April 27th 2010
We gotta be the only out-of-business business with seven Local and Regional ADDY Awards under our 2010 belt and on the way to the Nationals! Stay tuned for more award updates. And a shout out to the best creative team ever in life. Can’t keep us down!
March 8th 2010
Yeah, we have been out there detonating bombs the past two years.
The economy made mincemeat of us, but here we are again, like David -v- Goliath, rising up against the best of the Miami advertising world. We have been on a forced sabbatical for the past 8 months, not because we are a bad business, but because it is a bad economy.
And still, we are winners.
We entered five projects in this year’s ADDY competition, which was all we had because we closed our doors in July ‘09.
From the five, we won four ADDYS. Not a bad average!
We won for the following:
GOLD ADDY
• Bluntzer Group / Corporate ID
• Poster Show®
SILVER ADDY
• Hotel Beaux Arts Brochure
• Perry Ellis/Manhattan Internal Flash Video for JCPenney
We are most proud of winning GOLD for Poster Show®, our annual charity art show, which is home to our contributory heart and soul. You will be hearing much about this again in the next few months. It is my personal passion. Poster Show® will become a powerful fixture in the Miami charity/art scene. Just you wait and see.
I want to thank the people of the Collec+ive, who believed in us and stayed with us to the bitter end and beyond. We are a true Collec+ive now, coming together as jobs warrant. All are always in my heart. Where I go, they go, if that is what they want.
David Rojas • Debbie Reznik • Manny Prieres • Kim Broder • AJ Ikourou • Diego Meeroff • Valerie Hockenstein • Diego Romero
I love you all.
December 20th 2009
The blessings and illuminations that came to me during my week with Tony Robbins are more plentiful than I can count. Tony’s general message was nothing new. His TECHNOLOGY is what made the delivery of that message more powerful than anything I have ever experienced in my entire life. It’s a big statement. Tony is all about big. It’s also true. He’s all about that too.
What resonated most is the necessity of and gifts from living an outward-focused life. It’s been pretty clear that our world of “all about me” has imploded. Thankfully. So we can either deploy our notoriously short memories and go right back to our old ways - or we can get over ourselves, look around and see where we can have an impact that helps others.
This is not about being perfect. It’s about learning that life is not just about you.
Look at Elton John. At the height of this career, was a gay man married to a woman, was drug addled, drinking, nasty, resentful and destructive. He was living completely out of his nature. It was all about him and who he thought he was in this world.
Today, he’s a different person.
CNN’s Alina Cho caught up with him at a celebrity tennis tournament benefiting his foundation.
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(By Alina Cho / Courtesy CNN American Morning)
“Did you know Sir Elton John plays tennis,” she asked?
“I’ve got a good forehand,” he tells me. And he’s using it for a good cause.
The 62-year-old music legend says he wasn’t inspired to become an advocate until he met 14-year old Ryan White in 1986. The Indiana teen was expelled from his school because he had AIDS.
John became so close to the White family that he gave them financial assistance and was at Ryan’s bedside when he died.
“I never heard Ryan complain about having AIDS. I never heard him whine or be miserable; he carried everything with such dignity. It just taught me about humility, how my life was completely out of whack. About six months after Ryan died, I began to change my life.”
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We all know about John’s ongoing commitment to fight AIDS. It identifies who he is these days. Quite an improvement. The new year is a great time to take a good look at yourself and see where your focus is. Look around you and see who the givers are. You’ll spot them because they radiate.
Giving back is the gift that keeps on giving. Even though the Soffer Collective was in dire straits financially last year, our team was committed to Poster Show and the charity that our work would impact. In a year where we won 23 awards and then suspended business because of the economy, Poster Show is really all I remember now and the thing that stands as a testament to who The Soffer Collective really is - a group of outward-focused, committed, caring, giving people.
What a great year.
November 28th 2009
I for one will be happy to say goodbye to this dreadful decade. As it comes to a close, I sit here in my home, unemployed, my 13-year old, once-successful and multiple award winning business started from my home, destroyed by both the dishonesty and greed of unethical advisors and colleagues and a financial meltdown that nobody, not even the economists, could have predicted. And I am not alone. Not by a long shot. The difference is I am willing to be 100% candid about my situation. I have to be, to be able to heal from this mess.
