Interactive Marriage

Here is an article I wrote for Daniel Shutzsmith's site Graphic Define... a bit sappy but I think its a decent read.

Agency Understanding

The giant wave called “interactive” that has splashed on the shores of the advertising world has created many opportunities for a re-examination of roles and talent in the ad business. Interactive is a digital multi platform arena that offers advertisers the most impact and allows for the most engaging ideas to be developed. Integrating a campaign is no small task and requires a true leader who understands how to anchor the print, TV and other offline media with the strengths of what online brings to the table.

I work with many agencies, I manage many projects for the worlds largest brands, companies like Microsoft, Intel, Samsung, CITI, AXE and many more who rely on our abilities to develop an online strategy for their brands. We hold the key to the most intimate engagement that our clients have with their consumers and we serve as their navigator for the interactive platform.

One of the many challenges that I and many other people face today is the transition that many of these agencies are currently going thorough in order to fully comprehend and integrate interactive digital services with their more traditional approaches to advertising. Developing an online campaign is very different than the offline traditional print, TV and radio.

So I asked myself who's capable of managing these types of projects?

I understand that a person in this position is a rare breed at this very early stage; it is not a unilateral decision to become a leader in this field. A successful interactive producer requires the respect of those he manages, the various artists, designers, developers and motion graphic people who need to know that their fearless leader is someone who lives and breathes the intimate interaction that the web offers its users. If they don't attain that respect from their teams and people they work with then their teams are merely being managed and not being led. The various intricacies and combination of creative and technological understandings along with the cultural variations of the web require a real leader who knows how to combine all of these aspects and how to distill them down to him team and then across to the client.

A true interactive producer at this early stage of the web spectrum must in some way want to make a difference and push the limits of what people are doing online. They have to trust and know the team and their abilities and to know how to work with them as an extension of themselves. To imagine that this is something that can be done independently of others is foolish. To achieve true innovation and inspiration requires the cooperation, will, and desire of the entire team to follow their leader and to accomplish a larger mission.

The mission is not to simply produce a pretty website; it is to engage the user to fully connect with the brand and the environment that they are in when they visit the website or interactive installation. It means that a lasting impression must be made and that the user feels a sense of connection and affiliation to the brand and the overall message. Success is achieved when the user feels right at home every time they reach the destination and that they return to that destination as their main source of information for that particular brand, product or service.

In my experience the key to getting the entire team completely onboard (enthusiastically) is to first get them committed to the overall project idea. (And remember, before you can get others to believe in anything you have to first believe in it yourself.) The team is not just the interactive team but the entire creative team that will be working on all aspects of the campaign. This is very important because everyone needs to have a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities in order to have realistic expectations. Educating the print or broadcast team as to how the interactive works is the secret to getting everyone to play nice. Often times it’s the lack of understanding across the project lines that causes frustrations and slows down delivery of important assets that are being shared.

Once the idea is fully flushed out and the online experience has been completely finalized by the producer that is when the fun starts, you will suddenly radiate enormous enthusiasm as will your team because everyone has similar expectations and a unified goal has now been set. It is the producer’s job to keep up the energy and a clear plan for success this will keep the clients happy and your team committed.

The final key to success is never to forget to keep everyone up to date with how things are progressing; the client and other members of the team may not have the same understanding of the production process as you do so this should be set as one of your primary ongoing day to day tasks. Being a producer also requires personal responsibility; never ever make it about your own ego or personal spotlight. Educating your clients and team members is about listening and making sure they understand the processes involved and are clear with realistic expectations for delivery dates and the ability to change within the allotted time and budget. Remember these few pieces of wisdom and you'll continue to have your design and development team as well as your clients and fellow co-workers believing in and joining your efforts to take interactive into the mainstream advertising spectrum.

Due Process

The emerging state of interactive multimedia rises from the ashes that buried it during the dot com tragedy. This new media is the savior of the advertising world, the second coming of promises that were first glimpsed when life was given to the web. The early dot coms all died for the cause. It was a revolution that went into hibernation waiting for the speed of broadband to recharge its ambition. Amazonian expectations were set and now being fulfilled in only its second generation.

Digital trailblazers, men and women, boys and girls who traverse the gigs of terrain that lay before them contained inside of a simple box streaming through infinite amounts of information, art, organization, tools and environments that keep them soaking up culture like a sponge. I marvel at the accomplishments of the medium. The web has given us a universal platform that extends beyond any limitations. It is our interface to the world, the way we learn, the way we study, the way we search and the way we communicate.

