My Two Cents

Credit has been a topic that has been long looming over the interactive industry for sometime now.

The traditional agency and digital agency relationship has blossomed into a full blown collaborative marriage and the lines of vendor client relationship have been blurred to look more like full on creative collaboration.

My gut instincts tell me that the topic hasn't been fully addressed until now because in many cases it is really not that big of an issue when you boil it down to the root of why credit is so important.

At the end of the day its not really a deal breaker between either client or digital vendor.

This is an issue that needs to be evolved more than it needs to be solved. Similar to the way Hollywood shares credit when awards are doled out for best picture. The CG team doesn’t come up for the award, MAYBE they get mentioned in the thank you speech but that is definitely not to be expected and if they aren't mentioned there isn't some big press release as to why or why not. They get their own award for technical achievement in some secondary award show that isn't televised.

Again this debate only exists in the very ego-centric realm of recognition, awards.

At the end of the day its about doing great work and feeling great about the work that we do. Its about creating something positive for our culture and work that advances us as an industry.

Unless the project is simply amazing and the budget is paltry, credit can sometimes be a factor in making the decision as to the worth of taking the project on or not.

Sometimes a PR project comes along and its not about the money but more about what kind of amazing things you can do with the brand and showcase your studio’s skills using the brand as the stage. In that case credit is critical and needs to be negotiated at the onset of the project. I cannot remember a single case where we turned down good money on a project where the client absolutely refused or simply could not give credit where credit was due.

I have personally produced a number of great projects that have won awards but will never have my name or the name of the shop I was with associated with its credit.

Its not entirely a bad thing.

Humility sometimes rears its awkward face in times when its hard to be humble, and maybe its a lesson we must embrace in order to not lose site of the big picture. Great work, regardless of accolades and awards.

There is rarely a case where a digital shop didn’t get public credit but couldn't show the work to a potential client or agency in order to get new work. Even if they aren't allowed to list it on their website portfolio it can still be part of an internal presentation for business development.

At the end of the day the level of credit should be equal to the overall level of involvement with any given project. A digital shop cannot expect to receive full credit for executing an agency’s vision, regardless of how awesome the digital execution is. But if the digital shop DID indeed conceive the idea or alter it enough for full credit to be given, then that is the case in which the agency needs to step up and give credit where it is due.

Most digital agencies and 14 year old kids can build a simple web site, only a select few can build a website exceptionally well. Even fewer can conceptualize, script, shoot, frame 3D, and produce an entire campaign without the ideas and assets (footage, copywriting, etc.) that the traditional agency delivers. So no matter how important the digital shop was in the execution, the efforts put fourth by the traditional agency cannot be ignored no matter how minimal because ultimately it is a vendor client relationship where the traditional agencies are delivering a product that will determine if they keep their clients business or not.

We need to all understand how symbiotic this new dynamic is and be sensitive to every collaborator when it comes to credit so that we all win in the end.

This kind of public strife shines a negative light and doesn’t help the advancement of the shifts that are taking place one bit, resistances are natural and healthy but need to be overcome in mature and fair ways.

We need to all play nice.

Lebowitz and his shop Big Spaceship should have gotten mention from BBDO and had their efforts recognized during the acceptance speech or in some print ads thanking them for all they contributed. BBDO deserves the award for collaborating with Big Spaceship on this website and having the wisdom of knowing that only a top notch digital shop could have pulled the site off as well as they did.

We need to evolve together and share the praise as well as the criticism of our industry and be a more cohesive network of creative professionals.

Big Mouth

Friends and close industry folks have asked me to comment about the recent statements made by Big Spaceship CEO, Michael Lebowitz at Cannes regarding the HBO Voyeur project his company collaborated on with BBDO.

As someone who works in, and closely monitors, our industry I felt it was an important enough topic to deserve a blog entry.

In my humble opinion this is probably one of the most important and hottest topics of this year.

Let's set the scene:

A steamy, sultry, passionate French summer in Cannes, the worlds most creative minds attending the Oscars of the ad industry, hotels, bars, clubs, halls, streets, teeming with ad agency brass, hungry and rabid for that Golden Royal Feline set in their cross hairs and waiting to poach it up for their shelves back in NYC.

Emotions are on high, the competitive fierceness has been unleashed.

A year wrought with anxiety and fear of the silent industry tectonic shifts between traditional and digital, causing all kinds of eruptions across the creative landscape.

Each side battling for dominance in this lavish world of shiny and technologically polished ideas.

France, the country of love, emotion, heartbreak and despair.

The place of ex patriots who have fled their home lands in order to find themselves through the eyes of a country known for its outspoken rebelliousness and uprise.

Thoughts weigh heavier in this French air, much harder to keep to ones self in the midst of competition.

A judge, Mr. Lebowitz, sitting on high looking down at the piranha snapping at the prize.

Reality kicks in as he watches someone else walk away with his prize, that coveted Lion is being carried away farther from its source, the shop who toiled to earn its merit.

Michael Lebowitz, CEO of well known digital shop Big Spaceship, the creators of the website that took home top honors at Cannes this year. As he sits at the judges table, seething with animosity and disdain for the lack of fairness being displayed right in front of his eyes.

