow.  The sky is the limit in terms of the possibilities that can be achieved as long as the process is approached in a strategic manner.

3. What’s an example of how a digital tool was used effectively by a business or enterprise?
The way that presidential campaigns have embraced the internet today and utilized all the resources available in order to reach the younger audience and draw them into the political scene. Tools such as Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin and even Twitter are now used to influence this huge population that has grown up in the digital age.

4. What’s your favorite digital hobby?
Staying connected with friends and family via social networking that I otherwise would not keep in touch with as frequently. It also allows me to communicate with others in difference time zones, whether in the West Coast or internationally, much easier at times.