Get Some Proper Perspective on Online Video
In preparation for our upcoming newsletter on video, it occurred to me that I should post some links to a few very important videos by Dr. Michael Wesch. If you are unfamiliar with him, he is an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University who was been researching the impact of media on humanity. He is responsible for the well known video The Machine is Us/ing Us, which hopefully youve seen. Ive pasted it and some others below. Watch them (after the jump)!
RFNRFP – Request For No Requests For Proposal
Contrary to popular belief, RFP acquisition isnt the first step in the sales process, it is the last.
Video Overload!
Our upcoming WebSmart Newsletter will be all about video on the web. In preparing for this article, Ive encountered a huge amount of information on online video, its overwhelming!
Ill reference it in the newsletter, but Id suggest checking out this past weekends New York Times Magazine, which was a special issue devoted to screens. The articles cover entertainment, technology and advertising and will certainly provoke discussion, especially among our agency friends.
Check out the Immersion video and read the entire Screens issue.
Simple but Good Example of Video Made for the Web
I saw an article today from 37Signals that mentioned video artist Jason Polan. He makes simple video explanations using voice over and a sharpie. Below is an example of a video he did for the state bar of Texas. You can also see a video by Polan on the Criterion Collection homepage.
Self Evaluation: Response to Bakers Common Struggles in Firms, Positioning
This third point is so rich that Ive opted to include Davids full text instead of writing a summary. Again, the entire paper can be downloaded from Recourses.com.
The third thing that principals struggle with is how to position their firm. The role of marketing is one of the most misunderstood aspects of management.
Sparklines: Intense, Simple Word-sized Graphics
Back in September, I attended a workshop by Edward Tufte entitled, Presenting Data and Information. Professor Tuftes contributions to the field of information design are well known within the design community and his workshop covered material from all four of his books.
Aside from Tuftes purple hatred of PowerPoint, the most intriguing component of the workshop was his lecture on sparklines. These thumbnail-sized graphs are simple in form but contain an enormous amount of data. Using sparklines, a wide range of data points can be scanned and digested quickly; and they are much more efficient in their use of page real estate than tables of numbers.
An excerpt from Professor Tuftes chapter on sparklines in his most recent book, Beautiful Evidence is available on his website. Dont be indimidated by the length of the web page, only 15% of it is content from the book, the remainder is posted comments and sparkline examples.
Self Evaluation: Response to Bakers Common Struggles in Firms, Measuring Profitability
Second Struggle
The second thing that principals struggle with is proper systems to be profitable.
Once again, I can relate. While weve been consistently profitable for quite a few years now, we know weve been missing the mark with hitting what Baker would refer to as our utilization goal. Weve had huge difficulties with this and, while there are many examples, the most telling example of our growth in this area is tracking time.
Creative Questionnaire: Eric Karjaluoto
Eric Karjaluoto is the creative director at smashLAB and the founder of MakeFive. As impressive as that sounds, hes willing to do whatever it takes to get things done – whether its building comps or taking out the trash. Eric received his diploma in painting from the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia. You can follow his life or read his thoughts on design at erickarjaluoto.com
Some Helpful Repositories
Lately there have been a few repositories that Ive found helpful while researching different topics.
Election Night = Sysadmin Nightmare
datacenterknowlege.com has an interesting look at how some of the more high-traffic political sites are ramping up for the inevitable election night onslaught. While some of the issues are pretty specific (such as real-time graphics), a lot of the concepts are just general good practice.
Political Sites Scale Up for Election Night Traffic