Why not have Lebowitz himself present David Lubars of BBDO the award for the HBO Voyeur website?

Opinion versus Fact

Most industry people will say that BBDO owned the idea and they simply contracted Big Spaceship to "code it up".

Others will say that Big Spaceship took an idea that lived outside of the web and digitized it to work on the most powerful media platform known to man.

This is a topic that is going to become increasingly hotter and hotter as the internet becomes the "official" launch pad for most or all ad campaigns.

Being able to translate an idea from the bowels of a brand into the digital world completely integrated with interactivity, entertainment, illusion and inspiration is no small task. Some would say it is the most detailed and intrinsic role of any campaign today.

Voice of Reason

Lebowitz simply took that first step into the parted ocean and spoke up for what he saw as the truth. He let his emotions run free and what better place to kick up some dirt and peer into "the often uncomfortable relationships between ad agencies and digital specialists" than Cannes, France.

Like a lovers quarrel while on a holiday, Lebowitz took this opportunity to speak his mind and attempted to defend the smaller digital shops against the mighty ad agency that often times takes most or full credit for an idea born again in a digital world. Ideas that could have only been given birth to by the digital shop that was inseminated by the agency to translate their concepts on the web.

Rupal Parekh, a writer for Ad Age covering this story, enumerated this relationship in the following statement,

"Increasingly, agencies are becoming a kind of hub that marshals other resources, from digital experts to production companies, on behalf of clients."

If this is indeed the case then it should be the digital agency that walk away with the honors and the traditional agency simply patting themselves on the back for finding the perfect match to bring their ideas to life.

However, it is true that the traditional agency is the birthplace for the concept. It is the traditional agency that has won and maintained a relationship with the client and ultimately holds in its back pocket the client's trust. And it is the traditional agency that did ultimately make the decision to choose a particular shop to collaborate and execute their idea digitally.

Why should they not get all or most of the credit for orchestrating this difficult process?

I strongly disagree with Rupal Parekh. Agencies do indeed marshal resources in order to translate ideas digitally, however those ideas still remain the property of those agencies and at the end of the day it is the agency that brings the overall idea to the digital shop to execute. Ownership is never transferred.

Now don't get me wrong, I am fully behind the reasons for why Lebowitz said what he said but what I am not behind is what is seemingly being built up as a war between traditional and digital agencies.

BBDO had every right to take credit or share credit for the work, they rightfully won the awards for the concepts that they delivered to Big Spaceship.

However because Big Spaceship so perfectly executed that idea in the digital space and it was that very space that launched this idea into the stratosphere, BBDO should have made mention and even shared the honors with their partner.

It was the lack of recognition that charged Lebowitz with emotion to speak out against his agency partners, it was the blatant disrespect for the ability to take an idea and bring it to life in a totally new and powerful way that was completely dishonored here and that is where the unfairness resides.

Lebowitz is 100% correct in saying that the award shows are just as guilty for not recognizing the digital efforts put into a campaign and to award them based on those merits alone.

We as an industry need to step forward and realize that every aspect of a campaign requires a completely new set of rules in its execution of an idea and even though that idea has originated from a different source, it takes on a whole new life once it is given into the hands of those who re-birth it on the web or any other emerging platform.

No one is to blame, these are simply growing pains.

Lebowitz spoke up and I respect him for his emotional honesty and his passion for our medium.

BBDO did as they have always done as a traditional agency and simply haven't gotten used to the fact that the digital shop plays a much larger role in a campaign.

Cannes needs to get with the times and start sharing the love with everyone who plays a major role in the idea becoming part of pop culture.

Let's not create a stand off and a cold war that will only hurt the "ideas" being collaborated on. We all need one another so lets realize that sensitivities need to be met and that credit should be paid where it is due.

Lebowitz and Lubars need to get on a web cam and hug this out and be a shining example for the positive direction we all must go in.

Digital and Traditional are now tied at the hip. We are at a cross roads and we must decide on a path, it can be laden with thistles and thorns or an illuminated golden path that leads to a new age of ideas and creativity.

Let's choose carefully.

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A Summer Supposition

It is now 12:51 am on a Wednesday night and my intemperate love for the web has led me down another path in which I will once again try my best to make an indelible observation that may or may not offer to shed a new light on what seems like an illimitable subject.

It is now 12:56 am and I have decided that I have way too much work tomorrow to sit here and pontificate on the cultural nuances of the internet.

Plus its really hard to think with that annoying white hum of the air conditioning, its not just my apartment, I feel like I can hear every air conditioner in Manhattan, collectively churning out that cool dehumidified thermal comfort.

NYC seems to get into character in the summer time.

The sweltering heat is so indicative of the NYC persona this time of year.

NYC in the summer is a tall, slender man in a gray suit. Worn out at the limb bends, pilled and sweat stained, smoke stenched jacket hanging over the back of his broken leather chair.

His lady bent sideways hips and hoops, draped over him, hot as asphalt.

His cup filled with hops, scotch and ash.

The winning pitch, the big idea, just above his head like a brumous cloud settling upon that bridge to Brooklyn.

His eyes carry a crepuscular charisma, his hair less kept.