Millions have found love, life and opportunity on the web. It has created a gateway to every corner of the earth. There is no place the web doesn’t penetrate. The web is clothed in technology and ideas.

The days of static sites are gone, interactive web design is now truly an art form. The ability to not only create something visually awesome but an application that has so much functionality and purpose. Be it entertainment value, information, commerce, communications or warning, the interactive realm has emerged the creators of this new world.

When I was in grade school I had always felt a sense of emptiness when learning about the famous explorers of the new world. Columbus, Pizzaro, Orellana and Cabeza De Vaca had all uncovered the final unexplored territories of the world. They created a new world; they expanded boundaries and were responsible for new life. I knew at a young age that I was never going to have an opportunity to sail the high seas and uncover the mysteries of the planet and a streak of jealousy would strike me leaving me to ponder more realistic employment for my future.

Become a doctor, a lawyer, maybe a cop or a teacher? I never entertained any one of those suggestions, I would rather do nothing. Always an artist I was never without a pen or marker in my hand. I would decorate everything and my eyes seemed to make everything move. If I could only push that, or pull that, if I could only see the next scene or adjust the color of everything I saw. I was desperate for something that didn’t yet exist but something I was very prepared for and when I found it I knew, I didn’t need any lessons as to what it was, I knew that this was my world and I was going to explore it.

My passion for online interactive multimedia is beyond any of the corporate sites that I produce. It just gives me an opportunity to think and live in my world all day. I create new trails and develop new ideas that push the web deeper and deeper. The impact of my involvement extends way beyond the limited borders of my city, state and country. My work travels through a new dimension, a new world that begs for beauty, knowledge, spirit, faith, and inspiration.

I am an explorer. I explore the web and uncover its potential, I push its limits. The message I chose to transmit over this giant pipe is inspiration. No greater message can be transmitted. Mankind needs inspiration; the television killed our minds, so passive and so dreary. It’s content to broad to comprehend yet simple enough for mass murder.

It no longer shapes our minds and our views. Everyone has a place on the web. Everyone is represented and everyone is honored. The ridiculous, the creepy and the sappy all converge here. No two sites the same, each one a digital representation.

On the web video and sound stream like the great untamed Mississippi River across the American landscape. This is the new frontier, the uncharted territory that invites the explorer to trek its terrain. It’s not the physical rather the mental wherewithal that the explorer must possess. Creative thinking goes into every search, every site, and every blog and every link.

I love this new frontier. Its capacity is endless and its potential is infinite. The tools have become common and now everyone has access, anyone can breathe new life and their own soul into this container and express their voice.

Inspiration is the new creative.

Its been a while...

Its been a while since I opened the doors of my mind here I have been busy with Microsoft

Just wanted to share some love and show everyone this interview i did for DevLounge

Enjoy folks and im about to bust out another killer article soon.

Inter-viewed

I was recently interviewed on one of my favorite sites The FWA. I have revealed some secrets so go check it out!

PREDICTIONS FOR 2007!

2007 is going to be a blockbuster year! The definition INTERACTIVE has finally been recognized by all the big players and the reality of it being way too complex a niche for the big guys to fully grasp it right now is setting in. The smaller agencies are emerging because we are flexible enough to make the drastic shifts needed in order to keep up with the emerging technologies and the big guys now need to look to us in order to translate their initiative into what Interactive is really all about.

