Victors & Spoils

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Hello and welcome to another installment of an idiot writing about himself. I’m Evan Fry, and I’ll be your idiot for the day. Our company is fresh-baby new, it’s called Victors & Spoils and we’re striving to be the first agency model that is one part ad agency, one part crowdsourcing. We just opened our doors here in Boulder Colorado. I’m not an Interactive Producer and I don’t even play one on TV. I can pretend to be one here or instead we can agree to replace “Interactive Producer” in all these questions with “Creative Officer.” I’m going to go for the latter. Might be a huge mistake.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
I hate digital production. I know dick-all about it. Can you see how funny I am? God I bet everyone is just laughing their asses off right now. But seriously folks. I love digital production. Though I can’t really do it as an interactive producer might, given that I’m not in the least bit qualified, I have the utmost respect for those who can. Without them, we’d all be watching TV ads in full-forward via Tivo wishing there was something better in the world of marketing.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
I think it’s mostly through forced immersion. Learn by doing action. At Crispin Porter + Bogusky where I spent my last seven years before Victors & Spoils, I basically realized I had to start learning a lot lot more. And in a hurry. So I took it upon myself to pay more attention and not glaze over entirely while all these other talented bastards on projects I was overseeing spouted on and on. That helps a lot. Also what helps is making friends with developers. I’ve got a few actually. And man are they smart. One of them is lead developer on a side project of my own that we launched a couple of months ago called BFA (befuckingawesome.com) – and through turning BFA into reality I’ve learned a lot for sure. Thanks to Chris. That’s his name. He drives a badass ‘Vette too. He has it all. Fucker.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
It starts with a willing and smart client sitting across from us saying something like ‘hey we really want to solve something that we know we have to solve. How do we do that?’ Ideally it’s something where a company realizes that they are deficient in some big overarching realm like social media or mobile. Or maybe it’s something where they want to engage their fans and customers to create something. You never know what could come out of something big and high-elevation like that. Those are the best. When you work together to solve a business problem, everyone open-minded about what the solution may look like or what medium it will use.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
Talking. Honesty. Perception. Being observant and listening and making sure everything is a conversation, never a stance of selling this or that.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
This is a great question. I’ve been lucky enough through the staggeringly savvy machine of CP+B to be involved with some really fun launches and high-profile stuff. It’s hard to pick one. The GAP :90 with Spike Jonze is pretty tough to beat though. By today’s standards a complete traditonal-media yawn with no extensions and a total media dead-end. But watching Spike killin’ it was just really awesome.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
Is 0 a good answer? It has to be 0.

Q: What tools do you use to help you better organize your projects?
I’m a huge fan of Stickies. Macintosh HD > Applications > Stickies.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
Everyone is well fed and extremely attractive. There are also at least two dogs there. A ball to toss said dogs. And some Colorado IPA in a cooler. Everyone is smart, positive, problem solving, make-it-happen types. Nobody smokes or bitches about shit.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Listening. Respecting them. But also realizing that the happiest clients are always going to be the ones who are behind successful business solutions and results that catch fire. So sometimes making sure their best interests are met means being really honest and making sure they know I’m coming from a place where I just want to make their brand famous.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Web-platform systems where creatives cherry pick projects from wherever they are, producers execute brilliantly and we continue to move everything forward. Strategic and creative direction are still personal but everyone else is outlaw hired gun. Lots of mustaches and whiskey. Even the women wear mustaches and swill whiskey.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
Sometimes going for a bike ride is the best answer.

From Somebody Else

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
The beard is Bryant Florez and the mug on the right is Justen Holter. We are the collective force behind From Somebody Else (http://www.fromsomebodyelse.com). With our knees deep in creative and interactive development, our true obsession is in the collaboration and execution of great work.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
Justen’s love for organization and logic makes him a dev at heart with great appreciation for design and aesthetics. Exploring unique ways to combine his passions, he took to Flash development over 6 years ago and has been living and breathing Actionscript ever since. I, on the other hand, have been doodling, constructing, or designing something ever since developing manual dexterity. After studying Architectural Design, my love for art and animation brought me to Full Sail University where I met Justen and we began collaborating on interactive experiments. Having attended our first industry conference as students, it was at FITC in Toronto where we realized how insanely amazing this industry was and how far we had to go before truly becoming part of it.

After graduating Full Sail, our collaboration continued professionally as we both joined the AgencyNet team. Over the years we climbed the ranks as Art Director and Senior Flash Developer, having produced great work for numerous brands that include Bacardi, Eristoff, BBC America, Oxygen, Roxy Hunter, Beaches, Ford, and the State of Colorado’s anti-tobacco campaigns.

With several years and tons of shared experiences, we left our friends at AgencyNet to set out on our own. We are now From Somebody Else.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
Motivation should be considered a requirement! If you find yourself lacking in that department, branch out beyond your niche. It’s a sure way to discover new inspirations and opportunities.

As for keeping up with the Joneses, usual suspects like blogs, friends, conferences, twitter, meet ups, and all things alike are great forums for keeping tabs on what’s hot. Always keep your ear to the ground. Sometimes we simply start our day a couple hours earlier to get caught up with our feeds and get hip to the lingo. When a certain technology is making waves and has the potential to benefit us and/or our client, we simply make it a point to devote some attention to it. We like to try everything that is relevant to our field and see how it fits into our arsenal. At times it’s the ideas that inspire the need for new technologies. So when you can, dream up new challenges and unique ways to approach them.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
The ideal client is this mythical creature that overpays, is never rushed, and will sometimes compensate our hard earned time with tasty treats and fine wine.