Deep in thought he sells his soul to the devil, for conjecture.

But then again conjecture sells...

OK its 1:17am and I think I have satisfied my desire to write.

Not sure I said anything, or that I really needed to say anything, just felt like acknowledging the heat.

Data Viz Update

As a follow-up to my article on data visualization I wanted to point out that Read Write Web has one of the most comprehensive data visualization lists I have ever seen.

Really impressive and one well worth studying.

Thanks RWW!!

Check it out here

Breakin the Law

This is a response to an article that RGA CCO Nick Law had penned in Creativity.

Check it out here

I am a huge fan of Mr. Law and respect pretty much everything he has to say, however I disagree with his ideas about the diversity of teams in our industry.

Idealistically he is 100% correct, however in real practice we still need to go out and mine the ideas, to look for them like gold and diamonds and to bring them in and communicate them in the most creative ways possible. No one team member is going to consistently come up with new ideas and even the story teller role is limited to the exposure they have gotten in their lifetime.

The old guard knew how to tell a story, they were immigrants, they were refugees, they were idealists who were laying the foundation for a new world, however we are the spoiled great grandchildren who are still living off of the fat of our forefathers, we need to somehow find our voice and speak from that place genuinely.

This is why the user generated content trend has lasted so long. Its genuinely raw. That is what the old Mad Men had over us, they told stories the way people wanted to hear them. We tend to repackage everything and pay little attention to the lack of substance in our campaigns.

YES! We do need a new role of the story teller, the narrative craftsman who can weave the tale in an interactive and entertaining way that translates to the mediums that we are now executing for.

BUT...

In all respect, Mr. Law, I think your being a bit too idealistic. I agree that the creative tent needs diversity and that has always been the desire of the entertainment/ad/creative world, to capture the hidden moments and human nuance that makes us all laugh, cry and think.

To tell a story and to involve those who you would never think would allow themselves to open up and shine a light on those small dark spots we call intrigue. To celebrate our humanity through creativity and to ultimately sell products and services based on the obvious needs our complex human race and its many facets.

However... it is our jobs as creatives, technologists and producers to find these rays of light, and then to put them on a stage.

They are NOT in the tent nor do they belong in the tent, they are hidden gems out there ready to be mined. We need to extend ourselves beyond the confines of our offices and to glean the stories that are out there and to retell them in the ways only we as a creative industry can.

That is what makes a good creative better than the next.

Storytellers and stories worth telling are the clovers in the field for us to find.

They are not under our desks or in our offices, they are walking around in the streets and fields of the world.

Mitochondrial Web

The advertising industry is like a giant tributary of creativity feeding the internet with what seems to be a never ending stream of content.

The financial world is blazing across the bandwidth offering people opportunities to buy anything and manage their monetary assets in all kinds of flexible ways.

The educational world is ridding itself of the confines of the classroom and spreading its wings across a network of unlimited knowledge.

Commerce is booming in this digital shuk offering buyers products never before attainable at any price one chooses.

Community and communications has become an open stream connecting people from past present and into the future.

Every single day is another surprise, full of new visual toys and entertaining and interactive websites to play with. It is like a sea, a giant ocean teeming with intelligent life in the form of art, design and information technology.

Looking back at the late 90's it now occurs to me that this was the internet's version of the Big Bang not the Bubble Bust.

I feel extremely lucky to be a part of the birth of this new online realm, its like finding a new planet with life on it, a new societal platform that is going through very similar growth and development pattern as the very planet we live on. Perhaps we can learn from our past mistakes throughout history so that we do not replicate them, virtually, in this new online world that we live in.

The Internet gave life to a world teeming with intelligent technology, it has rejuvenated a world that was starving for better ways to communicate and has built bridges that would connect us as a global nation. It exposes to those who are lacking in cultural luxuries the ability to indulge in them and to cultivate original thought, education, creativity and opinion.

The landscape was raw, its resources limited and its potential unknown. The first signs of life that started to develop as primitive incarnations of what we know today were struggling just to stay alive, fed with venture capitol, youthful ideas and over-inflated expectations, it lasted just long enough so that the evolutionary process could take.

In a primitive world where survival was key the web set up fierce battles of the delivery services that ran in packs on bikes and vans delivering a can of coke and a pint of Ben & Jerry's to anyone who would log on and request it. You had web currencies that ran themselves into early extiction.

Travel sites promising carpet rides to the moon and the amazonian commerce sites that now quietly lay below the surface of the waters still vicious and deadly like mighty crocodiles who devour the herds as they must cross through the shallow waters with only one or two making it to the other side; bruised and bitten.

The giant search engines roamed freely with very limited purpose other that to use their mighty necks to see above the landscape. They too fell one by one as the evolution of the search became a mighty intelligent being that does all.

The once fierce GIF and the nimble JPG have been overtaken by the sleek and elegant SWF and the the regal Quicktime.

It seems that we have sped through the prehistoric age of the web, the speed of its advancement has accelerated its evolution and we are now embarking on a new age.

The bust was a bang and that bang has shattered across the world.

The Internet age has begun.