1. Viral will stop being just a buzz word and will emerge as a full fledged solution. The public is now aware of our desire for them to share everything they see with everyone they know. We no longer have to play tricky games in order to get them to pass things along; we all understand the rules and now its time for everyone to play nicely. Expect to see more breakthrough viral campaigns and Interactive pieces as the backbone of major campaigns.
2. Video, Video, Video. We can’t get enough of it, it’s everywhere and we want more and more of it. Expect to see the smaller shops getting more adept in producing made for web video. It will be embedded in ads, websites, banners, and even in other video. Flashers and After Effecters are now stepping up and creating powerful motion pieces intended to live on the web where many people are looking towards as their main source of video content.
3. Interactive budgets are on the rise, we will no longer be an afterthought. It will be the popularity of the fully immersive interactive experience that will now represent the brand. The motion, the feel, the characters and the animations will live and breathe life into today’s biggest brands and it will be the personalities of the website that will now make people remember why they buy the products and services.
4. Turnaround times. What took 6 months to build will now take 6 weeks to build, the pace of the web is blinding and the larger agencies cannot keep up with that pace just yet. We small guys don’t require the layers to get stuff done.
5. Mobile media. The emergence of more powerful phones, MP3 players and multiple use devices will supply us with yet another platform for visual interaction. Expect to see more initiatives in this realm
6. Beyond the browser. Expect to see more creative interactive solutions that take full advantage of the internet and rich user interface but showing up in places you would never expect.
7. Young Guns! Hybrids will emerge; multi-talented designer/developer/producer/entrepreneurial/salespeople will start stepping into bigger and bigger roles at small and at larger agencies. All us dot-com rejects who waited out the storm will be stepping back into the arena, more mature, more focused and hungrier than ever!

This is just a glimpse as to what is on the horizon, now that all the major brands have accepted the web and its supremacy in the advertising world and have all thrown their chips in we will see some seriously creative and breakthrough projects come out more frequently and the competition will get hot. The ability to produce complex interactive pieces in a short amount of time will be the perfect drug for the impulsive clients who need a quick fix when things aren’t going the way they want. Interactive will be the turn on the dime solution for new and established brands to “quick draw” when they are looking for that knock out punch. Expect addiction like behavior. Websites, micro-sites, interactive banners, videos, downloads, viral, blogs and so on are now toys of the ad industry.

I am personally very exited for 2007 and all of the wonderful new projects that will be launching all throughout the year!

For Reel

The newest member of the top navigation...

read more | digg story

Art vs. Design

An age old debate that continues on. The distinctions and the fundamentals of a medium.

read more | digg story

Environmental Awareness

The web has created a new type of environment that we all live in. Being aware if this new environment is crucial, especially if you spend more time on the web than outdoors...

read more | digg story

Coming soon...

Much has transpired, the wheels are turning and a new post is in the works. In the meantime check out my latest article on the FWA

Very Viral...

Certain clients seem to like the idea of “viral” but tend to not fully understand its execution. Keeping it a surprise and not revealing too much, allowing the various users to uncover things is really what makes a viral campaign successful. Passing along funny stuff works for certain brands especially the ones consumers are religious about only because its basically branded content that serves as entertainment and helps solidify the consumer loyalty but with less known brands I think there needs to be a bit of faith on the part of the client to allow the agency to really build a mystery and let the users uncover what it is they are trying to say.

Collaboration is really what the web is all about and the ability for users to pass along something interesting and discuss it, analyze it and play with it is where the success is found in a true viral initiative. Many clients want to simply PLUG IN whatever it is they have into a viral campaign and many times they don’t realize that they are trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Viral campaigns are often looked at as a less serious endeavor because it does cost less and people tend to pay more attention to projects that cost more to develop. Take viral seriously and it will serve its purpose.

late night thoughts and responsibility in advertising

When I compose my entries into this blog I try to evoke emotion and thought, I am not looking to solve anything specific, rather open up a forum to study it. I once wrote an essay about the Super Bowl and the ads geared towards the beer guzzling folk who are probably the majority watching the big game. As a Producer in the advertising industry I feel that by adding to the persona of the “beer guzzler” by giving him commercials that further ruin his view on women, sex, responsibility and the environment is a crime and that if we know that the "element' watching the game does tend to allow their views to be dictated by the ads and the content they watch so intensely perhaps we have a responsibility to at least try and guide those views in the right direction. Having this country fall to the wayside because we want to sell more beer and we are willing to degrade women and the environment to do it is simply wrong. Advertising is a responsibility and by misguiding the consumer public with fantasies that distort real relationships on many levels is deadly. Why not sell beer by showing that an intelligent, responsible and hard working man can come home or go to a bar and relax with a cold icy one? Get where im going with this? Why go down to a person’s lowest level when you can raise them by getting them to associate themselves and the products they buy in a positive way.

Its so easy to throw a naked woman on the screen and say BUY THIS there is no challenge there, try doing it in a positive way, that’s where the real success is...

Small Agency Response numero deuce

Why does a definition on Wikipedia need to necessarily define an age old industry? Sure we all need the safe definitions of things in order to put them into their place when things get chaotic but when things are not chaotic are we really willing to break away from those safe definitions and color out side of those lines you speak of?