In all truth, it's the less than ideal situations that produce the best results. We love our clients to be as passionate about their goals as we are about meeting them. All we ask is for an open mind and mutual transparency. Clients and projects are supposed to challenge us. If this were easy, there would be a colossal lack of awesome in our industry.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
Transparency is always our best policy. Regardless of the challenge, we keep an open mind while remaining forthright about what’s truly within reach. Many times it’s not just what the client wants but what you can do for them that will make the difference. We are very transparent about our process and what we need to be successful. It takes that collaborative relationship to make things happen and arrive to the best results possible.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
Hands down our favorite project has been while we were working at AgencyNet, “Own Your C – C-Ville” (http://cville.ownyourc.com/) and “Own Your C – 2.0” (http://www.ownyourc.com/). With a fun demographic to speak to and a great team to collaborate with, this project provided a wide net of opportunities to explore. Having played significant roles in its first installment, you can imagine how stoked we were when the opportunity for 2.0 came along. This time around, our demo had matured as did our ideas and methods for execution. This project gave us a playground to experiment all things creative, animation, interactive, and technical.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
It depends. At one time, we were wrapping up our biggest Flash project as we started another micro site and some rich media campaigns. Most projects are riddled with slow and chaotic phases, so it’s definitely a balancing act. Certain projects tend to dictate how much of our time and focus is required, thus limiting our bandwidth for anything else. So yeah, it depends.

Q: What tools do you use to help you better organize your projects?
Now you’re talking! One thing we LOVE is being organized! There are several tools we use in our production arsenal that keeps us and our projects in line.

We develop all our projects using SVN to maintain versions and effective file sharing. Opting for a hosted solution, we went with the super awesome Spring Loops (http://www.springloops.com). This keeps our heads out of IT and focused on the development aspects of the project. Additionally, it offers some great tools for deploying your projects and notifications. For tasking and bug tracking needs, we use Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com/). With the right workflow, Lighthouse can be the ideal tool for project tasking, milestones, status updates, and reporting. We also love its ability to export CSV docs for our “Plan of Attack” meetings with clients.

We are extremely particular of the tools we introduce into our workflow. For us it’s important to use high impact low overhead tools that keep us focused on what’s important.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
Aside from talented creative’s and gifted developers, a crew that has mutual respect and understanding for each other’s skill set and opinions are the simple ingredients needed for successful collaboration. We are huge advocates of the team mentality and look to surround ourselves with likeminded folks, always resulting in a fun experience.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Discovery and Pre-Production phases are the most crucial when setting goals and determining what will work best for our clients and their projects. This provides everyone a proper venue to really explore what’s important and lay down a plan of attack. If the scope isn’t reflective of that then you need to re-evaluate. Once we’re ready to kick things off, we champion forward with transparency and flexibility.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
The sheer growth of this industry is one of the biggest things we’ve noticed. It’s moving into this huge space, covering anything capable of recognizing human input. The technology used to produce the future is becoming stronger and more complex with each new platform that comes out. We would love to see this motivate more collaboration between companies and individuals that specialize in a particular offering, and less of the one stop shop mindset.

Then again, the forecast is looking more like augmented social reality, animated GIFs, and WordPress 4.0.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
Be nice. Keep it real. Put yourself out there.

Experience Blueprint

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Brooks Martin, Executive Producer at Schematic. Schematic is a world-class interactive agency with expertise in client service, strategy, user experience, design, copy writing, technology, production, and performance metrics. If it’s got a screen, we design experiences for it.

I oversee the business development and production for many of Schematic's emerging platforms. In my role, I focus on cross-platform solutions, ranging from advanced Web, ITV, and set-top applications, mobile and environmental installations to broadcast graphics, Blu-ray, game consoles, and even original, branded content. Over the past 6 years I’ve led over 100 projects for clients and partners such as ABC, Accenture, Adobe, AOL, Blockbuster, Bungie, Cablevision, CNN, Comcast, Dell, EA, EA Sports, Fox, GE, Intel, Mattel, Microsoft, MTV, NBC Universal, NFL Network, Panasonic, Paramount, Sky, Sony, Target, Time Warner Cable, Touchstone, Turner, and Yahoo!

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
I came out to LA to go to film school in 2000. Soon after that I jumped to a position in (ahem) documentary television. I worked for Bunim-Murray, the makers of Real World, Road Rules, Simple Life and other shows. There we created the first all-digital post-production environment for reality television, enhancing the workflow for capturing, logging, and editing over 9000 hours of footage, per season, per show. Nutty.

Right before film school, I worked at a web-shop in Nashville, TN (hometown) called Anode Interactive, where I was a Flash designer and client-side developer. We had a good business in the Web, but our real expertise was in kiosk and environmental design. Cut my teeth, won some awards, had some fun.

I still love and miss post-production, and I’ve worked on a few stereoscopic projects in the past year. I can’t wait for 3D to get more traction.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
I subscribe to a bunch of news feeds, and using a combo of FeedDemon and Google Reader, I just set watches for certain keywords. That keeps me up to date on a range of topics, but I also subscribe to 5-7 bloggers whose opinions I trust, and I read almost every post. I use those blogs to gauge new and interesting topics that I might also want to follow.

Within Schematic I’ve set up discussion groups around several topics (Ministry of Gesture, Ministry of ITV, etc.), and because e-mail is still a strong part of our company’s culture, people share links that way. Each group also has an intranet-wiki page where we keep links to the best of the best and provide references to internal projects, white papers and other knowledge sharing.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
I prefer clients who involve us as a partner in their solutions. The more burden we bear, the more responsibility we have, the more we know, the more effective we can be with our solutions. Any time I hear “no,” I want a client who is willing to explore the “well, why not” with us.

I prefer two kinds of projects. 1. Long term Digital AOR, where we can have the freedom to bring all of our expertise to the table in a measured, experimental, scientific process to build a robust, engaging, innovative product. 2. Very short term, full-bore blast where we bring our expertise to bear on a prototype that knocks people’s socks off.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
Schematic has a rigorous and proven process for delivering quality. We also work on many platforms/projects that are changing as we go, so we have to be very flexible. For the emerging platforms projects we try and encapsulate all of the most up to date knowledge for a project in a living document that we call the Experience Blueprint. This evolving snapshot of our thinking includes information on almost everything from the most basic requirements to future-state design principles. The document becomes an ever-changing manifestation of our rigorous process. In the end, we end up with a massive document, but it’s all in there, everything from the final product to that crazy idea that we had 4 months ago, that, hey, you never know, we might use one day.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
EA Sports UI Rebrand

Back in 2006, EA Sports realized that they were losing brand equity in their Sports titles because of a myriad of design styles and interaction models across all of the different games developed by 8+ studios. EA Sports asked us to envision what the future of the UI could look like in 5 years, how it could work, how it could grow and expand to meet the changing needs of their top gaming titles, but also incorporate new types of media (branded content and partner video, audio and data) into their gaming experience. We presented the vision piece to the heads of the various EA studios, and they all had the same reaction: “We love it, but can we actually do this?” “Actually, yes,” we said, “and you can do it now.” They literally stopped the presses while we spent the next month furiously working away on the global style guide. The result? They launched the updated UI and brand for all of their 07 titles, and it’s still holding strong.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
Either 2 big ones or 7-8 little ones. Even the few times that I’ve had just one project, I’ve always needed to have another one in the works.

