After building a successful empire that turned the average cup of
coffee into a morning ritual for millions of loyal customers, Starbucks is attempting to extend their brand image from a morning stop to an evening hangout. Monday, the coffee giant announced they will begin offering beer and wine at four to six Atlanta-area locations, joining the ranks of a handful of stores in Seattle, Portland and soon-to-be Chicago.

My first trip to CES in Las Vegas feels more like the sandstorm that overtook Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: it came on suddenly and I left blinded, coated with bits and pieces of silicon.



I have only begun processing the whirlwind of flashing lights called CES and though fortunate to have an opportunity to immerse myself in the future of consumer technology, those 48 hours left me with just as many questions as answers.

Since the day I interviewed here at Definition 6, I've heard about the annual Halloween party.  It was legendary.  By the time January 2011 rolled around there were still decorations on the walls, in people's offices and it was all they were still talking about.  So you can imagine the build up leading into this year's event. 

With a Vampire theme in mind, our fearless creative team created the "House of Blood," and transformed our NYC Office into a Vampire museum of sorts, equipped with three bars, smoking cauldrons with specialty punch, amazing sponsors like Yahoo!, StumbleUpon, Avid and Bootlegger Vodka, and some pretty awesome costumes! 

All the photos are available on our Facebook page.  We have multiple albums to view the pictures, including the photo booth shots.  Here are some quick links to help you navigate through the albums:

Album one - mostly step and repeat photos
Album two - party shots and some great costumes
Album three - more party shots...things are starting to get messy
Album four - dancing, dancing, Oscar the Grouch, and more dancing
Album five - happy party people and lots of smiles
Album six - part one of the photo booth pics (there are many!)
Album seven - more photo booth pics
Album eight - even more photo booth pictures
Album nine - the last of the photo booth pictures!
Album ten - the Atlanta version!!

The graphics department became the Fang Club Lounge offering an escape from the dance floor in a relaxing room with the Feeding Bar serving Fangtasy Elixir punch. 



Yahoo!'s Blood Lab bar offered a Purple Plasma Punch, and Blackout Shooters, with purple light up ice cubes in Yahoo! barware.  My favorite giveways were the Yahoo! insta-yodles with five settings on which to play the iconic Yahoo! Yodle.  




StumbleUpon's Vampire Slayer bar offered more swag items like sunglasses and koozies, and the photobooth provided fun for all (especially those D6-ers who showed up to work on the day after the party and got to see the photostream on our lobby monitors!).



The weather was challenging to say the least, with terrible rain and wind, and even with a tent and a tarp we had to move the party indoors this year for safety reasons.  But that didn't stop our clients, friends and other guests from showing up and dancing the night away. 




And to those who have not yet attended, there is always next year!!

I’ve always wished there was an interactive marketing version of the reality TV show Shark Tank, or something akin to a digital marketing version of American Idol or X Factor. I’ve also always wanted to be a rock star even though I have absolutely no serious musical talent apart from my claim to fame of briefly appearing as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady and Action in West Side Story while in high school. Pretty far from Rock Star status. But I recently had both wishes granted and it was an awesome experience.

Last week I had the incredibly interesting opportunity to journey to Taipei to co-host an annual event called Interactive@Taiwan. This event brings together leading interactive agencies in Taiwan to host a meeting featuring select speakers from abroad whose companies have gained some degree of international recognition for their work in order to learn from them. Each agency participating sends a cross-functional team that then competes over the course of three days to ultimately present the best concept based on a Challenge Brief. The featured speakers work with each agency team in workshops to refine their ideas and concepts in a near crucible-like environment to arrive at a final presentation, which then is judged by the speakers, with awards granted to the best concepts.

While previous years they focused mostly on the creative aspects and invited speakers like the ECD’s of companies like AKQA and W+K, this year they wanted to focus on the importance of technology in combination with strategy, marketing and creative… they looked to companies who have really brought technology and creative together in a unified manner to make a difference.

I was pretty honored when they reached out and invited me based on their awareness of the great work we’ve done for Coca-Cola on their Open Happiness campaign and the work we’ve done for HBO’s True Blood.

It was also pretty cool to be in the company of the other speaker, Nathan Martin, the CEO of Deep Local which brought the world the Nike Chalkbot and Nog Pong. I can say that in the course of the week I gained a tremendous amount of respect for Nathan and the work Deep Local does.

We set the stage for the event talking about how our agencies marry the fields of creative and technology, art and engineering, marketing and digital, all while staying true to the importance of understanding the brand, the personas of the target market, the desired business results, and the importance of the insights and big ideas. We talked to them about our different models for how we do this to come up with truly innovative ideas and then be able to execute on those ideas. From there we issued them a challenge that basically involved them coming up with concepts for one of their current clients or prospects that involved both digital and post-digital executions that were “outside the box” and leveraged technology beyond simple basics or common approaches.

For two days straight we met with every team in succession, one after the other, several times a day. They brought concepts for brands like HTC, China Trust Bank, FamilyMart, Heineken, Giant Bikes, Samsung and more. It felt like Shark Tank with the weird aspect of being one of the judges and critics. I’m definitely not always right- just ask my wife, my boss, our CMO, or our ECD. But it was amazing to see how much they valued my input and commentary on how to improve their ideas and executions.

