I recently read a few outstanding articles that speak to this issue of 1) owning vs. challenging a brand’s monopoly, and the related issues of 2) embracing what is unique about a company 3) creating a unique and extremely useful shopping experience based off of a unique brand ; and I wanted to pass these along here:

Apple’s unchallenged monopoly
http://kensegall.com/blog/2011/11/ads-apples-unchallenged-monopoly/

Why Jeff Bezos is OK with Amazon being Amazon, and nobody else http://m.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1

What Ron Johnson learned from building the Apple Store Empire http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/what_i_learned_building_the_ap.html

Here are a few of my early favorites, but i’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts as well:

Social Media Cures Cancer and Speaks for Survivor
Speakers: Doug Ullman – CEO of Livestrong, and Julie Shussler – Burson-Marsteller

Agency 2.0: Introducing the Innovation Lab
Speakers: Jamie and Chris Monberg – Hornall Anderson

Design from the Gut: Dangerous or Differentiator?
Speakers: Phil Coffman – Springbox / Method & Craft, Naz Hamid – weightshift, Laurel Hechanova – Apocalypse OK, and tom watson – facebook

OMG Your RFP is Killing Me
Speakers: Joe Rinaldi – Happy Cog, and a panel of others

Humanize the Web: Illustrating for Interactive
Speakers: Gerren Lamson – GSDM, and Reagun Ray – Paravel

The Right Tool for the Job: Native or Mobile Web?
Speakers: Buzz Andersen – Tumblr, and a panel of others

TenseUp: Creating Positive Tensions In Experiences
Speaker: Matt Walsh – Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Building the Dell app, therapy for a brand.
Speakers: michael kriegshauser – Dell Global Site Design, and a panel of others

Navigating danger in marketing’s in-between times
Speakers: Allison McCarthy, Guthrie Dolin, and Larry Johnson – Odopod

A Brief History of the Complete Redesign of Google
Speakers: Jon Wiley, and a whole panel from Google

Is it better to bring it In-House?
Speakers: John Stevens and Tommy Lynn – Dell Global Creative

Shameless plug for my own panel:
3 creatives. 3 amazing projects. 18 minutes each.
I’ll moderate, and speakers / creatives To Be Determined! maybe you?!

So those are a few of my favorites. What about you?

As I’ve talked about a little bit here on the blog, I had a blast my first time at sxsw this spring, and I want it to be even better next year!

so here’s what I propose, whether your a veteran, a newbie, or have never been to sxsw, let’s band together the collective nerd / design power of the interwebs, and get transparent about what we want to see / present / build up / rip apart at sxsw 2012. let’s stop bemoaning how big / corporate / meh sxsw has become, and let’s blow it out.

and if the thought has ever crossed your mind, “maybe i should submit a panel about (insert whatever your passionate about)”, then yes, you should. we need more PASSION, and less web celebritieness.

with me? alright, let’s procede:

so here’s a few of my prelimenary ideas / topics i would like to either

a) present on / participate on a panel on

or

b) would love to see others present

1. being awesome. i know it sounds completely narcissistic, but hang with me… what if i just moderated a panel and invited four or five designers / creatives / activists / mad scientist / generally awesome people to come and discuss their craft, their lives, and how their using their influence for good.

2. digital dads. i know this isn’t very inclusive, but i’d love to moderate / hear a panel on the daily joys / struggles / opportunities that other dads have experienced.

3. working in house, and killing it. a panel from a handful from some of the world’s leading in house designers / creatives, from large corporations, to startups, to non-profits, and everything in between. @boda , @squaredeye , @keeg , and @soopa are a few possible participants that come to mind.

4. trimming the fat in my creative intake. a panel discussing the growing problem of information overload, particularly with other creatives, and how they balance keeping up with the creative world around them, without getting swamped in blogs / feeds / and general mashahoopla.

5. the remote creative office. this one is a bit more long term aspirations for me, as one day I hope to be able to work remotely as a part of a stellar creative team that is free from the restrictions of a traditional office space / commute. at sxsw 2011 i met a few creatives that are doing this now ( @pws just to name one), and it has inspired me to keep seeking out this possibility. I mean seriously, it’s 2011, and we’re still tied to location??