I’ve been really fortunate/lucky to have remarkable overlaps in projects where a problem that we’re having in one project is solved in another project. I feel that being focused on just one project makes you soft. As an interactive producer, you need that objectivity to come back with a fresh perspective and a new and better solution.

Q: What does your dream team look like?
Creative Director to own the style and vision

User Experience Lead to own the structure and logic of the design

Technical Lead/Solutions Architect to own the platform limits and understanding

Designer to make it all look fancy

User Experience Designer to document the results and ideas

Animator to put all of our ideas into motion and give them life

Project Manager to track decisions, resources, and commitments from everyone

Client partner who is willing to listen, collaborate and be honest with their feedback

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
At the outset of the project, we discover and document the guiding principles to create a solid foundation for all practice areas like creative direction, UX philosophy, technical approach, etc. If we ever have anything that contradicts those core principles, we either use those principles to alter the solution, or we reevaluate the principles. If we change our guiding principles, then we need to check all the work to that point. It takes some work, but it’s all in front of you on paper (or PDF), and it’s worth the payoff. The final document should read like one cohesive, logically structured argument, taking the reader from concept to completion.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
We’ve been practicing for the past 6 years to bring these experiences to a television platform that will do all of the things we’ve been dreaming of. I’m so excited that this time has come. Now we can get started. With the rise of cloud computing and personalization, and the abstraction of the information in between them, I feel like the services we offer will have to account for that abstraction. We’ll have to design for two Webs, the general Open Web and the “Trusted Web” or “Authenticated Web.”

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
Write it down. Tag it.

Scholz & Volkmer: Peter Reichard

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Hi, my name is Peter Reichard and I am the Executive Technical Director at Scholz & Volkmer in Wiesbaden, Germany. My agency designs and realizes digital communication solutions for clients like Mercedes-Benz, Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Leica and Swarovski, among others.

Our commitment is to provide clients with 360° digital communications. We therefore cover the areas of attention (e.g. banners, virals), information (web specials, corporate websites), dialogue (CRM), transaction (shops), use (digital products), support (brand communities) and referral (referral marketing).

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
My passion for the digital area began with a fascination of computer games, just like it did for many other people. When I was 15, I had an Atari ST and developed small and actually pretty bad games for it. But what fascinated me right from the start is that you can create something reactive and interactive – out of practically nothing.

While studying industrial design I became aware of the fact that for me, developing and programming was as much fun as prototyping with the saw and milling machine. Well, maybe even a little more – because I later quit college in favour of web development J.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
I am convinced that fun is the mainspring of every good solution, especially in the area of creative communication. You only get motivated through positive results. For me, important factors are to have a team that’s fun and capable, a scenario in which everyone respects each other and where you face challenges together.

How we keep our team informed? Well, first of all, I think that it is necessary that people are curious and always interested in coping with the new technologies they have to use every day. At Scholz & Volkmer for example, we have our Intranet called ‘Inhouse’, where colleagues share new highlights with each other. These can be just hilarious viral clips, but also new technology, marketing ideas and so on. With 100 co-workers, you can gather lots of information this way.

Other sources of information and inspiration are fresh talents like freelancers and other agencies. Last year, we also organized a Summer School program: six international students were invited to work with us for a month. I think that such opportunities benefit both sides immensely and offer the possibility for cultural and functional exchange.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
The ideal client is willing to communicate. And is bold and gutsy.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
Well, I have two kids. So I know what a challenge education can be ;-). In my opinion, education is, first and foremost, dependent on trust. It is more a process of growing with each other than taking control over someone else.

For me, basic principles are: don’t promise anything you can’t deliver. Speak clearly and always at eye level. Establish objectives and consequences. Stay fair…. and have fun!

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
Wow, that’s a difficult question. But if I had to make a decision, I would say that at the moment, my highlight is a project we realised for Adidas a couple of weeks ago. We developed the world’s first interactive online live event for the sports brand in collaboration with German soccer club FC Bayern Munich. The well-known German actor and comedian Christian Ulmen slipped into the role of soccer fan Frerk Ohm. With Frerk, we produced a five-day interactive web-tv-show where users took control of what was happening: they could submit the craziest tasks on the website and Frerk had to compete in and complete them – live and on-location in Munich.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
If I had a choice: just one. I find it difficult to focus and concentrate otherwise.

Q: What tools do you use to help you better organize your projects?
Actually, I haven’t managed to find the Swiss Army knife for organizing my projects. But lots of little helpful tools: Redmine, Moleskine, Mac-Mails to myself and so on.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
That depends, of course, on the project on hand. But in general: two or three people that burn for an idea, that are able to arse around but are also capable of putting their thoughts onto paper – or into the computer.

That could be anyone, really, regardless of their education or current job position: designers, programmers, managing directors, project managers, conceptual designers and everyone else I’ve forgotten.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
We use a standardised document for this: the Creative Brief, where all relevant and important information and objectives are gathered and documented on just one page.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Well, I guess that the number of communication modes and channels will expand even more and that agencies and brands will go further and further away from communicating on just one single platform.

Furthermore, I could imagine that two things will keep becoming more important: advertising as pure entertainment as well as extremely user-focused communication.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
Although I am already over 40 I’m afraid I don’t really have much wisdom to share yet. Thus I would rather like to quote my wife’s grandmother: Life has no guardrails. This may be a simple fact – but is at the same time a sentence you can interpret and think a lot about. My personal version would be, for example: There is no definitive security in life and be prepared for everything that comes.

