ThisJustin

Edward Boches has a great post over on his blog entitled Where will the new generation of digital talent choose to work
? that was inspired by his recent visit to Boulder Digital Works. As a member of the first-ever class to graduate from BDW I wanted to expand upon a few of the points Edward makes and begin to answer just what this new generation wants from an employer. (by the way, don’t think that generation implies age in this case – my class included members fo Gen Y, Gen X and even a Baby Boomer so it has less to do with age than mindset)

At the end of the day, the bottom line is that now is the time to try, do, make and refine these approaches because there has been a lot of talk for a long time.

In a nutshell, the places this new generation want to work are the places that are doing (or at least trying) these things, not just talking about them.

Collaboration
Most offices aren’t set up to encourage collaboration in the most basic ways. The furniture, the cubes, the flexibility of the floor plan, availability of conference rooms, whiteboards, etc, let alone the culture. It takes both to really make things work. You have to have people thinking in new ways combined with an environment that fosters collaboration to really make it work.

What else did I miss? Let’s collaborate below in the comments.

I recently received this email from john@admediasite.com:

Greetings,

I’d like to contact the person responsible for the development of justinmccammon.com.

We have negotiated an unbelievable promo with a major ad network that includes 500 targeted visitors to your site at no cost as a sign up bonus.

Furthermore, you will also be able to purchase Pay-Per-Click Advertising at wholesale rates for as low as $0.10 per click even in very competitive niches. If you are involved in advertising bidding wars using AdWords, you’re probably already thinking that you’re being charged too much, especially considering that your competitors could be clicking on your ads as we speak further diminishing your advertising dollar. In other words this program is a must for you. Remember, it will cost very little for you to try and it may trim 50% or more from your advertising budget.

For more information please visit http://admediasite.com.

This is a limited time offer, so give it a try now.

Thanks,
John Gerharde

AdMediaSite.com

Now I’m sure John is a great guy and that AdMediaSite.com is a total shitbag of a site, but this is NOT how you sell something to someone. Here’s the deal, if John, or any other human, actually looked at justinmccammon.com they’d immediately see that the site is my personal site. There is no wondering who is responsible for the site’s development. I did it all myself. It has my name all over it. Literally.

So here’s the lesson. Take five minutes. Five freakin’ minutes and do some research. Be a human engaging another human. I like talking to other humans. When I see a human take some time to thoughtfully reach out to me I am much more inclined to respond in return. Robots, not so much.

Earlier this year, I was hooked on Lala, then Apple bought it, shut it down and forgot to make iTunes kick as much ass as it did. So I was left wandering through the murky waters of online music streaming services. (why didn’t I go back to iTunes? Mainly because it refuses to play nice with me using it on multiple computers and accessing one library stored on an external hard drive, it’s really slow / a memory hog / it’s installer constantly has errors (probably a personal issue but reason enough to dump it anyway))

And then I found Grooveshark. Wonderful, wonderful Grooveshark. It’s beautiful. It’s free. It’s 5 million songs plus whatever you want to upload to augment that. It’s streaming. It’s a desktop player (if you pay for VIP). It’s on mobile (if you jailbreak your iPhone and you’re VIP).  It’s everything iTunes should be.

A key user insight that Grooveshark (and other streamers no doubt) were smart enough to see or lucky enough to stumble upon is that I don’t care about owning music. I care about listening to music. The key thing to realize is that in the recent past those two things were essentially one and the same. Before streaming you had to somehow own the music (be it vinyl, cassette, CD or digital) before you could listen to it (obviously radio is an exception here but you couldn’t choose what you wanted to hear.)

This is the classic case of companies looking at what users want and interpreting it as better versions of things that exist. Sometimes, what users want is actually something that they can’t conceive of because it doesn’t exist yet. That’s when you know you have a game changing opportunity on your hands. It’s also when you know you’re actually listening to your users.

A great example of this story (which may or may not be accurate but illustrates the point very well) is the invention of the VCR.

