There is a nice Renaissance going on in the world of online applications. Increasingly we are seeing great little online gadgets that can genuinly improve your workday. Yes, these tools are incredibly geeky and for a niche web-centric audience. But they won't stay that way.

Here are a few that have just crossed my desk:

Dismayed about trying to find a way for visio to be cross platform for your Mac friends? Don't be. here is Gliffy.
http://www.gliffy.com/

Feel the need to set your type in twelve faces and font sizes before you strike gold? Go here first and see if this can't save you time.
http://typetester.maratz.com/

Do you like the webdeveloper toolbars on IE and Firefox, but you still are feeling like you wanna tweak more of the DOM? Check out the featureset on this baby:
http://www.getfirebug.com/

This isn't really an online app, but can help alot. Do you just HATE the way IE overwrites itself on your windows system so you can't install previous versions? Try this:
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Ok ok, you are right, there ARE online solutions for comparative browser testing too. And free ones! The browser alternatives here are limited, but it is still worth your time.
http://browsershots.org

I won't even go into the 20 or so really impressive color combination tools or the online photo editing tools, I will get to those later.

What cool online applications are you playing with these days?

Labels: developer, geek, online application

Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz allegedly wrote this memo to CEO Jim Donald earlier this month. There is some doubt in the blogs I have read about its authenticity. Regardless of its lineage, it is a good read and helluva good dissection of an expereince. This is also a fascinating and perceptive look at how business decisions have impacted design and the customer's interaction witha well known brand. The Starbucks experience is a well crafted and highly successful brand and yet it makes mistakes - so here are some to chew on.

------------------------------------------

From: Howard Schultz
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:39 AM Pacific Standard Time
To: Jim Donald
Cc: Anne Saunders; Dave Pace; Dorothy Kim; Gerry Lopez; Jim Alling; Ken Lombard; Martin Coles; Michael Casey; Michelle Gass; Paula Boggs; Sandra Taylor
Subject: The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience

As you prepare for the FY 08 strategic planning process, I want to share some of my thoughts with you.

Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.

Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience; but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces. For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista. This, coupled with the need for fresh roasted coffee in every North America city and every international market, moved us toward the decision and the need for flavor locked packaging. Again, the right decision at the right time, and once again I believe we overlooked the cause and the affect of flavor lock in our stores. We achieved fresh roasted bagged coffee, but at what cost? The loss of aroma -- perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores; the loss of our people scooping fresh coffee from the bins and grinding it fresh in front of the customer, and once again stripping the store of tradition and our heritage? Then we moved to store design. Clearly we have had to streamline store design to gain efficiencies of scale and to make sure we had the ROI on sales to investment ratios that would satisfy the financial side of our business. However, one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store. Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee. You certainly can't get the message from being in our stores. The merchandise, more art than science, is far removed from being the merchant that I believe we can be and certainly at a minimum should support the foundation of our coffee heritage. Some stores don't have coffee grinders, French presses from Bodum, or even coffee filters.
Now that I have provided you with a list of some of the underlying issues that I believe we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it's time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience. While the current state of affairs for the most part is self induced, that has lead to competitors of all kinds, small and large coffee companies, fast food operators, and mom and pops, to position themselves in a way that creates awareness, trial and loyalty of people who previously have been Starbucks customers. This must be eradicated.

I have said for 20 years that our success is not an entitlement and now it's proving to be a reality. Let's be smarter about how we are spending our time, money and resources. Let's get back to the core. Push for innovation and do the things necessary to once again differentiate Starbucks from all others. We source and buy the highest quality coffee. We have built the most trusted brand in coffee in the world, and we have an enormous responsibility to both the people who have come before us and the 150,000 partners and their families who are relying on our stewardship.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge all that you do for Starbucks. Without your passion and commitment, we would not be where we are today.

Onward…

Labels: Branding, Business Differentiation, Starbucks

So you have all heard of careerbuilder, you know, the monkeys & whatnot.

What is interesting is that several years ago you may NOT have heard of careerbuilder. About three years ago careerbuilder hired chicago-based Crammer-Krasselt, who basically took careerbuilder from third/forth place in the placements industry to number 1 in quite a few different ways of measurement. (#1 in visits, #1 in share, #1 in listings, revenue up from $100 million to $700 million)

Many levels of strategy were involved with this success. Certainly we have all seen and enjoyed the monkeys, but the core message those simians were trying to get across was DIFFERENT from the messages of monster and the other placement giants. Careerbuilder was targeting people who were dissatisfied with their current job, not just people who were looking for a new one. This is clearly a much larger market that has the benefit of also targeting the traditional job-seekers. It has worked out fabulously for Careerbuilder, and their brand has benefited enormously.

