Seeing as How Magazine was nice enough to bring their annual design conference to Denver, I thought it made sense to go down for the day and take in a few sessions. I’ve always been a fan of How Magazine. They tend to have business focus in a lot of their articles and are less about just showing lot’s of nice design work. I have also been to a How Conference before and felt that I got a great deal of inspiration out of the experience. I still remember David Carson’s talk and his great sense of humor.

For this year’s conference I chose to attend sessions by Tony Mikes, Sam Harrison, and John January & Tug McTighe. Tony Mike’s session was titled, “Is Your Agency Interesting.” As an agency owner I was drawn to this session as we are always trying to better differentiate ourselves. I came to the conclusion that I think Imulus is interesting, but that we could probably communicate that more effectively than we are currently and we could also be doing a lot more interesting things. Tony was a very compelling speaker and I will definitely be checking out his Second Wind company.

Next came Sam Harrison’s session on “How to Sell Your Ideas to Bosses, Clients and Other Decision Makers.” An author of several books, I found Sam to be a very polished and interesting speaker. His ideas were well organized and I learned a lot that I can apply to how we present ideas at Imulus. The idea that he left us with, that it was “All About Energy,” really summed it up for me. If you put all your energy into preparing and presenting your idea your chances of success are much higher. If you aren’t excited about your own idea, how can you expect the person on the other side of the table to be excited.

By far the most unusual session was “Everything I Needed to Know About Advertising I Learned from Star Wars.” John and Tug were very entertaining in their cleverly constructed presentation. Utilizing lessons drawn from all the Star Wars films, they were able to show parallels where those lessons apply to the life of a creative. And while the lessons were good, the heart of the presentation was the humor and clever concept. I will always remember that there is a Death Star out there ready to kill my next great idea.

The resource center had some interesting booths and lots of quality shwag. Adobe was showing off CS5 and bunches of paper companies were hoping that designers will continue to design printed pieces for a bit longer. Threadless was nice enough to give out free drinks at the happy hour at the end of the day. Thanks for the beer!

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting one of the companies I truly admire for their ability to create great company with outstanding values; CH2M Hill. For those unfamiliar with them, I’ll quote their site:

As a global leader in full-service engineering, consulting, construction, and operations, CH2M HILL has the human and technical resources, the international footprint, and the depth of know-how and experience to help clients achieve success in any corner of the world.

There are over 23,000 employees at CH2M Hill. Each of them have been given a copy of the “Little Yellow Book.” It was written in 1982 by the original founder and CEO, James Howland with the purpose of capturing the values on which the firm was built. It’s only 10 pages long, but it really communicates a company with compassion, vision and focus.

Enjoy it!

Process is like most things in life, it needs balance. The hard part is determining where the right balance is for a company.

Companies that focus too heavily on process can slip into the all-to-common roll of being a workhorse. Producing medium quality work that lacks feel and creativity. Yet, companies that can’t reign in certain aspects of process tend to lose money and long-term durability. The key lies in finding a medium.

Implementation of a strict process can help companies rebound in times when individuals aren’t present. Yet, companies must be careful. The ability to swap individuals in and out has a cost. There’s a reason small businesses sometimes change the game all together and not just the rules. Small companies thrive on being nimble and innovative. These two things are the result of talented individuals working together as a family. If you remove this aspect from a company, over time it will bloat, lose drive, and eventually quality will diminish.

Case in point, rather than: check your approach, verify other team members understand and agree, confirm the customer is on board, document it, and then start. It’s better to just do it. If the result is good: add it to your toolshed, document it, and teach others. If not, eat crow, fix it, and move on. My feeling is most of the time this gamble pays off. Especially if your people are high caliber and your customer buys into the strategy.

However, for small companies it’s a facade to pretend that you can replace a family member and keep moving forward like nothing happened. A company, especially one that strives to break barriers, will always be hurt by the loss of a key individual. There is no way around this. The goal of a good process shouldn’t be to avoid this all together, but rather to mitigate its damage. Employee happiness, company profit, high quality work, and long-term sustainability should be enhanced by process. Not stifled. This… is not easy.

Best of luck to all companies (including us) who are trying to combat this challenge

How do you manage a Twitter account on behalf of a brand, product or service?

Lately we've been managing more Twitter accounts on behalf of our clients. Everyone seems to be jumping on the Twitter bandwagon (for good reason) but most aren't sure how to climb aboard. I've put together this "Brand Voice" document to help agencies and companies figure out how to frame the conversation of managing their Twitter account(s).

I'd really appreciate any additions, changes or deletions that you may have:

Characteristics

1. Please describe the product or service in less then 140 characters.
2. Please describe the personality of the product or service in terms of a human voice? (conversational, warm, casual, friendly)
3. How does this voice talk about the competition? (friendly, aggressive, indifferent)
4. What will be the general message of this voice? (customer support, informational, industry news and events)

Audience Profile

1. Please describe the ideal community composition?
2. Is there a difference between how product or service is perceived by a current customer versus a potential customer?
3. Are there application where you would like to see the product or service more widely used?

Management

1. Will other parties, or the company be interested in managing the account(s) along with Imulus?
2. What is the companies’ position on following people? (Follow all or follow us; follow those who are interested in our topics; or follow those who send us Tweets)
3. How would you like us to balance the follow / follower ratio? (1:1, more followers; follow more)
4. If a topic or question escalates to a point where we can’t find an answer or proper response, who can help us within the company?

Content Resources

1. Where or who should we look to at the company to provide us with the most current news, events and inside information?
2. Which websites do your customers frequent?
3. Can we alert your Twitter community of upcoming news before other outlets are made aware? If so, how much lead time can we usually expect?
4. How frequent would you like to see updates to the account(s)? (Once a day, 3 times a day, throughout the day)
5. What keywords would your audience be using in day-to-day conversation around your product or service

Final Thought

I'd be neglecting my duties if I didn't point you to this tutorial on "How to Use Twitter for Marketing and PR". The simple truth is you can't look at Twitter as another marketing channel; a megaphone for your company to spout garbage to the world. Rather, I suggest tweeting with the mindset of having coffee with a new friend or acquaintance. Don't begin by telling them how great you are. Ask questions; really immerse yourself in the conversation, but also know when to shut your mouth.

Good luck, please pass over the recommendations for improvement!

I haven’t posted a critique on motion graphics in a while, and I know how much you have all waited and pined for another so here it is. What is the deal with all these commercials stealing their ideas from viral videos? (she says in her best Seinfeld voice). I get that it’s kind of cute and funny in an inside joke sort of way. One of the funniest music videos is Weezer’s Pork and Beans. This is mainly because they’re intentionally taking the viral videos that we all know and love and using that as a media.

What bothers me are the commercials that steal concepts from viral videos and it is unclear if they’re trying to be cute and pay homage to the original or if their just blatantly ripping it off. The video “Drive Through Rap” was remade into a commercial for Taco Bell. Personally I don’t think this is an homage, this is just a rip off.

Recently I saw a stop motion commercial that looked suspiciously like the animations from BLU. In this case I’m not so sure this was a rip off, because BLU themselves may have been responsible for the commercial. I unfortunately don’t know enough about the company (or who the commercial is for) to say for sure.

If any of you know any more please let me know. I am constantly amazed by the impact that YouTube has on our culture. (Please note, I intentionally left out the sand art commercial because I wasn’t sure if that was a viral video before or after the commercials — or if it counts as a viral video.)