POST DIGITAL

ON: OMMA Video & Mobile Conference Appearance

Look for me this week at the OMMA Video and Mobile conferences Thursday and Friday.  It's not TV, it's not movies, it's not broadband. It's just video. I will be holding court on June 28th @ the Crown Plaza. See you there!

ON: Being an Interactive Creative Director means you are a Design Strategist

If you are a Creative Director who grew up digital and have now found yourself in a traditional or old school agency with Creative Directors who have little or no interactive / digital experience...I understand your pain and I want to introduce a way to look at the challenges you face...  When I have explained my role in the past I have equated the Interactive CD's as Hybrid inside of traditional agencies a "Design Strategist".  Which I feel rather confident that is what most firms with strong digital heartbeats or integrated approach expect from their CD's..but at traditional agencies there is a divide and you are on the other side of the divide. (or like many you are drowning in work in the river below)

A Design Strategist should bring the emotion to the big idea and weave it into a consumer experience that opens in converged screens.

Validating My Theory and Experience is not hard…The old Agency model is at the brink and there are lots of us out there!  The agencies who are winning big are the agencies who have embraced digital, funded it and grew clients relationships from an integrated marketing service set.

Recently I stumbled on to transcripts from the "So you Wanna be a Design Strategist?" event last April, Bryan Zmijewski, a panel of design leaders from Yahoo! discussed the skills that defined a design strategist or the Interactive Creative Director's role. Because there not many of us there are some skills related to working with people, numbers, and process. Here’s a recap of some key points from the discussion.

Some people won’t like you. Who cares?
Design strategists need to be able to read the people in a room and understand each person’s perspective so they can focus a group on what they have in common. Often times, bridging gaps between people’s desires means confronting issues.

Yes, you will have to sell.
Designers typically want their work to speak for itself and are not inclined to put in the effort needed to sell their visions. Though it’s easy to hide behind your pixels, they won’t sell themselves.

You need to design in front of people…
…not just in front of your computer. Explaining ideas on the fly is crucial when working with groups of people.

Confrontation is a must. Gloves are optional.
People appreciate when you fight for something worthwhile. Get out of your comfort zone and don’t shy away from confrontation.

Design is a playing field. Designers need to win.
Think of a project as something you have to win at. Then bake in milestones along the way that clearly show your progress. Success sells.

Make sure the research fits the size of the project.
You don’t need to validate every idea with research. Sometimes just jumping in is enough of a process to build on.

Spontaneous is OK.
Sometimes you have to be an artist. You have a talent for design –use it.

Just get it done.
There’s a blue-collar aspect to design –you learn by doing. Rolling up your sleeves and getting things done sells people through momentum and execution.

Get Your hands dirty.
Bottom-up strategy works for designers because they have communication skills & empathy. This can influence and rally people.

Make sense of all the design options.
Everyone wants their idea heard. Design strategists need to funnel suggestions in the right direction without shutting them down.

In the Traditional Agency The Interactive Creative Director is a Design Strategist
The Best Executive CD's in the business know that the Interactive CD has eleven qualities that make he or she unique.  More importantly there are eleven basic skills that make a great Design Strategist.

1. Read people - What's the most important skill of business decision making? Knowing what drives people to make decisions. Getting groups of people excited about an idea requires understanding what motivates them. You might have the best ideas in the world, but if you fail to understand the dynamics of the room, you may never get past your first idea.  Reading people is a skill that can be learned, but getting really good at it comes as the result of years of practice. Every meeting, every conversation is an opportunity to hone your skills.
   
2. Don't over research - By its very nature, a designer's job requires using both left and right brain functions. Sometimes over-thinking a solution makes it hard to get people excited about the emotional content of our work. You do need to present research that helps your point, but don't make the mistake of devaluing your gut instincts or hunches.  Designers have an innate ability to sense and feel out a problem based on experience. This is a characteristic that many people wish they had. Sometimes, you're just going to know something is 'right' and you won't have the luxury of time to do the research to back you up. Train your clients to be willing to take a chance on your hunches.
   