Not every idea was great, and many took a long time to work through to something really cool and viable. But in the end, 10 teams from 10 different agencies presented amazing ideas and concepts. There were a few that were fantastic, others that were great, and others that were good and just needed some work. I definitely learned things. I learned how agencies on the other side of the planet are thinking and operating. I learned areas where they are well ahead of the West like RFID/NFC, QR, and mobile gaming. I learned how they operate against very different demands, budgets, and cultures. I hope they learned a few things from me too.

Lastly, my hat is off to the people and culture of Taiwan. I did not deserve it, but they treated me like a rock star while I was there. They are some of the most hospitable people on the planet, I have rarely felt so welcome and well taken care of, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I only wish everyone back here in the U.S. thought I was as smart as everyone over there did.


Added bonus: While I was there it was Taiwan’s 100th anniversary. Fireworks abounded. Very cool to see. Watched it from the top of a building in Taipei thanks to a guy named Mouse and his company Webgene .

Last week Definition 6 threw a wildly successful soirée in the trendy Virginia Highlands area of Atlanta, GA. Located at The Warren City Club, one of the few members only clubs in the city, the location deemed to be a perfect setting matched with the amazing southern weather that comes along in the beginning of October. If your dying to see pictures head over to our Facebook page to view!

It was a great evening to celebrate another year of supreme work with our clients over drinks and some delicious food prepared by the amazing staff of The Warren. 

The buzz of the night was the brewing excitment over Dad's Garage Improv comedic performance. The party would not have been the same without the fine gentlemen from Dad's Garage. The Marketing team was fortunate enough to attend a show several weeks earlier while in preparation for the party and after all the laughs, they knew the right crew was found for the gig. Shout out to Lucky and the rest of the guys!

We also want to thank the great sports for going up on stage and interacting with the show: Jeff Katz & Paul McClay from our Definition 6 family and Amy Pedersen from Coca-Cola. You guys were great!




We are so thrilled that everybody was able to come out and have as much fun as we did. There is nothing better than getting together with our favorite clients and sharing a night of laughs among some of the best people in our business. We're on the edge of our chairs waiting for the next Definition 6 Party... and we can't wait to see you there!

Last week I attended a great interactive marketing conference in Indianapolis (and yes, got a side dish of Katy Perry while there!) Of all the things I learned about unified marketing, one of the most interesting sessions I attended was about Email Design in the Mobile Inbox Age.  The presenter was Chris Studabaker from ExactTarget.

The Definition 6 team at the Katy Perry concert from ExactTarget Connections 2011.

Chris answered the question “What is mobile email?” with the following explanation: Email + mobile.

Jamie Christner, our Director of Analytics, took to the podium last Tuesday with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) to speak about data. Being my first event as a Definition 6 employee, I was truly psyched to take it all in, including the Maggianos. 

So what exactly IS sexy about data once your strip it down? As marketers, we see a lot of data ranging from click through rates and conversions to engagements and social media ROI.  But what makes that data "sexy," Jamie says is when that that data in turn produces an appealing body of facts which call out applicable and actionable insights. 

And once you have collected the data as it relates to your business goals, the real gem is what you can forecast with that data.  But, NOT all data is sexy. Poorly tracked, lost, incorrect, un-trusted by users and knowingly repurposed data skews results and is of no use in trending actionable insignts. Keep the reigns tight on what exactly your analytics should be tracking, always referring back to your client's KPIs. Some key takeaways include:       

• Every business rates “applicable” or “actionable” in a different way. Sexy is in the eye of the beholder
• In this economy, announce your successes.  Let the numbers tell the story. Company budgets are being slashed left and right, so speak up on the positive effect you are bringing in
• Budget justification must be sexy enough to catch the interest of stakeholders
• Start pulling data out from analytic software applications if you haven't already 
• Web analytics can help close the gap between cross-channel marketing tactics
• Data reports should be short & sweet
• Don’t provide the client with unnecessary information but if you need more reduce your KPI’s   

Data isn’t going to be beneficial or attract the listener if it focuses on one single feature. Evaluate and measure performance across all brand interactions and your client will feel more like you slipped them a Maxim Magazine than a data report.

A few weeks ago, I shared some insights from a report I had written on Seven Conflicting Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility.

The second part of this two-part series was recently released on Vault.com.  Key topics the article touches on include rising expectations, shareholders pushing harder than ever, and supply chain engagement. Part two focuses on the increase in shared knowledge, winners arising from clear leadership, greater localization, and the trend of greater transparency/accountability and integrity.

These days, a plethora of new media opportunities—interactive, experiential, social, mobile, etc.—amplifies every action. As each company looks inward examining the corporate social responsibility strategy and tactics of the business, it must also have a greater understanding the archetypes of all screens—mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop—and develop integrated communications strategies to share their efforts and their story.

You can also read the report in full on Forbes.com.

On July 19th, Definition 6 in New York City hosted a great event for the Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) group out on our patio where we gathered to hear Katia Beauchamp, CEO/Co-Founder of Birchbox and Gwen Flamberg, Beauty Director of Us Weekly talk about how the online beauty retail marketplace is changing rapidly and what "subscribing to beauty" means to this new brand.

Birchbox is a gift that just keeps on giving. I think that whether you’re a male or female, we can all agree that there is nothing better than getting a present every month that is chock full of surprises. And, believe me when I say that Birchbox is a fantastic gift.

