An Olympic Experience

3 kids under 5 years old

1 Grandpa, armed with Visa card

1 Grandma and 1 mother, there to keep it all together!

My family recently went to Vancouver to take in a day of the “Olympic experience”. Our fabulous local airline offered a day trip that was too good to not take advantage of, so off we flew...

Want to see branding in action? Here’s a sampling of what the right branding can do:

The Bay building, downtown Vancouver. Those massive banners were to advertise the Bay’s exclusive Olympic products. People waited in line for hours to buy a branded hoodie or sweater!

The Bay building again, different side. WOW.

Even Visa was in on the Olympic branding action…

Those red jerseys were everywhere! You couldn’t help but feel the pride that was in the air.

My little boy, Kai, branded from head to toe!

Upgrade Your Browser. Save a Developer.

One of my tasks in the creation of websites is HTML/CSS development. It plays an important part in the process of design integration before the development in dynamic language. This part of the development involves an essential and boring step: giving the website cross browser-compatibility, especially with Internet Explorer 6 and earlier!

Google decided in the last couple of months to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6 in their applications such as Youtube, Gmail and Google Docs.

In spite of the fact that some developers have decided to no longer optimize their websites for versions previous to IE7, Aasman continues to support IE6 to keep information accessibility open to everybody. A small number of internet users still use IE6, particularly in companies where the network is managed by a CIO (Chief Information Officer), who often disables the automatic updates of windows.

You can find some good reasons to stop using IE6 on this website : http://www.browserupgrade.info/ie6/

You can also add the fact that optimizing your websites for old browsers takes us time and costs you more money...

If you are still using Internet Explorer 6, we recommend trying some other popular Internet browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari to get the best possible experience, or to upgrade your browser to a newer version. The current IE version is Internet Explorer 8 and the upgrade is free.

Fabulous February Finds

Who doesn't like a list of cool websites? It's one of my favourite sections of magazines and blogs. I was never one to be the dead-end of a chain-letter and would like to share with you a collection of Fabulous February Finds – a mix of beautiful illustrations, niche design history, and valuable resources.

1. Olaf Hajek (www.olafhajek.com) is a prolific German illustrator with a impressive list of clients. His hand-painted work is textured and vivid, incorporating fluid shapes, layers of multicoloured dry-brushing, and detailed references to nature that leave my spirit satiated with inspiration.

Here's an interview with him about his book "Flowerhead".

2. www.propagandaonline.info is a historical survey of government issued posters in China and written descriptions of their context. The website itself is worth a visit for its witty navigational transitions. Select a decade, and a topic like behaviour, hygiene, safety, or politics, look at the posters and read about what they meant at the time.

3. I'm not even sure how to begin describing what this next site does, but if you love information, comparing global statistics, and you're a visual learner, this site is for you. Plot in your desired factors and track the information across a chosen time-line, geographical location, demographic of your choice, etc, and use the information as you will.

www.gapminder.org

4. While working on a Haiti Fundraising project with aasman I stumbled across this useful site.

Ever wonder what pantone colour your territorial flag is? Or the country you're designing for? It's not that easy to find out…unless you're looking for a Caribbean Flag, in which case you simple go here and they are all listed alphabetically. If only there was a global one.

http://www.caribbeanflags.com/Scripts/cp_CaribbeanFlagPantoneColors.asp

5. Art, theatre, music, and photography all wrapped up in one amazing 3-D panorama experience by photographer Sam Rohn.

The Chelsea Hotel in New York is an iconic building that's housed the likes of Leonard Cohen, Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Sid Vicous, Diego Rivera, Rufus Wainwright… and on, and on… since the late 1800s when it was first opened. If you've ever wanted to go there but live hundreds of kilometres away like I do, this is as close as you'll get. Click on either panorama to open an interactive tour of the lobby and ornate stairwell, both laden with art.

www.samrohn.com/360-panorama/chelsea-hotel-new-york-city
 

The Theory

I left you hanging there for a couple of weeks, dying to know more. I know...its a theory! — who doesn’t love a good theory? So here’s our Theory of Compelling Communications:

Engagement = Evocative Shiny Red Message + Meaningful Core Message
or En = (EvSRM) + (MCM), for short. Sort of...

Our hypothesis is that the evocative construction we devise (the Shiny Red Message) draws an emotional response from your audience that compels them to examine the rest of your core messaging to satisfy or feed their emotional state. If that in turn is relevant and meaningful to them, then you have them fully engaged. (ahem, now would be an excellent time for a call to action...)
The more evocative or provocative you can be, the stronger the engagement, to a point. Proceed tentatively, and you’ll have a lukewarm audience; go too far and you’ll fully engage your audience all right — by generating a negative response to your message. Finding the balance requires a thorough understanding of their needs and perceptions, and the way your brand message relates to those needs and perceptions.
If you do get the EvSRM right, it is imperative that you also get the other part of the equation, the Meaningful Core Message, right, or you will have wasted everybody’s time. In order to be meaningful for your intended audience, your messaging must answer their fundamental questions: why should I care? You’ve got my attention, my emotions are up, what’s in it for me?

Connection

Once you’ve articulated a meaningful, albeit literal, Core Message, how do you go on to devise a compelling Shiny Red Message? You make the connection by articulating something that is evocative, provocative, witty, original, startling, peculiar, intriguing, imaginative, fresh, twisted or uncommon about an aspect of your core message as it relates to your audience or your brand. In effect, you want to shed a little ray of insight onto your audience’s needs.
Done well, this shiny red message will go on to compel, oblige, motivate or otherwise move your audience to examine the rest of your message, right down to its meaningful core.
Which, because it will be on strategy, well planned, designed, produced, disseminated and managed, will be engaging in all sorts of good ways…
 

how to throw

In our industry the best marketing tool we have is our reputation with our existing and previous client base. Word of mouth in a small marketplace like ours is critical for continued success. How this reputation is formed can be brought back to the basic question, are our projects successful?

Sounds simple enough, yet there are so many factors that can contribute to why projects sometimes fail – unclear scope, insufficient budget and resources, lack of client trust – just to name a few. Each one of these factors can fall under the umbrella of insufficient front end planning. In fact, insufficient front end planning is one of the main reasons why projects fail.

Every project no matter how big or small has five components: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring/controlling and closing. We have all fallen victim to over-excitement on a new project, wanting to jump right into the execution. After all, we are all in this business for the love of the execution part of our projects. However, despite where the excitement might lie, we cannot forget that the initiation and planning phases should account for approximately 40% of the total project.

I was sent this sound clip a few months ago and was immediately brought back to my project management studies. The clip links the art of juggling with project management and how too often people learning how to juggle focus on the catching of the balls and fail to realize that it is most important to focus on properly throwing them. When we focus on properly throwing the ball, the catching will take care of itself. The same can be said in project management. When we put the time into getting the initiation and planning processes of projects done correctly and thoroughly, the rest of the project will in theory take care of itself.

Let other people focus on catching and, as project managers, let us focus on the art of throwing.