The family and I took a trip up to The Park Avenue Armory today to catch the Ernesto Neto installation.
The Armory space is cavernous and the installation feels right at home here. It’s a very experiential piece - you can walk right through it, taking in the aroma from spice-filled fabric “stalactites”.
We’ve become accustomed to associating “digital” with interactive experiences. It’s always inspiring to experience something that isn’t.
There’s some great photos on the Armory’s website, including a time-lapse of the installation. The Times wrote a piece on it as well.
I’ve included a few moodier shots taken with my point-and-shoot.
I remember as a kid not understanding what my mother did as a career. And then transitioning to an adult and her not understanding what I did as a career. I used to chalk that up to a generational thing - the older folk just don’t get all this computer stuff. I then realized that when speaking to people outside of my industry (and the clients we serve), that I was struggling to articulate what exactly it is I do.
Scene: Get together with new parents in someone’s backyard
Interested Person: So, what do you do?
Me: I’m a Creative Director for Interactive
Interested Person: (furrowed brow) What’s that?
Me: (quickly defeated and cutting to the chase) I make websites.
“I make websites” is a pitiful way to describe the scope and love that I have for my craft. And from a personal branding perspective it grossly undersells my value. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about businesses over the years (any business) is that they always struggle to practice what they preach.
The answer to my predicament is really not that tough - lead with the value you provide, then talk about how that value is manifested.
When you’re frequently surrounded by people who do what you do, or buy your services, it’s easy to put off creating your elevator speech.
My homework assignment:
develop a short statement of what I do that Interested Person can understand
develop a simple way to articulate the value of brand experience, user experience and design
Does this situation sound familiar? I’m curious to hear about your challenges and successes in this area.
Last week Moto released a video and some specs on their new scalable multi-touch technology. Unlike Microsoft’s Surface technology, Moto’s Sensing Screen doesn’t require a bulking projection set up — it’s thin and can scale up to 50”. They’re also claiming that it’s less expensive to produce as well. Pretty exciting stuff.
Great spot from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for Sprint: Anthem. I like how they slip in a plug for the Palm Pre at the end. The spot pushes you to a beautiful site with more data visualization. How accurate is the data? Who cares.
Great presentation here from Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. This was from Mix 09 a few weeks back. Silverlight is needed to view.
Bill does a great job articulating the value of experience in the context of design. Like myself, he’s also really big on the value and role of sketching during the design process. He’s even written a book about it.
Allegedly, he’s been brought on to Microsoft to elevate the role of design in the company culture. I have yet to ping a few of my old Microsoft clients to hear their take on this.
The presentation is 20 minutes, but well worth it.
I checked out a few minutes of Scott Guthrie’s presentation which immediately follows. There was a demo of Microsoft’s Expression Web SuperPreview - which had some cool features for cross-browser programming.
As an aside, I love how Bill’s site is completely, and I’m sure intentionally, stripped-down.