Creative Codex

Books are a legacy. They are the only real fossil an artist can leave behind in this world. A bound and organized object that houses his thoughts, art, work, pictures or words. A book that can be handed down from generation to generation as gifts to the posterity of those who are yet on this earth.

I recently made a book for my children this fathers day that captured our greatest moments, I got this book today and I can honestly say that this is truly the greatest $30 anyone can ever spend in a lifetime.

I create websites for some of the largest clients in the world, but after creating one of these books for my kids I can truly tell you that there is no better feeling in teh world.

APPLE did NOT pay me for this! I promise.

Go to iPhoto and check out the Create a Book feature and go crazy! I did and I am really impressed with the results.

Trust me on this one.

Clap Clap!

How much more jealous can I get of this shop?

They just don't quit with putting out simply awe inspiring work. The latest digital symphony of pure genius and today's FWA winner is for Softbank and its called Hello World.

This new site defines a style for a medium that has no set specific style yet everything about this site screams "WEB".

The quirkiness is pure Japanese charm and what better way to keep users on the site than a catchy tune and chorus of every element on the page clapping. I cant stop, I love the avatars, they are strangely human as looked at with Internet Glasses.

Hello World, The Elastic Mind for MOMA, The Drop Clock, oh! and anything UNIQLO

This is the year of tha ltd. what they have done so far this year alone is monumental.

Hats off to tha ltd. these guys are serious about what they do, they shape our medium with every site they put out, never the same old, always something inspiring.

These guys don't waste their time with big brands that put out the same sites every day, they never execute anything just for the sake of executing it, they create pure inspirational masterpieces with brands that strangely adapt to their style rather than tha ltd. adapting to a particular brand.

They are the template for what success is in this business.

tha ltd. is definitely the coolest kid in the school yard, tha ltd.

Can I be your friend??

Deity Envisage: From Lascaux to Gutenberg to PaperVision3D

Historical Context

Data visualization is the ancient technique for communicating a message through visual means. The earliest visualization of data was found in a cave in Lascaux, in the southern part of France. It was the famous cave drawing called "The Stag Frieze" and it is one of mankind's oldest known attempts at visual communication. The drawing depicts a group of stags, their heads and shoulders, in what some interpret as a scene of stags crossing a river. It was originally supposed to depict stags running in a field, but legend has it that the client made a last minute change based on a different brand strategy devised by the agency's new creative director.

Ok, early cavemen didn't strategize about brand identity, but they did understand the importance of communicating important messages through graphic visualization. One of humankind's greatest attributes is communication and all of the various ways we are able to achieve it. Since the dawn of time man has been drawing on walls, floors and on pretty much any surface that his messages would adhere to.

Early cave people didn’t have Photoshop on a MacBook Pro, so they employed the use of crude paints made of berries and other organic materials to communicate on walls. The Egyptians took it a step further and innovated with hieroglyphs that would cover the halls of great palaces and tombs, communicating all that transpired throughout their rich history. In the 3rd century the Greeks created geometry where the questioning of the size, shape and relative position of figures and their properties would tell a story all its own.

In the 13th Century, Gutenberg invented the printing press, and in the 1500s a man by the name of Leonardo Da Vinci, a scientist, mathematician, engineer, painter, sculptor, writer, and above all else the Senior Art Director of the Renaissance, single handedly ushered humanity into the future in one giant leap forward with his infinite curiosity and ability to communicate through, you got it, data visualization!

Data Visualization in Modern Times

More recently, in the 1980s and 90s, Edward Tufte, a professor of statistics, information design, interface design, and political economy at Yale, has been called by The New York Times, the “da Vinci of Data”. His three books, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative are sacred tomes for anyone interested in the topic.

Most people know the term "data visualization" from the multiple choice question on their computer science final in college. What most people do not realize is that data visualization is something we all use every single day.

All of our visual communications are in some form data visualization. Everywhere you look data is being visualized right in front of our eyes. Today's data visualization is mostly generated by the use of computers and are often interactive visual interpretations of abstract data that convey complex messages.

Until recently data visualization required the power of super computers and mad scientists who would be crazy enough to endeavor to crunch all types of complex permutations. Isosurfaces, volume rendering, streamlines, streak-lines, path-lines, tables, matrixes, graphs, maps, Chernoff faces, Hyperbolic trees, parallel coordinates and one of my personal favorites the Venn diagram.

Today it’s gotten a bit easier. Let’s not forget the popular and familiar charts, the ones we love to use in our PowerPoint presentations, the pie, the bar, the histogram and the function graph, oh and the lesser known scatter plot.

Those 10,000 songs you have in your iPod are able to be conjured up during your daily commute because of the wonderful innovations in data visualization. The cool dials on your car are a form of data visualization, and on the internet more and more web sites are employing data visualization as a means of navigating through tremendous amounts of data.

On The Web Today

Our industry is all about communicating messages and the internet is hands down the most powerful tool ever created to amplify communication.

Today programmers are also designers, and they are producing animated design schemes that house massive amounts of data stored behind any product, brand, or service. The use of technologies such as Flash, databases, Processing, Papervision 3D and the like allow us to really stretch the imagination and visualize data in all sorts of crazy and creative ways.

