Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

Web safe? Web safe!? Curse the Web and it's lack of typographic variety!

Imagine a Web where beautiful typography is unlimited (with out the use of Flash).  Imagine how it would differentiate a design or a company.

But every Web designer has had it beaten into their skull that they should limit the fonts in their design to Verdana, Times, and a few others. While most hate it, many have embraced the limitation and relish the challenge. Others like the continuity it provides. Either way, the reason we do this is because nothing else works.

But the answer is not so simple, or nearly as boring.

There is a CSS property called @font-face that allows you to use any font you wish. It's not universally supported in current browsers. There are also different font formats for Internet Explorer (imagine that). Harder to solve is the issue that you can't take any commercial font and put it on the Web for everyone to have.

So technical and legal limitations killed Web Typography from taking root. But things are changing. CSS3 is on the way. The ranks of good, free, unlicensed Web safe fonts are growing. New license schemas and services like TypeKit and Typotheque for font usage are emerging. Now Firefox has released a new cross platform font format.

Keep an eye on this. I sense a growing trend.
 

This past weekend, I traveled to Memphis to judge the Memphis Ad Federation's Addys. For the judging, I was joined by Gianfranco Arena from BBDO in NYC and Jeff Mahar from Cannonball in St Louis.

On the first day of judging we were handed our charge. The charge included some sobering language reminding us that the decisions we were making over two days were going to affect people's lives. Some people would be elated, some disappointed; some would decide to change their profession, some would ask for a raise. With a heavy sense of responsibility, we began our work.

We evaluated roughly 600 entries and made decisive decisions. Though we could not discuss our thoughts during judging, we were able to speak freely at the end of day two as we decided the Best in Show awards. We were pleased to discover our votes were similar (on many things). There were no easy choices and we had healthy debates. Since the judging is anonymous, we still don't know who was responsible for each piece.

The work was solid. I was inspired by several of the items I reviewed. I found it interesting that the city of Memphis seemed to influence the work. Overall I found everything creative and approachable with a bit of funky added in - this is a great recipe for effective advertising.

I can not discuss the work that we evaluated, but I can tell you some of the highlights of the trip:

• • Meeting all of the fabulous people at the Memphis Ad Club
  
• • Eating: Ribs and barbecue at Rendevous, Fried chicken at Gus's, Burgers at Huey's
  
• • The all inclusive trip to Graceland with Kelly
  
• • Seeing the ducks at the Peabody hotel
  
• • Watching Pam talk her way out of getting towed
  
• • Hearing Dan's monkey story - it's one of the best I stories I have ever heard

We were supported by a great group of volunteers from the Ad Club. They took our needs seriously and made sure we had what we needed to make decisions. I don't have the names of all the volunteers but we were able to spend some quality time with the current board: Sally Baker-Brenner the association manager, Susan Ewing from inferno, Marcia Anthony from ABC 24 WPTY, Pam Branham from Running Pony and Dan Barron from Entercom Radio.

Many thanks to Pam and Sally and all of the volunteers at the Ad Club. I hope to see you in Memphis again soon. And to James, I hope you had fun interpretting my messy handwriting.

For those of you competing: Good luck and congratulations on creating great work. I recommend sending a slam-o-gram to your competitors. 

Not only was SXSW09 an educational experience, it was also an exercise in team building.  No team is as close as the one who plays together.  Naturally, when we showed up at the Interactive Closing Party, hosted by our good friends at Media Temple, the Capstratters couldn't resist a challenge from an on-site mechanical bull. When in Texas, do as the Texans do, right?  Here's how it all went down.

 

Todd Moy makes the following statement:"I'll get on that bull if someone else does."  Enough said.  Laura signs a waiver, grabs a glove and saddles up first for the Capstrat team.

 

Todd's up next.  Yes this is actually Todd Moy on a mechanical bull.  Enjoy this, you might never get to see it again.

There goes Evan, our official time keeper.