So amidst all this apparent success, Cramer-Krasselt was recently dealt a somewhat humiliating slap in the face. Their superbowl ads for Careerbuilder did not make the top 10 in the USA today poll following the superbowl. Now I don't know how much stock to place in the USA today poll, but it sounds like useless poll too me. But Careerbuilder took it seriously. Careerbuilder responded to it by saying they needed to do a total creative review. Now my opinion is that clients can and should ask for creative reviews whenever it suits them. But there is also something called strategy and tact, and it could be that Careerbuilder failed to employ those attributes when it accosted C-K about not making the top 10 in a, well, silly poll.

Whether appropriately or inappropriately, the CEO Peter Krivkovich QUIT the Careerbuilder account when he found out about the creative review. And then he sent out a very pointed and at times scathing internal memo which was subsequently leaked to the Chicago Tribune and lo and behold, here we are.

The full memo is well worth reading and digesting but here is a tidbit first:

"To our amazement, to our total astonishment, all that astounding business success was less important than one poll. They wanted us to make them famous; we did that in spades (brand awareness up by 64% - even Millward Brown, the venerable research firm said their brand building model couldn't explain such incredible growth.) But the TV ads did not make the top 10 in the USA Today poll – a poll that everyone knows doesn't mirror results (see the continuing Bud sales decline for one!) - they just told us they will do a creative review.

Wait a minute we said, what about the incredible growth that is going on, the shares, the revenue, the awareness, the two best internet sites ever, the massive buzz, etc, etc.

What about all of that? That's huge.

"Yes," they responded, "but you (C-K) didn't get the top ten in the USA Today poll." Hold on… we crushed every possible business metrics/barometer for success. Out of all the metrics and polls, it's all about this one? You have to be (explative) kidding, right!? "No, that's it. It's because of the poll." That was about the extent of the conversation."

The full text is below.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070223careermemo,1,2814628.story?coll=chi-news-hed

And here is the agency site.

http://www.c-k.com/ck_site.html

Labels: advertising, advertising agencies, placement

Children of Men is a futuristic dystopian film which recently came out. I didn't see it, but I was entertained to find out that all of the advertising in the movie was done by an actual advertising agency.

http://www.foreignoffice.com/projekts/movies/movie_com.htm

The British agency was Foreign Office:
http://www.foreignoffice.com/

I think it would be thrilling to create the advertising mediascape of a fictional world. Apparently the agency worked in concert with the director, who explained what kind of impression he was aiming for down to the pieces of litter on the streets.

Labels: advertising, movies

This past weekend a friend of mine brought over his Nintendo Wii, not only was I impressed with its gameplay and usablility, but its internet browser was awesome as well. It is made by Opera and it renders pages pretty well. Then I started to think, "This is just one more browser for me to test my pages on." It won't stop there either, even to the outermost perimeter of our lives will be filled with screens.

The internet has grown with our lifestyles intertwined. Electronics on the market are judged by the ability these products have to tap into data and access the internet. In order for these devices to access the same resources, manufacturers have to develop components that parallel that of computers.

We can see it with the PDAs and the smartphones, the kiosks at the mall, the guy who created his house into a interactive Christmas show, and now gaming consoles as well. While the ways in which the internet is used are branching off into different veins, screen resolutions are becoming higher and monitor sizes are getting bigger. This provides somewhat of a conflict for us producers, developers, and designers; how do we make something work and express information in the same manner across all formats?

The content will have to change presentation on every varying screen, and coded to change the size of its elements depending on the device. Eventually we will have to make this a standard because as the internet moves from the computer into our pockets and cars, the predictable monitor size will be no more.

For the time being, I think we should start by "testing" all pages on the Wii.

“Web 2.0 companies” is sooo early 21^st century. Today, idfive announces web 5.0. Read all about it. Move over Google. Eat your heart out Yahoo! Suck it Digg! Facebook... well... never mind, you guys are pretty much web beta.

Have a read.

Labels: facebook, Google, web 2.0, web 5.0, yahoo

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then why did these pictures leave me speechless?

There are tons more. Go. It's worth the ten seconds.

