GDC Charity Design-A-Thon
Written by Steve Fisher Tuesday, 26 May 2009 08:13
"Revved up on a potent mix of enthusiasm, inspiration and caffeine, dedicated teams of Alberta’s best creative types tackled a variety of pro-bono projects, ranging from identity design to marketing tools and website design." GDC.net
The whole Idea Market team was absent from the office last Friday as we were donating our time and skills to a charity design-a-thon in Calgary. Last year (2008) I participated in the event and was amazing at how much could be accomplished by a truly gifted team of professional graphic designers and creatives. I had fun, met new friends, stayed up all night and was part of helping a charity get their message out. As a result I came back to the office and talked about the event (over and over) and so when this year's design-a-thon rolled around we all decided to go. As an added bonus I was selected to be one of five creative directors to lead a team for the event.
Realty Investment Corporation: New Project!
Written by Nicole Braseth Thursday, 23 April 2009 15:23
We've started work on a new website for Realty Investments Corporation . A Red Deer company, they've specialized in commercial investment real estate property for over 20 years. RIC would like their website to be a place that they can send their clients for information, and they want it easy to navigate. We're on the case!
Since updates will be limited to once or twice a year, we'll take care of that for them. This may be the first non-CMS website I've blogged about! Stay tuned for more website projects starting and finishing.
Social Media to the Rescue
Written by Steve Fisher Wednesday, 22 April 2009 08:00
At this year's Growing Rural Tourism Conference in Camrose, Alberta I had the opportunity to present a session on social media and how it should be part of your online strategy. The session, dubbed Social Media to the Rescue, was really a practical look at social media resources (Facebook , Twitter , Trip Advisor , etc) and how to best utilize them in your marketing strategy. Really my key point was simple and powerful.
Stop trying to be interesting and start being interested.
Fight It Out: Using Conflict to Breed Creativity (SXSW Tip #2)
Written by Nicole Braseth Thursday, 16 April 2009 09:20
First things first, every team needs an "idea killer" (someone that can look objectively and point out the flaws in our best ideas). The Idea Killer keeps it real about what is achievable and what is not. But the Idea Killer (I'm looking at you, Carson) needs to know when to step in to do that task and when to let the idea(s) germinate.
Don't become burdened by consensus. Consensus will result in an average product. The unfortunate part of team is the likeliness of this to happen. Everyone wants (and should have) ownership in the product, but too much consensus and your project will become boring (welcome to "design by committee"). This brings us to my main point:
Fight your way to the break-through. Think of it as a project (in the planning stages) that is attached by rope to all the people on the team (thank you, Behance , for the metaphor). Everyone is pulling the rope their way, to their idea space. As long as everyone keeps moving the project around to different idea spaces, everyone is exploring new possibilities. As soon as someone gives up and drops their "rope" (or "ownership" to get away from the metaphor) that is space that can no longer be explored by the group.
Protect extremes (things that absolutely cannot, should not change) and concede on smaller (to you) things. Identify and empower experts to protect extremes and make consensus. And try to imagine that the one person who always argues with you, isn't doing so just to annoy you, but to better the project in the end. Seriously.
New Project: Lacombe Athletic Park website
Written by Nicole Braseth Monday, 06 April 2009 12:18
The plans for an athletic park (including dressing rooms, concession, media/officials box, washrooms and equipment storage all housed in the "Fieldhouse") at Lacombe Composite High School have been underway for about two years now. The committee is at the stage where they need to amp up fundraising and feel that a professional website will be part of the way to achieve that. The Athletic Park will be built in a couple of stages, starting with the Fieldhouse facility, later adding lights, a running track around the field and then field turf finally in 2010.
Idea Market will be creating this website with a content management system (it's rare that we don't!) so the Lacombe Athletic Park Committee will able to update the site at will, and an events calendar which will be used to display fundraising events. Once the fundraising is complete and the project completed, the primary focus of the website will shift to showcase the events calendar, displaying the happening athletic activities.
SXSW: Best Of.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009 11:04
We've been back at work in the office for over a week now, and I don't know about the rest of the crew, but I still wish we were on SXSW leave. We can sum up our "nerd conference" experience in one word: AWESOME. We loved Austin, we learned lots (relevant to our industry and about our team) and met amazing people. But that's a short short blog entry and really doesn't show the breadth of our adventure into the heart of the Lone Star state. In our own words, here's how we experienced SXSWi 2009.
Idea Market Speaks!
Written by Carson Pierce Monday, 30 March 2009 08:10
May is a busy month for Idea Market in terms of speaking at conferences. If you happen to be at any of the following events, be sure to catch our presentations!
April 4 - Joomla! Day Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV)
Steve will be recounting the Joomla SXSW CMS Showdown entry; about how we found solutions to a difficult spec and what we contributed back to the community.
April 7 - Growing Rural Tourism Conference (Camrose, AB)
Steve presents Social Media to the Rescue , taking a practical look at socal media resources (Facebook, Trip Advisor, etc) and how to best utilize them in your marketing strategy.
April 15 - Online Revealed Canada Tourism Online Marketing Conference (Niagara Falls, ON)
Carson will be doing our ever-popular How To Get a Website Without Losing Your Hair talk about how to plan for and achieve a successful website and avoid the pitfalls that can derail your project.
April 29 & 30 - CMS Expo (Chicago, IL)
Steve will again represent Joomla in presenting the CMS Showdown on the 29th and then will follow that up with the ...Without Losing Your Hair chat on the 30th.
Get Passionate
Written by Nicole Braseth Friday, 27 March 2009 11:22
I attended this year's SXSW Interactive conference (first timer!) with the goal of acquiring information that we could apply to Idea Market's practices. But what I found, was that much of the information I deemed useful could be practiced by any workplace, not just a design and marketing firm.
So, I will be passing along to you, oh faithful blog reader, tips which I hope you find useful in your workplace and your company culture. There's a few of them and I like to explain so I'll break them down into a few posts. This one is all about getting excited about your work:
Passion = Success
Ownership = Passion
Participation/Collaboration = Ownership
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