So these are just a few of the first ideas i have. You might have noticed all of these are panels. After originally proposing a solo presentation last year, and ending up doing a dual presentation, I would highly recommend a panel, or at minimum a dual presentation. Unless your Blake Mycoskie or Majora Carter.

I would love to hear your ideas, no matter how rough they are. Or do any of my ideas sound interesting, need to be tweaked, or should be scrapped, insert your thoughts here.

So don’t hold back, let’s create the future we want to see.

So I wanted to share a few reasons that weighed heavily on my consideration of this opportunity, and hopefully you might find them helpful on your own journey.

Dream no small dreams

In some ways, my career so far could not have gotten off to a better start. I had the honor of working at the top advertising shop in the world, at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, daily mixing it up with some of the brightest minds in the creative industry, and partnering with dream clients that were as generous with the creative reigns as Gordoughs is with the awesomeness. A dream job indeed.

And for the last few years, I was part of the scrappy digital agency, Springbox, learning from some very smart, business minded creative gurus. It was here at Springbox, that I’ve truly started to find that sweetspot, where creative innovation, business goals, and user’s need all meet. Not to mention we had dream clients like Livestrong and Sweet Leaf Tea, and a steady supply of Brooklyn lager in the fridge. Good times.

So when a handful of tempting opportunities came my way, it was my instinct to lean to the hippest, most cutting edge, and overall leaders of the creative / technology industries. All great options, but all in someway easy options. Proven track records, tons of recent success to leverage, and fan bases like the world has never seen before. All of them would have been dream jobs to some degree.

But great stories are never about the easy life, or the luxuries one affords himself (via Donald Miller’s ‘A thousand miles in a million years’). Great stories are always about overcoming great obstacles. The underdog, the one everyone had counted out, who then came back to prove all the naysayers wrong.

I want to live a great story. I want to tell my grandkids of when the chips were down, and we proved them all wrong.

So even as Dell currently has some things going for them (which I’ll get to shortly), I also know that as a brand, they have taken quite a hit with the public perception over the last 5-10 years. There is much work to do. And it will require much blood, sweat and tears, as all great adventures do. And that, has the potential for a great comeback story.

Though dell has seen some rough spots over the last decade, there are many reasons for hope, and I will highlight a few of them next.

Momentum

Over the last year, Dell has been going through a massive and far reaching re-branding, largely led by an in-house team. Far beyond merely a logo, a few colors, and a typeface, this effort is addressing the entire brand prescence. And with a corporation this massive, this has been no small task. I have seen this first hand over the last year, as part of the team at Springbox working in partnership. I will admit that I was a bit skeptical about the rebranding when I first began to see it implemented. Many of us have seen corporations undergo a “rebranding”, while the reality is merely a new coat of paint. Though I thought this may be the case at first, I’m now convinced that I was wrong. There is change happening, and Dell is moving in the right direction. There is a renewed identity and passion in who Dell is as a company, as a force for good. There is a new found focus on design, aesthetics, real world usefulness, user experience, and overall brand perception. There is a good bit of momentum, and with a corporation this large, this is no small feat.

Support from leadership

As I saw the momentum building over the last year, I knew that it had to be a huge team effort, but I also knew that it had to contain a key element often missing from the majority of design / branding / creative changes in corporations: they had the support from leadership. More than just a sign off, change is being driven from both the top down, as well as bottom up. This is huge. Unless the leadership values and desires to see change happen, a million psd files / sketches / and dreams will all go for not.

A stellar team is forming

As I began to tell some fellow creatives about my decision, one of the things that I kept hearing repeatedly was “oh wow, my really talented friend / former coworker just joined the team there”. Though I didn’t know this so much when I accepted the offer, it has been quite reassuring and exciting to hear time and time again. Designers, writers, technologist, interaction designers, producers, and more. The breadth and depth of experience is impressive. Along with having support from leadership, I also believe it’s crucial to have teammates who are both highly skilled and passionate about their craft. I’m excited to join this growing team.