 

And John, our winner...at 44 seconds!

 

Virginia our fearless leader, never one to back down from a challenge, finishes up the night strong.

 

After all that hard work, we finished things off with mmmpanadas out of a truck.  I'm so excited I think I'm waving mine at Evan. It was truly an authentic night out in Austin and a great way to end our SXSW09 experience.

 

At an interesting panel* at SXSW 09 , YinYin He demonstrated a device she created, dubbed "Patches," that was designed for touch via the Facebook "poke" interaction. This little patch, easily worn on your clothing, has sensors inside it that vibrate or "buzz" when you're poked on Facebook. After a Facebook user "pokes" you, a message is sent to a server and them to a microcontroller on the patch. A text message is also sent to your mobile device.

The patch is made of snaps, conductive thread, fabrics, and grey thermocromic ink (the same stuff mood rings are made out of).  Pretty cool, huh?

So for those of you that always thought the good old Facebook "poke" was pretty pointless, maybe we're on our way to a more interactive experience via touch technology.

*Touching Me Touching You: How We Feel Technology

On the Love. Die. Submit blog:

1. Capstrat Meet-up: March 10, 2009 6-9 PM at Capstrat

2. Margot asks if commitment the same in real life and online

3. Todd M talks about the complications of being married in real life and on Second Life - and no the experience is not first hand.

4. With the help of some Koala bears, Todd gives some advice on long-distance hugging.

5. Margot talks about trust issues in online relationships.   She is not the first of us to consider online-only marriages a modern day twist on 1940's War Brides.

 

The Love. Die. Submit. Blog is a playground for people to talk about digital love and the afterlife - two topics we are interested in, and conversing about at SXSW this year. 

Two of Capstrat's ideas were selected for the SXSW Interactive conference this year. The SXSW interactive festival celebrates the creativity and passion behind the coolest new media technologies. There are hundreds of panel sessions that cover everything from Web design to development to social networks to starting your own Web-based start-up. The newest element of the event is ScreenBurn at SXSW, which adds specific gaming industry programming as well as a three-day Arcade to the mix.
 
Todd Moy and Laura Bryant are interested in love in the clouds – wondering specifically of marriage could exist online only. Could two people really share a life without ever meeting in meatspace? We discuss how online-only marriages could work. What current assumptions and apprehensions will seem quaint tomorrow? What are the barriers, and what answers will technology provide? In a world that’s redefining marriage, is this the next logical step? Margot C Lester is co-presenting with us. Margot lives in the Triangle and has a recurring column on MSN / Match.com. She has a unique and personal perspective on online dating, having met her husband online.
 
Evan Carroll and John Romano are interested in finding out who will check their email after they die. Ever wondered what will happen to your digital existence after you die? E-mail, domain names, social networking content – do you want to leave it behind, "bequeath" it, or delete it? This in-depth discussion will provide technical, philosophical and legal insights on how to articulate your final online wishes. Matt Ludwig is co-presenting with us. We met Matt in late 2008 after a discussion about the digital afterlife came up on the IxDA (Interaction Design Association) listserv. He is working on a project that addressed exactly these issues.
 
To start discussions around these topics, we have created a blog that focuses on submitting to love and death. Check out posts from John, Laura, Evan and Todd as well as our two co-panelists. The blog is interesting whether you are interested in Digital Love or Digital Death.
 

SXSW is one of the very best interactive conferences in the world. We've sent individuals in the past and we've always been HUGE advocates for the conference. This year we decided to submit some ideas. The people at SXSW have created a panel picker so attendees can select what they want to see at the conference. With 1200+ ideas submitted, we want your help! It will be hard to find our ideas with all the others. 

Follow this link to see the 4 Capstrat ideas.  (or read below) You must register to vote. Consider doing so. There are a lot of great ideas out there.

Vote for our friends at Campfire, too. 

For more information about the conference, visit the SXSW site .  

