This month we launched a cosmetic redesign for a Richmond based children’s hospice service, Noah’s Children. Subtlety was key here with this very sensitive topic, and our hats go off here at Launch to those who professions touch people so personally as hospice care does.
I recently saw the film Art & Copy, and thought I’d share a few thoughts about what I saw…
I agree that anyone in this industry should take some time to reflect historically. And if you’ve done your homework, you already know that the design mavericks of the 70’s etched their names into advertising history. Remove the clouds of cigarette smoke, add 100x more passion and the ability to push their gut onto clients, and you’ve got the real Mad Men. Advertising took a risk back then, but it was an intuitive social push from talented pioneers that understood the need for change and had the bravery to make it happen. Advertising was deemed entertainment.
Framed in the story of the guy who actually hangs the billboards was the perfect shift in perspective. That was a part of the ad that no one ever thought about, yet it’s still a part of the process. In a world where everyone is inundated with messaging, the only way you’ll stand out is if you roar when others talk, make the consumer cultural connection and speak the brand truth. All three of those, and chances are, you’ve got the magic. That in itself I found inspiring. The search for the holy grail of good work continues for most of us living in smaller fish bowls.
I moved quickly along the storyline until the Wieden + Kennedy tour. It wasn’t the beautifully creative fun zones - from the basketball court to the heavy bags hanging in the lobby that caught me. It was what Wieden said about creatives. I wanted to pause and rewind again, just to make sure I heard it right. If you want creativity, look at your environment. It has to be a safe haven. Creatives need the wingspan to make mistakes, grow ideas and hone their inner cultural compasses. We don’t have the answers, but we could have a possible step towards it. The ability to lose the fear could make all the difference. Part of me wanted to stand and cheer “Yes, he gets it!”
Like millions of other viewers, I found myself completely lost in the landscape of Pandora. I didn’t care much for the anti-human/environmental messaging, but the visual brilliance overcame the story. Like one review I heard, it was “Dances with Wolves with Smurfs” but in an inescapable land that I wish I could buy multiple timeshares just to vacation year round (yes, that was a jab at the storyline).
Once I got past emotions left by the scenematic escapism referred to as the “Avatar effect”, I quickly moved my thoughts to behind the scenes. So exactly how many people were involved? How much work went into every tiny detail? I still daydream of being in the brainstorm sessions and concept reviews. I can imagine the room with stacks of ideas gestured out on paper and on monitor screens. The idea of having so much talent working on one project is so inspiring to me. It’s like the ultimate creative soup concentrated into one small boullion of 162 minutes. Check out the official movie credit roll to get an idea of what kind of production went into this project.
Show your Launch love by sporting a Launch Interactive desktop image.
I recently experienced my first day of jury duty. After carefully being scrutinized during a question and answer session, I was one of the few still left in their chairs. Those standing were instructed to leave the courtroom. As the rest of the crowd walked past me towards the swinging doors of freedom, I daydreamed about what the rest of the day had filled for them. But I decided that I’d pay attention, do my duty and hopefully learn something. To my surprise, I did learn a few things:
Aside from the amazing napping talents of the sheriffs, the one lesson I connected with was telling the story like it’s your own. It was not new advice. I heard it from the master of presenting himself, Peter Coughter at a recent BrandCenter training session. But I had never really seen it make such and impact as it did that day. This is a lesson that should be integrated into the fabric of every agency. It should apply to both the work we produce as well as giving presentations. Read More…
Social Marketing! Blogs! Facebook! Twitter! Last year, in a sort of symphonic convergence, most of the world’s clients and agencies arrived at the same conclusion, at about the same time, expressing the same question - “How can we make social marketing/media work for us?”
Agencies tried to wrap around specifics of revenues, billing, staffing, and what kinds of projects could provide value.
Clients struggled to see how Social Marketing would serve their brand, their culture, their org chart, and their customers.
As 2010 begins some of the answers, for both, are clear, or at least clearer. Follow me as I detail a favorite project of 2009, social implementation for a regional health care client.
A year ago, the client had a thriving website, a plan for email marketing, and no social presence or plan.
Today, the client has created a social presence that includes:
The creation of social marketing began in February 2009.
Read More…
Happy Holidays from Launch Interactive! We wish all a happy and healthy holiday, and good luck in the New Year!