An article about how we can beat the one thing that can’t be beat: death.

2,466 diggs (the last one, the 2,466th is me).

I think it is incredibly amusing that the most popular article on digg is not about beauty, sex, google, music, Apple, intergalactic domination, or pets. It's about death - actually, beating death. What does this say about our culture?

Wow.

We've all seen the hub and spoke flight pattern that most airlines publish in the back of their complimentary magazines.




Well this takes it to a whole other level, with the contrails being emulated in a beautiful mishmash of greatly intersecting flight networks.


Watch the whole thing, it actually gets better as the day it documents continues and the visualization progresses:

http://users.design.ucla.edu/~akoblin/work/faa/Documentationl2.html

It was done by Aaron Koblin at UCLA.

Labels: best, data visualization

Labels: Branding, Design, Fine Financial Branding, Logo

Labels: best, illusion

Words are vessels that carry shared symbolic meaning in a culture. Language is culture. Culture is language. It is no secret that languages evolve. And, at the same time, culture evolves. What is our responsibility as “grownups” to accept, train, or squash the proliferation of IM Speak?

For the past ten years, the United States – and perhaps the world, has been testing out the latest evolution of the English language: IM Speak. IM Speak is a form of written English. Basically it boils down to using acronyms for a set of commonly used phrases. It evolved in the first place because typing out an entire phrase on IM or SMS simply took too long – disturbing the rhythm of a normal conversation.

Makes sense to me. Grownups do this all the time. Specially grownups in “IT”. CMS, RDBMS, TCP/IP, CRM, FTP, ODBC, VPN, IP, URL, IM, TXT, DOC, MAC, VM, etc. Imagine if we had to use the long hand on these commonly known terms in every day conversation? We would never get anything done. So, communication shortcuts are benign as long as the contractions have shared meaning – otherwise, having to explain meaning defeats the purpose.

Teachers across the nation are up-in-arms about this phenomenon. Students are handing in papers riddled with IM Speak. Now, that’s a problem! Whoever said, “the medium is the message” knew what he was talking about. The reason why we find such an issue with kids turning in their term papers with IM Speak is because we have a certain expectation of the written word. Grownups know that written English, for the most part, is formal. Spoken English is casual. Well, the same is not true for kids today. Their written English can be more casual than their spoken English because the bulk of their interpersonal communication is mediated by the screen and the keyboard.

It is not hard to understand why relaxed language pours out from kids when they are in front of the computer – regardless of whether they are typing into a word processor or into a chat window. The mechanics of communication are still the same, and the patterns they have internalized are hard to avoid.

I think there are a couple of solutions to this problem.

1. Get Kids to write formal English on the computer before they earn their chat bones – this way, they understand from an early age that are there more than one form of written English.
2. Introduce IM Speak shortcuts into word processors – that way, contractions such as LOL can be automatically replaced by “laughing out loud”
3. Teachers, use Transl8it! – this will, at least help you keep up with them.
4. Embrace it. These kids will one day be adults and they will have the power to do whatever they want, including changing the rules of culture and language. Learn the language and adopt with it before you turn into a dinosaur.

K, C U L8R, TTYL. <333.

Labels: chat, communication, culture, IM, language

Two things struck me this weekend:

1) Evidently, enough people care about the Grammys that it is a major media event. Bigger, it appears, than the untimely death of our friend Anna Nicole! Now, that coverage was dispiriting enough, but at least it had DRAMA and, I don't know, an actual narrative? The grammys? Not so much. (Unless, of course, you've been hanging on to your hatred of the Dixie Chicks--and I do mean for reasons besides that THEY ARE VERY BORING.)

2) The NYTimes has a very interesting, yet very sparsely sourced article about the University of Phoenix which finally--FINALLY--says "Hmm... maybe an online degree isn't exactly the same thing as a degree that you do in person! Maybe especially if it's like, you know, done in half the time?" They link to a site called Ripoff Report which, as far as I can tell, is itself a ripoff, complete with multiple irritating popups and BLINK tags. Hooray, New York Times! You just noticed that 1) there are web sites where people complain about things and 2) hmmm, maybe there's a whole issue with this online degree thing we hadn't thought of in that flood of ad dollars coming out of UofP and Walden! Really, you think so? You GO, grey lady!!

