Logic+Emotion

Power to the People II

Call it "Brand Engagement", call it "Consumer Generated Media", Call it a "Mash-up".  Whatever you want to call it—it rocks.  Skittles + The N network let you create your own music video including audio, video, graphics, music, transitions and more.  You are the editor and director—then of course the site lets you share with friends as well as featuring a best of, just to keep the competition friendly.  Don't just read this post.  Do yourself a favor and play with the application on the site.  It's a truly delightful experience.  Then, send your creation to someone who would appreciate it.

Thought of the Day

“Let's be honest here. We're creating a Web site.  A really, really cool one.  But the “White Album” concept seems a bit off strategy”~Anonymous 

Power To The People

The Mass Marketing world needs a wake up call.  While many agencies have figured out that consumers place more trust and value in the information that they get from peers vs. marketing channels—the temptation to control the "campaign" is still alive and well.  There are plenty of examples on the Web of handing control over to the customer and letting them sound off.  Here are just two.  Jonga, a mash up combining content from Google, Nike and "Jonga TV" provides and invitation-only forum for enthusiasts to participate in.  USA Network encourages viewers to  show off their character by creating a profile complete with video, photos and consumer generated content.  One word of caution—consumers are more empowered and knowledgeable than ever before.  Try to fake this kind of facilitation and do so at your own peril.

NextD + Design 1.0-3.0

NextD, an organization committed to the fusion of design and business created a video slide show from a recent presentation.  Proof that a picture (or pictures) is worth a thousand words, the video does not include any audio—but still provides some nice insights into what's described as design 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.  So what does this all mean?  In short—it means that design and business will continue to "bond", whether they like it or not.

AKQA + XBOX

Your Agency Just Designed Your Product
AQKA, a marketing agency with a knack for creating interactive experiences not only generates marketing campaigns for their XBOX client—they helped design the product.  This is not new news if you follow the interactive marketing industry, however—it does illustrate a trend that we'll probably be seeing more of.  The traditional role of an agency has been to persuade consumers to buy product—to take action—often by using effective storytelling techniques that connect with the consumer.  But lately marketing and advertising agencies are being tasked with creating the end experience in which the consumer interacts.  Some have called this consumer engagements.

Ogilvy didn't just create a wonderful campaign for Hershey Chocolate—they planned, architected, designed and helped build the experiential Hershey Store located in Times Square.  So what we are seeing is brand as the message, meeting brand as the experience with the same agency participating in both areas.  Stay tuned, there will be more of this to come as more players emerge over time.

Happiness + Right Brain Thinking

A little over a year ago, I came across an article titled "Happiness is using the brain the right way" Download happiness.doc .  The article was a really interesting piece—and more than a year later much of it seems to be coming to pass as we see left-brain and right-brained thinkers needing each other more than ever, while right-brainers enjoy more appreciation in recent years.  Below are some choice exerpts:

“a ''Conceptual Age" is upon us. Thanks to a combination of globalization, outsourcing, and technology, many traditional white-collar jobs are either disappearing or being shipped overseas. When coupled with a growth in ''nonmaterial yearnings," he says, that paves the way for a US economy in which an MFA will be a more potent credential than an MBA, and growing clout will be wielded by creators, inventors, and storytellers.”

“Human evidence for his argument was gathered before him in a conference room at Design Continuum, in the form of an individualistic array of design strategists, marketing coordinators, and ''envisioners," who think of ways that new products can fit people's needs.”

The article also features Dank Pink, author of "A Whole New Mind"

Social Bookmarking + Design

Here's a social bookmarking tool focused on the Design genre—Style Hive.  It's like del.ico.us meets cool hunting.

Motorola + Design

Weaving Design into Motorola's Fabric
    Terrific interview with Jim Wicks, Vice President of Motorola's Consumer Experience Design group.  The interview goes on in some detail to lay out how Motorola's culture has shifted due to an influx of creative thinking and innovative product design.  Jim doesn't give the latest products like RAZR or SLVR all the credit—but it's clear that the impact the breakthrough products have had are difficult to ignore.  The interview is fairly comprehensive—but if you value Experience Design, it's very much worth the read.  Here are a few choice highlights:

“The product is the brand. You build brand in our industry through the product and the experience. Those manifestations are tangible evidence of that change. It shapes what people internally and externally think about the company.”

