I’m always interested to find out what HOKers do in their spare time when they’re not in the office. There’s always a great travel story or a profile of an individual and their volunteer work, and it’s great to find out what makes everyone tick in the HOK community. As I’ve been quite busy in my time away from the office lately, I wanted to share a little of what I’ve been up to when I’m not helping out our sustainable design practice in San Francisco.

Always been fascinated with images that capture a moment. When you see something that catches your eye, you may not even understand why, …

I invited Dr. Cindy Frewen Wuellner, FAIA, an accomplished architect, educator, researcher and blogger, to share some insights on the value and potential of online communities like ours. Prepare to be inspired, challenged and enriched…

How do you build your professional reputation? There’s an old way and a new way.

In the old way, you work for a star firm, build expertise, cultivate relationships, get recognition, awards, advancement, grab a couple of friends, and bolt for the door. Voila, the birth of a next-generation firm where you can spread your wings, design, lead, and develop your expertise.

The cost to the mother ship is enormous. They lose their best people. Project knowledge vanishes, …

It was my earliest electronic device, tapping into my latent ingenuity and desire to create.
LITE-BRITE® occupied many an early morning and rainy day at the Plotnick household. Now Hasbro has ushered this iconic toy into the 2000s by creating a digital version. Although it lacks the tactile satisfaction of pushing those tiny plastic pegs into the paper-backed board, it is a fun diversion that takes me back to much simpler days.

Give it a go yourself.

And for those of you who think LITE-BRITE® is dull and uninspiring, feast your eyes on THIS:

My previous thoughts on The Game of Life®.

Take comfort, fellow bloggers. Life at HOK is hereby carbon neutral — and will be for the next 50 years.

The fine folks at the “Make it green” programme in Germany conceived of the “My blog is carbon neutral” concept, and they’ve promised to plant a tree to offset the emissions …

Our first crop of Green Aha! moments harvested at Greenbuild ‘09 range from:

the Simple…

to the Illuminating…

to the Downright Quirky…

Even our very own Barb got in on the action, accompanied by a special “prop.”

Keep checking out our Green Aha! feed from Phoenix on YouTube and Life at HOK.

The world needed another blog like it needed another hole in the ozone layer. But, a year ago today, we went ahead and did it.

Here are some of the most popular posts from Life at HOK’s first 365 days, as selected by a top-secret panel of judges sequestered for weeks in a beachside bamboo cottage in Tahiti, with a little help from Google Analytics.

On This Episode of MTV Cribs Toronto
By Justin Zawyrucha
MTV@HOK

The Size of the Stimulus
By Jodi Williams
Viral

The Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire, Dharavi and HOK
By Steve Ma
Thought-provoking

Lighting Up Your Business Cards
By Jeremy Smith
Cool

From Architect to Artist: Andrew Reach Comes ‘Full Circle’ at Frost Museum
By Mike Plotnick
Inspiring

…

Hey there Chirayu! He and lots of other Life at HOK bloggers show up in this new video:

We were enjoying our Friday afternoon snacks and counting down the minutes until we could fly the coop, when all of a sudden, the Corporate Communications team was paged to the front desk. Hmmm, who could it be?

To our surprise, it was the crew from St. Louis Magazine! They were armed with a very glossy framed magazine cover of their newest issue  featuring the St. Louis A-List 2009. As our eyes scanned to the bottom of the cover, we saw in big, bold print….”Company Blog: HOK“!!! We were handpicked as the best blog!! Hooray!!

We really ARE the A-team! Thanks to all the awesome bloggers …

So here I am, at the outset of a two-day, information-filled marketing conference for all of the HOK marketing staff. There are expectations aplenty for the more than 40 of us in attendance. New HOKers (myself included) are trying to figure out what Life at HOK (marketing) is all about. More seasoned HOKers are hoping to put faces with names. Here are some of the faces at the introductory phase…

Where will this meeting go? Stay tuned and I’ll try and provide some updates….

UPDATE: The day is winding down. We’ve been productive. We’ve been overfed. We’ve been warm. We’ve been cold. Oh yeah, we also had some fun. Here are …