And one last thing: It’s not just a job but a big part of your life. So - act responsibly. And…have I already said something about having fun?

Fantastical Elements

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Hi my name is Jonas Eliasson and I work as a Sr Technical Manager for Fi NYC (www.f-i.com) which is an digital advertising firm. Fi is also the owner of the social media platform, Kontain.com which I have been working with for the last two years.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
My school background is a Bachelor of Computer Science where I used my spare time to develop Flash applications. At the time (2004) very few people realized you could actually do "real" applications with Flash. This naturally lead me to want to work for an Interactive Agency instead of a traditional Software Company.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
The source of inspiration usually changes depending the project I am working on. for the last 2 years I have worked a on Kontain, a social media platform (www.kontain.com). I am working mainly on the server side and its written in Java so I listen to Java Posse’s pod cast (http://javaposse.com) There you will get the latest Java trends and news. Other things we do in Fi is to have monthly presentations/walk-through of Fi and personal projects. These are often technical and are a great way to get new ideas and inspiration.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
Full ownership, from back-end technology and implementation to front-end concept and design. And I like long projects. 6 months or longer is ideal. Sometimes we have clients sit in-house with our team during the mission critical parts of the project. I think those are the most fruitful projects.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
At Fi we use Agile software methodology for larger projects which means we break down a project in smaller estimated tasks which you then fill into iterations. An iteration is usually two weeks and ideally the developers only have to think about the current iteration.

If the two week iterations are being delivered on time, you can expect to meet the projected delivery date. However, if you do find the team is not able to finish the iterations on time, the iterative process allows you to catch and fix potential problems early. This method also give the client more control by allowing them to change projected tasks without affecting the overall project time-line. If anyone is interested in reading more about Agile methodology you can check out this link which goes through our process in more detail http://www.kontain.com/fi/entries/25191/fi-goes-agile/

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
I must say Kontain.com is the most inspiring project I have worked on. It has all the parts of a project I like. It’s an Internal project which means full control, it’s been ongoing for two years and finally, it is technology challenging. It’s really great to see people use the platform daily and it generates a completely different commitment level for the whole team than any other project I have been part of.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
Depends on size. Currently I work on one big project. But a few smaller at the same this is no problem.

Q: What tools do you use to help you better organize your projects?
As I am a tech lead and usually have a producer on the same project I focus mainly on two tools. The most important one is Rally (www.rallydev.com) which is a web based application for project, requirement and QA/defect management for agile software development. And of course we use BaseCamp for general team communication and knowledge transfer.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
- Core team

* Producer
* Creative Director
* Interaction Designer
* Interactive Developer
* Application Engineer

If you have that base you know you will get a really stable and creative project both from concept, prototyping to technical architecture and system design.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Its really important to define a clear Statement Of Work (SOW) document. If that document is solid the expectations should be the same from both ends.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
I think Web applications will keep progressing to all hand held phones and other units such as game consoles. It will create a whole new type of demand on web agencies. More standards, browsers, operation systems that your application, site has to work on.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
A great way to build client relation in my experience is to have a few key players on the client’s team sit in your office working together with you and your team. It can get tricky with privacy but you can build a really strong bond in the production team that might help you to land that retainer contract.

Mr. Brooks

Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Hi. My name is Frank Brooks and I’m the Director of Production for DDB West in San Francisco.

Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
I guess you could say I kinda fell into it. A degree in Forestry that lead to National Geographic Television which lead to stints in commercial production, eventually landing on the agency side. My first experience with digital was at Wieden & Kennedy freelancing on Microsoft and CKone. I moved from there on to Hal Riney and Leo Burnett gaining experience in film production. I’ve always found the intersection between film and interactive an interesting place to be. It’s no surprise that we are graying the lines between digital and traditional production. Our agency is evolving into that space as more creative heads that way and as we push to find better solutions for our clients.

How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
Scouring the internet for what is new and different. I find The FWA (http://www.thefwa.com/), iPro and Design Charts (http://www.designcharts.com/) to be a few of the good resources out there. Beyond that, pushing ourselves internally to discover things for the creative’s as they are coming up with the ideas. Trying not to be bound by the same ways of thinking.

What does your ideal client/project look like?
I’d have to say the most recent experience with McAfee was pretty ideal. For a client that has never done something this big before, there was a lot of trust at the onset of the project – which helped create a collaborative environment. The project itself evolved into a feature length documentary with an intriguing subject (the business of hacking), and our production/digital partners where first rate. Everybody involved wanted to make something great, which I think shows in the final product.

How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
I’ve always found being honest and up front a good way to go. It’s worked out well in most instances.

What was the best project you have ever work on?
It depends, they work on different levels. Lately, I’d say McAfee’s Stop H*Commerce project we recently completed in conjunction with Tribal DDB. Everything on that just worked – great director (Seth Gordon) and digital production (Firstborn) - and the team was inspired. You can check it out at http://stophcommerce.com/. We have another project in the works for Greenpeace that I’m excited about as well.

How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
To be honest, I believe in less rather than more - no more than two. I find producers to be an important creative addition to the process - which is hard to do with too many projects on ones plate.

What does your dream production team look like?
A realistic production schedule, combined with something never been done before, add an enthusiastic team who believes in what we are doing and a willingness to do what it takes to make something amazing.

How do you ensure that your client’s best interests are met?
Making sure they feel part of the process. I’ve found some of the best work we’ve done is when we’ve had a trusting client who believes in the creative idea as much as we do. When those things are in place, most of the time the clients come out happy.

What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
I think we will continue to blur the lines between traditional and digital.
I am seeing longer form content ideas surfacing. Clients seem to be re-discovering the notion of “brought to you by” or “sponsored by” messaging, along with development of a longer form piece. It’s a trend I hope to see more. Oasis “Dig Out Your Soul In The Street”, Philips “Carousel” and Sagami Condoms “Love Distance” are some of the recent good examples.

Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers?
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club”
-Jack London

Tools: Behance Action Method

Overview
At Behance, we believe that there are too many ideas, and not enough action. Based on interviews with hundreds of the world's most productive creative professionals, Action Method Online was designed as a radically different approach to task management; a simple system for making ideas happen.

Design is a critical element of the Action Method. The products and services developed by Behance to help people practice the Action Method are based on the belief that good design is great for productivity; and that progress in any project ultimately comes down to simplicity in taking action.



Features
All of life can be divided into "projects" - the categories we use in our minds to separate and make sense of what we need to accomplish (e.g. "the party I'm planning," "client X," "event Y," "finances"). The program's based on the idea that a few fundamental elements are necessary in completing these projects:

- The Action Step: a task that needs to be completed
- References: notes, sketches, designs, etc that give your Action Steps context
- Backburners: fantastic ideas that you'd like to act on in the future, but don't quite have time for at the moment
- Discussions: enable you to manage ongoing conversations with a variety of collaborators

AMO combines these elements into an intuitive interface that can be accessed directly via the web.

For more, see here http://www.actionmethod.com/Tour



Benefits
AMO is simply one of the most easily adoptable task management systems out there; it's based soley on the fact that action should be at the center of any endeavor.

Razor Sharp

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Michael Delahousaye BD Director of California, Razorfish. Razorfish is one of the largest interactive marketing and technology companies in the world. We counsel clients like Levi's, Mercedes and MillerCoors on how to leverage digital channels such as the Web, mobile devices, in-store technologies and other emerging media to engage people, build brand loyalty and provide excellent customer service. Our client teams provide solutions through strategic counsel, digital advertising and content creation, media buying, analytics, creative, technology, user experience and Social Influence Marketing.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
N/A – BD Director.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
Pick 5 leading bloggers and read their every word.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like? CPG Company with at least 20 brands.
Digital AOR

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
SOW

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
HP Global pitch

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
5

Q: What does your dream team look like?
Account Planner, ECD, Tech Director, Sr PM

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Dig deep into every project plan and push for the best possible ideas.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Digital agencies are going be lead agencies with many types of clients. Clients are going to learn to think digitally.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers. Digital advertising is about brands giving their target audience something of value. Traditional advertising is about giving the target audience something to remember the brand by.

Northern Fare

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
I’m Adrian Gunadi, a producer at TAXI Canada.

Q: Interactive producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
My first brush with production actually started when I was in university. I remember sitting in a film pre-pro. This one girl jumped at the chance to be the producer. I was so surprised. I think I said something like, “Why would anyone want to be that?” Ahhh Jennie, I think you got the last laugh in the end.

My first seven years in the business were spent as a broadcast producer in Australia (Ogilvy) and Canada (BBDO). Gradually though, I became restless for more mixed media opportunities so I made the move to TAXI. The first thing they did was throw me on a year-long ecommerce project as the lead. Talk about baptism by fire. I will say this though, everything since has been comparatively easy.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
The most compelling advertising lies at the intersection of popular culture, business, non-commercial art, technology and social discourse. No one person can stay on top of all that. My solution? I try to surround myself with people who are much, much smarter than me in all those areas.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
The dream would be an integrated project that has significance beyond advertising. Something that might still be relevant 10 years after launch. Projects like Tap Water, Million, Earth Hour and 15 Below.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
Don’t baffle a marketer with jargon. Break everything down into its simplest elements. So many people forget that tech talk has to be dished out in small doses, like penicillin. Recognize when their faces go blank and their eyes glaze over - that's when you have to stop, because it's counter-productive to keep going.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
A Blue Shield project about how Californians are suffering in the absence of universal health coverage. Live stunts drove traffic to a microsite (www.letsshieldcalifornia.com) where users were invited to pass on a message to Congress. The core elements were linked by outdoor, live read and banner components. We launched at the height of the election race last year. In just 11 days, we smashed our yearly traffic estimate and pulled in over US$1.8 million in P.R. Almost 1,400 user petitions were sent by real people to the U.S. Speaker of the House. The whole thing was orchestrated by a small team of five creatives from mixed disciplines, working between our NY and Toronto offices.

On a personal level, I recently won a competition traditionally entered in by full creative teams. I recommend any producer to try something like this at least once in their career. I think there's tremendous value in learning first-hand what goes into concepting, writing, art directing, designing or coding a campaign. It can only make you a better producer. And recently I had a go at cobbling together my own site (adriangunadi.com), just for a lark. It was fun to play the client for once.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
Lombardi said it best: “We didn’t lose the game, we just ran out of time.” Lack of time, not budget, is the biggest creative-killer. So my personal preference is to work on fewer projects, which in turn allows a more hands-on approach. Because of that attention to detail, I've done everything from building full creative decks, to writing copy decks in a pinch, to presenting finished work to clients when the rest of the team couldn't be there.

Q: What tools do you use to help you better organize your projects?
My brain and my tongue, mostly. Everything else depends on what kind of project we’re talking about.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
I prefer a team that is always changing. It doesn't help the end result if the same producer is always working with the same creative team because everyone falls into a rut. That's just human nature.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Don't just focus on the written brief or what they tell you verbally. Sometimes it's the stuff that they don't say which is more important.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Digital advertising has to be functional to make a lasting impact. Look at what people are using: iPhones, iPods, Google maps, Facebook, RSS readers, email, Wikipedia, Nike Run, Wii Fit, PVR, Amazon recommendations, Skype. They all have one thing in common: each technology added a new dimension to people’s daily lives. Advertising has to match that level of service or become obsolete.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
On any given project, a producer has to figure out what’s best for the project; what’s best for the creative team; what’s best for the client; what’s best for the agency; what’s best for themselves. How good a producer you are ultimately depends on how you stack these goals.

Can You Dig It?