So, just what exactly is Birchbox you ask? (No, we’re not talking about trees or shrubs here.) We’re talking about a gift that comes in a neat little package to your doorstep every month, and inside this box you’ll find an amazing selection of beauty-related products that are tied to the things that you desire. For a mere $10/month, consumers get 4-5 deluxe samples of high-end beauty products. But, before you get your first box, you will be asked to fill out a beauty profile where you can select the types of products you’re interested in. Birchbox wants to get to know their customers better so that they can help increase the amount of products that are purchased on their site.







All of the great brand partnerships and products they offer are tied to an online Birchbox Magazine, so that everything matches an editorial calendar with monthly themes to create further Birchbox community interaction online; things like hair issues during the summer, or how to’s for travel.  They’re in the “business of delight” as CEO Beauchamp indicated. They came up with the idea for this kind of online beauty business model because they felt that beauty can’t completely live online. There is a tangible aspect that needs to happen at some point because people want to get their full five senses involved when choosing beauty products.  At first, the founders had to knock on high-end brands’ doors to get them involved and try something new, but now brands are knocking on their door, with a growing client base and over 16,000 likes on their Facebook page. The Birchbox business model also uses social media channel activation, but has that “retro” feel since their product is sent through the mail (that thing called USPS we all forget exists).


Rich media and editorial content about every product and brand they work with is a gold mine of information that sits within Birchbox.com:

 

The products included in the monthly box range from skincare items, to makeup, hair / body products, and fragrances. They’re sometimes full-sized items or they’ll be sample-sized items, but the best part is that if you absolutely adore any of the items you receive, you simply go to Birchbox.com and buy them there. I need to mention as well that they have developed a great loyalty rewards program. As you buy and share Birchbox with your friends, you see $10 gift cards come your way.  

Personally, I’ve been a Birchbox subscriber since January 2011, and they had officially launched only in September of 2010, so I guess you could say that I am an early adopter! Their first year anniversary is coming up here in September, and what a year it has been for Birchbox execs.

Let’s face it. At the end of the day, brands want advocates. Having a strong base of people who love a brand keeps their ideas fresh, alive and moving forward to help drive further adoption. And who doesn’t love samples??



As mentioned, Birchbox was built through strong social media activations, and the Birchbox brand has been growing because customers get their friends involved, and then their friends get their friends involved. This type of crowdsourcing platform is creating a strong momentum for Birchbox that is keeping their acquisition of new customers going up and up. The buzz Birchbox has received all happened organically, and through this organic growth they can now offer the brands they partner with global access to consumers. This is obviously something they couldn’t be happier about, so Birchbox is truly changing the way consumers shop for beauty products online, and I think that we can expect great things from them. I personally trust the Birchbox brand, which is the key to building long-term, loyal customers.

It's not every day you have the opportunity to work on something that screams cool from almost every aspect. Let me see if I can summarize this particular opportunity: vampires, witches, werewolves, Alan Ball, Anna Paquin, Alexander Skarsgard, Ryan Kwanten, Kristin Bauer, Deborah Ann Woll, HBO, Social Media, Facebook, complex Flash layering, detailed motion design, great creative, great script, personalization in full motion video, high availability, cloud farms, CDN's, open source, high performance where every millisecond in processing counts, and integration with multiple SaaS providers and their API's. 

That pretty much describes what Definition 6 recently had the opportunity to work on and launch with the hit HBO show True Blood that premieres season 4 this Sunday, June 26th. We helped them launch a Facebook application called IMMORTALIZE YOURSELF that takes a piece filmed exclusively for this purpose featuring many of the famous cast as a bridge between season 3 and season 4 and using Facebook connect you'll find you and your Facebook friends are a part of the video. Some go missing, others apply to be Fangtasia dancers, and you get to be an assassin. You're all featured in the show's famous credits and opening. And when it's all over you can re-do the whole thing but pick which friends you want to be in which roles. And while the concept of using a bespoke video with social aspects may not be entirely new or unique, I feel pretty safe in saying that the level of detail we achieved in the personalization is pretty rare. Everything looks far more a natural part of the video than almost anything done previously. A lot of love went into that effort. The same goes for attention to detail in the performance of the application for something involving so much Flash, video and detailed interactions.

Plus it's just cool. It's also pretty rare in this business to do something that achieves a 99.9% positive sentiment rating with less than 0.05% technical failures in application delivery. You can check it out for real yourself here. And you can see an example of one of the videos below, this one featuring many of the team members at Definition 6 that worked on this project.

And as an added benefit, I and many of the team members had about 45 days to immerse ourselves in the brand by watching 3 seasons of a show with brilliant dialogue, and a great story that's chock full of fantastic effects, great actors, and plenty of hot vampire sex.

Our thanks to a great client. The True Blood team wrote a great script, and all the video production work and editing was done by HBO Creative Services. As always the cast and crew of True Blood were fantastic in their performances. The marketing team at HBO continues to push the edge with great ideas and non-traditional campaigns. What they have done on True Blood previously and with this piece shows how they combine innovative thinking with creative brand authenticity.

