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We had a special lunch to say thank you to our two awesome Norwegian interns who are leaving this week and, as luck should have it, lunch included a brush with fame.

You can see in the picture, Ben was dining alone. (Robert, one of our interns, is laughing whilst I pretend to play with my iPhone after stealing a photo).

The restaurant is the incomparable Henrietta’s Table in Harvard Square, so selected to honor our other intern, Henrietta, who asked, “Was Pearl Harbor the last movie he was in?”

Movies in Norway come out a little later than the States…

If you saw the movie, the Pursuit of Happyness, you’ll be aware of GLIDE, the Bay-area center for humanitarian programs.   Somehow or other, they’ve got Warren Buffet involved and if you bid quickly, you can have lunch with him for a mere $80,000.

I do like that the “Free Shipping” tag.   Nice to know you won’t need to fly Mr. Buffet, who owns his own jet company, out for a snack at Au Bon Pain.

About 50% of the time we get asked to do a project for a new client, they are doing so in response to updating their brand. Research has shown — to no one’s surprise — that the tri-colored yellow, pink, and blue marks do not signify academic excellence. Or there’s been an adjustment to the moniker, usually to broaden the scope of the hospital and allow it to brand other, non-critical care facilities.

Here in Boston, Tufts New England Medical Center is aggressively advertising itself as… wait for it… Tufts Medical Center. Not much of a change, but Tufts and New England Medical Center joined forces back in 1968, back before you could love a national coffee store chain. So, they’ve taken on a good deal of expense and put out new, innovative ads merely to remove the words New England. Might they have higher, more national aspirations?

The funny thing about brands is that what one defined you can now entrap you. And keeping your brand up-to-date, but not losing its fundamental value is tricky.

See the hubbub about revitalizing the Strawberry Shortcake brand – you know, the scented 1980’s kiddie doll? — and see how seriously they take “de-fruiting” the image.

How fruity-licious is your hospital brand?

I’ll take comments nominating the most 70’s stylish hospital brands below.

This is one of those things you stumble across and can’t help but share.

Enjoy, dear readers.

I’ll begin by stating that while tradeshows may be necessary, they’re not at the top of my list of things to do with my time.  Nonetheless, since it’s snowing at our Boston office and my next trip to our Houston location is a few weeks away, I am grateful for the sunshine.

What I am surprised by is A) that the show has grown so (relatively speaking) lavish — see GE’s small city for more on that and B) the marketing, despite the truly exceptional tradeshow booths, is downright corny.

Ok Paul, you might be saying.  Isn’t that true of all tradeshows?

Fair enough, but it’s weird to see the trappings of a consumer-focused show about IT.  Where else do you see puns made about EMRs?  It’s more glitz, same fundamental problems of communication.  I’m in the industry and I couldn’t dechiper what half of the vendors did without reading some literature.  It’s like a teen movie where the geek is remade in the image of the cool jock, but he still keeps his slide rule in his locker.  (Snort, snort.)

To wit, I’ll post a few photos of what I thought were the funniest booths, but let me sign off with a description of the one which I vote as most bizarre.

What you see when you approach the booth is a series of stuffed animals in cages.  The tag line is about user “adoption” and the dogs need a home.  Get it?  A pun on the word adoption.

The thing is… the booth looked like a puppy mill at the mall.  And since the puppies were stuffed, they appeared dead.

A friendly reminder that nothing kills faster than a marketing message that doesn’t live up to the promise.

I thought this seat sign was particularly good:

“Please let a USAirways Express crewmember know if you are not able to read, speak, or understand English…”