• by December 9, 2005

Two out of three ain't bad.

We boarded the holiday party circuit last night and made it to two of three shindigs on the calendar. First, accompanied by MediaPost's Jon Whitfield, we stopped in at Operative's soiree at a fun place called The Pink Elephant @ 8th Ave. and 14th Street. Bumped into MediaPost Spin writer Mark Naples there and finally met Mike Leo, CEO and president of the online ad operations company, as well as Lorne Brown, its founder and vice president of sales, and several other Operatives.

The other party, a much bigger affair, was sponsored by 212, New York's interactive ad club. It was at Deep on W. 22nd Street between 5th and 6th and featured the group's first annual charity silent auction. The auction was a benefit for The Fund for the City of New York's Youth Tech Corps. and Parenthood Plus.

A host of online publishers and key online industry players donated an impressive array of items for the silent auction. Partygoers prowled around a huge setup to bid on things like gift certificates to Gramercy Tavern (we bid on those), Nobu 57, Bliss and Cornelia Day Spas, tickets to Rangers' games, a NYC helicopter tour, all sorts of iPod-related stuff including the iPod Mini, New Year's Eve VIP tickets at Bryant Park, an Xbox, portable DVD player, and limited edition wines. There was much, much more of course, and it was really great to see the variety of organizations that donated items--About.com, CBS Digital Media, Disney Online, DoubleClick, Insight Express, iVillage, Underscore Marketing, and WebShots, to name a few.

The proceeds of the silent auction will benefit The Fund's Youth Tech Corps., a program that targets young people aged 14 to 24, offering them the opportunity to learn Web site design and development, database development, Flash animation, Photoshop, and other key skills. It sounds like a good fit for 212.

Lastly, speaking of parties, Vault, a multimedia publisher of career content, issued its annual company holiday party survey and found that 20 percent of respondents said their party is usually "extravagant," while 25 percent called their companies' festivities "bargain basement."

And here's something else: one survey respondent said, "Every year they consider getting rid of it, and every year [they] do it bigger than the year before due to threats of riots." On the other hand, another respondent said, "Each year, the holiday party is less than what it was the year before. This year they're just getting us a 6-ft. sub."

Classy.

And Vault says a good number of companies--45 percent of those surveyed--will spend the same amount of money on this year's party as on last year's.

Regarding atmosphere, 23 percent of survey respondents described their parties as "sedate and boring," while 14 percent called them "wild and crazy." The survey found that alcohol, the great social lubricant, is served at more than 73 percent of company holiday parties and is a contributing factor for the finding that 38 percent of those surveyed reported they've witnessed co-workers fooling around at the company party.