In the 70′s the Beverly Hillbillies was one of the most popular shows in the US, especially in the South. The show aired on Wednesday nights which also happened to be church night in the bible-belt South. This meant that there were a lot of people who wanted to watch the Beverly Hillbillies but couldn’t because it was church night. The solution using existing means would have been to move the show to a different night. However, when one particularly smart researcher heard about this, they saw a different solution. Why don’t we give the consumers a device that could record the show for later viewing. This device didn’t actually exist yet but soon thereafter the Beta and eventually VHS VCRs came into existence.

Not a single consumer asked for a VCR. That wasn’t even an option they were aware of. They asked to be able to watch their favorite show. It took the smart work of some researchers to not just take the consumer wants at face value but to actually expand them into real wants and needs and then create a solution that fit knowing the advances being made in technology.

I see services like Grooveshark in the same boat. I never cared about owning music. Sure, maybe I wanted album art or some other bonus item but what I really wanted was to be able to listen to my music on my terms. That means in the car, at the gym, in the office, at home and anywhere else I am. In the traditional model that meant owning the music. Today it means having access to that music. There’s a big and important difference there and I think you’ll see many similar disruptions come to pass in the near future (just as many have already happened.) Which one do you think will happen next?

A while back I submitted a copywriting test to Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Below is a sampling a one of my answers. Just thought I’d share. Let me know what you think.

What are the most important and least important letters of the alphabet? Defend your choices.
I think we all know that since the landmark Character Rights Act of 1965 that all letters have been recognized as being equal in the eyes of the state. That said, I realize that sometimes it can be useful to play favorites, just look at what it’s done for the Kingdom of Scrabble. So, since you asked nicely, I’ll tell you what I think the most important letter is: A.

I know what you’re thinking, “What about the rumors of A’s affairs with ~? How can you put your faith in such an unsavory character?” Now, I don’t want to play conspiracy theorist but just let me say that I heard it from a good source that Ampersand was there the night A and ~ got together, playing his usual role as matchmaker. Except this time he had an ulterior motive, if he could get A out of the alphabet there would be no way to spell “and” anymore, thereby securing Ampersand’s place as sole conjoiner of phrases. But you didn’t hear that from me, all I’m saying is that if I had to pick favorites, “A” would be at the top and Ampersand would be somewhere below Q and Z, the lazy, good-for-spelling-nothing bums.

Today we officially launched The Least You Can Do. This has been the culmination of many months of work at Boulder Digital Works. The Least You Can Do is designed to be the easiest way to change the world. We believe that by breaking down complex problems into very simple tasks we can get people who are generally lazy (let’s face it – all of us) to actually be able to feel like they’re doing something good (and not just feel it but actually be doing something good).In a nutshell, the power of a million people doing next to nothing is A LOT.

We started in May with a brief from Justin Gold (founder of Justin’s Nut Butter) and Alex Bogusky (of, well, ad legend). There’s a long, awesome story of the behind the scenes of how just a few very dedicated students brought this project to the point where a hand full more could join on and bring this project to life. But for now, I’m exhausted and need a few good nights of sleep before I’m ready for that write-up. If you have a few minutes, check out the video below – from my presentation today at Justin’s Sustainable Squeeze Pack Summit. If you have two minutes, go visit http://leastyoucando.org and become an Inactivist.

Watch live video from bdw_live on Justin.tv

I have to give credit to the AWESOME team I had the pleasure to work with. To give credit where it’s due:

It’s been a lot of fun leading the Least You Can Do team over the past few months in anticipation of this beta launch. I can’t wait to fully implement the site, change the packaging landscape and take on another cause on the The Least You Can Do platform.