50 years from now, I want to look back over my life and be thankful for the people and teams I had the honor to be a part of, remember the challenges I conquered, and have no regrets about how I invested my God given time, energy, and passion. Here’s to being one step closer.

The title “client’s are not the target audience, user’s are”, might be a bit heady, so, simply put, we explored the challenge of getting clients to move past traditional promotional advertising (aptly nicknamed ‘interuption’ by the smart folks at @rga ), and instead partner with clients to create truly unique and engaging digital experiences centered around their brand’s unique value.

So to the highlights…

to introduce the topic, I told a quick story of how this topic came to be burning within me: Last fall, I was in a agency internal meeting, discussing a client project mid way through, when a certain client request caused a riff among the team. My creative partner and I listened to the request, but strongly objected, for both conceptual and functional reasons. Another member of my team strongly pushed back, and eventually gave the reasoning “we have to do it. we’re to make the client happy”. At this point, I pretty much flipped. Almost instantly, I responded with “we’re not here to make the client happy. We’re here to help the client make a great digital experience. They may not be instantly happy everytime.” I probably could have had more tact, but it is a strong passion of mine, and ultimately inspired me to lead this talk. Now on with the actual talk.

We framed the conversation around two key phases in each project: how to begin a project well, and then how to keep focus midway through a project (when everything is bogging down) and finish well. With each phase, anton and I both gave a case study example from our own experiences. I’ll frame this write up in the same way.

how to begin a project well

I spoke about my experience at Springbox (an interactive agency in Austin) in leading the design for the 2010 complete re-design of http://www.Livestrong.org , the non-profit division of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, aimed at helping “all whose lives are affected by cancer. It is an amazing orginization, with an feircely loyal and supportive following. I focused on knowing exactly who your target audience is. Our team did this by creating an extremely helpful set of fictional personas, based on factual research.

While we looked at the traditional factor / demographics of the audience, such as age, sex, nationality, language, education level, etc.; what i found extremely helpful were some additional factors. These included: how are these people affected by cancer (they have just been diagnosed, their mom has cancer, etc.)? What are they trying to accomplish by coming to the site? What is their digital technology savviness? How do they use technology in their daily lives? What is their experience with the Livestrong brand?

After looking through these evolved personas, I was able to reason that people came to livestrong.org for two primary reasons: To either get help (as they or someone close to them is in immediate need of help), or they have come to take action, such as to participate in a livestrong marathon, bake sale, or one of a number of great events. After discovering this key insight, the whole project shifted from ‘how do i create a visually stunning site?’, and but instead to ‘how do craft the whole digital experience through these two priorities, in both aesthetic and heirarchy’. this finding made all the difference in creating an extremely useful, and easily navigable site.

On the first topic, Anton shared his recent experience in creating the HTC Sense website , a really playful and well done site! I will be much more brief here, as I do not want to misquote him, but I will share some of the highlights. In regards to the HTC site, Anton spoke of how the client had some really amazing features, called HTC Sense, but didn’t quite know how best to communicate them in a conversational and non-techy tone. To communicate these features in a fun and truly interactive way, @F_i crafted a series of interactive cartoon shorts, in which the viewer actually plays with the phone on the site, and experiences the aha moment through interaction, rather than just a observational video. Really cool stuff.

how to keep focus midway through a project (when everything is bogging down) and finish well.

or how to push through the “crap, just get it out the door moment”. Originally I had wanted the talk to focus on just the beginning of a project, but Anton had so many great insights on the latter that we had to include it. Honestly, I personally learned a ton on this topic, and found it extremely helpful in the day to day of running a creative services shop.

Here are a few highlights that really stuck out to me, in regards to finishing well:

As creatives, we have to be the expert, that’s why a client comes to us. you have to earn a client’s trust, and while a good portfolio is a good foundation, the details in a relationship really really matter. Things like: always be on time. heck, always be earlier. Always giving your client an idea of the contents of a meeting. Nothing elaborate, but start every meeting with a 30 sec – 1 min overview of what will be shown, discussed, what is new, old, etc. Always be organized. Ultimately, these might come across as trivial matters, but if the client is comfortable with you and can trust that your leading them well, they will let you control the project.