Here's what we submitted: 

Microsites. Macro Risks and Rewards.
Microsites can boost you or burn you. Extend your brand, or dilute it. How can you tame them to serve your needs? Come hear what our marketing, branding and technical experts are reporting from the front lines - and learn how to laser-focus your messaging without getting scorched.

1. What exactly is a microsite and how does it differ from other sites?
   
2. What are 4 good reasons to build one?
   
3. How do you navigate the opportunities and dangers of microsites?
   
4. Does using microsites as part of a broader campaign lead to brand dilution or brand extension?
   
5. When implementing a microsite, how do you reconcile rigid IT process with the need for speed, agility and flexibility?
   
6. What kind of interactions and experiences make a great microsite?
   
7. How are microsites like the replicants in Blade Runner?
   
8. How do you define your audience, message and success for your microsite?
   
9. How do you craft rules to guide microsite projects without stifling creativity?
   
10. What will microsites look like a year from now?

 

Who Will Check My Email After I Die?
Ever wondered what will happen to your digital existence after you die? E-mail, domain names, social networking content - do you want to leave it behind, -bequeath- it, or delete it? This in-depth discussion will provide technical, philosophical and legal insights on how to articulate your final online wishes.

1. How can I decide what should be done with my social network profiles and other digital assets?
2. How can I ensure sensitive information is deleted or transferred to the correct person?
3. Can I leave my domain name in my will?
4. Whom should I select to execute my digital estate?
5. How can I inform my online friends of my death and share with them my final messages?
6. Can I protect my digital identity from destruction by my descendants or others?
7. Can I transfer my iTunes purchases to somebody else?
8. How can I keep my dirty laundry out of my obituary?
9. Is there a service that can help with this?
10. How can I be sure that big companies (like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft) will respect my wishes?
    

 

Physical Computing: from I get it to Sold!
The learning curve is steep, but it's over in a flash. Our panelists bring word from the other side: Physical computing works. And sells. Participants in this session will build and keep their own devices from simple chips and inexpensive parts.

1. What is physical computing?
2. Why is it important to me?
3. How do I set up my Wiring or Processing environment?
4. Can artists, architects, designers, etc., benefit from physical computing?
5. Will my clients be interested in physical computing?
6. How can I build my own computer-controlled device?
7. How can I progress from simple devices to really cool gadgets?
8. What are some good resources on the web?
9. What are some good resources that are not on the web?
10. What are some larger applications for this knowledge?

 

Love in the Cloud: Online-Only Marriages
Could two people really share a life without ever meeting in meatspace? We discuss how online-only marriages could work. What current assumptions and apprehensions will seem quaint tomorrow? What are the barriers, and what answers will technology provide? In a world that's redefining marriage, is this the next logical step?

1. What variables must be in place to have an online only marriage?
2. What new technologies might make this possible?
3. Is anyone doing anything similar to this?
4. What variables constitute a romantic relationship?
5. Is presence or physical interaction a requirement for a fulfilling relationship?
6. Assuming we make a prediction for this, when do we see it happening in the future?
7. What populations could benefit from this ability to have this type of relationship?
8. What are the implications of this for society?
9. What would your mother say? :)
10. What are the detractions for this? - (For example, some inhibitors are: Legal implications, Death - transferable implications, taxes)

This panel focused on the practical issues an organization has to explore as it grows. It did not touch on the strategy behind scalable Web ventures. One major lesson presented is that you better have your lead technologist involved in a lot of discussions early-on, if you are ready to start scaling your Web business. 

Every popular website eventually runs into the same problem: how to scale. In general, you hope for as much traffic as possible when you are developing a new application, but what would happen if you actually got it? Could you keep up with the increase in users, data, bandwidth, servers, and everything else that makes your application go? This panel aims to expose some of the key issues that you will face as your traffic grows, with insight from people with proven track records working on complex, high volume systems. Topics such as load balancing, caching technologies, and database use will be discussed. The end goal is that we would like the audience to leave with a better understanding of the issues that they will face when their applications start to get material amounts of traffic, with the hope that they will be able to better plan for growth.