To give credit where it’s due…

Core team:
Justin McCammon (team lead, copy, strategy, tech)
Teghan Tracy (UX, strategy, design)
Jake Johnson (production, strategy)
Heather Seal (design, UX)

Designers:
Brad Dechter
Chris Znerold
Brain Fouhy
Jon Swisart

UX:
Dan Henderson

Developers:
Mike Newell
Jesse Weaver
RJ Duran
Josh Kadis

Marketing / PR Team:
Denise Horton
Sean Baxter
Lauren Parker
Megan Newton

Copywriters:
Charlotte Myerberg
Patrick Anders

Mentors:
Joe Corr (CP+B)
Scott Prindle (CP+B)
Darden Longendecker (Mondo Robot)
Alex Bogusky (Fearless)
The Good Apples(Dan Storch, Dan Braha, Justin Fuller)
David Slayden (Boulder Digital Works)
Gordon Brander (Crowdfavorite)
Peyton Lindley (Effective UI)
Dan Viens (Goodby Silverstein & Partners)
PJ Yesawich (Awesome Dude)

The brave client:
Justin’s Nut Butter
Justin Gold (CEO / Founder)
Lance Gentry (President)
Lauren Lortie (Marketing Manager)

It’s been roughly 10 months since I started as a student in the graduate program Boulder Digital Works. It’s been a crazy, wild ride to put it modestly. And I’ve neglected to keep up with this blog during most of that time because, well, I had A LOT of other things to do. So now, without further ado, is my clif notes version of the last ten months in ten sentences.

1. Be a digital optimist; it’s easy to see why something will fail but much harder to see how it will enrich our lives or change the world.
2. Trust your gut, you’re right more often than you think.
3. Never stop learning.
4. Call bullshit early and often.
5. Be a radical–shake things up.
6. Absorb and observe everything and everyone–the best insights happen when no one else is looking.
7. Do the right thing (it may not be easy or cheap).
8. Listen.
9. Stay curious.
10. Surround yourself with amazing, talented people and you will never be at a loss for laughter, excitement, commitment, hard work, criticism, praise, encouragement, inspiration, brilliant ideas, co-conspirators, advice or life-long friends.

Special bonus!

11. My co-conspirators and I are nearing graduation and ready for jobs & internships. Learn more about us at morepeoplelikeus.com

Special double bonus note: watch this space for some re-designing in the coming weeks. I’m going to use this as a test space for new WordPress themes I’m developing so check back often and let me know what you think (and ignore the blank state the blog is currently in).

Some work I did for a recent BDW class. If you look closely you can see the man himself.

During last Wednesday’s Idea Studio at Boulder Digital Works, Napkin Labs co-founders Warren Ng and Riley Gibson stopped by to talk about starting up their company and how its model is changing the way companies handle product design.

What does Napkin Labs do?

Napkin Labs is a collaborative community based new product development consultancy. We are blending the creative energy of the ‘crowd’ with disciplined design processes to rapidly generate consumer-centric new product concepts rooted in the strengths of our clients’ brands.

In other words, they curate a community of some the best young minds (from places like Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and CU) and then set them loose on your project. They provide the structure throughout so everyone stays on track and incentivize participation by using an algorithm to measure how much each member contributed to the final output and paying out a reward accordingly.

Their approach goes beyond simple crowd-sourcing by: one, curating the people in their crowd and two, rewarding everyone based on participation rather than a winner-takes-all approach.

And then I was re-listening to this 2005 TED talk from Clay Shirky about institutions vs collaboration and I realized that Napkin Labs is essentially breaking down the institutional barriers he talks about here:
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Shirky mentions how that as barriers to collaboration decrease (the web and web apps like Napkin Labs) people become more and more able to organize and collaborate in increasingly complex ways without the help traditionally needed from institutions. Shirky’s vision is brought to life in exactly how Napkin Labs operates.

By connecting big organizations directly to crowds and managing the crowds in a hands-off way, Napkin Labs brings the best of both the institutional and the unruly masses worlds together. As institutions become more comfortable with this approach I think this will mean a sea-change will take place in the R&D; world. Certainly, highly trained scientists and researches will never be replaced but think about the example Shirky uses above where a single Linux engineer contributes a single important patch and nothing else. He’s probably not worth having on the payroll, but aren’t you glad he contributed that one really important piece?