“To me, innovation comes from a lot of different things. It could come from something completely unstructured or something structured.”

“A product by itself can't change a company. But, a product and a success can change a company. A product can start the change and can make people feel a part of that change.”

“Brand management is another example of where design is addressing complexity. We launched RAZR with the intent of it becoming an icon--not that I'm saying it is. But you can use the 'halo effect' of that kind of a product.”

“The design group includes the disciplines of advanced mechanical, user interface, industrial design, research, material sciences, and more. In the past, this group was integrated with a lot of our businesses, and it was about inventing things.”

“We have this diversity, we behave differently, and we design differently now versus three years ago. We don't think of design as a group out in an ivory tower that conceptualizes things and then figures out how to make them. Nor is it, "We've got a strategy, and we're going throw the technologists at it, and then we're going try to wrap it up and make it look good.”

Customer-Centric

This post is a sanity check more than anything else.  Most everyone in the business world these days seems to be saying "why yes—of course the customer is at the center of everything we do" which is often times followed by this statement "we need to be more innovative".  Yet so few organizations truly practice this.  The above graphic is sort of a mantra statement pulled from my personal site.  These days, I'm finding that as common sense as this seems—it's difficult to pull off.

R/GA+NY Times

One of my favorite interactive agencies, R/GA was covered in the NY Times Download rga.pdf .  It's a great piece and does a nice job of describing what makes the agency and the man behind it (Robert Greenberg) tick.  Here's a snippet:

"Consumers are so swamped by pitches
that many simply tune them out. And the
more affluent among them exercise enough
control over how, where and what they shop
for that, with the flick of their fingers, they
can bypass unwanted advertising.

Mr. Greenberg, the chairman and chief executive
of R/GA, wants to engage them in digital
conversations that are so entertaining,
involving and valuable that they won’t want
to ignore them."

Thought of the Day

“The perfect work assignment for someone who needs to be innovative is one that balances clear, achievable goals with just enough task challenge to ignite the fires of creativity that lie within us all. These are the conditions for flow, and they enable a state of serious play.”~Diego Rodriguez

Saab Aero X

Cool Car.  Cool site.
Need proof that a site needs to be as cool as the product?  See Saab Aero X.  Where to begin?  First off, the car design itself is gorgeous and clearly pays homage to the "Born From Jets" tradition.  But the site is almost as breathtaking—featuring a slider in place of navigation for the entire experience as well as hot spots that provide more details in rich fashion.

The animations and rendering of the automobile are the true stars.  Using the slider, you can play and re-play sequences that show off the car's sexiness.  That's a good word for the experience.  Sexy.

The Robotic Mule

Remember those futuristic walking thingies from The Empire Strikes Back?  This might have as well been the prototype.  See what happens when they try to kick it over.

Creativity, Business + Kellogg

Need proof that the Business world is playing catch-up in regards to creativity, innovation and design?  The prestigious Kellogg School of Management is hosting an event this month.  Think it will be focused on ROI, numbers and metrics?  Guess again.  Here's the program content:

Introduction to Product Development

Scenario Planning

Strategy in Design

Recognizing Gap Analysis in the Design Process

Customer-Focused New Product Research

Innovation and Creativity

Essentials of Industrial Design

Human Factors

Managing Intellectual Property

Communication Challenges in Product Development

Management and Metrics for Product Development

37 Signals Gets Real

Chicago's own 37 Signals recently launched their new book, "Getting Real". Download 37s-introduction.pdf These guys are fantastic.  They practice what they preach—and their interactive products demonstrate their philosophy.  Worth the download and reasonable price.

“Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that
represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wirefames, etc.) and actually building the real thing. Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and
most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the
cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching,
tweaking, and constantly improving which makes
it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need
and eliminates anything they don’t.”