Subscribe to

The new Publicis & Hal Riney site is beautiful, innovative and simple in its language and design. The menu is hidden in an awesome graphic of a plume of red dye that floats in the center of the browser, video is used throughout the site and the copy is kept to a minimum. All good ingredients for a great site, but it still lacks the most important ingredient of all: functionality.

True, the option of webcam navigation is a nice touch. It says a lot about the company—they’re not your typical agency and they have the tools to implement cutting edge functionality. Unfortunately, to get what you really want from the site, you’re going to have to dig pretty deep. The awkward in-and-out transitions of the “liquid” menu is often confusing and abrupt. In the mouse-controlled mode, the menu items themselves are hidden until you hover over them. Each page takes more than a few seconds to load, which doesn’t necessarily cater to our impatient society. In short, extensive amount of time HR & P spends branding themselves on their site takes away from their foundation—the great work that they do. This should be their focus. After all, this is what prospective clients will judge them on.

Always choose function over form.

Sure, it’s great to have a beautiful site, but beauty comes in all forms (I love her for her personality!). Seriously though. Look at craigslist.org. Horrible, ugly, basic html that is oh-so-functional and oh-so-easy to use. Beautiful. On the agency side of things, a great example of choosing function over form is Modernista!’s redesign of their site. Well, that’s if you can even call it a redesign. Check it out. Open another window and type www.modernista.com in the address bar. You’ll arrive at their “homepage,” which, as you can see, is actually just their wikipedia page with a hovering “Modernista!” logo, menubar and message to the viewer reading “Do not be alarmed. You are viewing Modernista! through the eyes of the Web. The menu on the left is our homepage. Everything behind it is beyond our control.”

They use existing Web 2.0 social networks to share their company info and share their work. Click on “work” and you’ll find that all their print pieces are on a flickr page and all of their broadcast is on YouTube. Click “news” and you’re brought to “Google News” with search term “Modernista!” already entered in the search field. Click on “contact” and you have the choice of speaking with them via Skype or AIM, or you can click their address to bring to up a Google map pinpointing the agency.

What’s so great and beautiful about this? Modernista! is approaching their market instead of the other way around. They’re engaging rather than interrupting. The site employs technology that people already know how to use, which says a lot as far as the agency’s ability to evolve with the market goes. Most importantly, you get very easily get the information you came to get when you visit their site.

I’m in the process of reading former copywriter and ad-guru Luke Sullivan’s guide to creating great advertising, “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This,” and I’m glad to see he made a couple of updates (okay, so it’s the third time I’m reading the book). In this third edition, the author has added two new chapters discussing the emergence of new media (i.e. guerrilla advertising) and the growing trend for brand agencies to begin adding DR tactics to their media mix.

I haven’t finished the chapter on new media yet, so I’ll write about that in my next post. As for DR…

Sullivan recognizes the obvious fact that a lot of DRTV is bad. Really bad (let’s face it, most advertising—be it brand or DR—is bad. Luke agrees). In fact, at one point in Chapter 6 he references the industry’s general view of DRTV as the “mutant step-child, kept in a box under the basement stairs.” But he also notes that it doesn’t have to be, and when it’s good, IT WORKS. He outlines the importance of branding and DR as such:

IF [BRAND] IMAGE = EMOTION, THEN DRTV = REASON

Brand advertising creates an emotional relationship between the consumer and the brand. It helps separate virtually identical competitive products by appealing to different consumer mentalities. DR, traditionally, is an informative message with an explicit call to action: “Buy the magic Erase-O-Bald wig NOW and erase years off the top of your head!” Maybe this is an example of bad DR…

Truly, an integrated campaign is the most effective. Appeal to consumers’ emotions with a brand campaign, then provide more information and a call-to-action with DR. Mix and match, whatever. Engage the consumer then ask them to act. Why not just stick to brand work? It appears that big companies, like Nike and Apple, are successful without wasting the time and money on launching a DR campaign. Well, friends, DR comes in all shapes and sizes—even companies like Nike and Apple use it, and do so successfully. For example, putting an Apple Store in every mall in America is a form of DR (albeit, it’s not what you would consider your typical DR campaign or infomercial). These brick-and-mortar shops capitalize on the interest created by the branding campaign by making Apple products accessible and acting as transactional venues. In fact, Apple was genius enough to streamline the sales process—salespeople carry around hand-held credit card swipers instead of having customers lineup at a cash register. We’re talking about DI-RECT response here. The cash register comes to you!

To paraphrase Luke Sullivan once again—when DR is good, it works. Apple’s stock is at $126.73 as of this post.

Enrollment in computer science programs is down across the country. After hearing this story on NPR last night, I couldn’t help but have a second of selfish glee.

Of course, any good feelings about this were quickly crushed when I heard the news that many students applying for college regard computer science as a quick trip to a job in a back room sitting in front of a computer all day, breathing stale air and eating junk food.