I believe the same sort of scenario will begin to play out across R&D; and product design. While dedicated teams in institutions won’t be replaced anytime soon, a lot of their work will begin to be offered out to Napkin Labs-esque organizations with excellent results.

It’s exciting to see this glimpse into the future happen so close to home. Keep your eyes peeled for how Napkin Labs will help shape the future with your help.

Look, I’m not into tearing people down. If you want to hear negativity you can surely find some on this great big series of tubes. I’m all about going for it and kicking ass and optimism and teddy bears and bubbles. But everyone has to make exceptions.

A little backstory: I’ve somehow made it onto the PR list for DiGennaro Communications in NY. I guess it’s because I run this here blog and they’ve decided the best way to reach out to bloggers is to crawl their emails rather than say hello. But at least it’s usually relevant and cool work I get. I don’t post it because that’s probably not why you read this blog and besides, you can view it all on other blogs like Agency Spy or Ads of the World etc that post the work all the time.

So they send me this email:

Today, Y&R; NY and VML launched a new website called “The Ungrateful Bastards.”

If you received a gift during the holidays that you don’t want (and who didn’t?), you can visit this site and trade for someone else’s unwanted gift.

Check out the site here: http://www.theungratefulbastards.com

“Because one man’s stupid, unwanted holiday gift is another man’s treasure.”

CREDITS:

Agency: Y&R; NY and VML

Chief Creative Officers: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal

Creative Directors: Guillermo Vega, Icaro Doria

Managing Creative Director, VML: Jim Radosevic

Creative Director, VML: Mike Wente

Art Directors: Menno Kluin, Alex Nowak, Sandra Nicholas

Copywriters: Tiffani Lundeen

Illustrator: Peter Frendrik

Producer: Jo Kelly

Lead Developer: Frank Cefalu

Flash Developer: Marc Brown

Director of Technology: Martin Coady

And I follow the link to Ungrateful Bastards because it sounds like a fun, if unoriginal, idea.

And then I immediately regret doing so.

The site is, to put it mildly, underwhelming. And I’m not talking about the fact that there’s about a dozen items on the site (including a hat listed under gadgets, which actually made me chuckle a bit.) I’m talking about the fact that this is a site from a global ad agency (Young & Rubicam) and a full-service digital agency (VML) and, even though it’s obviously a fun side project, it looks like it was thrown together last night by the interns in a red-bull-induced-rave-state.

I’ll just be frank: the site is bad. Really, just poorly done. Honestly, how many of those 15 (Fifteen!!!) actually worked on the project? Would they all still want their names attached to it if they saw the final result?

The people involved are no doubt talented (several were involved in the amazing Skittles work of several years ago) but the end result is woefully uninspired.

So is it any wonder that people have been less than eager to get involved with the site? It amazes me that an agency so big (Y&R; claims 186 offices and 7,000 employees) and a self-proclaimed full service digital shop would ever let something like this out into the wild.

There are a few possibilities:

1. They actually think this is good
2. The interns did it and everyone else wanted credit (why?)
3. They don’t care
4. They tried to be bad on purpose (but weren’t bad enough to be funny-bad)

So how does it get better?
Let’s break it down:

The Idea
It’s been done, but hasn’t everything at this point? The key is to do it better than anyone else has before or add a unique twist. Neither were done here, so that’d be where I’d start.

The Execution
The end result is not the effort of the 15 people credited. It’s barely the effort of one skilled developer. People have a low tolerance for subpar design / usability these days when there is so much good design / usability being done. People also make judgments within seconds of visiting your site. Guess what people are thinking at first glance of the Ungrateful Bastards site. I think it’s also worth considering who the work is coming from. If there was a college freshman behind this site I’d hold it to a bit different standard than a global ad empire.

