On Wednesday, we'll meet with each intern individually and talk about our time together and we'll let them know what their future is with our people company. I look forward to our conversations. I've watched each one of them climb and fall and climb again. What they tell us will help us shape the future of this program. I'm not sure they realize how special they were when all 9 of them came together. The following is my favorite memory of each of the 9*:

Baii: When she was photographing our company picture, she literally did some break dancing moves to get the shot. Talk about dedication. On another occasion, I threw a sharpie at her eyeball by accident. Luckily, she had her glasses on. Eva: When I didn't include Eva in a new business website assignment, she did it anyway. The design was good enough to present and good enough to be the winning design. So pretty good. That's how I remember Eva. Glenn: So talented on so many levels. My favorite memory of Glenn was the night Zara and I drove him home from work. We talked about life more than work and I got to know the Glenn he should always be. Oh yeah, I also fell into and broke our company ping pong table in a heated game against him.

Matthew: My favorite memory of Matthew was how well his character held up when we broke everything around it down to test the talent underneath. I'll always remember a shitberg-free email I got from him after a grueling pitch. He is wise beyond his years (which is pretty old to begin with). Travis: Travis loves people and it shows. You see, Travis flashes people a lot. In my entire advertising career, I've never seen an intern's nipples more than I've seen his. Stop it, Travis. Stop it. Will: When I met Will in an informational interview at another agency, I instantly saw how much potential he has, despite his horribly art directed book. Luckily, he's a writer.

*Hydra9 will release a results video at the end of their internship.

One question we get a lot about our talent farm is, "What the hell are you doing with them?" We think the better question is, "What are we NOT doing with them?"

I believe that a brand's future doesn't belong to marketers, it belongs to the people. Sure, this belief smells of bullshit because we've seen it a million times in a million blended mission statements. How Pixel Farm is different is we're practicing what we preach.

We are a people company.

Hydra 9 is our creative approach to staying true to this promise. With it, we empower a new generation of thinking people (9) from outside of advertising with the same opportunities that seasoned ad guys have to drive brands. We do this without all of the "rational" ad rules (heck, we hardly have any rules, except one, connect creativity to real people).

In this TED talk, child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with adults' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach. As you watch, just remove "adults" and insert "advertising shitbergs" and you'll start to see why Hydra 9 is important to us.

Halfway through their internship, Hydra9 has been full of surprises. They are a funny, talented, driven, flawed, beautiful and compassionate bunch. I definitely have the flawed part in common with them, but some of them have qualities I can only dream about. Wish we had more time to help develop their aim. Part of being new at something is you're new at it. So it's not always fair to judge their first attempts. Measuring their true talent is dependent on a bunch of variables. How many shots did they get to show their quality? Were they given enough time (never)? Did they have the right tools (cameras, programs, tutorials, etc)? Did they play from their fucking heart?

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The one thing we can't teach an intern is talent. But what we can do is create near ideal conditions for talent to rise.

No time. High standards. Big opportunity.

www.hydra-9.com

...thanks. Luke Sullivan noticed our 9. Pretty cool.

www.hydra-9.com

I've been in advertising for over 10 years. Or in non-ad people speak, I've lost all forms of emotion other that jadeness and cynicism - many times over. But for each time I've lost my way, for every moment I've forgotten why I love the potential of ideas... I've found a foolproof way to remember.

NOTE TO SELF: Keep people around you who deserve what you have more than you.

Our 9 interns officially revealed their journal to the world today. Check them out once in awhile. Who knows, maybe they'll help you find a few things you lost along the way too.

www.hydra-9.com

...Matthew G and Matty B for their Top Chef piece.

PROS: Chose a difficult idea to execute well. Then executed it well. Good acting. Good editing.

CONS: Small. Few. It was almost too easy for them.

Second to fourth is everybody else (in no particular order):

Amazing Race by Jason and Travis

PROS: Beautifully shot. Interesting idea. Unexpected ending.

CONS: Too many unnecesary characters that didn't help build their story. Sometimes less is more. Still need more growth with storytelling and comedy timing.

Pimp My Ride by Will and Glen

PROS: Funny concept. The montage and song made the piece.

CONS: Off brand with Pimp My Ride without reason, never even showed the car. Felt like they fell in love with an ending instead of making the most out of a good idea.

American Loggers by Tran, Kristen, and Eva

PROS: Funny. Unexpected. Fearless.

CONS: Editing hiccups and timing issues. Not the best actresses in the world.

Overall, a worthy hello world. The interns also soft launched their blog. They're not quite ready to share it with us. But soon, right?

We wanted a fun (yet trashy) way to introduce our 9 interns to the world. What a better way than to make them produce audition tapes for reality TV shows? The 9 were divided into 4 teams and random TV shows were drawn from a hat. So without further ado, here are our new interns (in no particular order):

Matthew and Matty

Glen and Will

Jason and Travis

Tran, Kristen and Eva

Hope you enjoyed getting to know the interns as much as we do. Stay tuned, the 9 are launching their blog site today and we'll announce this assignment's winner tomorrow. Also look for future updates on their journey to becoming reality show contestants. Yikes.