It seems embarrassing to have to say this, but computing isn’t an end in itself. Computing is a way to connect our ideas of logic to the rest of our lives. Computer science and computer engineering are useless to anybody else unless they’re related to our lives in meaningful ways.

I’d go as far to say that a large number of computer scientists, as translators between technology and people, actually need to be more socially aware than your average person. Having a strong background in logic, mathematics, organization and computational theory is important, but it’s lazy to think that it’s the whole picture.

Even more important are those qualities the aforementioned reluctant students think is lacking in computer geeks: social skills, perspective and the ability to communicate effectively, pleasantly and tactfully to others. What’s actually needed are people who have sufficient awareness and enough social perspective to understand how technology can fit into our lives and then apply all that knowledge in interesting ways.

We have enough hardcore, ivory-tower, Dr. Strangelove-like computer geeks. They’re important, but we also need computer scientists that are people people.

If I am sitting in a chair in Portland, Oregon, traveling at zero MPH for 8 hours a day, five days a week, how long will it take me to get to South by Southwest Interactive in Austin? Yes, you guessed it, I’m not going—maybe I’ll get there next year. One small consolation is that SXSW does a pretty good job of getting podcasts up on sxsw.com. While it is far inferior to being there (and picking from a mindboggling array of events), at least I can listen from afar at the comfort of my desk and get an idea of what the power players in the industry are talking about.

Yesterday I listened to “The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007,” which was pretty entertaining, especially considering the viral marketing ideas that fly around most advertising agencies, including ours. Having crazy ideas is a healthy thing, but in these cases the agencies went through with them and failed miserably. When you’re in this field you have to be willing to laugh about things like that because you can imagine them happening to someone you know.

I’m excited to listen to “Video Production for the Web & Mobile Devices” as well as other panels with names like “Creating Findable Rich Media Content,” “Quit Your Day Job and Vlog” and about a dozen others. Keep an eye on the list as it continues to grow as the festival progresses.

It’s also worth noting that similar podcasts are online from last year. Of particular interest is “Browser Wars Retrospective: Past, Present and Future Battlefields” and “Design Aesthetic of the Indie Developer.” These are great for multitasking because you can just have them running in the background without being too distracted.

My friend Kerstin (pronounced Cheer-sten) was an exceptionally beautiful girl with a year-long tan, long black hair, admired body and a movie star smile. She was the type of girl that always laughed and had a great time. A party girl by nature, Kerstin was fun! Though I was not best friends with her, when I would take trips back to Montana, I was always drawn to see her. She was the type of girl you meet once and never forgot.

Last week while cruising on Facebook I saw a picture of Kerstin on my friend’s online bulletin board. She was in her Halloween costume looking striking. I smiled and then saw the picture caption which read “Rest in peace Kerstin. I know you’re up there smiling down. You are loved and missed.”

With my heart pumping, I clicked to Kerstin’s profile and to see hundreds of comments from friends and family about how she will be missed. Without warning I entered Kerstin’s virtual grave site.

Kerstin died tragically last month in a car accident while driving to work. Being out-of-state in Portland, I never received the message. I had to find out on a social network.

Her Facebook page is filled with last thoughts from her friends. Loved ones write poems and contemplate how tough life is going to be without her. Friends from early childhood and random acquaintances honor her life by adding comments. Two months after her death, people still tag her pictures, leave comments on her wall and share inside jokes.

“Cheery… You would have loved the party your family threw! Everything was perfect! There were so many people and all of them were dressed to the nine, just the way you would have wanted it. Being able to meet all of your friends and family was amazing! It just made me feel that much closer to you. You left an impression on all of us.” - Willow Mariah (Missoula, Mt.)

With the technological trends reshaping how our society operates, I never imagined how it would change the way we mourn. Is this a healthy way to honor a passed loved one, or will it make it harder to get over such an untimely death? I didn’t attend Kerstin funeral, but fortunately I am able to pay my respects—even if it is only virtually. Perhaps she is reading my comment from above. I like to think she is.

Many times as I proofread a client website, the musical score from “Mission: Impossible” will start playing in my head… you know which one I’m talking about. The one starring Peter Graves and Martin Landau.

I imagine the mysterious voice telling me that my mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find all errors on a certain page of the site. Surely Jim of the original TV series never had such a thrilling objective. Broken links beware, I’m on your tail.

Of course if I don’t find all the errors my computer will not self-destruct and my supervisor will probably not disavow all knowledge of my actions—although I have my suspicions. Nevertheless, quality assurance checks and proofreading can be high-pressure. The website needs to go live but can’t until YOU make sure everything is running smoothly and error-free. The clock is ticking, and of course, as is the nature of the Internet, things tend to break when you turn your back.

But unlike this “Mission: Impossible” Agent, I am paid in something besides peanuts.

I try to not talk too much about my gadget obsession, mostly to avoid spending too many nights on the living room couch. But a few weeks ago I got a Kindle, and Amazon’s little reading device has far surpassed my expectations. Sure, the battery time is great and you can’t beat the wireless connectivity. There are enough interesting Kindle books on Amazon to keep me reading for the rest of my life, and there’s also a fair amount of good free content. And reading on the Kindle is a breeze. I actually like it more than reading a normal book as I don’t have to turn pages anymore.