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Hi, my name is April Benton. I head up production and client services at Metajive Design. http://www.Metajive.com

Metajive is a full service interactive agency specializing in experience oriented web sites and online strategy. We have a team of 5 plus a french bulldog to keep everything light! Our clients come from all industries (Burton Snowboards, Gap, Sony to name a few) so because of the variety we approach each by first defining their web strategy and main goals.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
Let's see ... I started out doing events for a couple of ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area, one event that I was hired for my title was literally a 'wrangler'. I then moved on to an Ad Agency in SF doing typical account work but after a taste of that not so glamours account life I quickly headed back to my 'snow roots'. Next moving to San Diego and working for a Action Sports publishing company, there I ran a gamut of their Snow, Skate, Surf and Moto events as well as their other marketing efforts. Interactive production was always in my life ... mainly because my husband was doing design and flash freelance work so I always heard about the inefficient producers and annoying account people so I figured that I could do better!

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
I'm actually really fortunate to have a team that really stays on top of knowing what's going on and being done out there. They all have a lot of years experience and are exceptionally knowledgeable about what's happening in our interactive realm.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
Truthfully? A client that will let us do whatever we want, has a huge budget and pays on time!! Good joke, eh?!

In the real world there really are just not enough of those types of clients. So I'd say our 'real world ideal client' would be a client that most importantly is a real person with real ideas and open mind to listen to other idea - we want to be able to respect this person and they respect what we do - of course! Ideally this client would listen to our advice of what to do and not to do, trust that we will lead them down the right direction and really just let us do our jobs!

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
As far as expectations we do our research and find out what their competitors are doing and then set the expectation of how the site should look, flow and really compete. We educate our clients on what can be done and most importantly what can be done on a scale that is suitable for their audience and budget.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
We just finished an online media kit it was great because we'd worked with this same client years before on a similar type of project so they understood what it would cost, what they could do and had very realistic goals. It was the most enjoyable and stressless project that we've had in a long time.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
It really depends on the scope of the projects. If it's a straight design and HTML website we can knock those out in no time, if it involves a big CMS system it takes a bit longer then add in Flash or After Effects and it becomes more time invasive. Currently we have an average of 6 to 8 projects going on at once and of course the are all different sizes and in different stages of completion. As well as random maintenance, additions and banner ad for existing client sites.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
We're a small and mighty team so pretty much our current team is our dream team. But if I were to put together another team it'd be run like this ... senior level designer, senior level flash developer, junior level designer that can also do HMTL code. A high end PHP/ back-end developer and a strong account person that will push when and where needed.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
We spend a good amount of time in the beginning defining what they need, what makes sense and then we layout a tight plan and then we just make it happen.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Our industry is constantly changing, we can't wait to sink our teeth into augmented reality but really even something like that is just one more tool to allow us to get our ideas across. Change is part of the game in interactive so we are happy to be mixing mediums and pushing the limits. Incorporating After Effects, 3D and creating a seamless environment for our users to enjoy. We are sure the tools are going to get better but the game will still be the same.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
I've learned that it's very important to keep the office well stocked with snacks and beer! Nothing screws up a project like a persnickety designer with low blood sugar. And nothing gets a client more stoked than keeping the fridge stocked with their favorite beer ... this also works well for motivating designers and developers to work late on a Friday night!

Dare To Do Daring Work

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
Hey, my name is Bill Allen, I'm the Head of Interactive Development at BooneOakley. BooneOakley is a full service advertising agency in Charlotte, NC (pop. 6). We've done work for a variety of clients in a number of categories. Ruby Tuesday, CarMax, Bloom Grocery Stores, MTV2, HBO, Continental Tires, NASCAR, The Charlotte Bobcats ... the list goes on.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
Well, I started painting at Rhode Island School of Design and that led me to printmaking which led me to photography which led me to computer manipulated photography (Photoshop 2 baby!) and then on to applications like Director. From Director and early CDRom projects I started learning basic web technologies like html, flash...etc. At a certain point I took a freelance gig with an advertising agency and I got hooked on the environment. Been with it ever since.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
We have a small shop so we don't really need sophisticated tools for sharing information, no Basecamp etc. Mostly link sharing and sticking your head over into your neighbor's space. "Come look at this".

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
Well like the website says "For those who dare to do daring work". Ultimately is it worth it to spend a ton of money on something with mediocre results? I'm sure every group will say this but we want to work for people we respect and who respect us, and trust us. Trust us enough to know that we don't just throw crap against the wall and hope it sticks. We think really, really hard about our crap and when we throw it...we're positive it will stick.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
Well, being able to identify what problem they are trying to solve really helps, and then you can tell if what you're doing actually addresses that problem. That and ask lots and lots of questions and get answers.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
The latest one, http://www.booneoakley.com . When the original idea surfaced I knew it was going to be great because A. It terrified me and B. I knew it was completely doable. The only real challenge were the ones usually associated with internal projects: Decisions, Finding Time, Scope Creep. Remarkably without a whole lot of structure it pulled itself off wonderfully. Mostly due to the nature of the project, the creative team could work directly on almost all of the site including the annotations. There wasn't a technical hurdle in place. That was refreshing for all parties involved. Also, the frenzy around the site has been a lot of fun. Some very strong opinions but overwhelmingly, and quite surprisingly, they're very positive.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
Given the size of our shop we usually have a couple of smaller projects going at once. If the job is gigantic we tend to farm out to development shops of appropriate size and skillset. We've also set up several ongoing maintenance jobs that have to get done every week, emails and banners with dynamic feeds etc. The nature of campaigns now gets pretty mixed up so digital development is sometimes the focus and sometimes it's just a garnish.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
Uh, solid LAMP loving DB developer, I think that's a solid foundation to build on. A great back-end developer, who can rock stuff like AS3, Flex and overlap with the DB dev, also might know iPhone and a couple other technologies. Thirdly, some kind of front-end designer / animation rockstar. And last but not least someone to crack the whip and keep them away from the Call of Duty 4. This team would work in tandem with a creative team that would drive things conceptually. Ultimately they would all get along but it can be tough getting the personalities and egos to mesh and respect each other.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Think...lots...really hard. We do our research, we try to put the teams in the best possible position to do great work. And if we think we're doing something that isn't going to help them we say so. The smart one's listen, sometimes they have very valid reasons for doing what seem to be crazy things and once they explain that to us it's easier to go do what they want us to do. Talking helps a lot.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Wow, I almost don't want to say because I want us to get there first :P. I think W+K's production of Battlegrounds, that 1vs1 basketball tournament a few years back, was a harbinger for me of where things where headed. Seen a few failed attempts (Cavemen) but ultimately I see content production in all our futures. Quality production tools are so readily available. Cheap Canon Rebels are going to have video soon. The booneoakley site showed that you can put tools directly in the hands of creatives and develop something compelling.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
It is rare that I've been unhappy with myself when I've gone well beyond what I thought was necessary to get something just done, but instead stopped and polished a project up, actually thought about if it could be better and took the steps to make it better.