Kevin Rose - Founder - Diggnation /Digg Inc
Cal Henderson - Badass MC - Flickr
Joe Stump - Lead Architect - Digg.com Inc
Chris Lea - Media Temple
Garett Camp - StumbleUpon
Matt Mullenweg - Founding Dev - Automattic /WordPress

Should I buy or rent space? Media Temple (and other hosting companies) have more hardware available than any of their customers. When you get customers that develop something bad (on accident) and you get a lot of traffic, no amount of hardware is going to protect that site or the others on the box from crashing.

If you need something specialized to your application, and it will affect others, the vendor is not going to do it. Scalability requires specification and customability. Architectures are different because each company is different. This allows for customized problems, digg and flickr have totally different problems.

Some of the panelists think buying boxes is not scalable and would rather keep renting space.

YOu may be having database scalabilty issues and going from 10 MySQL instances to Oracle. The easiest ways to solve problems is to through money at it. The more MySQL databases you ahve the more likely you are going to have one down. You have to make sure you partition the data as you build.

My SQL Proxy project - imbed lua language. You talk to the proxy and the proxy knows what to do.

Scalability of teams must be considered. You generally have to add more structure to the team when you have several developers. There is always one dissenting opnion when you have 7 developers. The perfect number of developers working on a single project seems to be between 3-6. You can almost always get consensus with that number.

Documenting code is essential. It takes a lot of time for everyone to explain and get up to speed when you don't.

Recommend coding in a wiki so that each developer can easily work on the code. You must complete cross-training, you have to have two people learn something at the same time.

You can't do check-ins on a ticket unless you actually own it (Panelist recommends using Trac - which we use at Capstrat).

They mentioned that most developers are anti-agile or anti-scrum processes (Thoughts on this?? Our developers love team development with everyone working on one project for a period of time.)

Every company is different, at WordPress, the employees are 100% remote. There is talk of having some location redundancy and requiring those int he same area get together once a week to discuss issues and company ideas.

When you are trying to be scalable, the bottleneck will never be your language. It is always your database or your file storage or access. (As Cal Henderson from Flickr said:Flickrs first issue was they ran out of disk space (hmm), but there are ways you can figure this out with a tiny bit of foresight.)

This panel explores the love and relationships people have for and with their products. Towards the end of the panel, I had a hard time tying back the panelist statements to the topic, but still found the discussion interesting. Read on and let me know if you are interested in discussing.

Why do users form relationships with some products over others? What makes people develop feelings for software (good and bad)? We'll show practical ways to make your application more appealing to your users avoid creating abusive relationships, and discuss what it means to practice responsible design, including:

• Recognizing your audience's emotional attachment.
  
• Understanding how (and when) to think about the emotional elements of your product/design.
  
• Ways to improve your process so you can avoid creating "abusive" products.

Dan Rubin Black Seagull /Sidebar Creative
Eris Stassi Interaction Designer, Apple
Didier Hilhorst Interaction Designer, IDEO

Aichaku - Word that is an attachment to a product - word in Japan. Love you feel towards a product, not a person. Many products evoke an emotional response, but we are not always aware of it. First impressions are key in this arena. They work with products and people. You have to think about the experience from the very first second people interact with it. 10 hour installs are not good. Communicate with your consumers.

We think about emotional attachments with people all the time. Communication is key. Good communication starts a great relationship. We can't go to therapy with our products. Good products will be a step ahead, just like a person. People and products predicting experiences in a good way.

8 emotions

1. Trust
   
2. Commitment
   
3. Forgiveness
4. Respect
5. Jealousy
6. Deception
7. Blame
8. Stubborn

The intial reaction is always, is it hot or not. Trust and commitment come later. Jewelry is about commitment. Driving a Prius is a commitment to the environment because the car is butt ugly. Your best friend pisses you off a lot, but they are still your best friend. So you can make mistakes in the product experience, but you have to get most of it right. If it doesn't you have a bad relationship. Big difference between forgiveness and allowing for stupidity.