But here’s where my Kindle has surprised me the most—it has turned me into an avid newspaper reader again. I stopped reading newspapers about 10 years ago when I felt that too much ink and paper were put to waste. Plus, newspapers are rather un-viral as I am not one to scan an article, and I only use snail mail when writing “I’m sorry” cards to my girlfriend. Now every morning I get up with a copy of the New York Times waiting for me on my Kindle. It’s easy for me to take notes, forward articles to friends and even bookmark entire pages. Compared to reading news on my laptop, the Kindle is much easier on my eyes and it won’t burn my lap in the bathroom. Plus saving a day of news doesn’t result in piles of paper anymore.

I got a Kindle to change the way I read books. Oddly enough, it’s is changing how I consume news and made a irrelevant medium relevant again.

Most online shoppers spend a lot of time with different shopping carts. Not to mention the ones actually at the store, a lot of our time online is spent interacting with e-commerce software. I don’t think I’m alone that when somebody says the phrase “shopping cart,” I generally think of a Web-based cart, not the ones in queue at New Seasons.

That being said, check out this great cart. It requires Macromedia’s Flash Player™.

Why is this so funny? Thirteen years ago this might have been slightly funny, probably a bit cute. However, after more than a decade of working on and using “shopping carts” that are actually nothing more than grids of pictures of products, I sat entranced when I watched this, giggling all the while. So did my wife, who forwarded the link to me.

The trick of this joke is to set up a code of conduct, then to suddenly break it in an outrageous way. A classic example of this is Monty Python’s fish-slapping dance:

Note that this is funny in other contexts, too:

So what’s my point? We’ve been setting ourselves up for this e-commerce fish-slapping dance punchline for more than a decade.

The e-commerce shopping cart as we know it has created its own version of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. These expected norms are now so strong that violating them is extremely amusing. These norms also limit what we’re willing to design for fear of being laughed at. There are definite rules about what you can and can’t do. Not only does this “shopping cart” metaphor limit us, but it’s no longer really a metaphor: the phrase is actually just a pair of two homonyms with related meanings. It’s rather boring, and I think we’re getting close to stagnation.

And stagnation is just an opportunity to do something different that suddenly makes sense to everybody. New ideas, anyone?

By the way, the image of the shopping cart is used under the Creative Commons License.

A friend recently showed me a local site called “Urban Edibles” that bills itself as “a community database of wild food sources in Portland, OR.” It’s a fantastic combination of ideology and technical functionality where you can easily find free fruit, vegetables, herbs, berries and so on. The site is equally geared towards people looking for food and those posting sources of edibles, making it easy to submit and search, either by category or location. The authors have taken care not to encourage people to abuse the information and you will find warning notes all over the site like “The status of this source is unknown. Ask before you pick!”

Currently the database is not extensive, it is in the process of being built, but it is clearly a fun project for those involved. Urban Edibles employs a variety of technologies including a very active wiki with recipes, resources and information on identifying plants, and discovering what is in season. Perhaps most impressive is the “Browse by Category” section which uses some nice Ajax and javascript animation effects (using the Prototype Library), and then ties into a link to Google Maps.

This is not the sort of website that will see huge traffic but will likely see some repeat visitors who completely fall in love with it. Sites like this make me glad to be a Web developer in Portland, Oregon. There are great ideas everywhere with folks willing to make them real.

KGW ran a story on Urban Edibles as well:

It’s no small secret that Oregonians love beer. More specifically, it’s no small secret that employees of Respond2 love beer. So imagine my excitement about learning that a Deschutes Brewpub is going to be opening up just down the street from us in a few short months.

I mean, I’m an Oregonian. I work for Respond2. I like beer. It all adds up.

But what really interested me about the impending opening was a quote from one of the architects, Stuart Emmons, as stated in the recent Portland Business Journal article:

“When people come in from out of town, we want them to know they’re in Oregon.”

Deschutes plans on doing this by incorporating a “blend of Northwest elements, like exposed timber beams, with dark Scottish colors and walls peppered with whimsical items.” The even used salvaged timber from a neighboring construction project to build a 27-foot bar. How Portland.

But what it got me thinking about was how we can incorporate this simple quote into R2C. I want people to know when they come in from out of town—or even just walk into our building—that they are at Respond2 Communications. And I want them to know what that means. I want them to know that means they will have a staff that understands and anticipates their needs, as well as genuinely cares about the success of their company.

There are many new and exciting changes ahead for R2C, but I know that I am not alone in fiercely guarding what has always been one of our strengths: that we are an agency that has interest for our clients. This is something that will never change, even as R2C continues to grow and evolve.

Like Deschutes Brewery, we want R2C clients to understand where they are, and where we can take them. Welcome to Respond2 Communications.