We're lucky at Definition 6 to enjoy a long-standing relationship with HBO, spear-headed by the Managing Partner of our Post-Production division, Rob Ortiz, who has been working with HBO for over 25 years. Rob, our team at Definition 6, and the great Creative Services team at HBO, especially Becca Schader, Chris Denniston and Chris Spencer, all combined to concept, POC, flush out the idea, and drive this piece with Marketing and Interactive. It's fantastic working with people like these who continue to show they are thinking well beyond the traditional 30-second spot on how to engage fans and grow audiences in a rapidly changing landscape. True Blood is rapidly approaching 8 Million fans on Facebook, and it's pieces like this that can change how you reach and interact with those fans.

Waiting Sucks. So go check out the app. And don't miss the season premiere this Sunday on HBO, 9PM EST.

Background: It’s almost impossible to describe the smartphone market accurately without sounding overly prone to hyperbole. Worldwide, nearly half a billion smartphones will be shipped in 2011. By Christmas of 2011, one in two Americans will have one. Gartner predicts that in 2011, 85% of all handsets shipped globally will be able to access the mobile Internet.

In Q1 of 2011, Android supplanted Apple as the #1 smartphone OS in the U.S. While smartphone manufacturers jockey back and forth with one another for frontrunner status, swapping places with every latest hardware entrant, only feature phones (where the OS is proprietary firmware, and NOT a third-party development environment) are left in the starting blocks; there is little churn in the segment. In fact 2011, according to Nielsen, will be the year smartphones overtake feature phones in global mobile shipments.

For brands looking to build or maintain a mobile presence, the smartphone onslaught simply cannot be ignored. Nor can it be oversimplified. Too many American marketers think mobile is merely a stripped-down digital experience, a checkbox extension of their digital initiatives created automatically through the advent of rich smartphone browsers. The reality is that, worldwide, more people access the Internet through mobile devices than personal computers. It is the first screen, not the third. That over 95% of domestic digital marketing budgets are earmarked for non-mobile initiatives is an unpardonable lack of imagination, courage and good sense.

Smart brands and advertising agencies must consider several factors when evaluating how to create a mobile presence for smartphones. First the upside of browser-based mobile applications:  

• Write once, run anywhere: This is the siren’s call of mobile that promises cost efficiencies by keeping the time spent creating, maintaining and updating applications to a minimum through the utilization of a tool-based multi-platform design paradigm.

• Universal browser availability: A rich browsing experience is all but universal in the smartphone market. If a brand presence can be defined and made accessible through a mobile web browser, it reduces the number of headaches to resolve for platform-specific nuances as long as you stick to the lowest common denominator.

 

• Support of advanced features available in HTML5: There are some components of HTML5 that will be a boon to mobile devices. Unlike mobile browsers of old, HTML5 promises offline support. Also, video in HTML5 is standardized, which will make adding video content to websites much easier. HTML5 also supports a GeoLocation API, allowing web developers to capture critical location data.

• Layout standardization: Web browsers depend on a layout engine at the presentation layer. While there are myriad mobile browsers available, WebKit and Gecko are the layout engines used by most, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

Unfortunately, there are also downsides to a browser-only approach, including:  

• Browser diversity: The most prevalent smartphone browser in existence is the Blackberry, which has its own layout engine used by precisely nobody other than RIM. At the very minimum, creating a browser-based smartphone application that works on a majority of devices will require at least two completely separate development efforts.  

• Limited HTML5 support: When Steve Jobs lambasted Adobe’s Flash in 2010, he pointed to HTML5 as the author of its death spiral. Somebody forgot to tell RIM, who supports the Opera browser while remaining ambiguous about HTML5.  

• Hardware-specific amenities: Downloadable applications are typically able to access many features baked into the hardware that a browser-based application simply cannot. From the iPhone’s popular “shake” feature to other phones cameras and GPS chips, in order to unlock the richest of features from a mobile device, you have to think thick-client.

While the debate continues, what is certain for brands is to contemplate the merits of downloads vs. browser-based applications on a case-by-case basis. Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of Mobile concludes, “with mobile media consumption on the rise, the discussion of how consumers are accessing content -- whether it is via application, browser or both -- continues to be an important factor for companies looking to invest further in their mobile brands.” In every scenario, however, it is important to consider what will not work, and that, specifically, is to think that just because an HTML-based application works on a personal computer, it is sufficient for a mobile device. Mobile users have limited and hugely variable display capabilities, awkward and difficult input mechanisms, and the mobile mindset differs vastly from the PC user’s mindset.

In future posts, I’ll talk about mobile application design principles and dissect smartphone platforms in an effort to provide color for brands contemplating including them in mobile marketing strategies.

Depending on your age, you might (or might not) remember something called "Fan Clubs." Basically you paid a yearly membership fee and in return got special messages from the club, discounts and even free gifts from time to time. There were fan clubs for everything: sports teams, pop stars, swimsuit models, bands, TV shows, hobbies, popular toys... this list could go on and on. Personally I've been a member of fan clubs for Pearl Jam, Queensryche, Model Car of the Month, Beer of the Month, Ovaltine, Sweet Pickles and to be completely honest here, I was even a member of the Samantha Fox fan club for a couple years.

My favorite Samantha Fox song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now".