3. Build in the metrics - No matter how right-brained and creative we are, in the business world, clients want quantifiable results. Building benchmarks and metrics into your projects will ensure that you get the chance to really show them what you've got, by giving them enough numbers during the process that they feel comfortable.  Remember, lots of people think that Excel spreadsheets and pie charts are the best way to justify budgets and map out next phases. Don't send your clients into metrics withdrawal--with a little work on your part, you can devise a numerical report card that helps the left-brained clients to feel more in control of and informed about the whole process, meaning that there's a better chance they'll sit back and let you work your magic uninterrupted.
   
4. Real-time performance - The best business people are ones who can adjust their thinking quickly. Pressed with tough decisions, they must be able to rally a team around business and financial goals and plans. If a big deal is on the line, tough decisions have to be made quickly…and once decided, they’re done. You can't hit CTRL-Z to 'undo' a business deal.  Design should be no different. As a designer you must be able to use your unique skills of visual thinking to rally people in a room. While this may come more naturally to some over others, it is a skill that will improve with practice. You need to be comfortable presenting whiteboard sketches in front of a group--no matter how much you wish you could call a time out to whip up something on your laptop, you'll lose momentum. If you can’t think and draw at the same time you’re going to limit your ability to listen to other ideas in the room--so practice at your own internal meetings until you're ready for your public debut.
   
5. Balance prep with w/ implementation - Everyone likes to see that you’ve done your homework--lists, research, interviews, overviews and competitive reviews. It’s an important part of the process of designing ‘stuff’. It validates that there is thinking involved.  Sometimes, however, it makes sense to just jump into a problem based on your hunch and your experience, and then go back and think through all the homework parts. There are times when simply taking action, creating movement and momentum are preferable to investing loads of time up front--in other words, sometimes any action, even a potentially 'wrong' one, is better than no action at all. It’s the blue-collar part of design that the rest of the business world lacks…that good ole roll up your sleeves and just get it done.
   
6. Justify decisions with the right kind (and amount) of research - Contrary to point two, there comes a time when the emotional side of design needs a good helping of “reality.” Designers need to drive research- otherwise we’re stuck with the research of others (and some of those 'findings' may include an ever-unhelpful 50-page document of how many people liked the color blue.) Large focus groups and studies are nice, but they rarely help you create a marketable product. Why? Two reasons: One, they're really expensive--that money could be better spent in the actual production. Two, they're prohibitively time-consuming: By the time all the data is gathered, your competitors are already building the product.  Designers have the unique ability to notice trends…and the 'way things are'. Heuristic evaluation and small tests are often all that's needed to keep a product team focused on the ‘wow’.
   
7. Everyone is a design expert - Everyone has their own favorite color or font. They can move elements on a whiteboard, write content to describe actions, photocopy a competitor’s website or talk about their great experience. Use this to your benefit and coach people through your decision making. Everyone wants to be an armchair design ‘quarterback’- let them play fantasy football by helping them make better decisions.  Involving team members in design decisions that are isolated from the ‘core’ design will help you gain more control of the final product. Being open to ideas that really don't impact your original vision shows that you're willing to hear others' input. Design is a team sport--be the best coach you can be, remembering that you're ultimately responsible for the end product.
8. Bottom Up Strategy - Designers are in a unique position to control a company's vision through a visual--they're probably the only people who are consistently expected to show up with colorful items at staff meetings. Take advantage of your visual aids--use a ‘hands on approach’ to get people rallying behind ideas. Designers tend to be ‘doers’ rather than 'dwellers', so use your vision to change the course of business planning by implementing ideas. Waiting on management to decide on a direction can have a negative impact on momentum of a project. Take some risks.  Now, if that doesn't sound good, you could always try to justify your ideas the same way the folks in accounting do--with reams of spreadsheets. But when is the last time you saw people get excited about a spreadsheet? For every 10 people, most organizations already have 9 workers doing paper jobs. Break up status quo.
9. Know that you will fail, and how to do it - Good design stimulates emotion, inspires participation and gets people engaged. But not every design that you create will succeed--sometimes a design will do none of the above, and will fall absolutely, unequivocally flat on its face. And that's okay! Build failure into your design process- you shouldn't even try if you want to completely avoid failing, and nothing tried is always nothing gained. A great designer will push boundaries and learn from mistakes. Some of the stuff that you do will stink. Learn how to use that to your advantage to make your projects more successful.
   
