& Commentary

SXSW Panel Entry

Well, me and my friend Kyle submitted a panel concept to SXSW. We’ve somehow managed to make the cut for voting. Who knows what’ll happen next. Maybe we’ll to go Austin and hang out with people smarter than us. I hope so.

Here’s the link:

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/6928

A brief history of the world the Internet and everything. Starting in 1992

In the early 90s just when the online space was exploding, life was grand. Ad budgets flowed like the Mississippi River. Retainers were as big as Mastodons. Pluto was still a planet. Amazon was just a river. Arrested Development was only a band, and Mark Zuckerburg was just starting elementary school.

Some businesses panicked—others cashed in. It was the beginning of yet another revolution in information. The greatest since some dude named Gutenberg.

And if you were a business in 1992, you were hit by a staggering notion. “If I doth not existeth online, to the world I am most surely parished! To the quick! Would any man constructeth thee an interwebbernet paging system!”

Then nerds from all over the world straightened their glasses, mumbled to themselves, and went at it.

We were so young then.

We didn’t have web designers. We had coders. And because of this, if anything online looked good it was a happy accident. Information flow and user-interface people didn’t really exist.

Fast-forward to 1999.

The Euro was established. The Violent Femmes wrote the theme for Sponge Bob Square Pants. The Y2K bug was looming, as well as the “Livin’ La Vida Loca” earworm. We all thought Yahoo was going to take over the world. What came to be known as Wi-Fi, was standardized. Napster was one-year-old. Google finally exists.

Hop to 2000. We kick it off with the culmination of the Y2K panic—which I personally experienced 5 times due to an international flight. Then cur-blewy. The Internet bubble bursts. It was a huge mess. Cleaning crews are called in from Eastern Europe and Chad. Next, high-speed Internet is attainable for customers.

SixDegrees.com—one of the first modern-day social networking sites folded because of enormous amounts of spam and user abuse. Two years later Friendster takes the stage, and does well.

Wasn’t that a nice trip down partial memory lane? I think so. So what can we learn? Bunches. More than I can calculate in this essay. But for the purposes of web design and social networking there’s at least one phrase to note.

1992: If I don’t have a webpage, my business is dead to the world.

Since then we’ve learned a few things. Websites have more of a purpose than to prove validity. They are a communication tool, and any time businesses are attempting to communicate something—they need a plan. So, we’ve gotten smarter. Now we develop plans for how and what we want to communicate with our own little corner of the Internet.

2010: If I’m not taking advantage of social media, I’m dead to the world.

See above. Make a plan. Just because a business has a facebook page doesn’t mean anything unless that business understands why they have a facebook page. Or twitter feed or blog. Or whatever the next big thing is.

Stay tuned for more entries of what that plan can be.

Here’s a somewhat relevant video for you to laugh at.

Welcome to the future of advertising, and by future I mean, RUN!!!!!

So, there’s lot s of theories on which form of advertising works. No one really knows–Is it the low budget awkwardness of Head-On spots (apply directly to the forehead)? The aspirational high budget slickness that is Nike? The social statement that was Dove’s true beauty campaign? Or is it about being as disruptive as possible with new technology and ad placements. At some point in time will everyone be paid by an advertiser just to be inundated with a product’s blinky-factor? I dunno, but I hope to God it doesn’t look anything like this:

Jeff and Erin’s EPIC wedding

I am truly jealous of this.

I wonder how many uninvited guests they’ll get.

Kanye, Serena, Joe and the Original Brat

… And then it occurred to me. Everyone’s not yelling at each other, it just seems that way. For crying out loud, stop crying out loud. It’s like middle school out there in TV, and nobody cool is sitting at the cool people table. I want the ball! You’re a big fat liar! Well! You’re stupid!

I’m not sure what it says about our society, and I don’t know if I want to know. I don’t blame Serena, Joe, and Kanye for being who they are. A wise man once said, “The difference between crazy and eccentric is calculated in dollars.” And you have to be kind of eccentric to get where they are, right?