 

Bragging Rights

We joined fan clubs because they made us feel special, especially at a young age. They brought us closer to brands, activities and people that we were passionate about. That postcard from Donald Duck, Yoda, Samantha Fox or Michael Knight had our name on it and gave us bragging rights at school. And good fan clubs, like Pearl Jam's Ten Club, gave fans exclusives like access to premium concert seating and free records. I remember getting a Pearl Jam fan club record called "Let Me Sleep" and bringing it to school. People were cutting class just to see it and none of us even owned a record player.

You've Got Mail... In a Few Months

But because fan clubs relied heavily on the US Postal Service and the printing process, communications between fans and the fan club administrators were spotty at best. Fan club newsletters were usually monthly, delivered via snail mail and didn't provide much opportunity for fans to respond or contribute to the club. Sure you could mail a letter to the fan club but would anyone read it? Respond? Would Yoda ever read my letter telling him that Santa brought me green and brown Yoda Underoos for Christmas? If he did, he never responded.

Yes they actually made green and brown Yoda Underoos.

 

Digital Technology Gives Fans a Bigger Community Voice

But as clubs started to adopt digital communication tools like email and web sites, fans finally got to have a voice in their own community. Content could be delivered to fans more frequently, the fan experience could include interactive web pages and fans could even directly communicate with other fans if the site had a forum or chat room.  The introduction of Blogs in the early 2000's made things even easier. Fan club administrators didn't have to rely on website designers to update pages and format email newsletters anymore. Blogs were easy to write and could include images, audio and videos unlike forums and chat rooms. Blogs basically allowed anyone to be content creators. Some brands even started allowing fans to write blog posts. And the best part? Fans could react to this new frequent stream of content by simply writing blog comments.

 

Social Media and Real Time Conversations Between Fans and Brands

Fast forward a few years to today and social media has changed everything. Mass communication with a niche community, or even the entire planet, is now direct, easy and instant. Where a monthly printed newsletter might take weeks for a fan club administrators to produce and distribute, a single tweet composed by Lady Gaga from her phone after her sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden has the power to instantly reach millions, especially now that she's the first person to garner 10,000,000 followers. There are articles written about her social media success frequently, including an article posted hours after this blog was written!

And social media is a two-way street. Of course messages can be broadcast to a large audience. But the ability for fans to engage with celebrities and brands has never been easier thanks to social media. Instead of writing and mailing a letter to an anonymous fan club PO Box, fans can now use services like Twitter to Tweet directly and publicly with personalities.

Fans can also engage in conversations with other fans all over the world and give fan-created content a virtual thumbs up by "Liking" it or re-sharing it. The voice of the fan has never been louder or more influential. And some major brands like Coca-Cola are embracing this power.  Coca-Cola (disclosure alert: Coca-Cola is a Definition 6 client) is leveraging the power of social media to let their Facebook fans manage, moderate and produce content for their own community. Coca-Cola still participates in fan conversations and community content creation, but their Facebook page allows any fan to post something on their wall. The community even moderates fan content. Inappropriate messages are flagged by the community. Not only does Social Media enable brands to instantly communicate with their communities, but it also allows brands to give an equal voice to that community.


The Layers Are Gone

Social Media has changed fandom forever. It has brought fans both closer to celebrities and brands, as well as each other. The multiple layers of communication are gone. The "fan club managers" who were hired by a PR company, which was hired by a record company, who only communicated with the band through their manager, can all be eliminated with Social Media. Many personalities, like Lady Gaga, have assumed the role of Community Manager and use social media to communicate and have conversations directly with their fans, and in their own voice. Seems like we've come a long way since decoder rings and Ovaltine.

You know, I’m a big believer that the most important thing we do is deliver work that creates measurable results for our clients.  That’s why we do this...to drive our clients towards their business goals. But when we are able to create that kind of positive impact AND be recognized by the industry for our creative achievements, well, that’s even better!

I am once again thrilled to be a part of this great company, a company that was just named one of the best places to work in Atlanta.  From Emmy nominations to Clio finalists and Webby awards, we love to share this news with our clients.  Creating great work, award-winning work, is our mantra here.  Don’t believe me?  Just take a look at this list for awards coming up over the next 30 days:

• 2 Daytime Emmy® Award nominations for Sesame Street

• Clio Award finalist for Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Truck” campaign

• 2 Webby Awards
  • “Best in Show” for Online Commercial for Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Machine”
  • “People’s Choice” for Online Commercial for Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Machine”

• National round of the ADDY® Awards for Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Machine” (after already winning a Gold and “Best in Show” ADDY® in the Atlanta competition and another Gold ADDY® at the District 7 gala earlier this year).

• 4 Promax BDA awards
  • David Foster Inspiration - Art Direction & Design: Special Events Promo - General Entertainment
  • Coca-Cola Happiness Machine - :30 - On-Air Commercial Advertisement
  • Definition 6 Journey - Self Promotion/Show Reel/Company Image
  • Spike Re-Brand Pitch - Salon de Refus

• 3 American Business Awards (Stevie Awards):
  • Coca-Cola’s “Where Will Happiness Strike Next” Campaign: Marketing Campaign of the Year – Food & Beverage
  • Mitsubishi Electric Website: Web Site or Blog Awards Categories: Manufacturing
  • Bliss Flooring Website: Web Site or Blog Awards Categories: Consumer Products – Durables

• 2 Telly Awards
  • Coca-Cola "Happiness Truck" Silver Telly
  • Coca-Cola "Happiness Truck" People's Choice Telly Bronze

It’s so exciting to see so many components of what we do for so many clients recognized.  Definition 6 is fortunate to work with such great, collaborative clients that partner with us to create great work together.  Win or lose, we truly appreciate the recognition from our colleagues and peers. 

