Briiiiian

In the second class of The Barn (the first having made Dating Brian), the brief had been altruistically altered to “Do something good, famously.” And with that, a crack team of three interns, and a little spice from elsewhere, Underheard in New York was born.

Starting as wanting to do something for the homeless population of NYC, the idea focused itself on giving them a voice—and what’s better for giving a normally ignored population a voice? The web. But, with no homes, these disenfranchised citizens have no computers, so it was decided—with prepaid cell phones, they would be able to tweet their experiences, reaching a mass audience. That is, if there were people willing to listen.

Listen they did.

Over 15,000 total people followed the four chosen for the project in just three weeks, while numerous media outlets (New York Times, BBC, LA Times, CNN, CBS, and Mashable, to name a few) picked up the story.

But more importantly (for the brief, and for mankind), there was measurable success for the four Underheard: a job offer, a paid transit fine, and even the reunion of one and his daughter. Not to mention the thousands of tweets of support that poured in.

Visit Underheard in New York

As part of the first ever group of The Barn, BBH‘s internship program, we were tasked to “make something famous.” It could’ve been anything—a product, a trend, something made up—we just had to get it into the public spotlight.

We ended up deciding on helping me, newly out of a long-term relationship and brand new to NYC, get a date. Well, not just one—thirty. In thirty days. But, I couldn’t do it myself, so we recruited the internet at large to help me out. Girls (or their friends) applied to date me online, I kept a video diary of it all, and people gave me tips on Facebook, Twitter, and even in person a couple of times when they recognized me.

Our project and my lack of a dating life was featured on The Daily News, Mashable, NPR, and lots of other press as well.

I still update the Twitter from time to time as my dating alter ego, so feel free to follow me if you want to witness how a dork from WI dates in NYC in realtime.