So you want to know what these two things have in common? Sheer, flat out ignorance. Ignorance of what people care about, what they're up to, what they want. It's classic old media thinking: "We tell THEM what to care about!!" Like the fictional T. Herman Zweibel of "The Onion" fame (or, for, that matter, his real life(ish) inspiration, the media continues to jealously guard its supposed privileged position in the cultural consciousness, refusing to believe that the world has moved on and no one cares.

Look, no one cared about the grammys twenty years ago either, except maybe me, because I was really sad that Michael Jackson beat Stevie Wonder and Stevie was, like, blind! Wearing one glove was CLEARLY not enough to overcome major disabilities, but there it was. Furthermore, I had hoped against hope that this whole online degree thing might be a flash in the pan, but as time went on, everyone took it really seriously, as though an MBA from UofP might somehow, some way be equivalent to showing up to a class every single dang week, facing your instructor, handing in your assignments, whatever! But it appears I have been wrong about all of it! Either I am truly not participating in the culture I was raised in, or else (as I suspect) some form of mass media is being shoved down our throats, and most of us no longer believe in it at all.

The only evidence I have for the latter assumption is that I cannot find a single person who listens to Top 40 radio, and that I've never met anyone who thinks that for-profit universities are a good idea. Perhaps this is the rarefied atmosphere in which I live, but I doubt it--I'm hardly the cultural elite. The fact that what I see as headlines in the paper relates so little to what my peers are talking about would once have been a source of great consternation; now, with fragmentation a documented reality, I think it's the way most people feel. And the fact that old media organizations keep spewing the same tired stories doesn't change a thing.

Labels: Old Media Deathwatch

Sometimes it isn't enough to mumble "I love you" from the sofa while you are watching tv. Sometimes you gotta ALSO get her a card.

Here are some of the creepiest psycho valentines ever.





More psycho valentines...

Labels: card, illustration, valentine

Executive design recruiter, RitaSue Siegel, offers her perspectives to assess whether or not a company is commited to design strategically.

Basically she asks whether a company's leadership values design as an independant business area - distinct from marketing - and whether the design leadership can see eye to eye wiht the ceo.

Her example is Nissan, and the entire video is well worth seeing just for that point alone. The design executive she brought to Nissan Motor Company changed what TIME magazine had called a “debt-ridden basket case” into a profitable global car company with 22 models in the pipeline—in a mere 18 months.

Her side comment at the end, where she says "Don't Get an MBA" is yet another voice added to the chorus.

http://www.ritasue.com/video_popup_med.html

Labels: Design, marketing, mba, nissan

Ted, in his Tedly way, came up with one of the most amusing applications of Google I've seen yet:
You Need

It also works well with "thinks". Per Google:
"Claire thinks I need some serious sensitivity training."
"Claire thinks she is a cat."
"Claire thinks that's just plain wrong."

Conversely:
"Ted thinks we've failed to address an equivalent level of complexity in the past."

Or, perhaps more appropriately, "Ted thinks it's ok."

There's a theme in science fiction about what happens when infinite amounts of data are available to individuals--as though with a sheer volume of information, you might be able to achieve some version of transcendence. Any trip to the local library will convince you that (sheer number of Google results notwithstanding) we're not there yet. We've really barely scratched the surface of digitizing content.

But I'm beginning to be fascinated by the way very large amounts of data, queried randomly, can generate seemingly meaningful patterns. We humans are hardwired to look for patterns, so that which seems amusing or even mystical is, really, just random information; but I suspect that as we build larger and more accessible stores of data, we will begin to query it more and more in just these sorts of ways, looking outside ourselves (as we always have) for some sort of answer in the universe.

(Go ahead... ask Google a personal question and see if it doesn't make you think twice. But you have to use first names!)

Labels: culture, Google

Labels: best, Design, hate, love, tshirt

“Valentine’s Day is like herpes: just when you think its gone for good, it rears its ugly head once more. No wonder some people prefer to call it VD.” That’s the mantra of Be My Anti-Valentine, an online card service for those of you who can’t stand February 14th.

Labels: e-card, humor, valentine

Step right up. Come one, come all to experience the amazing psychic abilities of GOOGLE?!? That's right ladies and gentlemen, the search engine we have come to know and love can also tell us about ourselves.

Earlier today I remembered that a friend of mine told me that if you enter a name and the word "needs" afterwards, the first result will ultimately relate to the person that the query is about. We all at the office tried it and it was pretty erie, like a modern day Ouija board or something. Apparently, Sean needs a big cannon, Zoe needs dominion over her pod, Andres needs to lighten up, and I need someone around 100% of the time. If Google says so it must be true, just like the magic 8-ball of yore.