The phrase "the more things change, the more they stay the same" has been on my mind lately. Computers have become such a part of our lives that we can’t imagine life without them. Just a few years ago it wasn’t uncommon to hear that Blackberrys called "Crack-berrys," referring to the addictive nature of having email readily accessible. Today we even have a thing called "Computer Addiction" that people can get treatment for.  The children coming of age in this era they are the most informational connected generation we have seen.  Considering the architecture changes, the changing expectations, and rate of adoption the future definitely has a more interactive and mobile look to it from a computing perspective.

I recently read where mobile devices have outsold traditional computers for the first time in the 4^th quarter of 2010. Apple has been reporting sales growth while companies like Microsoft, Intel, and other companies are reporting lower than expected returns for the same period. With certain product releases coming in 2011 the anticipation is the sales trend will only continue to grow the gap.  As we see the sales trends change and more companies trying to capitalize we look to anticipate its direction and build products viable for today’s market and tomorrows.

To anticipate the direction we can start by focusing on a brief history of the mobile devices. Consider that Microsoft was an early player in this market. Compaq iPaq’s, HP Jornada’s, and others were touted as Pocket PC’s. Toshiba had one of the first tablet PC’s I remember. It even had a built in camera but the unit was very heavy. Microsoft envisioned "smart devices" and for a while had produced marketing as such. I remember they envisioned the device could be replaced and your configuration auto-magically restored. They had great vision and they dominated the early market. But while they were an early endorser and participant in the mobile field a couple of miss-steps and lack of innovation later they were behind.

It’s arguable that widespread adoption started to change with the acceptance of the Blackberry. Users were getting email connecting in ways they really hadn’t before. It wasn’t long before next up were the expectation to be able to review attachments to email. Having the internet on a mobile device wasn’t far behind that and the expectations began to speed up.  Why? because the adoption rate improved. Users saw immediate value in the functionality of these devices. But devices had different purposes. Blackberry’s did email while pocket pc’s handled calendars and other basic functionality.  I remember at one point having so many devices I felt like a techno-nerd version of Batman. While this was going on Apple envisioned the iPhone. Apple developed the iPhone in quiet and when they released it changed the market.  The change was significant enough that the carrier they worked with to support the device was overwhelmed for a time with new customers. It seemed like overnight they met and exceeded user expectations, and made a giant leap forward. Others began to follow the trend.  

User interface expectations are certainly being affected by changing expectations. How long did companies toy with keyboards until the iPhone changed the game with the popularity of its touch interface? A touch interface for a mobile phone had not been accepted until then.  Apple tried to compensate for users comfort by adding "clicking" sounds to the iPhone. But the hardware wasn’t the only innovative aspect. They innovated software are delivery as well.

The layout of the Apps wasn’t entirely new. Icon short cuts on a desktop have been around in the Mac and Windows worlds for years but the operation or implementation around the apps was. Users were able to use the devices to quickly check what they deemed the most important things.   Another expectation is the speed that these devices are expected to operate at. Long load times are not acceptable.  In addition to load times connectivity has become a key factor as well, a key contributor to the onslaught of the battling ‘G’ advertisements and related devices.  

Delivery handled through iTunes and working directly with the Apple company remains the only way to deploy applications. With the combination of hardware, software and deployment the entire platform was innovative and users liked it.

With a great rate of adoption and renewed interest in the market other players have been working to be more competitive in this market. For example, the Droid and Microsoft’s Metro concepts are two emerging or re-emerging market competitors.  With all the various players history in some ways begins to repeat itself. As they have gained more market share and their sales increased as well technical complexities re-emerge.

We still have a familiar challenge though, remember the old Mac vs PC days? Well we are there with mobile. We see different operating systems, different carriers, lack of interoperability and different devices. Consider that Adobe’s flash won’t run on iPhones. These types of complexity have a strong feeling of déjà vu for some of us. Only now we have added the extra complexity of Different networks carry different devices and different operating systems.

The innovations in both the hardware and software will continue in the space Apple has defined for a while. We are also seeing a repeat of some of the same hardware and operating system issues that have plagued IT for years.  What is different is that the adoption rate is continuing to grow. Watching over the last several months I see more executives and other carrying tablet PCs to meetings instead of the traditional notepad.  

Innovative development on the mobile platform will remain costly in some respects. Developing for multiple operating systems and different devices presents many challenges. What’s different today is that there is more of a drive than in years past to build these solutions. There are and will be tools that enable development for devices as well as across multiple platforms. However, those tools will have limitations and it will be a challenge to truly innovate through them. While working in the native system means developing different code for the same app to work on the different systems. Architecting a solution in mobile has to take into account the various considerations. Companies have to decide if they want the expense of creating an innovative app for the mobile platform or just have an app for the platform. This has a significant cost difference especially if the app has to be deployed to multiple devices.  

As customers decide their goals and directions in the mobile space it will be important for architects to use the tools available to them. The use of design patterns and object oriented techniques will be of paramount importance going forward for the software side of solution.  Creating a scalable solution for the growing functionality needs of mobile users will be critical. Considering that the hardware of the PC has evolved at a much slower pace scalability will have additional challenges in the mobile platform.