The Usability
Finally, users have to be able to use the site they’re at. Besides the aforementioned categorization confusion (which could have been
intentional) I found frustration in clicking the button like objects on the site that were not in fact clickable buttons but rather fancy containers for the text which was the actual link. I’d also question the use of flash on the site in a seemingly uneccesary way. I know agencies love flash, but many users do not. Could another technology have accomplished the same thing (a countdown and a animated fireplace?) Also, I’m assuming the crackling sound emitted from the fireplace is for the kitsch effect but it’s seriously annoying and cannot be disabled. If you’re going to go kitsch go 100% or don’t go at all.

The Bottom Line
I’m probably taking this whole thing too seriously but this is a symptom of a larger issue: how traditional agencies (and even digital ones) adjust to the new environment they operate in. If Y&R; / VML had thought about their users a little more would this whole thing have been a lot better? It’s hard to say what happened behind closed doors. If you’re listening out there Y&R; / VML, I think you know what I want to find in my inbox stocking next year.

You may have read that Apple bought cloud music streaming service Lala. Well, in my little Justinverse the opposite happened, Lala took over iTunes.

I’ve been using Lala for a couple years now. Originally I just wanted an easy way to stream my iTunes library at work. Now I simply want a piece of music management software that works.

I have a lot of music. Just over 15,000 songs clocking in at around 80 GBs to be exact. Moving that kind of library around from old computer to new computer or even just to a new hard drive on the same computer is a serious pain in the ass through iTunes. I’ve tried using their preferred way of doing it and I’ve tried moving everything through Windows and then pointing iTunes back to the library and I’ve even tried storing it on an external drive to keep my laptop’s hard drive freed up. Every time iTunes can’t find songs or can’t find my library at all in the case of my laptop (despite my mapping of the drive to always show up as the same “letter.”)

While I can’t give up on iTunes for syncing my iPhone / iPod, I have given up on it for doing what it was originally supposed to do: play my goddamn music.

I’ve found a better solution through Lala. I’ve synced up all my purchases and uploaded any songs they didn’t have so now my whole collection resides in the cloud (a long process, but once it’s done, it’s done.) I can play it from any computer with an internet connection (if I could stream it from my phone it’d be perfect!)

So now that Apple has bought Lala I’m left wondering what the future of Lala’s service looks like. Reports seem to indicate that Apple wants access to Lala’s brilliant engineers more than their service. Here’s to hoping that the core service sticks around for a while, at least until Apple can play catch up in the very category it created.

Every new year is filled with a lot of looking backward (see my own 10 best albums of the decade) and looking forward but not so much focus on the present. I guess the prevailing thought is that the best times are long gone or just ahead of us. Well, this won’t be the first (or last) time the prevailing thought is wrong.

Right now is the best time to [insert thing you've been wanting to do.]

Seth Godin decided that today was the best day back in 2007 when things actually seemed pretty good:

Here’s a question that you should clip out and tape to your bathroom mirror. It might save you some angst 15 years from now. The question is, What did you do back when interest rates were at their lowest in 50 years, crime was close to zero, great employees were looking for good jobs, computers made product development and marketing easier than ever, and there was almost no competition for good news about great ideas?

Many people will have to answer that question by saying, “I spent my time waiting, whining, worrying, and wishing.” Because that’s what seems to be going around these days. Fortunately, though, not everyone will have to confess to having made such a bad choice. (read the original)

And he revisited that mentality today on his blog:

The oughts (the “uh-ohs”?) were a tough decade on a macro level. Front page news events will give the textbooks plenty to write about in the years to come.

But on a micro level, on a personal level, this was a decade filled with opportunity. The internet transformed our lives forever. Opportunities were created (and many were taken advantage of). And, like every decade, just about everyone missed it. Just about everyone hunkered down and did their job or did what they were told or did what they thought they were supposed to, and just about everyone got very little as a result. (read the original)

For those of you who like to take your information visually, here’s Hugh MacLeod’s cartoon in the same vein:

There will never be another time quite like now to launch a new company, quit your job, or be a part of something great. The time to do your life’s work is now.

This is it.
Fight like hell.
Happy New Year.