Educate the client. I know there is some opposition to this in the industry, but I agree with Anton. Most good clients are not creatives, or that experienced with the intricacies of the digital space, and they want to learn something. That’s a great opportunity for us, the digital creative professional. So own it, be on top of it, know your craft, know your industry. It should be something your passionate about, so it shouldn’t be that difficult.

And I save the best nugget for last: what do you do when the client has a request that they will not back down from, and you disagree strongly with? The grim reality, we are ultimately not fine artist or rock stars. we are in the service industry. The good news / wisdom from
Anton: find out what one section / page / feature matters most to the client, and make this amazing in their eyes! Then, find the other overlooked areas that most people never care much about, and freaking blow them out! For example, the login, contact, or about us page. Essentially, find out where you can play wide open, and where do you have to please. This is a huge encouragement and challenge at the same time.

In closing, I was truly blown away by the turn out and lively conversation. A huge thanks to everyone that was there, and a huge thanks to Anton for making the journey down south to join us! If you were with us, or even if your just digesting all of this now, I would love to continue the conversation here, so don’t hold back your thoughts!

I’ll be speaking at #sxsw in just a few months! oh yeah!

So my topic officially is “Clients are not the target audience. Users are.” More info here

I am beyond thrilled, and honored to be included in an event i’ve wanted to take part in for quite some time. Beyond attending, getting to know some amazingly talented leaders in our industry, and taking in the festival in general, I also will get a Gold badge, which will grant me entrance into the Film festival as well. I’m by no means a film buff, and can only name a handful of actors at any given moment, but this should be a fun perk.

One last interesting tidbit, there is a great chance that I will be able to co-lead this discussion. At this point, the choice is not ultimately up to me, but I do have in mind a few people I wouldn’t mind meeting and leading this with. ( David Lai from @hellodesign , Tim Barber from @odopod , @squaredeye, or any of the creatives from @rga , @hugeinc , @hornallanderson, @f_i , @summitprojects , or @frogdesign , just to name a few possibilities I wouldn’t mind, in case your listening #sxswi staff )

Here is a bit about love146, taken from there website:

LOVE146 VISION
The abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation. Nothing less.

LOVE146 MISSION
Abolition and Restoration! We combat child sex slavery & exploitation with the unexpected and restore survivors with excellence.

Rob is leading his brave and innovative team in a grueling fight, that transcends cultures and borders. Though the issue of child trafficking / slavery has seen a bit of media attention over the last few years, the fact remains that more people are in modern slavery today, than ever before. This is not a past issue, but rather a burning issue of our times. And please do not think this is an issue of somewhere else. Trafficking happens every day, in 1st world cultures, including America.

Because of his admirable sacrifice and determination, and the great potential that awaits in a partnership with the TED orginization, I nominate Rob to be a 2012 TED Fellow.

P.S. a friend of mine Brad Riley, is also leading an amazing team @iempathize , and definitely worth your blood, sweat, and tears

yep, seven years, three states, and 35,892 psd files later, I’m finally staring down the joy of taking part in the sxsw interactive festival this year. oh joy.

so to give this monumentous event the care and energy it deserves, I will be sharing a bit of my preparation on the blog here, with a desire to facilitate a conversation, more than prescribe a plan of attack for others. if 2011 will be your first year attending as well, welcome fellow newby! or maybe your a veteran and could recite the last ten years keynotes in your speech. if so, i would love to hear tips and advice, as well as what your looking forward to as this year’s shindig. or maybe your in the same boat as i have been up until this point, and you can’t make it to tehas this year. even so, i’d love to hear your thought on the topics and have you join in from afar!