Today data visualization is not only beautiful to look at but completely interactive, everything you input in is immediately thrown right back at you in a breathtaking and entertaining and spectacular format that opens up new worlds of art and understanding to the user. We no longer need processor intensive server farms that are crunching billions of bytes of information a second. Today a typical home computer connected to the internet and most of our everyday programs offer us beautiful data visualization options that allow us to make better decisions as well as simply entertain us. One of my personal favorites is the iTunes visualizer that uses sound data to create amazing imagery that can keep a person occupied for hours on end.

Below are some recent examples of very well executed data visualization websites:

I Want You To Want Me - Click to View

One of the pre-eminent data visualization artists working today has to be Jonathan Harris. His bio says he “designs systems to explore and explain the human world”.

He’s done incredible and well-know data visualization projects such as www.wefeelfine.org and www.thewhalehunt.org. His latest work was commissioned by MoMA for the recent Design and the Elastic Mind show. The system created by Harris and partner on the project, Sep Kamvar, aggregates data from the world’s most active online dating websites and then presents it all on a 56” high-resolution touch screen interactive installation of a gorgeous design interface.

Word Diamonds - Click to View

One of the more interesting recent uses of data visualization is for the oldest and most popular volume of text known to man. The Holy Bible has been completely visualized through an amazing new website created by Freedom + Partners.

The project is called WordDiamonds.com and its is one of the most unique data visualization engines available on the internet today. You don't have to be religious to appreciate the breadth of this project. The Bible has always been studied through the means of referencing and cross referencing, through searching and finding the hidden gems on every page and unearthing the secrets of man and his connection to a higher force.

Commissioned by a private client, Freedom + Partners have stepped outside of the ad world in order to challenge its creative and technical muscles and to solve a puzzle that has always been a difficult one for man to sink his teeth into. To visualize the breadth of the Biblical texts, to enhance it with a powerful search function that puts every verse literally a click away, to make notes, compare and contrast with friends and loved ones and to even use it as a personal study and guidance tool for life, if one so chooses.


Spectra Visual Newsreader - Click to View

Spectra merges the news spectrum and the color spectrum into an expansive news viewing experience that delights the senses. With comprehensive live news coverage, striking design, complete customization, dynamic browsing, human body interaction and many other unique features, Spectra brings A Fuller Spectrum of News to life in MSNBC's most immersive extension yet. The site was a collaboration between SS+K and their development partner, Fluid.

Hello World Softbank - Click to View

Another very eclectic and special website created by Tha Ltd.

“HELLO, WORLD! SoftBank”, filled with touches of Yugo Nakamura’s brilliance, for the SoftBank telecommunications group (SoftBank Mobile, SoftBank BB and SoftBank Telecom), proposes a new and fun visual playground for the group to communicate their growing services and offers.

Toyota HSD - Click to View

Saatchi & Saatchi and Firstborn developed this rich user experience for Toyota hybrid owners – a virtual community website where hybrid owners can connect and share their reasons for purchasing a hybrid vehicle. Members can upload video and photo testimonials to demonstrate their reasons. The community is full of useful tidbits such as: quizzes, statistics, and FAQs to help create a cleaner and better future. Meet new friends, chat with other hybrid owners and share your reason for driving a Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive® vehicle.

As more complex data continues to become a larger and more prevalent part of our lives we as artists, marketers, sales people, brand advocates and advertisers, must master the practice of presenting complex data to our instantly gratified audiences in inspirational and prolific visual ways.

Fortunately for us, the internet is our cave, so let’s go crazy and write all over its wonderfully sticky walls for the future to see!

Alcohol-tinged Metallurgy??

Metallurgy is a pretty harsh term but I guess thats what it takes to win a Creativity Award, those blocks are pretty dope, Id love to win like 50 of them and build something really cool.

Congrats to all the winners, the party was killer! Ran into David Droga, definitely "up there" in terms of people I truly admire, the new magazine rocks!!

Thanks Creativity, great party!

Seasoned Phronesis and A Side of Sophia

As we round the bend here in the 2.0nd lap of the Internet grand prix, neck in neck, tight packs at blinding speeds, all neatly nestled, gently shunting one another to gain a slight lead, the much needed pit stops and then the checkered flags, flash bulbs popping every second, the smell of burning rubber, the occasional crash and burn and the sight of skid marks strewn all over the landscape, the excitement of the race is really what makes this interactive industry so special.

I liken the industry to an auto race not because I am any kind of NASCAR Fan, I honestly know nothing about it, however I do know that when I look at a race it completely reminds me of my work week. How fast I need to get things done, how amazingly fast everything is.

Our world is very different from those in finance, civil service, publishing, fine dining, nonprofit and other industries, however like those other industries we are thoroughly human in every sense of the word, yet at the same time for 80-120 hours a week we create for, and live on and in this completely inhuman machine.

As "interactive" professionals we tend to be highly emotional, passionate, aggressive and competitive, we embody extremely exaggerated emotions and personality traits for a group that communicates, lives in and creates ideas and content for a virtual world.

It is almost as if we need to over compensate for the fact that we are buried in conference rooms and behind computers all day long and in many cases all night long.