Three years ago we were one of Entrepreneur magazine’s TOP 500 Small Businesses in the Nation. It’s been a brutal fall. It is not my nature to hide behind a failure. I have to learn from it. The lessons are brutal, too.
Small businesses everywhere are bleeding and dying, yet nobody has stepped up to help us. In fact, the phone rings daily with people who were happy to take the risk with us when things were good, but are now feeling entitled and looking to recap all of their investment that we cannot in a million years ever repay. We have been completely and totally financially destroyed, through no fault of our own. There is nothing left to give.
I am incredulous that some of these concerns think we are acting out of irresponsibility. Some are even threatening, harassing and using other illegal tactics. I actually have one person accusing me of still being in business but hiding that fact. Why would anyone do that??? People just aren’t thinking.
None of us wants to be in this situation. We all worked our entire lives to build our companies. We never looked to dodge any responsibility. In fact, we fed the system that has sucked us dry like a hungry animal. Do you not see we would all much rather be working every day, living our passion, employing our trusted people, paying our bills, than going through this hell?
It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring in terms of our economy. If 92% of our economy is based on small business, what then?
This week’s TIME magazine features a great article about the travails of the past decade. We all need to read it and learn. Our tragedies aren’t just financial. They are also tragedies of the human spirit. People need to get a grip on what humanity represents these days. Because if we don’t, then this decade is just a harbinger of more to come.
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1942749,00.html
November 5th 2009
WEST PARK, Florida (CNN) — “We are an army,” says Andrea Ivory of the group gathered with her early on a Saturday morning.
Breast cancer survivor Andrea Ivory is on a mission to educate Florida communities about the disease, one door at a time.
Armed with clipboards, leaflets and high spirits, the energetic Ivory leads them into the neighborhood, where they start knocking on doors. The mood is lighthearted, but their mission is serious: to save lives, one house at a time.
They’re volunteers from the Florida Breast Health Initiative, or FBHI, and they are waging war against breast cancer. It’s an effort started by Ivory, 50, herself a survivor of the disease.
Every weekend in the spring and fall, she and her volunteers — who include college students, senior citizens and suburban moms, all wearing matching T-shirts — fan out across low-income communities in southern Florida, educating women about breast health.
They especially seek out uninsured women age 35 and older, who statistics show are twice as likely to be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer, and thus more likely to die from the disease.
For Ivory, comparing this work to a battle isn’t overblown.
“The only thing that we have to fight this disease and lower the mortality rate is early detection,” she says. “We are the troops on the front lines.”
Since 2006, Ivory has helped provide more than 500 mammograms to eligible women. Vote now for the CNN Hero of the Year
Ivory herself had always been diligent about getting annual mammograms, but when the breast cancer diagnosis came in 2004, she took it in stride.
“I just knew that it was for a higher purpose,” she recalls.
Ivory says that purpose became clear during her cancer treatment. Reflecting on how lucky she was to have health insurance and to have gotten annual mammograms, she realized that thousands of women without health care were likely falling through the cracks and putting themselves at risk.
“Those women don’t even have a fighting chance,” she says. “The mission became reach[ing] those women.”
Ivory started FBHI to do just that. Her mantra: “Early detection is the best protection.”
The operation runs like clockwork. The first three Saturdays of each month are devoted to outreach — distributing educational materials and signing up women for free mammograms. She and her volunteers have visited nearly 18,000 homes.
“I love knocking on doors,” Ivory says with a smile. “I like to think of us as little pixies spreading breast cancer awareness.”
On the last Saturday of each month, a large mobile mammography van from a partner hospital rolls into the neighborhood, bringing screening technology directly to women who need it.
As they line up around the van, the excitement is palpable. Since many have never had a mammogram, Ivory and her team try to make the experience fun — providing refreshments, smiles and support.
One mammogram recipient said the “convenience factor” of the free screenings made the offer too hard to refuse.
