Archive for March 2008
HiEd at Hanson Dodge Creative
A nice overview of some of the higher education work we’ve done here at Hanson Dodge Creative.
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Addicted to Stretching?
As a long-distance runner, my father taught me to warm up before my runs, cool down and always Harvard Man Bridge to Terabithia video
stretch afterwards to prevent injury. But even after following this fatherly advice, I’ve always had running-associated injuries (admittedly I’m also chronic “run-through-the-pain” runner which probably doesn’t help).
A recent New York Times article
even discusses this disconnect, “The truth is that after dozens of studies and years of debate, no one really knows whether stretching helps, harms, or does anything in particular for performance or injury rates.”
So, why do I continue to stretch? The reason I stretch after my runs is more emotional than physical. There’s nothing better than calming my body down to an almost meditative state by concentrating my movements. Unlike the “runner’s high” I get while I’m running, it’s rewarding to breathe a slow, controlled pace and think about my accomplishment. It’s my way of coming back down to earth.
At HDC, we continuously seek to understand the mind of the Active Lifestyle Consumer. And it strikes me as interesting that as an active lifer, my emotional state is associated with my fitness activity, but it’s also more complex. My emotions change from a state of excitement/enjoyment while I’m doing my activity to a calm/relaxed emotional state as I stretch from my workout. As marketers, we need to acknowledge these emotional complexities as we think about the consumer’s entire fitness experience and what they are really seeking from that activity.
For my peace of mind, I think I’ll keep stretching.
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The Manifesto of the New Designer
We are essential to success in this increasingly complex, technology-fueled age.
We are evangelists for the combined power of technology, creativity and communication.
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We are the high priests of a new economy driven by the consumer, hungry for ideas.
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We use our talent to define, inspire, plan and create.
We are driven to see the entire landscape, identify patterns, and create sustainable solutions.
We believe in the nobility of creating solutions that are elegant, effective, measurable and beautiful.
We stand between people and the information they need, the things they’re seeking and the human connections they crave.
Ken Hanson is the founding partner of Hanson Dodge Creative, America’s leader in creating Brand Experience Design, Marketing and Technology focused on the Active Lifestyle Consumer.
Community – He who has the most friends wins
As I was thinking of a title for this blog I considered using the “… is King” analogy but it seems the CMS industry has beaten that term to death.
It’s clear with the major success of sites like MySpace
that community and social networking is big business. The marketing world is working hard to find ways to leverage this model for clients. It’s no doubt that when community and social networking tools are thought through and integrated successfully the investment can pay for itself rather quickly by connecting you directly with your customer to grow a relationship that allows you to gain amazing insights.
There are a lot of different concepts to consider when looking at social networking for brands. Instead of listing them all I’m going to borrow from (and summarize) the framework provided in Razorfish’s 2008 Digital Report
using their “The six “C’s of social influence marketing” model.
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- Content
Content can come in many forms: video, wallpapers, badges, avatars, widgets and information. Authenticity and transparency is critical. Allow your content to be de-centralized (Syndication via RSS or embed). - Customization
Include elements where users can define themselves. Allow users to generate and customize their own content (blogs, comments, threaded discussions, etc). Empower consumers to express themselves. - Community
Give users a reason to interact. Provide unique content, value or engagement. Leverage relational social networking content on brand sites. - Conversation
Build a network of advocates. Using advocates to build new relationships = sales. Accept negative feedback and conversation. Intervene in a problem before it escalates. - Commerce
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Must be soft sold. Consumers do not want a hard sell; any integration from your e-store must be subtle not blatant. Offer coupons, related content or links to store. - Commitment
It requires ongoing customer communication. Solicit feedback on products & services. Add more value to customers. Enhance brand reputation. Enable brand advocacy.
Before looking to embrace the benefits of community and social media you need to consider a solid strategy. A commitment to community requires an all or nothing approach. Provide your customer with a framework and tools that enable conversation and interaction. Don’t forget to invest in updating content that is rich and authentic and adding features that will keep your users coming back.
Respect the Mess
I am fascinated with bike messengers. They are the digital age equivalent of the Pony Express, navigating our treacherous streets with great speed and grace to deliver our stuff on time.
As designers, we can’t help but be inspired by the unique culture of bike messengers, visual and otherwise. Part athlete, part urban soldier, these riders personify the rebel zeitgeist that inspires brands and trends. Where they go, others follow, and that’s a lesson for brands. From the fixie
craze to fashion trends like the messenger bag Macbeth dvd , bike messengers influence and inspire. Everything about them just screams “cool.”
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The New York Bike Messenger Association website God Told Me To movie A Night to Remember ipod The Snows of Kilimanjaro movie full is the hub of New York’s messenger society. You’ll see that they don’t stop riding when they’re not delivering. They’re racing, playing bike polo, and riding to raise funds for fallen comrades. Don’t miss the wealth of content in their links The Dark Crystal movie Code 46 move American Me ipod section.
Moving a little closer to home, this article from OnMilwaukee.com
honors Milwaukee’s sole bike-only messenger service, Breakaway Bicycle Couriers. When the weather shut down the post office, Breakaway riders toughed it out, delivering packages through the snow and ice – on road bikes.