Agencies have a hard enough time producing creative work in general, how many campaigns end up being timeless? Now they are expected to deliver media technologies as well? Smaller interactive agencies have been doing this for years now; we have been innovating new ideas for launching all kinds of brand messages. Minisites, rich media banners, environmental installations, unique kiosks, online games, viral techniques, uploading, downloading, cross loading and more! Agencies are having a hard enough time keeping up in general when it comes to the web. Web 2.0 is all of the things I mentioned above and more, it requires breaking many of the rules that have been established in the Ad Biz and redefining what works and what doesn't and requires going completely against conventional wisdom.

It seems to me that the point isn't are agencies willing to invest in new platforms, because its simply not their core competency, the question is are they now willing to play second fiddle to companies that are creating new platforms. Old habits are hard to break and the agencies have been holding on to the corporate reigns for a long time now, they manage the accounts, come up with the ideas and distribute the money but perhaps that role is now being reduced because of the overwhelming emergence of technology that smaller and younger companies have a better grasp on.

Rather than buying up these smaller companies and driving them into the ground by making them adhere to old rules, why not just play nice and let the experts do their jobs in the environments that suit them best (smaller interactive firms) and let them drive the campaigns. Ideas thrive in smaller open environments and when the stresses of the corporate world take over then the ideas suffer, creating new platforms and ideas requires breathing room and coloring outside the lines and that means that new lines can't be drawn once the color is in place, you cant assume that an agency is ripe to now become a technology firm just because it has the money to do so, sometimes it takes adversity and struggle of being small in order for great ideas to emerge. –Craig Elimeliah, new york, NY

We Are Back!

It’s not like we actually went anywhere but we are back and we are better than ever. Who are we? I will tell you who we are, we are every kid that got laid off in the late 90’s and early new millennium, we are every guy and girl who was accused of over hyping the web and forcing the economy to plummet and we are the believers that never for a second lost faith in the web. We are older, a bit more mature a lot more experienced and wanted more than ever for our abilities to innovate and understand a web that has quietly healed from its prepubescent awkwardness into a powerful and healthy medium.

Once known for our fickle work habits and our lack of commitment to any one company, for our distractions and our toy collections at work, for our inability to conform to company policies and dress codes, and most of all our over inflated expectations for the virtual world we live in day in and day out. We are a group of people who are fueled by the infinite possibilities of the web and would be doing what we do at work at home for free anyway. We develop web applications, graphics, utilities, code, and games. We innovate new ideas and work out difficult problems facing user experience, interface and environments. We make the web usable for all. We soak up the internet like sponges and know exactly what is out there and what is still needed. We are the ex-girlfriend who was dumped because we caused too much drama and now that we have grown up and into our bodies we are lusted after more than ever.

Ok enough of the dramatics I think I got my point across.

We are entering a new age, an age when the business world is on their hands and knees to reconcile the relationship that was broken up at the turn of the century’s dot com bust. Everyone agrees that the web is here to stay and that it has proven itself to be one of the most powerful communication platforms known to mankind. Not everyone fully understands its depth but the select few that do are now in high demand by every corporation out there. What changed? Initially the web promised the world automation, it promised instant access to information and services that was never before made available, and it offered globalization and community on such a precise level that most people didn’t know what to do with it when it was first introduced. The financial world was not mistaken when they poured billions in venture capital into the pockets of young developers with bright ideas and those young developers were not selling empty promises either. Every marriage has a period of time when the young couple must acclimate itself to one another, us youngsters back then weren’t ready to handle the fame and fortune being served to us on a silver platter and those financial folks didn’t realize how drastically different we lived our lives.

Sure there were many young companies who blew every dime of venture capital on stupid promotional events, ridiculous office spaces and all kinds of other nerdy things, salaries were so over the top and stock options were given out like candy. Mistakes were made and times were fast but then again every revolution needs a period where chaos rules, we had the depression, the wild west, the new world, all throughout history whenever massive change took place there was always some economic precariousness. What started in the mid nineties was no different and looking back I don’t think it could have happened any other way. There is a certain feeling of accomplishment when a new innovative technology changes the world, throws it into disarray and then shortly after it all works itself out and we are all much better off because of it.