ALSO...

As far as development goes, make a habit of being thorough, name things consistently etc. and always be aware that you're not the last one who will ever have to touch your work. Be thoughtful, comment your code, think of others and how your code "reads".

Unity 3D

Q: 3D on the web is one of the more popular technologies being used in campaign sites, what makes Unity different than say Papervision3D?
Scope, size and quality of games that operate within the browser or running at fullscreen. From MMOs like cartoon network's Fusion Fall to causal game experiences featured on shockwave.com or blurst.com - Unity is a leading the class in 3d in-browser content experiences. Unity has a full 3d editing system, features Ageia PhysX, support for 3rd party back-end solutions (such as Smartfox, or Exit Games - for MMOs) and cross platform capabilities to publish on the PC / Mac / iPhone / Wii and additional consoles.

For new end-users, The Unity web player features near seamless install process that does not links guests off the website, nor does it install 3rd party applications (such as a toolbar)

Q: What are some of the best ways the Advertising Industry can use Unity to tell better stories?
If your clients are looking for a rich 3d content experience - Unity can provide that near console quality experience in browser. Please navigate to our gallery for examples of games which have been released by some of our developers. http://unity3d.com/gallery/game-list

Q: How does Unity position itself amongst other web based technologies?
With cross platform capabilities, a clean web player install process, and proven launched content, we are well poised to appeal to both AAA developers (please look for an announcement in the very near future :) ) and students as Schools and Universities are adopting Unity to complement their educational game programs.

Q: Outside of gaming, what other industries have adopted Unity as a story telling technology?
NASA, US Government, Architectural firms for visualization, Aerospace industry, NYU (human anatomy visualization) to name a few...

Q: How closely has Unity worked with the Interactive industry to help educate and integrate its technologies?
Game Developers are our core market. We appear at GDC, CGDA, as well as host our own Unite event. We've been featured in EDGE magazine, and have Ads running in several gaming publications.

Q: What does the future hold for Unity 3D?
What's in store for Unity? New platform support, growth for our company (we're currently staffing up our offices in EUR and US) and new developers coming on board.

Lunch Time

Q: What is Lunch and what was your motivation for starting the company?
Being agency side for so long, most recently at TAXI and Grip, and through my colleagues in the industry it became glaringly apparent that there was a gap in the market in terms of clients and agencies knowing who they can call for what types of work.

I’ve been really lucky throughout my career that I’ve gotten to know a lot of incredibly talented people. I’d co-founded an industry event in Canada called Inter-action where we’d been sharing work and encouraging dialogue and collaboration. It was really a natural progression for me.

I absolutely love this business.

Digital production has been close to my heart for 12 years. I’ve tried to achieve a certain production value throughout the years with production partners and as a producer and executive producer and it really came together as the next logical step.

I’d been thinking about creating a different kind of model for a long time, and I started to talk to people about it and the feedback was solid. Lunch was born out of the idea that producing and creating great digital work should be as easy as one phone call. Lunch is a time where people meet, and talk.

I think clients look forward to their time at the agency and agencies look forward to lunch, whether it’s with production partners, directors, pre-pros, screenings, edits. Etc. It’s a fun time. I wanted something that captured that, and was approachable. All to often digital is scary. I think for me this is an effort to really pull back the curtain and make things easy for everyone, whether they come from the digital space or not.

Lunch is about ideas.

Lunch provides representation for artists, illustrators, directors, design and animation studios, audio houses, editorial talent, flash, web and application developers, production management and consulting as well as technical services. Not only are we there as reps, but we’re there to provide production services and manage the work if required. We can package a whole production from start to finish, or provide a la carte services.

It’s totally up to the client and the nature of the production. We’re setup to do absolutely anything whether digital or otherwise.

Q: How do you determine the best way to distribute projects across your network?
I’ve had the luxury of building some pretty incredible relationships with an amazing group of people so in that sense because of the number of productions we’ve been involved in together, we have a great sense of capabilities. I know what they’re great at, and I know where their interests lie. I always say, I wouldn’t necessarily want to work with someone I didn’t want to talk to on the phone.

So initially the starting line up is based on companies, I’ve really, really enjoyed working with. I’ve won Lions with some of them, Pencils with others, and we know how to work together. I’m excited to bring that to the table.

I love building teams.

It’s about the creative, what’s required, and who is best suited to doing that work. I’ve always looked at developers as directors, you want them to bring something to the table, a treatment, ideas etc. Projects will be paired with appropriate partners.

Sometimes partners will work together, yes, even competitors, or sometimes we’ll all have to talk, and sometimes it’s up to the client. It was important to me in building the network that we had a mix of the right people. People had to be willing to work in a different way.

I think that speaks to the interactive approach vs. traditional, we in the digital space are pretty accepting of sharing and collaborating. It’s how a lot of us got to where we are, we shared. Inter-action reminded me of that, pulling back the curtain on the smoke and mirrors that can exist in terms of the technology was important to me. It’s not about finding work for those she represents, it’s about finding the right work, where everyone makes a meaningful contribution in an open and honest atmosphere to create something amazing.

Q: What excites you most about this new model?
I think I’m most excited about the types of projects we’re seeing and having the opportunity to be on the same side of the fence as my partners. I’m really excited to help in bridging the gap between art and commerce.

There’s so much that can be done in so many different ways, looking at getting clients more educated and arming them with information is probably the most exciting for me.

I’ll also be holding workshops for producers who’d like to cross the floor into producing digital. That’s been one of my favorite things in the business is working with broadcast producers, traditional teams and print producers to get them up to speed on how we work.