And finally, the Mecca of mess, messmedia.org. What this site lacks in design, it makes up for in content. If it has anything to do with bike messengers, it’s on this site.
Sadly, I noticed much real estate on messenger sites devoted to memorials and fundraisers for messengers who have been killed or injured
Terminator 2: Judgment Day divx by motorists. Hopefully, that statement alone will inspire more people to give them the a little extra space.
Which Is the Best CMS?
In the last 15 years or so, web content management systems (CMS) have essentially become the only way to build web sites. It makes perfect sense — from large corporate sites to one-page personal web sites, nobody wants to touch code every time they need to change an image or copy.
And the question I hear all the time is simply this: which one is the best one? I suppose it’s reasonable to assume that by now, one system has risen to the top. Sort of like Microsoft Word for word processing. But the truth is, there are literally hundreds of CMS packages out there, and they all do the same thing: update web content outside the site’s source code.
The real question you should be asking is “Which CMS is best for what I need?” Of course, that takes more planning work. Here are the top six things you should consider when selecting a CMS for your site:
1. How much do you want to spend?
You can spend nothing, or you can spend millions on a CMS solution. of course, if you take the nothing route, as in open source, you will spend much more time on in-house development. You will also have more control over what features you have, instead of working around somebody else’s code. At the other extreme: spend lots of money, and you’ll get lots of built-in features, good post-launch support and reliable feature upgrades.
2. Who will be updating your site?
If you’ve got lots of people in multiple locations needing to update content, you’ll need to consider workflow tools. Some CMS packages have good ones, some don’t. You’re going to need multiple user roles (contributor, editor, administrator, etc.) and specific approval steps content must go through before appearing on the site. On the other hand, if it’s just one person running the whole thing, you’re in luck. Don’t worry about workflow.
3. Do you need to publish in other languages?
Some CMS packages have translation tools built in. If you need to publish your content in a number of different languages, make sure you select a CMS that will assist in that process. The tools will not be perfect, and you will still need to have a human translator check for accuracy, but at least you won’t have to translate every word manually.
4. What does your CMS need to work with?
Do you sell product online? Are you using an e-commerce, payment gateway or a product information management system? Make sure you identify and consider outside systems before making any CMS decisions.
5. Consider your platform.
This one’s deceptively simple. If you have 25 .NET developers on staff, don’t select a CMS that only uses Python. If your developers will be learning a new language, try to do it outside a new web site deployment. You’ll be busy enough without having to worry about training.6. Think about the future.Don’t just select a CMS to replace your current site; think about what you might want to do in the next five years. Will you be hiring more content contributors? Reducing your development staff? Assigning more web administrators? Adding an online store? You will need to think all of these things through, or you might be going through the same selection process in a year.
Of course there are plenty of other things to consider when selecting a CMS: can your company support ongoing administration? How much training will you need to do? What are other members of your industry using?
In fact, if you’re in higher education, you’re in luck: UC-Davis did a really interesting survey on which CMS tools colleges are using. The comments alone are an interesting read.
So, if you’re in the market for a new CMS, be thoughtful about it. It might take a little longer up front, but you’ll be glad you did.
Ideas Worth Spreading
I was doing some online searching the other day about passion and inspiration – key concepts of both innovation and communication – and I went to www.ted.com, a site dedicated to spreading ideas, to see what was new.
Each year, some of the world’s greatest thinkers and doers share their insights on general themes at the TED conference in Monterey, California. Each year, these speakers share both their passion and their knowledge on fascinating topics, and you can find them online.
TED stands for Technology, Education and Design and has an interesting history. The first TED conference was organized by Richard Saul Wurman in 1984, and after a six-year hiatus, it became an annual event in 1990. Wurman had already made a name for himself by developing the popular ACCESS travel guidebooks. The concept for these books was to present information the way we seek it — in this case, by location. Wurman coined the phrase “information architecture” and demonstrated the concept with this series.
The TED conference grew from Wurman’s observations of a convergence trend among three disciplines: technology, education and design. He saw potential in bringing together the greatest minds in each, to share ideas and explore new concepts. At the time, he was also an ongoing host and participant of the International Design Conference in Aspen, which was the leading multi-disciplinary business and design conference. TED took the concept further, as an invitation-only event. Additionally, each speaker is challenged to “give the talk of their lives” in 18 minutes.
Now, you can watch and listen to these presentations online. The content is presented in video and audio formats. You can search the content by theme, speaker, popularity or volume of online discussion. Once you discover TED, It won’t take long to find your favorite presentations or speakers. Here are a few of mine: Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto; William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle; and Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce.
Best of all, the videos are released under a Creative Commons license, which means you can redistribute them freely and legally. To me, this proves that the TED people are truly more interested in spreading ideas than trying to sell something or promote a hidden agenda.
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Mr. Moto’s Last Warning full Year of the Horse psp The convergence concept couldn’t be more relevant today. Branding, like everything else, is increasingly social and technological. TED is a valuable resource for our work, but it’s also a source of inspiration and information about the increasingly complex and connected world-at-large. And for many of us, those small moments of inspiration and connection are what make us passionate about our work, and our lives.