So now we are back in business, we have quietly licked our wounds and recovered from being banished from the business elite and are now once again desperately needed in order to innovate and make the most of this ever growing World Wide Web. We are a bit older, a bit more grounded and definitely more cautious with our roles as keepers of the web. There will be no more extravagant toys and offices, no more stock options and definitely no more empty IPOs. Flash and other web technologies have trained us to deliver our ideas in a more powerful and robust way, we can now roll out websites that not only live on the web but are the interface for the world. As the chosen people to guard the vast channels of information and to create conduits for delivering the information we must now assume our roles and take our place amongst the elite as the guards of the information super highway.

My response to Getting a Grip...

Noelle Weaver write a very interesting post on her Small Agency Diary Blog she entitled it Coming to Grips in the Advertising World. Although I think this is a great title I think that she didnt even scratch the surface of what should have been written based on the title. Shame. I responded with some emotions and ideas that I had, here goes...

This post is appropriately titled “Coming to Grips” because that is exactly what is going on in the advertising world. People are now having to come to grips with the fact that the media convergence is taking place faster than most people can make any sense of it, it puts many of the “numbers” people in a very precarious position because in this transition period they are forced to put their faith in places that they may not be so comfortable with. Interactive agencies are seen as the New Kids on the Block, the new jacks who are trampling all over ad world and stealing the glory away from the prestige of TV, radio and print.

The convergence of media is an example for us all to follow suit and converge ideas, practices and abilities and to try our best by marrying the old and the new. The only way we are going to get a grip on this thing is if we all respect and appreciate each very important role we all play in this very fast evolution that our industry is going through. I especially liked what Noelle said about knowing our audiences intimately, the web is a portal, people date on the web, buy food on the web and even have sex on the web, how much more intimate can we get with our audiences than the web?

When I think about all of the issues being brought up in this blog and I look at what the web and interactive offers us as far as metrics, intimacy, results and the impact of the media itself it is quite clear that we can find most our solutions by embracing the web and accepting it as a major ad platform. Growth is painful and transitions can be awkward but when emotions and fears get involved with decisions and obvious choices, clients rely on agencies to be their eyes and ears, but when the eyes are shut to the obvious because the obvious forces change then it’s the clients who get burned and the industry as a whole suffers.

I think it is now our job to funnel the massive expansiveness of the web and its abilities into real solutions for our clients and to harness the power interactive presents to us as far as delivering the numbers, the results and the expectations of our clientele.

Defending the Web

I feel like I constantly have to defend the web, almost like a preacher defending a religion. I have been defending it since the mid 90s when I had to explain to my clients that the web isn’t going anywhere, that it wont go down and that it hold endless possibilities for creative messaging.

Here is a comment I recently made to add to my list of defensives…

Once again I feel the need to comment in the name of Interactive. We keep asking ourselves these questions of how sticky something is but it seems like an exercise in futility. Who can predict the fickle habits of the public? The web can! We know where people are going, where they came from and how long they stayed, we know what they looked at and what they clicked on and as Interactive evolves more and more into the top spot as the anchor of a campaign we can come up with more creative ways to market. For example, an interactive agency can potentially create two or three campaigns at once, if something isn’t working or need adjustment it could potentially be tweaked on the fly. The level of control is limitless. Agencies need to understand and embrace the flexibility of the medium to be able to feel out and test the public reactions as they change. The web is a dynamic world, results are practically instant and adjustments can be made based on feedback, its interesting that any interactive project can be deemed a failure, unless it is way off the mark, but when adjustments need to be made or a direction needs some tweaking it can be done in a million different creative ways. I think that people are real and when dealing with the fantasy world of advertising and the over hyping of products and services of our clients we need to understand that people know that realistic expectations are set based on exaggerations and that those exaggerations are simply a form of entertainment of sorts to help create an emotional attachment to the brand and just like a relationship needs to be coddled and formed so to does the user, before now you got what you got because the medium only allowed for static presentations but the expectations set by the web now create a demand by the public for more effort from the advertisers to entice their audiences. Attention is hard to get in this world of many distractions and in order to grab that attention we need to understand the more complex habits of the consumers and how they want to be marketed to. The web offers us so many more opportunities for success and if used correctly our failure rate should decrease dramatically as long as the campaign is on target. The question posed was What Sticks? But perhaps we should be asking ourselves How Many Chances to We Get to Make it Stick? You can never know for sure is something is going to work but the web offers us the ability to at least adjust if we see that it isn’t working.

