Author Archives: Brian Alvey

More often than not, I wear a Life is Good t-shirt. I got one a long time ago and realized that when you wear it you aren’t allowed to complain. If someone asks you how you’re doing and you start complaining, they can point to your shirt and say, “Really? But your shirt says LifeContinue reading “Life is Good”

I love puns. It’s one of the skills listed on my LinkedIn profile. What could be more fun than blending together all the Spider-Man characters and U2 songs you can think of? For a few years, I’ve had two ZZ Top songs about philosophy stuck in my brain. “I Woke Up With Would” and “She’s Got Legs, ThereforeContinue reading “ZZ Top Philosophy”

I love when brands have bold taglines, ones that can be used against them. I gave a talk at Showtime a while back and had to praise them for their tagline “Brace Yourself,” which was way better than earlier taglines like “No Limits” and “Hollywood Hits No One Else Has.” I told them that having a taglineContinue reading “Adventures of a Startup CEO”

Years ago, I saw Sam Rockwell play Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. It was the incredible story of the Gong Show host and his actual secret life as a CIA assassin. (Or was it all a fantasy? No one really knows.) Years later, I saw Sam Rockwell again as Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2. IContinue reading “Concessions and a dangerous slide”

Maybe I’m going deaf.Maybe I’m going blind.Maybe I’m out of my mind. We were eating lunch during our Cape Cod vacation last week when my eyes started going nuts. The whole room looked like someone had dragged a paintbrush up and down through a painting, making zig zag lines. I blinked and rubbed my eyes,Continue reading “Aura without migraine”

The Ceros product team moves so quickly. New major versions of the world’s best brand publishing SaaS platform appear every few weeks. I mentioned that Ceros added custom canvas sizes in the latest release, but there was so much more. The product added 28 new font choices. The team solved some incredible cross-platform font parity issues. They added 54Continue reading “Interactive brand content”

In 2005, we created a blog to cover Live8 in Philadelphia as a joint venture with AOL. In many ways it was a test of how we’d work together when they acquired us later that year and both sides passed the test. The first thing I always remember when I think about Live8 was thatContinue reading “Duck and cover”

The SoundCloud man can, the SoundCloud man can. The SoundCloud man can ’cause he checks the copyrights and makes the rights holders good. When I wrote about the best TV theme song ever, I wasn’t planning to include a YouTube video. I wanted to upload and MP3 of Sammy Davis Jr. singing the Hawaii Five-O themeContinue reading “Who can take a song file, check for piracy?”

A good friend of mine has used an evil, but effective management trick for as long as I’ve known him. If a designer brings him a layout, web design or logo, he sends it back for another round. Even if it’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen. He never accepts the first version. ItContinue reading “First drafts”

When we were building The Daily, we built a pretty deep digital asset management system (DAM). The Daily was known for great layouts and high quality original videos, but it was also amazing for audio. Not only could the editors upload audio files to use in their articles, but readers could leave both text commentsContinue reading “You Can Count On Me”