10. Be a salesman - Things happen for a reason. Oracle didn’t become a powerhouse because they had “great design”-- design just didn’t get in the way. If you want to influence people in the room you need sales skills. Half of getting your idea implemented has nothing to do with a computer, wireframes, research or sketches. It’s because people like you. And if they don’t like you, then they've at least got to respect you…you’ve got to have some proven ‘game’.  People want to support other successful people and ideas. It’s contagious. And while I’m not suggesting you throw yourself at business associates looking for a best friend, I am suggesting that you be confident in yourself and personality. There's no need to be fake. Just put genuine effort into solving problems for your customers, whether they're your internal colleagues or the ones who buy your services.
    
11. Fight when you have to; know when you shouldn't settle for a watered down compromise - My final suggestion for the aspiring Interactive Creative Director is less about design or strategy- it’s about winning. You’ve got to want to influence people, make a difference and convince people to believe in you. You’ve got to throw yourself into the ring.  Business is brutal. Capitalism drives us to be more successful- and that’s a good thing. It pushes us to make decisions. Don’t let a conference room intimidate your business sensibilities. Design requires putting on boxing gloves. The beauty of design is that you can always use the emotional side to calm and inspire after a difficult interaction with your “financial” nemesis.

And that's it. Being a design strategist or an interactive CD in a traditional agency isn't the easiest job. When you're sitting in your third meeting of the day (you know, the one that begins at 4PM and promises to go right through dinner?) trying to 'enlighten' the your peers as to why they shouldn't use their favorite 'print ad' image on the home page or in your rich media--those days of sitting in the cubicle, pushing pixels while your iTunes is blaring in your ears--may seem really attractive.

But take heart in this--the world is a more attractive place because you marry business/marketing and design on a daily basis.

And people like me thank you for it!

ON: ComScore's First Stab @ Widget Metrics

More on the topic of widgets...ComScore has announced Widget Metrix, a new service to track the usage of widgets on web sites and blogs.

Now you ask yourself....

What is a widgets? and How might my brand use one? 
A widget is a mini application that either sits on your desktop, in your dashboard or in an HTML web page.  At it heart a widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. They are akin to plugins or extensions in desktop applications. Other terms used to describe a web widget include gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, mini and flake. Web widgets often but not always use Adobe Flash or JavaScript programming languages.

I have several examples of widgets on this blog.  You can find widgets on TypePad and other web services things like Lijit (search), MyBlogLog (readers photos), Feedburner (subscriptions) and  Twitter(REALLY ON:).

Other examples are things like stock tickers, news feeds, and of course, Google's AdSense widget which delivers ads to web sites and blogs. See my earlier post on widgets for more background on widgets.

The Wall Street Journal has a story on the widget economy and produced this graphic of the ComScore results.  I am surprised by the initial measurement results. I would have guessed Photobucket to be the most used widget given its enormous usage on MySpace. Other surprises...YouTube doesn't show up in the top 10 but Brightcove does? Congrats to Jeremy Allaire from Brightcove registering 16.9 million unique visitors. Quite Impressive!

I suspect (because i am suspicious of a metric that does not take in to account all widgets..especially the ones that have been around the longest) that the stats are incomplete because ComScore only tracks flash based widgets.

See this definition of widgets from ComScore.

The current universe of widgets is defined as embedded flash (.swf) objects. The comScore Widget Metrix service will evolve in its tracking of widget file types as the market dynamics and content delivery systems change.  The report currently focuses on the individual widgets, and not the platforms that deliver them.  Desktop widgets are also not included.