Creative Approval

Creative is probably the most unpredictable aspect of our game. Why? Because there is so much emotion involved. A good creative will not always be recognized by all and often times even the most perfect comp is going to get dragged over hot coals because of a lack of faith on the part of the client and the fact that clients simply think that they MUST comment or change something to get more bang for their buck.

I dream of the day I submit a creative and hear the client say “Wow that is perfect”, to me that would be paradise.

Many production schedules have been compromised because the client simply cannot sign off on a creative. Another issue is that clients often times look too hard, I compare it to looking at a word long enough and eventually the word looks silly. That is what tends to happen with client reviews, they are over examined from the get go and there is no faith that the design will be flushed out as the project goes on.

Signing off on a creative should mean that everyone is on the same page, that the overall creative works, it is the job of the designers to make sure that before anything is launched that every detail and idea is carefully touched up. Clients are not in the creative field and when you put something in front of them they most likely don’t know how to properly evaluate it the way a professional art director or creative director would.

Clients must realize that when hiring a creative firm they are not just paying them money but also putting their faith in the expertise and talent of the creative team. On the flip side the creative team should make the client a “believer” so to say in their abilities to produce effective materials. A perfect creative is a rarity and to come across it means that the client trusted and believed in their creative team completely and that the creative team fully understood the objectives of the client.

Many clients haven’t clearly defined their objectives and that results in a creative that simply doesn’t work for the client. When the creative team and the client are really on the same page and communication is wide open then and only then do clients feel a better comfort level in the work produced. So next time your struggling with a client approval you should ask yourself if the client has clearly defined the objectives and if not perhaps ask the client to clearly write out what they are and compare it to the work presented. The client should also take a bit of a leap of faith and let the creative team do what it does best.

Just like a doctor who has performed a thousand surgeries is trusted based on past performance, a creative team gains its trust on the fact that it has delivered effective designs in the past. Nothing will ever be perfect.

A small side note… isn’t it strange how the less a project budget is the more carefully the design is scrutinized?

Customer = Customize

Customer = Customize

C'mon, try it, everyone is doing it... seems to be the corporate theme today. Customization is what I had been dreaming of since I was a wee lad. Painting my G.I. Joes and adding badges and new uniform mods, crazy gluing new panels to my Transformers to get them to the exact ultra coolness that I desired, even putting stickers on my old NES to get that perfect custom look I needed to have. I even wrote an article on this exact topic discussing how all the girls in junior high were so sweet on all my custom bleached Champion sweatshirts. The CONSUMER MASSIAH HAS ARRIVED!

Every company out there is working on some new customizable product, something that they can sell the masses but make every single one of those people feel like the product they have is a one of a kind. Granted some products are simply very difficult to customize but items like clothing, shoes, paint, computers, and yes even cars are all now available to be customized.

I attribute all of this to the Internet. When in history have we been able to log into a site and choose the color, size, fabric, trim, paint, roof, tires, flavor, and whatever else is offered up on a particular product? Trendwatching.com says about customization and I quote "still the biggest, most promising trend in the world of business." I simply love the definition they posted on the topic its as clear as I have seen it anywhere:

“The phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in (and rewarding them for) what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed.”

Well said TrendWatching.com!! So companies finally decided that it is the consumers who have all the answers and that we actually do know what the hell we want and not only do we give the corporations the ideas for the products but we get to pay full price for them as well. Does this seem weird to anyone? Basically they tell us, we will let you tell us what you want, we will let you help us build it for you, design it and even market it and then we will let you go pay even more than you would have paid for the product before you customized it, now thats amazing! What a concept!

Lets take a look at the past. You had a tailor who would make you custom clothing based on your exact measurements, you would choose a collar style, cuff style, fabric, color and all the little details that go into making a customized piece of clothing and then he would sew it and deliver it personally to you and you would pay him top dollar for it rather than going to a department store and taking something off the rack. Makes sense?

Now you have companies like Nike, Scion, Fila, Puma and Mini all letting customers customize their products and you have companies like MasterCard, FireFox (Mozilla), L’Oreal and Chevy actually letting people create commercials. Trust me this is only a small list of companies leading the charge. Now that we have identified what is going on, lets ask another question, what does this mean?

