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Since we've been subjected to news about layoffs, lost accounts and significant losses over the past week, let's force a smile and flip things around for a minute to see how the brighter side of the advertising world turns. So put the violins away for a sec and take a look at some of the more notable agency hires in recent days:

-Beattie McGuinness Bungay hired WeAreGigantic ECD/co-founder Neil Powell as creative director.

-Global agency The Brand Union named Richard Bates CCO of North America.

-Isaac Mizrahi (no, not that one it looks like) was named managing director of Alma DDB.

-Ex-Nitro MD Kate Howe was named president of DraftFCB, London.

-BBDO, New York hired W+K alum Andy Bhatt as head of interactive production.

-D&AD appointed Tim O'Kennedy, former W+K Amsterdam managing director, as chief executive.

-The Interactive Advertising Bureau elected 24/7 Real Media founder David Moore as chairman of its board.

More: "Gary Scheiner Joins Rosetta as Chief Creative Officer"

The PR folks at interactive agency Nurun have confirmed that Steve Carbone, president of North American operations, has in fact left the company. Carbone joined just over 15 months ago after 17 years at Grey where he most recently served as president of its direct/digital division G2. Unconfirmed, though, is the hot rumor that Carbone is just one of many Grey alum that have left Nurun as of late. Stay tuned for more details.

More: "Wongdoody Seattle Cuts Today, We're Told 17"

AgencySpy has confirmed with an agency representative that yes, Wongdoody in Seattle has suffered layoffs today. A source familiar with the situation told us around 17 employees were let go. The agency has previously announced that there are 160 staff, meaning 10% are now without jobs.

We aren't sure if the layoffs are related to a business loss or the market in general. However, they didn't win the Mitsubishi account Details to come.

More: "Mitsubishi Picks New Shop: Traffic"

On the heels of his new reality show Best of British, ad magnate and art aficionado Charles Saatchi will be releasing his modestly titled tome, My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic: Everything You Need to Know About Art, Ads, Life, God and Other Mysteries and Weren't Afraid to Ask via Phaidon.

The press-shy Saatchi will finally open up to readers by answering various questions posed to him by journalists, critics and the public. Priced at a scant $10, the book might make for a more interesting read than fellow Pulitzer potential Alex Bogusky's opus.

Via

More: "Saatchi LA Makes a Pretty Prius Spot"

Oh bearded one, we hardly could ignore ye. TV's ultimate pitchman and decibel destroyer Billy Mays was found dead at the age of 50 by his wife in their Tampa home. They say these things come in threes, but let's make it a foursome after Ed, Farrah and Michael. While it would be easy to showcase the man's work for OxiClean, Kaboom, ESPN and everthing else under the sun, homage is best reserved for this beat-driven ditty...RIP sir.

More: "Michael Jackson Ads"

Fast Company's Danielle Sacks has just knocked out an extensive profile of Julie Roehm, the "Scarlet Woman of Bentonville" whose star turn at Chrysler was subsequently tarnished by her scandal-ridden, lightning-quick tenure at Wal-Mart.

Sacks takes a looksee into Roehm's life a couple of years after the alleged shady dealings with agencies and love affair with a subordinate led to her downfall at the corporate mega-chain.

Still stuck in Arkansas, Roehm nevertheless has recently launched a consultancy called /Meta and taken on contract work with Credit Suisse. With this kind of momentum, here's hoping her stint as a judge on CBS show Jingles finally takes off.

Via Fast Company

More: "What Do Julie Roehm and Chris Brown Have in Common?"

Gary Scheiner, former ECD of TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York's WorldHealth unit, has joined Princeton, NJ-based interactive firm Rosetta as CCO. While at TBWA, Scheiner oversaw consumer healthcare efforts for Pfizer and Ethicon Endo-Surgery as well as non-healthcare accounts including Michelin and Cablevision.

Scheiner brings with him to Rosetta a resume peppered with earlier stints at Ogilvy, MRM and FCBi as well as some gold hardware from Cannes, some ADDYs and New York Festival prizes as well as a couple Diamond ECHO awards. The Garden State now awaits.

More: "TBWA's John Hunt: 'the agency now has to work as a team'"

We just spoke to one of the guys at TweetingTooHard.com, a site dedicated to making a big deal out of the twitterati's lamest thoughts. When reading the stuff there, the phrase, "Oh please" comes to mind. A lot.

Example: @kochschwinger "People don't just love me because I'm a social media rock star. They love me because I inspire them to be more like me."

So we're paying attention to what the ad folks are saying over there and now we're all about submitting entries to TweetingTooHard, where others can vote on whether or not a person is guilty of TTH. It's all automated. I'll let you know if any of the Cannes stuff makes it up. Check out Aosep.com to see more.

@cheronis is tweeting way too hard: "Nosebleed seats at 11th annual Cyber lions at Cannes. Waiting to find out colors of our Lions. http://yfrog.com/3xx0aj"

More: "Wrath of Cannes: Come, drink with me"

I'll be out of town Friday, leaving new freelance editor Kiran Aditham (formerly of Creativity, so AdAge) solely in charge of the site. Will he triumph or will he flounder? Hopefully, he comes back Monday.

Things to expect: an OpEd from your favorite thinker, Dean Crutchfield (well most of you didn't like him, so naturally we're giving you more!) — he writes about the pesky trend of agencies not getting paid by clients for months; an illegal ad or two; a Cannes round-up and hopefully something worth reading. Don't be easy on him, he can take it.

Oh, and in other news, faceless intern Ryan has created a Twitter account. Follow his antics at agencyspyintern. He'll share fun stuff and what it's like here at Kramerica...er, Mediabistro.

Update: If you're having trouble following @agencyspyintern, it's probably Twitter's fault. They recently made the follow process take longer to process, so you may not see results immediately, which kinda sucks. More on the problems.

More: "Pause for the Cause: Introducing 2 New AgencySpies"

Today on Mediabistro's Morning Media Menu, host Jason Boog (boge — he's an editor for GalleyCat) and I hooked up with erotica author Rachel Kramer Bussel (pictured, lustylady.blogspot.com) to talk about media things and more importantly her branding strategies for an upcoming book: Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories (buy it here!). Bussell, who's known among the Gawker crowd for other torrid tomes (Spanked, The Mile High Club) has gone multi-media in her attempts to get your attention.

It's about branding, she told Boog and me. Somehow our normally juvenile minds managed to stay on topic long enough to find out her impetus for creating a super-sexy promo for Disturb. We posted it after the jump. No worries, it's SFW.

Also on the menu we discussed Dick Cheney's memoir and Chris Anderson's (Wired editor) new book called Free that copies Wikipedia verbatim in some places.

Going forward I'll be co-hosting the menu every morning. Once I get my act together you can expect the guests to include prominent ad folks and probing questions into the events that surround their lives. Won't it be so fun?

More: "Deep Desk Dickin' 3: Sex In An Advertising Office"

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