Widgets are growing in popularity. Companies like Clearspring (Clearspring, a widget distribution company, just signed a big deal to be the exclusive widget platform for NBC.) have figured out how to deliver a widget platforms that leave the control of the content and monetization in the hands of the content owners, but still allow consumers to freely use the widget anywhere they want.

It is WOM growth while still maintaining a little control.

ON: Facebook As A Web Platform

Marc Andreessen has written a brilliant post on Facebook’s latest move and what he’s calling, “one of the most significant milestones in the technology industry in this decade.”   It’s worth a read to understand why Facebook’s move from a web application to web platform (in less than a year)  is such a dramatic leap forward for social networking.

ON: Seth's Post "A marketer's obligation to sell it like it is"

"Just doing my job" isn't anywhere near a valid excuse for careless marketers, according to Seth Godin in an interesting post on the need for more responsible marketing.

"If marketing works, it means that free choice isn't quite so free. It means that marketers get to influence and amplify desires." And when those marketers happen to be blind, remorseless evangelists, well, that's when the storm comes a-brewin'.

Basically, the message is that if you're gonna be paid to push, heaven help you if you're pushing eco-killers, health hazards, and all other known evils--and more importantly Shame on you.

If you get asked to market something, you're responsible. You're responsible for the impacts, the costs, the side effects and the damage. You killed that kid. You poisoned that river. You led to that fight. If you can't put your name on it, I hope you'll walk away. If only 10% of us did that, imagine the changes. Imagine how proud you'd be of your work.

The amazing thing is that over and over again, we're discovering that marketers who actually take responsibility for their marketing are actually more successful. Go figure.

ON: Verizon's Action Hero

Verizon knows what audiences like, themselves. The Action Hero site dives deep with the 15MB of fame theory by allowing visitors to embed their faces into a slick summer blockbuster-style CGI action sequence. I imagine that sort of curiosity and vanity were part of what motivated the 11,000+ visitors to create and post movies on this site. (vanity was my push... i looked hot with a ripped super jock body!)

In the Action Hero site, Verizon addresses a factor often neglected when creating good user generated content platforms. Users expect something back. The process of creating my character and determining my action sequence seemed a fair exchange for seeing myself in the scene. The process was intuitive, clear and designed with the lowest common denominator in mind.

Customizable options and freakishly well done graphic renderings made me into an action hero.
          

In all my years in the "pushing the envelope" game...I did have a "How did they do that?"  moment when I watched a reasonably accurate CGI replica of myself strut around the crisply-cut scenes.

Like most popcorn computer animated flicks, the movie itself is fun to look at and browsing the gallery was an oddly addictive experiment in people watching.

I suspect this site will succeed at making Verizon's link to tying the entertainment experience in with the product benefits as well as will dazzle their core target. The technology behind it feels like magic and will certainly position the brand as one that knows its what it takes to impress its consumer.

As I watched the 100MB file creep onto my desktop, it occurred to me that if I did not already have broadband, I would certainly need it then. Well done RGA & Verizon.

See the site at http://actionhero.verizon.com/

ON: Social software is a movement not just a technology

Danah Boyd gave an interesting talk recently at Blog Reloaded about the significance of social software. I like her thinking and she’s great at picking out key aspects and expressing them in down-to-earth terms.

“Regardless of what you think the term should mean... The fact is that social software has come to reference a particular set of technologies developed in the post-web-bust era. In other words, in practice, social software is about a movement, not simply a category of technologies. It’s about recognizing that the era of e-commerce centered business models is over; we’ve moved on to web software that is all about letting people interact with people and data in a fluid way. It’s about recognizing that the web can be more than a broadcast channel; collections of user-generated content can have value. No matter what, it is indeed about the new but the new has nothing to do with technology; it has to do with attitude”.

I’m not sure I agree with her about ecommerce-centred business models being “over” - i think they need to re-evaluate and evolve to include more than a product rating or comment sections... But certainly, I agree with the rest and think that it’s one of those subtle but profound shifts in attitude to which we still haven’t fully grasped the practical ramifications.