The way I see it is that we are all humans, we all have common physical desires, interests and we all more or less fall into specific genres or interest groups, tribes and clans. We cannot escape human nature and its need to progress, to hunt and gather in its most primitive way yet using all of our wonderful technology and progress to drag back the most perfect Bison back to the cave. I use the term Webicratic for my Blog because I want to illustrate how the web is unifying and giving a voice to the people, actually allowing for a visible creative and collective consciousness to occur, so lets term this new wave Consumercratic as in letting the people drive the types of products that enter the market and literally dictate not only how they want them delivered but even how they want them marketed to the people.

Customer to car dealer - "I would like the car in Black, with Silver trim, Red seats, Orange panel, a killer MP3 system, 5.1 speakers, rear wheel drive and by the way tell me that it will make me sexier and faster than anyone else out there." Thanks!

Steve Ballmer has no shame

Steve Ballmer has no shame. He is personally trying to stand up and become the hero at Microsoft as its cold war against Google continues.

Microsoft, a hint: BUY YAHOO!!!

I have been saying for years, and actually developed and implemented what I have been preaching, ONLINE APPLICATIONS!!!! The web can now serve full blown applications that most businesses use, be it eMail, document publishing, interactive, whatever!

In my opinion Microsoft is looking worse and worse by the day. Ballmer is the worst "knight in shining amour" I have ever seen not to mention this past week Bill telling the world he wishes he weren’t the richest man alive!! What is going on? I have noticed that while every other company in the world is stepping up their images and getting into all kinds of cool viral, interactive, brand experience type of campaigns, Microsoft has done the opposite, no cool ads, nothing breakthrough and honestly no buzz whatsoever, how long do they think they can ride the dominance card they held for so long?

Apple is approaching... Apple is coming and Apple plays nicely with what the consumers want and need. iLife is taking the video, audio, iPod and every other personal application by storm, GRANDMOTHERS HAVE iPODS!!! Now that is penetration and conversion!

I’m ranting, happens when I get emotional and forget the rules of writing. Buts it’s my Blog so I can do that here.

My point! Microsoft has issues, major issues...

The name Microsoft - nothing cool about micro and only makes us think about how big their vision is and soft, well who wants soft? Even those cool Swedish pillows I love are hard, soft is done!

The Domination - Done, over caput! Google has offered all of us regular folk word processing, image, mapping and every other app FOR FREE!!!! and no one even thinks twice about making Google the home page on their browsers. Perhaps Google should create their own Broswer... OH WAIT! isn’t that Fire Fox?

The Image - OLD! People with dinosaur heads? C'mon that’s probably what it looks like over at Microsoft corporate headquarters.

Products - When will Microsoft fall? I predict when they fail to launch the new Windows OS. Apple is light years ahead of them in that realm. Soon Google will launch a word processing app as well as a spreadsheet and then its over, done, bye bye Microsoft, it will be a period of transition where companies will need to have whole staffs employed in burning all of the old Microsoft apps.

I love revolutions, I am a fan of Russian history, this is American history, and we aren’t involved in bloody battles of ideas rather corporate battles of position within markets. Bill had his run, it was good, got us to where we are today, he set the bar and it was smashed twice over, now step aside and let the real creative take over and run this industry into the next phase.

Google, Apple, Adobe come on up, its your turn...

Microsoft, IBM, SUN see ya guys, don’t let the door hit you on the way out...

Channel Internet - Video

Video has become the new trend on the web these days, so many sites are popping up offering to host video online for free.

Sites like Youtube.com and Google Video as well as corporate sites like Chevy, Old Spice and even a great site from PBS letting young kids create powerful content as well.

I recently had a friend of mine who is living in the Ukraine and who is a film maker tell me about his ability to post his films online and get a massive audience and even get some calls from news services and agencies that want to use his content. I find this to be revolutionary. What I love is that corporations, BIG companies are posting commercials and allowing users to post their own home made commercials online for everyone to see. This is truly viral, and in my opinion as Webicratic as it gets. I was amazed at some of the talent out there, high school kids creating amazing content. Where will this take us? What i like about this new trend is that it raises the bar for Hollywood content, with Flash going where its going and video being as easy as it is now to create we may find ourselves faced with an opossing force. The Public Vs. The Industry. I like competition, its healthy and it gives everyone the opportunity to "make it". So to all those starving artists out there fire up those computers and get to work, the stage is set now create!