“Ultimately this is the reason we do the work that we do,” says Ivory, “because we want to screen women who would not ordinarily have [the] opportunity.” 
Watch Ivory and her army in action »
Telmilda Ariza, 62, always had health insurance, but after losing her job, her annual mammogram became a financial burden. She smiles when recalling the volunteers’ first visit to her home.
“They knocked on my door and, wow! It was [a] miracle, coming from the sky,” she says. “It’s something I really needed.”
Ariza was so grateful that she started volunteering and knocking on doors herself. Watch Ariza describe how she went from recipient to volunteer »
Charlene Thomas, another of Ivory’s regular volunteers, considers herself living proof of the program’s impact. Uninsured, she’d paid for her mammogram out of her own pocket, but when she needed a follow-up, she kept putting it off because it was so expensive.
“I had other priorities. It seems stupid now,” she admits. “But I didn’t think anything was wrong with me.”
She finally asked Ivory for help and FBHI paid for the screening. It led Thomas to a cancer diagnosis and ultimately a mastectomy.
“The fact that I was diagnosed and am cancer free — there’s no way I would’ve done it without the Florida Breast Health Initiative,” says Thomas, who was back knocking on doors three weeks after surgery. “Now I feel more of a sense of urgency. I’m knocking on doors trying to find myself.”
Stories like this only deepen Ivory’s commitment to her cause. For her, every day is a chance to educate women about fighting the disease and Ivory says she’s determined to expand her efforts around Florida and far beyond the boundaries of her state. Watch Ivory’s group bring mobile mammography to the neighborhoods »
“In the future, we want a fleet of mammogram vans. We’d love to do outreaches all over the country,” she says. “No woman needs to die from breast cancer. I can’t be a doctor, but I know I can save a life. Every time I knock on the door, it’s a chance to do that.”
Want to get involved? Check out The Florida Breast Health Initiativeand see how to help.
June 8th 2009
HONORING ADVERTISING’S BEST AND BRIGHTEST
The 2009 Awards Season was fantastic for The Soffer Collective. We won a total of 22 local and regional ADDY Awards, culminating in a BIG national win this Saturday at the ADFED National Awards Ceremony in Washington, DC.
We won for 7 clients in 9 categories during the year, yet our big win was for our very own website.
Besides great design and tons of personality, our site features a unique collapsible nav system, scalable screen, video, blog and a customized CMS.
Once more I have to thank my team. You continue to be the best, year after year. Your talent and continued growth is exciting to watch. Your loyalty is overwhelming. You’re there in good times and crap times. As hard as things have been for everyone these past few months, you were my rocks.
I love you all so much. It is a joy and a privilege to work with you.
xoxox
PJS
May 22nd 2009
We just keep on winning!
The Soffer Collective Website has been named to COOLHOMEPAGES.COM as an example of remarkable web site design.
CoolHomepages.com is the oldest and largest “Best Web Site Designs” gallery online.
Site is honored as COOL in both “Flash” and in “All Categories.”
According to CoolHomePages: “Cool can be a lot of things. Almost the only thing it can’t be is something we’ve already seen over and over again. We intend to include pages and designs that have done something unique, and something that works well for some reason, usually due to their attractiveness and functionality.”
Site was also named CoolHomePages “Site of the Week” for the week of May 22, 2009.
We also won another HUGE award for our website. We will announce on JUNE 6TH.
Congrats to our team!
April 30th 2009
The Soffer Collective ’s 2009 PeepShow Poster show, co-sponsored by Artists and Creatives and IVRepresents, raised a total of $16,000 for the Memorial Foundation’s Breast Cancer Center. A select group of photographers and artists contributed their work for the shows in Miami and New York. Among them are Cynthia K Cortes, Manny Prieres, Bert Rodriguez, Thomas Hodges, AJ Ikourou, Fulano Inc., David Rojas, James Weber, Debbie Reznik-Mejia, Liam Alexander, Savika Tilakhdin, James Woodward, Indira Cesarine, Hector Batista, Gavin Powers and many more from around the globe.
David Rojas, Manny Prieres and AJ Ikourou at Japonais