You can read the full transcript of her talk here: www.danah.org/papers/BlogTalkReloaded.pdf

ON: The Sopranos One Week Later

Last Sunday, all the phones were turned off, the computer was off, the kids were put in bed and I was tucked comfy in my bed with Levain bakery cookies, milk and the the last episode of the sopranos.

Like everyone else, I too was shocked by the abrupt ending last Sunday and felt a sense of bewilderment and frustration and then I went and checked my cable connection and tried to hit the downed HBO site. 

The next morning during water cooler talk I equated it to "sex with out the big orgasmic finish" and @ lunch i said "unexpected one night stand - the one where you thought it was a date and the shit-head does not call yo back" 

More importantly the conversation with my circle of friends that were either twittering, emailing or in the message boards went like this...(these were my favorites)

"I feel like a whore - that was a paid cable fuck" - SG
"David Chase is a [email protected]&ker!" - CK
"Sopranos... Uhhhhh... WTF?!?" - JC
"WTF - My cable went out" - DWB
"that was eight year relationships that ended with a pool cue up my ass" - GE
"i feel like a woman tony tossed aside" - TR

(funny how we all have foul mouths after watching team bada bing)

Then I got this...

"For those of you who haven't figured it out yet....=)
This is a very  interesting interpretation of the ending I figured I would pass  along.

He was killed....

In fact, the ending was genius if  you've paid attention to the show or are just a fan of well developed well  thought out plots that all tie together and have the memory of a champ to  remember it all the ending was simple, he got killed, but let me tell you why  and explain in detail... There was 3 people in the diner total who had a reason  to kill tony.....

the two black guys, they were paid before to kill tony  but he was only shot in the ear, this was in one of the earlier  seasons, also in the earlier seasons, the trucker who was sitting at the  bar stool, who the camera kept focusing in on, is Nikki leotardo, Phil Leotardos  nephew, he was in one of the early season episodes where Phil and Tony have a sit down....

heres where the genius comes in....

When tony is walking in the diner,you see the camera focus on him, then it switches to his  perspective, and you see him looking @ the booth hes gonna sit at...

then  the camera switches back to tonys face, then it once again switches to his  perspective, and it shows him looking @ the door and looking @ the people come  in..... Every time the door opens the Chimes sound.......

Carmela walks  in, Chimes
AJ walks in Chimes
this when Meadows is parallel  parking, still trying to get inside the restaurant.... at this point the  camera switches back to the trucker who goes in the bathroom......

Then  it goes to a scene where meadow finally parks and starts running in the diner....
the doors about to open, Tony looks up....

and No  Chimes......................
no Music............
everything just  goes black...............

In one of the early episodes of the sopranos,  tony is talking with bobby about what it must feel like to die..
Bobby says "at the end, you probably don't hear anything, everything just goes black"

Part of that was revisited in the second to last episode during  the last seconds of it, when tony is about to go to sleep and he flashes back to  the memory of him and bobby on the boat... "You probably don't hear anything  everything just goes black"

What do you guys think?

ON: Freaking your friends mind

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. That's certainly the case with this site. By focusing the experience on "Freaking your friend's mind" and the resulting magical video and follow-up phone call, the designers were able to create an experience that requires little effort from the viewer but has a very cool and impressive payoff.

Quite often the best ideas are the easiest...This is not the first type of experience I've seen like this but the production quality of this experience is exceptional and well planned. Details like the editing of the video and the change up of the presentation of the final card (the last digit in the phone number where Criss flips the correct number out of the deck of cards) adds a layer of believability that's often overlooked.

And then… the phone rings.

"Let's create a viral campaign" is something that I hear a lot. But ultimately it's the viewer is who determines if a campaign becomes viral because the content or message is relevant, easy and touches an emotional note.

This experience has the right combination and I have started a conversation in my community.  I've freaked at least five friend's minds so far.

See the site at http://www.freakyourmind.com/

Brad For President of....

  Brad For President 
  Originally uploaded by joannapenabickley

During a week of non-stop work Brad offered the comic relief needed to keep me focused on the site and banner production for Ice Breakers.

Strike a Pose... Vogue... I think.

Thanks Brad!