Labels: Google, magic 8-ball, ouija

I was working on my regular column for ClickZ and had decided to write about Cartoon Network's Boston "viral marketing" fiasco when I began to think about other commercial disasters. Some immediately came to mind: Sony's st00pid PSP Graffiti campaign, their equally inane PSP flog attempt, and Chase Bank's idiotic sidewalk projection campaign. Dumb stuff, for sure.

But then I started to think about how crappy advertising has always been with us, especially crappy advertising that comes from agencies overreaching in their attempts to be "hip." In fact, I don't think anything's more embarassingly cringeworthy than watching a company spending gazillions of dollars trying to be cool.

So I went on a hunt. I wanted to find the absolutely worst examples of marketing trying to be hip and missing the mark by a mile. Here, dear reader, are the results. Please try to maintain your sanity.

1. Intel's Multiply Campaign
Maybe I'm just too old and out of touch. Maybe I really AM a complete dork unworthy of redemption. Maybe I'm just not down with what the kids are into. Maybe. But I still fail to believe that most of the country is into ugly people dance like they're trying to free their hands from a sticky mess of taffy while standing on hot coals. Maybe this is some reference to a facet of "club culture" that I don't know about. Whatever. This campaign is still one of the most annoying out there right now.


2. Flint Law's "Rap" Commercial
OK. These folks seem to be able to afford to pay someone to write the lyrics, mix the music, and record this gawdawful "rap." They seem like they could somehow afford to have some 3D modeler spend endless hours modeling bling. They even seem to have taken the time to have their own pictures composited into this trainwreck of a commercial. But they couldn't afford to have live actors? Why? It probably would have been a lot cheaper than all the modeling, though the effect of the ad is to somehow put the whole thing deep inside of a Grand Theft Auto-type world. Could it be that the were afraid of coming into contact with actual rappers? If so, then why are they advertising to people who'd be attracted by a commercial like this one. Oh. Wait. I get it: not a sentient human alive would hire these guys after viewing this. Gag!



3. Bruce Berman "Make Money Now"

This one makes absolutely no sense to me. The guy comes in to tell his boss to "take the job and shove it" and for some reason the Boss inexplicably launches into a quick lesson in the perils of entrepreneurship and then offers the guy the book he needs in order to take the aforementioned job and, in fact, shove it. Well, I guess the logic behind something like this makes about as much sense as getting into bed with a pitchman wearing a suit and mock-turtleneck who offers to give away the secrets of his vast (yet unproven) wealth. This spot runs a lot here locally, so ol' Bruce Berman must have some real money behind this travesty.



4. Campbell's Rapping Teddy Bear
If you've been wondering what's wrong with people in their early 20's today, my guess is that it comes from too much exposure to commercials like this one combined with the mentally-damaging effects of high sucrose cereals and full-fat milk consumed during the Saturday mornings of their youth in the early 90's. Did anyone with a brain think that this spot was one that the kids would be down with? Was this a joke perpetrated by a disgruntled creative director looking for an out? What would have happened if this had come out a few years later when Nirvana was at their peak of popularity? Would it have featured moshing Campbell's kids dressed in flannel nodding out into their soup cupped in their hands so they could keep warm in their unheated Northwestern crash pad? The possibilities are almost too horrible to contemplate.



5. Pepto-Bismol "Pink Rap" spot

Can any commercial that ends with the phrase "Pink does more than you think. Word!" possibly not mark the coming apocalypse or at least the end of civilization as we know it? Did the performers in this commercial have to go into hiding once it aired lest they suffer nearly unbearable shame for the rest of their natural lives? Where oh where did this horror come from? I can't even imagine. But I do have to say: this one goes so far over the top that it actually becomes kinda cool. Werd.




Bonus Commercial! Montgomery Flea Market

I really, really, really couldn't resist putting this one in. Is it horrible? Yes. Is it excruciating and embarrassing? Double yes! Does it make you want to hide under your sofa cushions? Absolutely! But is it cool? It sure as heck is!

Why? Because it's real. It's uncontrived. It's absolutely joyful in it's innocence and earnestness. It has it's own DANCE made up specifically for the commercial! It's something that nobody, absolutely nobody could ever do if they were trying to do something like this. It's a true masterpiece.

Labels: best