Who knows? Regardless, here’s an interpretive ramble.

I guess we’re all reverting to a cast of whiny 12-year-olds hanging out on the playground — wondering why no one understands how important we are. And why not, that’s what we’ve been told right? We are important. We are good enough. Our schools, parents, and “how-to raise your children” books  practically beg us, to constantly pander to the now Gen-X and Gen-Yers about how important they are — Ergo society has developed a bunch of self-indulgent dunderheads.

Where does Joe Wilson of South Carolina fit into this scenario? I don’t know, things happen in threes I guess. Maybe you can dock somebody a generation if they serve in the Senate. Cause he’s obviously a baby-boomer. Or perhaps his outburst was less self importance and more lack of self control.

What we’ve ended up with is two entire generations, who think they are important, but refuse to try to be. Or better yet, have little concept of what real effort is. And why should they put forth effort? Important people don’t, right?

Sheesh.

At least when McEnroe went off, it became iconic. I don’t think anyone is going to be asking for a repeat performance from Serena to hock Amex. Maybe she’ll end up in a pop song.

The World Wide Webbernet Circa 1975

We’ve come a long way yet, we are still saying the same thing. The internet can help your business now! It will make you bolder! This is part of an IBM slideshow from 1975. To see the whole glorious thing go to: http://www.squareamerica.com/ib.htm

Mexican Food

Mexicans eat Mexican food everyday. This weekend, I had it three times in a row. Honestly. I don’t know how they do it. If you are ever in Winston-Salem, NC, try out La Botana. Get the sopes. Order the cheese dip too. Just remember to call it cheese dip and not queso. You’ll get corrected or they will bring you random cheese.

Random Thought:

When stuff falls by the wayside it doesn’t always break when it hits the ground.

What the hell is an interactive art director?

Us ad and marketing grunts seem to be great at misnomers. At some point in time the word branding was redefined as logo, the word mnemonic became that thing at the end of your TV spot where the announcer said the company name and the word online became interactive.

So, at the get-go my brain starts twitching when someone says interactive art director. I’m clearly playing a semantics game here, and that’s not very fair, but we are in the business of communication, right? Half the games we play are semantics.

So what is an interactive art director?

As most of you know better than I, there are copywriting based ad agencies, art direction based ad agencies (that exist mainly overseas), and those who seem to manage to pay attention to both (These are the A-listers, no need for a laundry list).

Let me know if I’m delusional here–research is often hard to calculate in the ad world.

So, here’s what I know.

Most people are looking for an interactive art director, but the writer based joints don’t seem to know what that is. When I look over the qualifications that traditional agencies seems to want — It’s an art director, who is not only an interactive designer, but also a developer.

Between me you and the fence post, I think they want a Mac-monkey who understands Flash, Dreamweaver, CSS, PHP, AS3–But is also conceptual.

And that sounds like at least three different job descriptions to me, but that’s why I’m asking. What do you think?

And thus the clunky evolutionary state of traditional agencies trying to get the money that interactive agencies are raking in.

The Questions:

What software knowledge or otherwise does an interactive art director know that a traditional art director doesn’t know?

When you see somebody legitimately asking for an interactive art director — is that what they generally want?

When you see a portfolio with interactive, TV, print and design come from an art director, would you put them in for an interactive art director position at a traditional agency?

What says interactive art director to you?

I’m asking a bunch of questions, and I don’t have solutions here. So, I’m being that guy.

What I do know is this. Every agency that’s looking is looking for something different. Some will be impressed if you can merely open Flash and Dreamweaver. Others don’t want you unless you’ve helped construct an actual online experience. And I don’t mean banners. Banner’s have their place and all, but let’s face it. They are the cheapest way to advertise.  And you get what you pay for, most of the time, right?

The game is odd. And I’m still playing.

What say you?