Creating a scalable solution is more challenging with the frequent release of devices and the secrecy surrounding them. Many of the tools on a mobile device have been tools available on a traditional PC. Going forward the hardware is starting to move into truly new areas.  For example, talk of the iPhone 5 and the capability of it having Near Field Communication capabilities have been going on for months. Talk has already started about functionality of the iPhone 6. Architects will be able to help customers prepare for not only the next deployment but the one after that.

The mobile environment is a market that companies cannot continue to avoid as it has passed the tipping point of adoption. But those same companies have to realize where mobile is in it maturity. Companies will not be able to build an app, deploy it, and then forget it. These apps are living in an every changing world and will need maintenance to continue operating effectively.  The architectures supporting the apps and contained within the apps must be able to scale to meet these needs.

The mobile environment is changing frequently and stepping forward in leaps we haven’t seen in a while. Developing solutions for customers means considering all the factors and leading them to understand the environment. Bobby Knight is probably as polarizing a figure in college basketball as there is. For all the negative about him later in his career, he is regarded as a great teacher of the game. It’s one of those lessons that really apply here. He said, I am paraphrasing, "we have to focus, by focusing it allows us to notice trends, recognizing trends allows us to anticipate, and that leads to action."

 

I am so proud to lead an organization like Definition 6, with talented staff members who continue to produce quality, award-winning work time and time again.  And once more, we were acknowledged by the advertising community with one of the highest honors, a District 7 AAF Gold ADDY® in the Interactive Category for our work on the Coca-Cola “Happiness Machine” video.  This comes off the heels off our “Best In Show” award at the local Atlanta ADDY® competition earlier this year. This was awarded over the weekend in Baton Rouge at the AAF District 7 Spring Convention.

Awards for the work we do for our clients are great.  And it is particularly nice to see the work we do recognized by our peers.  But there is another recent honor that has been bestowed upon Definition 6 with which I take a great deal of personal pride. Definition 6 was listed as one of the top places to work, in the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s list which came out on Sunday, April 17, 2011.  This is among other great companies and is a true testament to the type of culture we infuse here at Definition 6. 

I started this company over fourteen years ago with the attitude that we need to create a dynamic, innovative, exciting work environment, and I’m happy to say that even though we have grown to over 130 employees in two offices in two cities, our values remain intact.  We take ourselves seriously but know how to have fun.  Clients appreciate it, employees enjoy it, and now the industry has acknowledged us once again.  And to that I’d say, a much appreciated thank you.

Designing systems, interfaces, back end engines, databases and other system related items takes a blend of creative and technical acumen. IT professionals love to solve problems with their blended skill sets. When an algorithm is developed we sometimes even share those ideas and algorithms so it can help other systems. One case in point is my colleague Jon Taylor’s recent blog about the Observer pattern and .net event models. (Check it out of you haven’t yet-great information.) Design patterns in themselves are previous solutions that give us a solid base to develop a new algorithm from. But how many times and in how many ways have we overdesigned something?

I remember a bad decision I made at the beginning of my career in overdesign. A customer wanted a backward compatible query building wizard for their staff to use that had little technical knowledge or database understanding. However, the trick was the ‘management’ staff consistently wanted to ‘adjust’ database table and field names. The data in them wouldn’t change but the name needed to change. They were adamant about this. In coming up with a design we looked at using SQL Server ID numbers to store. This way we could recreate the same query with new names and we wouldn’t have backward compatibility issues. When built it worked great everyone had what they needed. Until a new version of SQL Server came out that instead of updating table names dropped them and re-created them. Slap the forehead time. I didn’t consider the impact or fragility change would have on the system. I focused on one direction to much.

Instead of looking to a simpler solution I went to a more complex one, or better said as an overdesigned one. I have never forgotten that lesson and I find all kinds of ways to apply it. Over the years this has turned into a philosophy and phrase ‘evolution not revolution’. Revolution is not limited to overdesigning the back end system it could be overdesigning any part of the system. In this context the concept of revolution for change is a bad one. Some of the aspects of revolution I am referring to are the destructive nature, the amount of change that has be absorbed, what can’t be changed back and the time to adjust to the changes. When your users are feeling the impact of a system revolution is this a good thing? What causes them to feel that?

 We aren’t talking about users feelings at the deployment of a system. We are talking about the users feelings over time. One example, I heard company say they couldn’t adjust the size of a banner frame for their customer because they had built it custom. It would take to many hours to change. That small issue was the start for the customer losing faith in the product and the team that created it. Eventually that team lost the business. Why? They created a revolutionary new banner frame that was great. But when the customer needed change they couldn’t accommodate efficiently and cost effectively.

When architecting we have to be able to break down a system to its critical components and work forward. We have to keep in mind that the parts of our systems need to evolve and grow. To best serve our customers we have to be diligent in evaluating if our design is evolutionary or revolutionary. Thinking of the quote ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ what are some simple ways to prevent overdesign. Collaborate; working alone in a vacuum is not always a great way to a solution. One of the reasons collaboration is such a great tool for teams is someone is always looking for a simpler way. If you aren’t working with a team or before you review with the team, ask yourself am I designing to the requirements or am I trying to add value. Sometimes in trying to add value we get so excited about what the system could do we forget that the customer may have never wanted that.