The many wonderfully strange and creative personalities who drive the diverse cars in this giant race throughout the interactive industry tend to be people who are very exacting yet abstract, creative yet extremely scientific, bold and daring yet cautious and timid and extremely intelligent in terms of how much we have to actually know from a trend, technology, psychological, physical and business point of view. It is a very polar environment to say the least.

As a father I love watching my kids grow up, it never ceases to amaze me how spectacular maturation is and how impressionable its evolution is and how it is effected by everything around it.

No matter how hard you plan, organize, specify, and try to control the environment around the child it is inevitable that its maturation is ultimately out of your control.

As professionals in this very young industry where environmental control, precision and creativity are all meticulously filtered through media like krill through baleen, where everything is carefully scrutinized and then swallowed only to be spit out again and reused. Where sensitivities are put aside, we tend to develop a tough skin after a while as to not let every detail drive us insane. We now stand, tough skinned and weathered ready to take on the next phase of our maturation.

It has been about 10-12 years since the big boom, the bang, the divergent evolution that resulted in the increasing morphological difference between who we are now and what we were 10 years ago. Those of us who have survived that evolutionary shift have absorbed the lingering effect of the once doubted but now highly touted internet and have attained the experience and knowledge and an almost practical wisdom for something that is very impractical. It is something that we have gained from what we have observed, developed for, designed around, encountered, and undergone.

I started this entry with a rather haughty and pseudo-intellectual title, I am sure many people didn't quite get its source. I will explain.

The great Aristotle produced a work (I do not believe it won an FWA or a Webby) called Nichomachean Ethics, what this work is comprised of is ten volumes of his lectures at the Lyceum just outside the walls of Athens (not South By South West) and the works focus on the importance of behaving virtuously and developing a virtuous character.

Aristotle's definition of virtuous was "a person who was able to recognize the best possible course of action for any given challenge." By doing this a person would reach a state of eudaimonia (happy state of mind) and would therefore not be effected by all the other small petty bull shit that would typically ruin a person's Monday morning.

The first word used in the title is Phronesis, this is a Greek word typically translated as "practical wisdom" and its concern is with the particulars, it is involved with how to act correctly in particular situations. Phronesis is about applying the best possible principles of action, but applying them in the real world or in this case the virtual world of the internet, in situations that a person is not prepared for but one that we would attempt to create, based on the killer proposal we just submitted and got a sign off on! This requires extensive experience of the advertising, design, development, technology and internet worlds.

The second term I used in the title of this entry is Sophia, this is the Greek word for wisdom or the ability to discern universal truths.

The combination of these two virtues is what we call maturation.

This is the main topic of this entry - Maturation.

I can go on and on about maturation of ones personality, of ones relationships and of ones self but we all know that we are probably one of the most immature industries that exist or that have ever existed, I think the circus might be a close one but they took things pretty seriously up on those high wire acts. We play video games and wear funny sneakers, we blog and surf the web, chat and come up with funny ideas all day and then as a reward we are challenged to make those ideas come to life in all kinds of different ways.

Aristotle was quoted as saying "Whereas young people (young designers and developers) become accomplished in geometry and mathematics (flash and motion graphics), and wise within these limits (able to make them kick ass), prudent young people do not seem to be found (Shit always happens and the project some how gets shelved). The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars (strategic process management and clear vision of clients goals) as well as universals (money money money), and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it (about 10-12 years in this very young industry) (Nichomachean Ethics 1142 a)."

Your probably asking yourself, what drugs has the author ingested or inhaled, what does this have to do with anything?

Well if anyone reading this (Google analytics says that about 400 people should be reading this at this very minute) knows my style of writing and my passion for this business, will know that I am getting to a very serious conclusion.

The conclusion that I am getting to is the reason I joined the team at Freedom + Partners.

I had been pretty burned out after my years at Firstborn and was looking for something "different" something that made sense. Young sexy shops were opening up left and right but I just couldn't see myself at a place that would be making the same mistakes again and again and going through the growing pains of the industry, I didn't want to go to an agency because of the fact that its primary focus is not on interactive and they tend to be bogged down with bureaucracy.

Right now I am at Touro College in NYC, designing, developing, experimenting and innovating about 20 different websites. Loving the "hands on" in this safe cave i sit in. Im cozy next to my MacBook Pro and the warmth emanating from my cinema display. Im on a healthy diet of CS3, AS3, and some PHP. But I stir inside, I crave the speed of the race and my hibernation seems to be thawing itself.

The majority of my best work was done over at Firstborn, I love that place, its where I grew as a person and as a professional, it was the resistance I needed to build my interactive muscle and to gain the confidence and experience to take on ANY project that came my way.

When the news broke that Freedom Interactive Design (now called Freedom + Partners) had hired the former co-founder and creative director of Firstborn Vas Sloutchevsky and the 10 year vet, technology guru and CTO Robert Forras something in me clicked.

These were two men who I myself worked with and admired, something clicked in me that kind of made a lot of sense.

I realized that what I was looking for all this time was MATURATION!

It was not a new sexy shop that housed the best looking kids from Billysberg, or the agency that didn't get it, it was a mature, experience laden, interactive shop that had weathered the storms and had come out ready to take on the next set of challenges of our industry.

