Missing Link

NY baby! Missing Link is hitting the Big Apple (and the rest of the US orchard) with our new offices run by Howard Mann of Brickyard Partners. All the Link love and goodness, now served up with a dodgy accent – just what you always wanted. For US inquiries, please drop a mail to howard@missinglinked.com / howard@missinglink.co.za

Have passport. Will travel…!

We were recently crazy-wicked-awesome enough to enter and win our category in SlideShare’s “World’s Best Presentation” competition. SlideShare is the YouTube of the preso world – we were stoked to say the least. Our preso, A crime so monstrous, is about the modern slave trade and was inspired by E. Benjamin Skinner’s brilliant book of the same name.

I just had a meeting with Sam and she informed me that, donations excluded, we’ve done over R450, 000.00 of CSI work (that’s charity, not looking at dead people with funny blue lamps) this year.

I’m more than a little stoked…!

Well, technically just new. I actually hate that term, seriously, are you new or improved? Make a decision buddy, nobody likes a fence-sitter.

Anyhoo…

We have a whole new site that we dig loads, lovingly designed by coda (this guy’s like the A-Team, way awesome, but in such high demand he’s hard to hire). We also just launched PresoRockGods, produced by Thunk!, its purpose is basically to help you suck less. We’re nice like that.

In fact, we’re just nice in general, that’s why you want to hire us. Right now. For a big budget… just read the words slowly… hire us… breathe… hire us… you’re getting sleepy…!

Yet again we’re spreading our wings, this time to a top secret client in San Francisco (via NY). I tried to convince them that the project would be better if we met face to face – at their place. I even had my passport charged and ready. They said that email would suffice.

Bloody email…!

So much so that we just won our biggest, and second biggest jobs ever.

Two conferences.

Two countries.

One presentation team.

I wrote that myself. I am legend.

Hire us.

So, you know how to video edit, and you’ve got a super-duper attitude? Well, Missing Link is looking for you! Well, maybe for you: there are a few other things we need as well.

Firstly, we need you to be good at it. Just being able to push buttons doesn’t make you an editor. You need to be able to take content, and tell a story with it. On top of that, it needs to look excrementally hot.

Secondly, you need to be able to do it all yourself. We’ve got guys who can make some extras, but the majority of the work – from capturing, to cutting, to sexy, to finished – is up to you.

We’re a family here. We work together (a lot – hope you’re not fond of sleeping), we muck about together, we learn together and, more often than not, we’re responsible for making each other bleed a little. So, if you can, and want to be a part of this carnival, and do all the things I mentioned above (it wasn’t for my health), roll up.

Please note: Tattoos and piercing aren’t mandatory, but they are awesome. Cry-babies need not apply.

Missing Link was featured on CNBC’s Kaleidoscope recently. We were discussing our thoughts on presentations (as we’re known to do).

You can check it out here…!

…Not for the company, but for this iteration of the website, sorry it’s been far too long and updates have been few and far between, expect a change soon.

It’s been a great year with Sam running things, and hopefully the new site will reflect the new freshness she’s injecting into the company as MD, she really is bringin’ sexy back. Me, I’m off for a surf…!

…People kill people.

If your audience is bored to tears, blame yourself, not your powerPoint deck. I wrote an article on the topic for Moneyweb. You can read it here…!

Not satisfied with tattooing our staff for free, we’ve decided to extend that courtesy to our clients and friends too. So we’re flying top tattooist and rock star, Marcus van der Tuin, up from Metal Machine in Cape Town for two weeks so you can get inked on us. Crazy? You’d think, until you see how many of our clients (mostly bankers) have booked a slot already. You’re welcome to join ‘em too.

Now there’s a presentation you’ll never forget…!

Okay, so it’s just three (1, 2, 3), but they all came in today. Yeah kids, we so rock the party.

But do we rock your party?

If not either fire, or hire us immediately…!

Okay, so this isn’t strictly news, but our Seano found this great slide, I thought I’d share it with you:

I giggled…!

Just a quick thank you to everyone for all the kind messages and support we’ve been given following the armed robbery at the office the other day.

For those of you that don’t know, three armed gunmen entered the company at 10am the Thursday before last and had us all lie flat on the floor. They got away with R350k of our laptops, and a lot of cellphones and ipods too. Other than pistol-whipping Graham a bit, no one was hurt, and Graham’s big and strong (well tall and thin, but you get where I’m going here).

Luckily due to us working primarily from back-up drives, we only lost around 5% of our current work – BTW. if that was you – sorry.

Here’s hoping that they get caught, and wrongfully tried for something that doesn’t go down well in prison…!

First it was the skate park theme, then the coffee shop… well as from next year we’ll have a whole new look.

I’m really hoping it doesn’t suck, but if it’s half as much fun as destroying the last one was (and it was, watch the video here), then we may be onto something.

You’re all welcome to visit when we’re done, especially the hot chick from gym…!

So, along with our usual okies (don’t be lazy, read below), at the moment we have clients in New York, San Francisco, and Switzerland. With any luck, we may extend that list to Egypt in a week (shit, I just jinxed that, didn’t I?).

Watch out Macdonald’s I think I may have developed a taste for this globalisation lark.

Now, if only I could teach young Asian children to edit…!

Update: Turns out I didn’t jinx it after all – Cairo’s in, hell yeah…!

On Thursday night we went to an awards evening where we were recognised as one of SA’s top 25 employers.

Still, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you hire us than we hire you.

Thanks…!

Violets are blue…

And we’ve been too busy…

to waste our time on daft poems, use your bloody imagination people.

I blame our clients really. If it wasn’t for the likes of Investec, Unisa, Mweb, Medscheme, Liberty Life, Supergroup, Media 24 and a herd of others, who’ve been working us to the bone this month, we’d have plenty time to spare for this kinda stuff.

Luckily for us though, they don’t like our crap poetry either, so have been frantically keeping us busy with our day job – making ass-kicking presentations.

Which, thankfully for us, and audiences everywhere, is not their day job…!

Hey, competition is good, and yup, we have some. That would be fine if they weren’t so damned good. They’re called Duarte Design, and their offices are well worth a visit. So that’s what we did.

Luckily for us, they’re based in Mountainview, CA, but even continents apart, we had a lot to talk about.

So much so that we’re swapping staff, some anyway – for a few weeks. This way, everybody wins. It amazes me why more people don’t do this more often. Here’s a challange: find your biggest competitor, see what you can learn, and see what you can teach. Everybody wins.

Quid Pro Quo, Clarice.

Just for the record though, we’re Coke people…!