"A product (person) that can correct our mistakes as they happens gains our trust." -Maeda

This quote is about the person or product that has your back. The person that is not waiting for you to make a mistake, they are helping you prevent the mistake from happening.

If we create bad products, the fault is human, but there is redemption.

---I am not sure how this supports the argument - but her points were interesting. --- There are products that have redfined themselves. The Prius issues early on. Netflix put control in our hands and redeemed the postal industry. Flexcar - urban cities thinking about ownership and how you can use a car. Method's house cleaning products prove you don't have to use harsh products to get things clean.

Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you don't want to use a product, why would anyone else?

4 things to consider Experience of Flow - feeling in control, clear goal of what you are going and how you are doing it. Map the story out and tell it to someone. Start role-playing.

Memory Recall - Memories are strong emotional attachments. Photographs remind you of something. In applications this happens as well. Tastes, smells, audio, visuals - things that take you back to a time and place.

Symbolic Meaning - The ability to feel better, it encourages our sense of self. Products that we think help define who we are.

Tactile Experience - Product and indistrial design people think about this on a regular basis.

This panel will be of interest to anyone working for a start-up or preparing to launch a new brand. The title is sensational, but the message is simple - it's about prioritization. You have to prioritize your focus and not put too much emphasis on your brand. Focus on what makes you stand out and make sure you get a good URL!! 

There's one word you should utter to the next client who asks you to design a logo: 'No.' Once the backbone of a brand's identity, logos have moved to the 'relatively unimportant' end of the 'important stuff' spectrum. This panel will explain how and why logos became irrelevant and will discuss how to break this news to your clients...and what the heck you do first on a design project if it isn't the logo.

The three takeaways:

-- The ways that logos limit a brand
-- The fact that sometimes, no logo is better than a logo
-- How to explain this to clients who can't imagine it.

Bryan Zmijewski Chief Instigator, LuckyOliver.com
Jeremy Britton Partner, Zurb Inc
Christina Wodtke LinkedIn
Luke Wroblewski Sr Principal, Yahoo! Inc

Make sure you understand the difference between a Logo and Logotype. Logo creation can distract you when you are trying to get a business started.

The costs of creating a logo:

1. printing/money
2. time
3. momentum

Industrial Revolution (manufactured goods were most important) to Information Age (URL is most important): In the industrial revolution, people started putting logos on things like soap to differentiate the product from another once the wrapper is off.

Now there are companies like LogoWorks.com that will make a logo for $25. Lots of times those logos turn out okay. Right now, people are paying a lot of money for URLs. If you can not get the URL you want, you will consider changing your name. Originally, logos were signature, but now they have been undermined by copycats. URL has been supplanting the quality of truth.

Early on, having a findable site is more important. Consistency is important, but it is a lot easier to be consistent when you start small.

Many times terms are used as identifiers, with variants on spellings (flickr.com) or strange combinations (Lucky Oliver).

You have 1.6 seconds a month with each person to make an impression on your customer online. Many times, it may be easier to remember the query string to get to the site, than remember the logo.

In start-up mode, every hour you spend working on something is an hour you spend not working on something else. The message is more important. Do you have time to work on the logo? When you are trying to build a company in 6 months how important is it to build the mark?

The icon does not come to play as much as it used to. You don't think about the Twitter logo, you think about the number you send messages to (40404). Is having a Yahoo logo on content important? Well-organized visual and structure seem to be more important. Does it seem professional? Is the logomark going to take it to the professional level. If so, you may need it. With phishing the link is more important than the mark.

Brand has overshadowed LOGO. You can't just have a Web site that is brochure-ware. It's about engaging customers and getting them to interact with you, not just about putting up a form.