It was a shop that had people who embodied the phronesis and the sofia of this industry, a place to do things better, to apply the experience and to avoid the same stupid immature mistakes time and again.

So yes, i know this is just another plug for Freedom + Partners, a long, well thought out, mature, and experienced plug that will not only let you know who we are, but where we come from and where we are going.

It is a plug that lets you know that we represent the maturation of this young industry. We are all still fairly young, but all weathered, battle tested and mature in our field. We know how to communicate with our clients and how to hang out with our studio designers and developers, we are the vets who saw the beginning of this industry and helped shape its growth and now we are the ones who are ushering it along into its next phases.

Its not about the money, not about the awards, its about the idea and the execution. Its about applying our experience and to work hard.

We have nothing to prove to any one now other than to ourselves and that is to continue to lead by example and to help agencies, brands and clients all better understand how to make the transition from what we knew to what we now know.

Seasoned over the past 12 years, our now current core leadership at F+P has been responsible for some of the most talked about sites in the industry spanning from technology to beauty to entertainment, publishing, architecture, food and beverage and original content.

As a group of industry veterans we have all converged at F+P for the purpose of providing a more value added service based on experience to agencies and clients as well as providing leadership and maturation to this still young industry. Our goals are quite unique and very much rooted in where we all started and where the industry is today.

Freedom. The power to determine action without restraint, to think big and to think smart.

Plus. Is more value by the addition of experience, the positive sign that expresses our design and development culture.

Partners. All of the contributors in what we do – clients, staff and most important our end users.

Freedom + Partners

Get excited! A new site is coming soon.

Fontificate

Last year was the 50th anniversary since Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann created one of my favorite fonts, Helvetica.

Cheese making and dairying are certainly NOT the greatest export of the Swiss, rather this delicious and timeless font that has taken the world by storm ever since that historic day in 1957.

Like many other people in our industry I watched the documentary named Helvetica, directed by Gary Hustwit, out of respect and out of curiosity and a sense of historical pride. It was well done, informative and endearing, the sentimentality floods your heart and designers and visual aficionados everywhere were able to put into words their appreciation for this typeface.

I watched the movie again (I have it sitting on the desktop of my MacBook pro) and was instantly inspired, again!

Like Helvetica, this documentary was not intended for a one time use, but to fall in love again and again and to confirm your insistence of using it for so many different things.

Thanks Helvetica! Thanks again!

The FWA Commits Murder

Video did it, the internet did it and now the FWA did it!

MURDERERS! THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU!

Media loves to kill. The new must over take the old.

There is a rule and it kind of explains why sometimes bad things happen to the good.

When something is good its good! The perfect harmony and balanced perfection are obvious, but then it grows, its evolves and must now get better... in order for better to take root, the old good must be destroyed.

The FWA is good, no need to destroy it, its great! FWAtheater.com is not better, its different.

Its been 8 long years since the FWA started awarding websites day in and day out. After 8 years a new site has emerged.

The FWA Theater or as Rob might call it The FWA Theatre, has launched!

Video on the web has been the tiger crouching at the gates, its pounce has been a thing of beauty and who better than to document the best and the brightest than The FWA!

The convergence is here, video has made the web its home, and the FWA just became its den. The vastness of YouTube and the exactness of Hulu and ABC are for the masses, what Rob has given us once again is that spotlight, that magnifying glass to help us all see things a bit closer and help us all get better by wanting to beat out what we were just blown away by.

Every industry has a source, the creative womb where ideas are hatched and nurtured. Media is certainly one of the most creative industries in the world, music, movies, advertising and experimentation are all characters that play themselves out each day on the FWA and now they will come to life in the form of video, motion graphics, and anything else that cane be shown at around 24 frames per second.

I'm very excited about the new site and will now have to sacrifice sleep to stay on top of the best and the most creative out there.

Media has been slain once again.

Thanks Rob!

The Speed of Light

Warner Brothers clearly doesn't "get" the web. They clearly dont know what kind of gold mine they are sitting on and they clearly have no clue how to create an companion site for a movie that is literally BEGGING to be one of the most kick ass sites out there. They also clearly didn't realize that they already had assets to make this site one that would raise the bar instantly and make us all scratch our heads...

I saw Speed Racer last night, it was pure eye candy, a designers dream, I was like a kid in a candy store full of visual effects, the whole genre to me was so internet inspired in terms of its visual aesthetic and the studio could have easily taken this online into a companion site that would have blown its audiences away.

I went to the website when I got home, thinking someone like Big Spaceship or RED Interactive may have gotten their hands on the unbelievable assets from the movie, that maybe once I got there i would have been equally blown away with a plethora of more eye candy that I would be able to trip out on my computer screen.

WTF!!! Where was it? The site featured a game that was the equivalent to stepping into a steaming pile of shit on a hot summer day wearing a brand new pair of white air force ones.

Not one single piece of footage was re-purposed for the web and no effort whatsoever was put into any type of website that would solidify the audience that went out and loved this movie.

IT HAS JOHN GOODMAN!! That alone makes it great! The effects were butter! They were so colorful, so fresh and so playful that I was shocked that nothing else was done with them.

