What is the smell at the 34th St/Penn Station Subway Station?

After enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving, I returned back to the city from Long Island last night and again ran into a casual acquaintance of mine: that smell in the 34th Street Subway Station.

As soon as you enter the turnstile to the 1/2/3 red line, you enter a small tunnel that connects the uptown and downtown platforms of the express and local trains. As you walk to the local 1 train uptown platform, you are greeted by a horrible smell. It has been there for quite some time (over a year at least) and doesn't seem to be getting stronger or weaker. It's just a constant funk that hangs in the air and is absolutely nauseating.

I have no idea what it is or what is causing it. All I do know is that each time I take the subway at Penn Station, I have to suffer through it...

No Gap Ads on Television this Holiday Season

This seems like such a huge story, and yet I haven't heard much chatter about it online.

The Gap, which for the last few years has released a string of memorable (albiet annoying) holiday ads, will be foregoing all television advertising this season.

After testing the effectiveness of their recent television ads by only running in select markets, they saw no difference in traffic between the television and non-television markets.

Instead, they will be promoting their merchandise with a gift guide that will appear in several shopping-related magazines, and though a holiday website featuring gift ideas, holiday ringtones, and online games.

The fact that a major retailer like the Gap would choose to not run ads during their biggest time of year could indicate the beginning of a massive shift in the ad industry. While other forms of promotion, especially online, have come to play an important role in any retail marketing strategy, television is often the cornerstone of a campaign.

Of course, Gap the company is still running ads for Old Navy and Banara Republic, so I wouldn't exactly play Taps for TV yet.

Here is the article where I first saw the story...

Introducing the Boots on the Ground website.

I finally finished the Boots on the Ground site. Some may remember a while back when I first posted about BOTG, which is a management strategy I came up with. The ChangeThis proposal didn't get too much love, so I tweaked the concept a bit. I decided to launch a website that describes the approach, then post real-world example of where this type of thinking was applied, or where it could have helped. And I'm going to be collecting user submitted stories, and posting them as well. This is all to help spread the message, and see if BOTG reasonates with people.

Take a look. I did all of the design and coding myself...

http://www.BootsNow.com

Halloween 2005 Pictures

It's official, the pictures from Halloween have been posted over at Aaron's site. Have a look...


http://www.aaronfoss.com/pictures/Halloween2005/