Enough preamble, here’s a rough look at the topics I want to cover in this series of posts:

Topics I’m interested in

Reading list in preperation for #sxswi

People I’d like to share a pint with

hidden gems to find while in Austin

daily thougths (during the conference)

post-conference wrap up

I hope you join me in my preparation. And as always, if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or gems of wisdom to contribute here, share away!

i know it. you know it.

we experience it everyday.

so if your reading this. i’m genuinely honored. thank you.

so in a time when there is never a shortage of things to read, watch, or play with, how does an individual, brand, or organization measure their own influence on the world?

how do we know the difference between adding to the noise, or actually contributing to a greater conversation?

a two way conversation.

i know, by just using the over hyped word “conversation”, you might be extremely tempted to stop reading.

but that’s exactly what i’m aiming for when i communicate. and i hope you are too.

though i’m not the best at it. i want to engage, listen to, contemplate, and thoughtfully communicate with others.

so i’m not really interested in a popularity contest, whether measured by twitter followers, friends, retweets, or any other number.

it’s cliche, but it truly is about quality. it has never been about quantity.

but maybe your thinking, it’s really hard to measure quality, especially in the digitally social spheres that we are daily engaged with.

how can we measure the meaningful influence we have? is your brand / organization actually communicating with customers? or just using a bullhorn to annoy the masses?

enter a sweet new website i found recently, http://www.klout.com

though not perfect, i’m finding it really useful and interesting. sure, it’s easy to see that so and so has 1,000 followers, or a brand has 13k followers. But again, how much of that is noise?

i’m excited to see this service, along with others yet to be launched, grow and evolve into a deeper way to look into this tricky subject.

before jumping into my early favorites, i do want to note one choice that the sxsw organizers took, that i thought was really classy and cool: there is no vote count or leaderboard for the proposed panels! very very cool, and a great attempt at keeping this from becoming a bandwagon ready popularity contest. thanks sxswi!

that being said, here is an early list of my favorite panels i’ve found so far, and as always i would love to hear your thoughts on these and / or other panels:

Interaction Jones and the Template of Doom
Organizer Naz Hamid, http://www.weightshift.com

Collaboration Nation: How Side-Projects Can Keep You Relevant
Organizer Phil Coffman, http://springbox.com , http://methodandcraft.com

Crazy, Cool, and Interesting Uses of GeoData
By Elad Gil, http://twitter.com

Congratulations! Your Brand Is About to Become Obsolete.
Organizer Andrea Ring, http://www.rga.com

How to Whup ‘Em with the Leroy Stick
By Hawk Thompson, http://www.springbox.com/

Branding Reinvented: Creating Engagement in the Digital World
By david lai, http://www.hellodesign.com/

Listen To Me Dammit! I’m An Expert!
Organizer Chris Mayfield, http://springbox.com

Better Ideas Faster: Effective Brainstorming for Interactive Design
Organizer David Sherwin, http://www.frogdesign.com

Apps or Mobile Site: How to Choose
By Adrian Taylor, http://www.springbox.com

Design as Lifestyle: An Honest Day’s Work
Organizer Duane King http://www.kingduane.com

Interactive Branding and the Built Environment
Organizer Jamie Monberg, http://www.hornallanderson.com/

Let’s Go: The Evolution of JetBlue.com
Organizer Michal Pasternak, http://www.hugeinc.com

Can Design and Technology Fix America’s Education Problem?
Organizer John Kolko, http://www.frogdesign.com

Switch: from Freelancer to Entrepreneur
Organizer Matthew Smith, http://www.squaredeye.com

From Storytelling to Technology and Back Again
Organizer Barry Wacksman, http://www.rga.com

Stop Talking, Start Making
Organizer Will Turnage http://www.rga.com

How Does Scifi Influence Our Future Cities?
Organizer Igor Schwarzmann, http://www.cognitivecities.com

Storytelling in an Age of Industrialized Content
Organizer Upendra Shardanand, http://www.daylife.com

Digital Bookmaking for Designers & Developers
Organizer Brian warren, http://begoodnotbad.com/

Websites Aren’t Enough: the New Interaction Design
Organizer @danielmall

The New Loyalists: Measuring Brand Advocacy Today
Organizer Luane Kohnke, http://www.rga.com