Initiative will leave no stone unturned looking for ideas. Staffers and their leaders will go anywhere and talk to anyone in their ongoing search for what’s new, what will engage, what will connect. They’ll even journey deep into geekdom if that’s what it takes.
One of their team was in a Circuit City and engaged one of the store’s in-house geeks in a conversation. Alan Cohen, president of Initiative West and Worldwide Innovations, thought there was a germ of an idea there and brought the geek into the agency for what turned out to be two interviews. But it didn’t pan out.
The problem, Tim Spengler recalls, was the same one seen in the pilot for the NBC hit “Chuck,” where the eponymous hero, who works in a big-box consumer electronics store, refuses a promotion because it will take up too much of his time.
“That was basically the same question this kid asked us,” Mr. Spengler said. “He was bitching about the hours.”
So the geek didn’t get the gig. But, says Mr. Spengler, “That’s how wide-open we are.”