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Do we know yet the volume of an idea? It’s Wednesday and I’m just out of IA and into wireframes. The pipes are knitting themselves into a fray. That’s how I know something is up there. My skull is not illimitable.

Wireframes. Wires: the boxes-and-bubbles tech docs that will instantiate the requirements of the project and breathe life into my IA. Wires: my big deliverables. The ironed down, buttoned up, spit shine proof that I “know what I’m doing.”

Heavy stuff. This cursor ticks with every new idea crashing into my cranium. I sift and sieve, identify and modify, assimilate and aggregate. How to turn this IA. In my brain is a swirling abstract with scrawny tendons and gawky legs. I command it to incubate.

The cursor blinks. My temples begin to bulge. A tumbleweed hops across the surface of my desk.

A wirestorm’s a-coming.

And here’s how I’m set to weather it. Maybe it’ll work for you as well. Continue Reading

Eva-Lotta Lamm has published a book of sketches she crafted while at web conferences over the last two years. The book includes notes for 100+ speakers, including Edward Tufte, Jesse James Garrett, Dave Gray, and Eric Reiss.

I’m always impressed with people that can take talking points or ideas and make them visually interesting. Rather than creating an ordinary bullet list that is less likely to be referenced after the conference, this is a great way of channeling your creative self and bringing ideas to life that you can later share with others (and possibly make a profit on!).

Check out some sample pages on Flickr.

I know, Thanksgiving is still 10 days away. And I’m the new guy posting on the company blog. Two strikes. However, on my first day as art director at IQ, there are a few things for which I’m thankful.

1. Remembering the pass code on the employee entrance door. I think I was the third person to show up this morning and am glad I didn’t have to wait outside like a visitor till someone else showed up.

2. My shiny, new MacBook Pro. We’re going to be great friends.

3. The comfort of finally being in Atlanta. Planning for a move is the worst part. Unpacking boxes is much less stressful.

4. A 6 hour drive in a 22′ moving truck (while towing my car) being behind me. I’m not cut out for driving large vehicles like that. I wear contacts but fear my eyes are actually crooked on my head because every time I was confident both giant wheels were in between the lines, I would be dreadfully wrong.

5. The beautiful fall foliage out the window behind my new desk. I realize that when winter claims all the leaves, it won’t be as inspiring, but for now, it makes me happy.

6. Coworkers who don’t mind me repeatedly asking them their name. I’ve met a Chris, Ross, Dan, Tyler, Winston, Colby, Alice, Zach, Gary (and others) but have no chance of matching them up to the right face.

7. Being so close to work. Since I got an apartment as close as possible to the office, my morning commute was a grand total of four minutes. Four minutes! Take that Atlanta!

8. Being surrounded by people who I know will make me better. The only way to grow is to be around people who are better than me. My sleeves are rolled up. Let’s get started.

Last night Senior Technical Project Manager, Marina Filiuhina and I attended the YouTube Play event live from the Guggenheim in New York City! We had a fabulous time celebrating the works of artists who have used YouTube as an avenue for sharing their artwork. Last night, YouTube took over the Guggenheim museum by projecting celebrated video art on almost every surface area of the architecture inside and outside. The night was full of live music performances, including a finale by the YouTube sensation and grammy award winning music group OK GO.

The event was streaming in real time on YouTube Live and can be watched along with all the fabulous artwork on http://www.youtube.com/play

Continue Reading

Infographic fix for the day, ala GOOD Magazine….

“Chance favors the connected mind.” – Steven Johnson

Brings back fond memories of the UPS whiteboard campaign.. but this is fantastic on a whole new level!

Steve Jobs is not just a great business man and a very talented technologist. He has a very clear sense of what great companies need to do to cut through the noise of the marketplace. And that thing is to have a perspective, a point of view. Here he is talking about the “Think Different” campaign in 1997 (by Chait/Day). Here’s an article from LowEnd Mac on the history of the campaign which notes that the entire campaign and assets were completed in less than a month, assisted by the fact that Mr. Jobs was close personal friends of some of the people who appeared in the ads and posters.

Hat tip to Jason Kottke also points to the clear difference between 1997 and 2010 Apple advertising. Back then, their computers were not all that special (with MS Windows 95 catching up to the Apple Macintosh in a lot of ways), so they didn’t show the products. Today, Apple’s products are leading the pack, and so the television advertising they do can be summed up as “Nifty song. Here’s the product. Here’s a disembodied hand using it. It’s awesome. Buy one.” The recent ads for iPods, iPhones and now iPad are not nearly as focused on the soul of the company, and, in my view, not as compelling.

Since my transition from developer to manager of developers 4 years ago, I’ve been fascinated with art of technology management within an advertising agency environment. While technology management is well documented for software development companies, little exist for the development of complex web applications within a creative based environment. Below are a few high-level thoughts I’ve considered when approaching the art of technical management at an agency.

Organization within an Unorganized Setting
Where as the software development life-cycle is based on months and years the agency development life-cycle is often based on weeks. This is made even more challenging considering requirements tend to be more loosely defined and effected by non-technical stakeholders (the client). The agency environment forces you to have a more of a “run and gun” mentality. While you want to have: objects, requirements and goals clearly defined up front, timelines and bandwidth don’t always allow for it. One true rule of development is that clean organized code is necessary regardless of the size or scope of a project.

Letting Developers Develop
Probably the #1 goal of anyone managing developers is to make sure your developers have everything they need to write great code that can be delivered in a feasible timeline.  While management requires the ability to sit in hours of continuous meetings daily, developers need the ability to write code for continuous amounts of time. Being brought into unnecessary meetings or forced to hunt down project status or assets is a huge detractor to this.  Doing these things for the sake of code being written requires a very selfless mindset.

Ownership of Technical Failure or Success
With a waterfall method being the easiest and most dangerous process to follow, it’s easy for technology to be the last informed of project progress and status.  Early in my career there was a situation where I was told not to attend a meeting by the organizer since “development was not being discussed so you would be wasting your time”. When I told the my boss afterwards he stated in similar situations to tell the organizer that “unless you want to be responsible for the technical success of a project I should attend this meeting and determine if it’s appropriate for myself”. From initial requirements gathering through QA there are enough moving parts to warrant ownership from one individual. For the sake of the project success that person should be technical in nature.

Fighting Upstream
Combined with QA, development is the last  stage in the overall process. This results in being the last informed within the project. Within technology management you have to always make an effort to seek project status and information particularly when you know the project is active. You have to be willing to walk into meetings that you weren’t originally invited to and challenge deliverables from other departments.

Promotion of Innovation
Unlike others areas of the advertising industry, digital is totally based on constantly progressing technical mediums. Rather the output is: desktop browser, mobile or native os applications, there are numerous considerations beyond the design and content which can attribute to the success or failure of a project.  Innovation requires a understanding of theses constantly evolving platform so known boundaries can be challenged. The technical management lead needs to be at the forefront of these trends.

I believe in living the creative life
Living it, dreaming big, tilting at windmills
Trying for the extraordinary
I believe creativity connects us to God or whatever you call the place where everything comes from
Creativity is a unique moment in time
It’s the magic sum of who we are
We change people with it
I believe we are a creative company
We are not a tech company or a process company
Our product is creative ideas
I am happiest when we do creative work
Making something new with other people is my greatest pleasure
To make something out of nothing
To maybe have an idea that changes the world
To create ideas together
That’s why I love what I do
That’s why I’m not a banker
That’s why I started IQ.