August 30, 2010 CNET.com

Click, send, call, text, Like, tweet, undo, reset, delete… it just doesn’t end. Which is why a couple of marketing guys are dubbing September 18 “No Device Day” for consumers who might be too involved with their gadgets.

Though the idea of dedicating an entire day to shutting devices off may seem silly (or virtually impossible) to some, Mark DiMassimo, CEO of ad firm Digo, and Eric Yaverbaum say they believe Americans need to be reminded to turn off their electronics from time to time. Thus, their “lifestyle intervention.”
They didn’t randomly choose September 18 for the latest installment of the larger Offlining ad campaign, though. It’s also Yom Kippur, considered by many Jews to be the holiest day of the year. On this day, also known as the Day of Atonement, observant Jews disengage from things like playing on their BlackBerrys, as well as other daily activities like writing, playing instruments, and even eating. To read more click here.

In the spring, Mark DiMassimo, CEO and chief creative officer of DIGO, and Eric Yaverbaum, president of Ericho Communications  residents of Rye and Larchmont respectively — founded Offlining Inc., a campaign that calls on dads to forego their wireless devices to create blocks of family-only time between Father’s Day and Thanksgiving. The following are excerpts of an e-mail exchange between reporter Patrick Gallagher and the marketing duo.

Q: What inspired you to launch Offlining Inc.?

A: We were experiencing some degree of failure to put our online lives in their place. We have kids, we have people who want our attention. Technology provides some amazing tools for connecting, managing and playing, but at some point we just started to ask ourselves — are we holding the strings or are we the puppets?

The best way to get our full attention is to build the aspiration into a brand and a movement, so we came up with Offlining.

Q: In the past several years since the launch of devices such as the iPhone, have people become too attached to their wireless devices?

A: We think it’s great that these products are so good that you can’t imagine living without them. But, we think your relationships will be stronger and your life will be richer if you learn to use the off button from time to time. Trust us.

Q: It would be unrealistic to think people will entirely abandon their Blackberries, iPhones and laptops. What do you think would be a good middle ground?

A: We’ve suggested 10 Device-Free dinners between now and Thanksgiving. That’s a good start. We’re not giving up our devices and we’re not asking you to either.

We’d like to be able to reach you, so out of pure selfishness, we want you to keep your device. We just want you to do enough to make some room for offline life in your life.

Q: Since launching the initiative, what feedback have you gotten from dads who have taken the pledge?

A: We expected some criticism, we even tried to provoke a bit with our cheeky cards, but so far we just keep getting a lot of “Right on!” People just really feel that this is a real issue in their lives, one that they struggle with, and they like the acknowledgement that this is a real issue.

A new initiative has been launched–Offlining, Inc.– that urges (initially) parents to turn off their mobile devices and computers, and focus more quality attention on the people that matter most in their lives.  The ‘Offlining’ founders are Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo, the innovative marketing entrepreneurs behind the environmental movement Tappening and the political and educational Read To Vote campaign.  In our technology-obsessed modern world, Offlining offers an opportunity to foster more balance between technology and our humanity, by encouraging us to incorporate traditional communication modes into our everyday lives.

Says DiMassimo, “Eric and I have spent most of the past two decades convincing people to click, log on, trade stocks in their underwear, go shopping online, and spend more time with their digital friends. We’re still doing that. But now we’re also selling the Off Button!  We don’t believe we’re starting a trend. To read more click here

Mediate reports CNN has fired senior editor of Middle East affairs Octavia Nasr. As Daniel Halper pointed out the other day, Nasr wrote on Twitter on July 4 that she was “sad” to hear of the death of Hezbollah’s Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah–a man for whom she has “respect.” Fadlallah had justified suicide bombings, is believed to be responsible for the Marine barracks bombing, and had said that “Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this Holocaust beyond imagination.” To read more of this social mistake click here.

Mark DiMassimo, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of DIGO and Eric Yaverbaum, CEO of Ericho Communications, talk about their new movement, Offlining on ABC TV.

NEW YORK (WABC) — A new campaign to spend more face to face time is called “Offlining”.  Eric Yaverbaum is a PR head, and Mark DiMassimo is a marketing executive. They frequently work together, but these days, they are the client. “We got together and said what’s bugging us about the world, and we said the off button. No one is selling the off button,” Yaverbaum said. In other words, everyone is yapping, texting and typing away. So, Eric and Mark are spending their own money to get people to turn off those devices, they call it Offlining. “We would like to accelerate a conversation of building offline time into life, that’s basically it,” said DiMassimo. To read more click here.