In the meantime, we’ve dug out our old photo albums and are reminiscing about our favorite holiday memories. Check out our holiday greeting and help us figure out, who is who!?
Click here to view our e-card.
I think it’s safe to say that we can go ahead and etch this into stone:
Launch survived the year 2009.
This year proved to be a challenging one as new and existing clients struggled to keep an interactive perspective on their marketing budgets. All and all, we pushed through projects, knocked on doors, soared in wowing clients, waved goodbye and hello to clients, pitched our hearts out, and pushed through each day.
Just keeping the projects flowing was a huge accomplishment considering the economic state of the outside world. But interactive seemed to take and upswing as many of our clients realized that going online is an affordable and organic way to approach getting the word out. We’d have to agree it’s the way to go. Although some of our projects included the smell of freshly-printed paper.
It’s true that many of our projects humbled us and some inspired us, but somewhere along the way we realized a few things…
A few months ago, I gave a presentation to the local PHP group on CouchDB. For some background information, see my previous blog post about CouchDB and key-value data stores. Today I would like to provide a little more information on CouchDB along with a few examples.
CouchDB uses a RESTful API for queries and returns information in JSON. In my database, I set up an example database named phpug that models how CouchDB may be used to store events for an events calendar. I populated the database with random events occurring between 2009 and 2012 and belonging to a few different categories. Here are some example queries.
When no parameters are sent to the database, it returns a welcome message and the version.
URI: http://db.exampledomain.com/
Response:{ "couchdb":"Welcome", "version":"0.8.0-incubating" }
When a database is added to the URI, statistics for that database are returned.
URI: http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug
Response:{ "db_name":"phpug", "doc_count":0, "doc_del_count":0, "update_seq":0, "compact_running":false, "disk_size":4096 }
Finally, when an id is added to the URI, the document associated with that identifier is returned. Note the _id and _rev fields. The _id holds the identifier for the document. This can either be set or automatically generated. In this case, the populate script I used created the id. _rev denotes the revision of the current document.
URI: http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug/meeting-2009-09-24
Response:{ "_id":"meeting-2009-09-24", "_rev":"4184112083", "location":"Kelly's", "time":"19:00", "date":"2009-09-24" }
Views are an important way to bring back specific data in CouchDB. They could be considered somewhat equivalent to the WHERE clause in SQL. The following view was setup to bring back data by date and type (I have only included one meeting type in the example below) as well as provide a count of events in the database.
{
"date": {
"map": "function(doc) {
emit(doc.date, doc);
}"
},
"meetings": {
"map": "function(doc) {
if( doc.category == 'Meeting' ) {
emit( doc.date, doc );
}
}"
},
"counts" : {
"map": "function(doc) {
emit( doc.date, 1 );
}",
"reduce": "function( keys, values ) {
return sum(values);
}"
}
}
Bring back all results sorted by date:
http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug_calendar/_view/cal_views/date
Bring back results for a specific day (February 10, 2009):
http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug_calendar/_view/cal_views/date?key=”2009-2-10″
Bring back results for a range (2010):
http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug_calendar/_view/cal_views/date
?startkey=”2010-1-1″
&endkey=”2010-12-31″
Bring back first 5 results from the previous results:
http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug_calendar/_view/cal_views/date
?startkey=”2010-1-1″
&endkey=”2010-12-31″
&count=5
Get second page of results (from past two examples)
http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug_calendar/_view/cal_views/date
?startkey=”2010-1-1″
&endkey=”2010-12-31″
&count=5
&skip=5
(It is more efficient to keep using count and startkey_docid than skip=5 for large datasets)
Get the first 5 meetings
http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug_calendar/_view/cal_views/meetings
?count=5
Get the number of events on a specific day
http://db.exampledomain.com/phpug_calendar/_view/cal_views/counts
?key=”2009-2-10″
I have glossed over a few details such as the purpose of _rev, and how map/reduce/rereduce works, but this time I just wanted to show a few examples of how CouchDB works. For all the details, head over to the CouchDB site where there is plenty of documentation on how everything works.
Many of you have watched the “Did You Know” viral videos on YouTube. Recently, the creators of those earthshaking social media pieces have released a new one related to the growth of Social Networking in comparison to the Industrial Revolution. The information in the attached piece will rattle your brain. Enjoy!