Prevention begins early in the process. Understanding the workflows and business processes associated with a system is critical. Architects, testers, developers, and customers all need to be on the same page. In gathering requirements we have to dig to the deeper process to design a quality system. With an understanding of the business processes, the entire development process begins from requirements on down reflect the beginning is a base.

Realize that for many systems that have heavy interaction, users need time with the system. This is important because I am frequently surprised with the direction a customer will drive a solution over time. It is so important to consider this during design as well as critical to take the time to design. It surprises me that even today how many developers and team almost go straight to code.  Take the time to focus on the base and look for evolution. For architects and developers design patterns are great if it fits and gives your customer what they need. Consider that the only constant is change. Do you really need that whiz bang new pattern or will something simpler work better?  

Create a system that can evolve with the customers’ needs over time not revolutionize today forgetting about tomorrow.

Recently I spoke at SXSW Interactive regarding presentations for right versus left brained audiences. I was asked about the ideal client and I brought up a past experience that I only recently discovered again. As anyone working in creative communicatons realizes, few logos and identity projects ever survive to maturity, just as most businesses fail in their first few years.

My ideal client at the time was Selima Salaun of Selima Optiques. I first met Selima in 1986 at the Alain Mikli Optique on 5th Avenue. I was a fan of Mikli eyeglass frame designs and owned several pairs of them. Selima was a creative spirit and a skilled designer and hat maker in Paris before opening the New York location for Mikli. We became friends as we were both fans of opera.

A few years passed and I received a call from Selima, who told me she was working on opening her own designer line of eyewear and had located a store space in Soho for her location. She had been thinking about her business name and the importance of the eye in her business, so she was calling to see if I could design a visual icon that would include both aspects for her new business: Selima Optique. I was living in Roswell at the time, so we would review over the phone and through digital files I sent. In the end, the right design came about from using a hand-drawn technique. It was distinctly different from other brands in that space at the time. Selima accepted the final comp and files, paid me and I lost touch with her over time.



Over 15 years passed, and then I rediscovered that Selima Optique was not only still in business but had expanded to Barney's, J.Crew and the Selima Optique brand was both trendy and global. Not being a celebrity or fashion follower, I never had an idea that she was doing custom designed shades for Bono, Lenny Kravitz, Michael Jackson and others. But I cannot think of a more deserving person for this success.

So what makes a great creative client relationship? The client with a passion for their brand or vision goes a long way towards good work. And they must also really have the authority or ownership of the work. I have been involved in too many failure stories where the chief marketing officer took it upon themselves without much involvement from the ultimate owner or visionary (typically a chief executive officer). The result, no matter the level of the work, was not well received and died a quick death.

Another other most importance factor in success with brand work is having the courage to trust in the team you have engaged to build the work. Success comes to those that dare go the opposite direction of the competition. It requires a lot of bravery and trust and that is not common in general, let alone in building a significant brand.  The western corporate world is littered with “curving stroke logos” that frankly all owe their inspiration to the Nike mark. The original swoosh was created by a single designer working directly with a right-brained visionary.

This past week I had the opportunity to present at the Business Development Institute (BDI) Social Consumer event in New York City and speak about one of Definition 6’s great customer case studies and success stories. The event was attended by over 300 people that work in marketing and media and come from a great variety of big companies including MTV, McGraw Hill, American Express, Citi Group and many others. I’m pretty sure I was one of very few people in the room that works mostly on the tech side of things.

It was a great event. The speaker from Unilever, Senior Communications Marketing Manager Stacie Bright (@Dove), has me honestly considering trying out Dove Body Wash for Men, and Senior Brand Manager Juliet Wilson from Kotex and Organic’s Julie Lee (@julielee75) showed off some truly game-changing work they are doing and even had the entire audience in various stages of discomfort reciting the word “vagina”. But the most energetic speaker by far was Bonin Bough (@boughb), the Global Director of Social Media for Pepsico who delivered a fantastic keynote speech and showed off some very innovative work they’ve done while talking about the importance of having Digital Fitness throughout an organization.

Of course, this made it a bit ironic that my presentation, which followed Bonin’s, essentially focused on some of the great work we’ve done over the past year or so with our customer Coca-Cola. So what’s a tech geek from Atlanta whose company does work for Coke supposed to do in this situation? Well… mostly just try to do his best to represent and share a little Happiness. You can view my presentation which is about 20 minutes long and judge for yourself. I think it went pretty well with the exception of a little technical glitch at the end where the presentation laptop froze up, though I think that happened because I was making jokes about IBM’s Watson at the time. Enjoy.

A week ago, TEDxAtlanta put on its fifth event.  The subject was creativity and the speakers were absolutely awesome.  I believe it is safe to say that this was our best overall show.  All of the speakers were engaging, the crowd was at capacity and as aways, the food and music were fantastic.  A recap of the day can be found here.

And speaking of the fantastic music that is always a big part of TEDxAtlanta... just yesterday, Intel released the below video starring TEDxAtlanta alum, Zoe Keating as part of its Visual Life Contest.



Here is Zoe's performance from TEDxAtlanta.  Note: it was after this performance that I realized while "Ideas Worth Spreading" is a fantastic tagline, TED could actually get away with the tagline, "Making Successful People Feel Unaccomplished."