Warner Bros, if your reading this, THE NEW TREND IS TO RE-PURPOSE ALREADY EXISTING ASSETS TO CREATE AMAZING ONLINE COMPANION SITES!!!

Sorry but you guys really missed th boat on this one. The company I am with Freedom + Partners would have eaten this site alive if we were let loose in the footage room of this flick.

Why studios get it? Why? Its not complex, its screaming loudly! MAKE ME INTO A WEBSITE DESTINATION!! TO ENHANCE THE VALUE AND EXTEND THE EXPERIENCE OF THE FILM!

Bigger, Thicker, More Creative!

Just got back from the Creativity Awards at the West Side Loft was a great venue, had some fun some drinks and some M&Ms - didnt win an iPhone, I think the WildChild Gal won that - met up with the old Firstborn Crew, was nice to see some old friends, showed up with Mark, Vas and Jason of Freedom + Partners and had a good ol' time!

My wonderful wife surprised me by being on the A train and picking me up a new pair of Birkenstocks, they are heaven!

The show was a blast, saw some familiar faces (Dan, Kevin and Tim) and met some new friends.

Unexpectedly the iPhone took home top honors, Jobs was not present and it was a bit anti-climactic but all in all it was a good time all around.

The new magazine is out, its bigger, thicker, full color and bound!

Stay tuned... were gonna make some noise!

One love, we get to share it, leaves you baby if you, dont care for it...

The list of this years ONE show finalists.

I'm personally very proud of Zune Journey making it on this list, worked hard on this one, congrats to all the others here, great lineup of work for this year!

Halo 3 was sicker than sick! Axe always hits the mark, I personally loved Absolut Brasil, and Orange Unlimited made me re-think a lot of things... all very good executions, im very proud to be part of this industry.

The Anatomy of Pro-Safe
Rev64: EndWar Teaser Site
Halo3.com/Believe
Shrek’s Treketh To Adventure
Coke & Faithless
Motorola City
AXE Let the Game Continue Website
Angry-Gram
Sing with Roots
Sprint Holiday Card
TinMan
The world is my canvas
H&M Kylie
C30 Think outside the box
The Perfect Kick
Comcast Triple Slanguage
Absolut Brasil
Who the #I%$ is Fermin?
It’s D
Land Cruiser Experience
Music in a bottle
Hello Freedom
Levi’s Copper Jeans
Orange Unlimited
Zune Journey
Minimalism
KahRaShin
Lincoln MKS Reveal Site

Depth of Character

Last night during some late night pitch ideas over a hot cup of coffee at my desk I had gotten an email that really got me thinking about the role of the web in terms of adding depth and character to any person, brand, movie, product, whatever...

It didn't surprise me that two very hot websites that are circulating the browser wire right now are one for Goldfrapp and one for Gnarls Barkely

These are two bands and just a sliver of the many more that are starting to understand that an online persona is critical in order to maintain a dedicated following. Trent Reznor knows this and that is why he seems to be completely catering to the online crowd. He did something recently that I had applauded and that was to give away music for free online.

Offering free content is the trend these days and giving away content is really what advertising is all about.

So NIN wont sell as many CDs, but their concerts and popularity will skyrocket! Their influential power over popular culture will increase and this will ultimately take them to that next level. The web is vast enough for every band to do this because it is so niche oriented.

At the end of the day its all about cultural dominance and how influential you can make something. The web makes this a very democratic and fair game to play, sure money helps but ultimately creativity is the currency of the web. FINALLY!!! I THINK IM RICH! Get your hands on the Adobe Creative Suite and your now ready to start competing.

The web is a world where the artist is not starving, creativity is the token that opens up the doors to opportunity. Its creativity that drives this world not that filthy paper men wage wars over... Can I pay my rent with a great jpg?

Networks are giving away free shows, movies, exclusive web only content. I was discussing how movies can now add to their depth by offering extended content based on a scan of a persons ticket that they purchased... this list keeps going and going and going. (see I just gave away a FREE idea!)

The depth and value of a website is so powerful. It is the very soul of the "whatever" it is representing and the personality, art, motion, music, video, etc that can be developed is as deep and as powerful as anyone wants to take it.

I saw a new website recently that just BLEW MY MIND! it was a site for a German beverage called Bit (http://www.music-in-a-bottle.de) what this site does is uses your web cam to scan a barcode and unlock features on the site based on the bar code your scanning in. The bottle has the bar code, how genius is this? How crazy is this? How jealous am I that I didnt think of this??? Ok too far... anyways... this internet, it just keeps getting better, new toys everyday!

I must admit though, it still doesn't top a project I did about 3 years ago for a web based Foot Sizing Scanner for FILA - that that was some crazy shit. See it here.

Silhouette Numero Cinco

This was one I had a lot of fun writing, Vas is truly one of the more unique characters of our industry. Check out the latest FWA Silhouette today on Vas Sloutchevsky.

Enjoy!

Webby Webby Good!

My last project at FB was with McCann SF on the Zune Journey site, I am personally really proud of this site and want to say congrats to the whole team at FB and McCann SF (T.A.G.) that worked really hard on this site, its really a killer site in both design and technology.

Great work all around!