Then, a while back, an amateur historian/real estate agent came across 30,000 of her negatives, got sucked in by the sheer awesomeness of her work (and it is awesome, in the truest sense of the word), became obsessed, and tracked down another 70,000 of her completely unseen photos (as well as some of her hats and shoes). If have time for the longer story, I highly recommend you take the nine minutes and forty seconds to watch the segment, though you could always just wait until they do an award-baiting meta-biopic about the whole thing.

After watching the segment, I was scanned through the website her archivists have put together for her, and the work is truly, unambiguously remarkable. Like, 15 years from now, 1 out of every 2 artsy college kids will have a poster of one of her photos up in there dorm room remarkable. Take the time to check the video.

Vimeo Tutorial: Tripods from Casey Donahue on Vimeo.

1.) Work with people you know. BG and I made the somewhat risky call of bringing close colleague and friend Ben J. Stein up from Los Angeles to work on the 2010 Flip Holiday campaign. It was a decision we would never have made if we weren’t already aware that Steinski is one of the hardest working producers out there and just an all-around mensch. It was risky in the fact we didn’t know if Stein would work out as a part of our team, and if it didn’t, it could have affected our friendship. But ultimately, the fact that we KNEW Ben was a killer on the production tip guided our decision making and it was the right call.

2.) Taxes will eat you alive. Get with a CPA before the end of the year and have a plan.

3.) Surround yourself with smart people in different fields. We spent most of the year working out of the same office as the teams for 2 awesome iPhone apps, and the window we got into the workings of tech companies was invaluable.

4.) Meet with prospective creative contractors all year round. Just because you don’t have an opening now, doesn’t mean you won’t need talent in a pinch, and when you’re in a pinch, that’s the last time you’re going to want to have to sort through resumes and have an open call for interviews. It might seem pointless when you’re doing it, especially when you have other things going on, but make no mistake, you’ll be glad you did.

5.) Put visits to the gym on your calendar. So that way, you treat it like an appointment. And when you’re most busy, that’s when you most need it. Also, if you’re like me and would rather work out in the AM, it lets your colleagues know where you are when you show up late.

6.) Know how to work remotely, and know when to clock the fuck out. I was blessed with the opportunity to take a couple great trips this year and got to visit some awesome cities with some of my best friends in the world. While all these trips were ostensibly work related, I was able to turn off the phone and enjoy myself just enough that the stress that generally surrounds me floats away.

7.) When you’re buying your team a meal, make it something light. We had multiple 14-16 hour days and to keep my team going, I’d often call in delivery. The mistake I made was to usually get something delicious and heavy, which would slow everyone down. Zante’s Indian Pizza is amazing but it will cut productivity in half at 9pm on a Tuesday.

8.) Read a goddamn book every now and again. Spending all day reading emails, blog posts and tweets is terrible for your attention span. Turn off your iPhone for a minute and stretch out with a good book. (that one is via Kasia)

9.) Pick up the phone. A call is always better than an email and if you get in the habit of calling people when you need to ask them/tell them something, you will have more time to do your actual work.

10.) Take copious amounts of notes during every meeting. And review them at the end of the day. It’s obviously a good idea to scribble down everything that may be important that someone said/you thought during the course of a day. But when you sit down and force yourself to review them before going home, then you’re actually doing something useful. I don’t trust my memory as far as I can throw it at this point, so I ALWAYS make sure now to look back at what needs followup, to make sure I actually do.

I don’t know how useful these tips will be for anyone – most are pretty common sensical – but it was a good exercise for me to write them all down. Happy Holidays.

(via Sean Moller)

Why? Where? What? from King Fantastic on Vimeo.

“I very much want to be in the business of creating content, of doing stories all over the world, rather than figuring out what the business model is for Newsweek on the iPad, although that’s very important work as well.”