The ability to work with some of my favorite artists is also a thrill, we’ve partnered with a gallery space and retail space in order for us to offer more variety and venues for immersive. Representation of artists like Kozyndan, TADO, Tara McPherson, and Junko Mizuno is absolutely surreal for me, these are artists I collect.

I’m thrilled to be able to bring them to a new audience. They were a key piece of the puzzle for me because they affect creative so greatly. Huge inspiration. To be honest, there isn’t a lot I’m not excited about right now. I’m looking forward to the years ahead. Lunch is about stripping away all the technical jargon that alienates so many clients and putting the right people together to create something amazing

Q: How are you going to manage work flow across multiple teams that have similar skill sets?
The model is really based around a central conduit, which in this case is me. It’s like intake. Projects come in, and obviously with all of the partners I work with, I have a sense of what their bandwidth is like, who needs what, who’s looking for what and who’s managing what.

The majority of them have in house producers and coordinating and working with them to assist in the execution of the work is critical. It’s certainly something I’ve had a lot of experience with, being a director of production agency side it was imperative that workflow was flawless across multiple partners. It’s all about communication. Lunch has a standard process, and structure that helps to standardize workflow, but it’s the same thing I’ve always said to my producers when I’m agency side – talk.

Q: Are you able to mix and match talents across the various teams based on individual skill sets?
Part of the beauty of lunch being a network is that the teams can work together. It provides an incredible capacity as well as a place to collaborate and work together. I pursued partners that were forward thinking, truly collaborative and ready for change.

I think that’s been the amazing thing so far is the partners getting to know each other and their excitement in being able to work together.

Again, I’ve had the luxury of knowing and working with them all, so I’ve always had ideas of who would get along with who and what might go with what in terms of service offerings. It’s amazing to watch it all come together and see them in a room together. I keep calling it the Voltron of production.

Lunch is really about stripping away all the technical jargon that alienates so many clients and putting the right people together to create something incredible.

Q: What does lunch look like 5 years from now?
I think the evolution of lunch will obviously mean expansion to different markets, with different partners, with more producers under the lunch umbrella, robots? :) It’s been so funny so far, it’s such an opinionated community (to which I am completely included).

Lunch is about keeping things simple and approachable. Easy. So I hope we’re still like that, but as I always say I’d like to finally be off of the computer by then and controlling everything with some kind of universal controller. It’s funny, I launched the lunch site last week (www.thisislunch.com) and some people got it, others commented on how “old school” it was.

It’s definitely a play on the average site of a development shop and the digital production world in generally. We never have time to build or own site because we’re too busy working on something great for someone else. So in that sense I hope all that’s the same in 5 years is the website.

For All its Worth

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
I'm Hank Leber, founder of Agency Nil and recent graduate of the VCU Brandcenter (MS, Mass Communications). For those who are unfamiliar, Agency Nil's model is, "Pay what you think the work is worth once you get it. Nothing up front."

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
My story is not ordinary - much like others who have wound up in Interactive. After undergrad at William and Mary (English major) I toured in a rock band for 5 years, full time. We had a very good time, played with many of our musical heroes, and sold a lot of music. I ran the business, which included art direction (posters, cd art, stickers, merchandise), web design, copywriting/music writing, and lots of stuffy MBA kinds of things.

We were the generation of musicians caught in the whirlwind of a post-Napster era (2001-2005) where music was becoming free but no one knew how to make it work yet (and, arguably, most people still don't). But there are some smart folks out there trying to fix it - how can I not mention Bruce Flohr and his plan for Radio Head's In Rainbows release? Pay what you think it's worth...hmm...

Anyway, we had a major record deal fall through and were left with a tough choice. (Chose to stop). Grad school at VCU seemed appropriate - some business, some art, and a lot of advertising/communications training - right up my alley. And it was a fantastic experience. I got exposed to the wonders of interactive digital technology and studied the social aspects of the internet from the inside and the out.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
Twitter and Tumblr have become increasingly relevant to my staying up with the times. They're great as long as you're following the right people. I keep telling others who are confused about Twitter, "It's not about, 'I'm eating this awesome sandwich right now.' It's about, 'Check out this really smart, obscure link/article I found.' " And of course, I've got my daily feed of blogs coming in. BBH Labs, Scobleizer, Noah Brier, Kawasaki, PSFK - too many to list, really (and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings if I didn't mention them). There's just lots of smart stuff out there. And the filtration/feed system is getting better every day.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
Ideal is a dangerous thought. I can more easily tell you this: Projects go well when I've got an open-minded (read: less totalitarian and more eager to learn) client who wants to get out of comfort zones, take a few chances to make things new, and doesn't mind the thought of letting something develop over a bit of time. A lot of clients expect a social or interactive solution to be immediate, as though we could air-drop 100,000 sheep onto their fenced, green pastures.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
Story, story, story. Setting up a viable, sensible layout for the landscape you're working in, business situation, and most importantly - behavioral needs and qualities your work will be based on is key. If you don't set the scene right in the first place, you'll have a confused, nervous client instead of an excited one. And that's trouble. Once you get a receptive client, setting up realistic timetables, expectations, and projections will go over much better.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
I wound up writing the strategy for the launch of Budweiser American Ale last year while interning at DDB Chicago. It's not the sexiest 'interactive project' story, but it was great to work on the top level with great creatives, a big old fashioned budget, and web developers that could really crank it out. The site could have been way more interactive and socially minded, but it was a year ago, last summer. That's an eon, essentially.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
The Agency Nil model is set up to handle lots of projects at once. Since the employees are mostly between-jobs ad people and recent ad school grads, there are a lot of potential team members to put on projects. I get emails every day from people wanting to work for the agency from all over the world. Personally, I don't like to get invested in 4 or more projects at once - it's a brain space issue, and quality of thought goes down. I trust my teams to lead their projects a lot of times, though, which makes it easy to keep more things going if need be.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
I'm a big fan of creative technologists - specifically focusing on the strategy behind an interactive execution and whether or not it's fulfilling a specific need in the consumer. An interactive designer is good to have, especially when paired with a smart programmer who knows how to work fast while working smartly. And I always want to have an out-of-the-box-minded copywriter on board to to any writing and also to be the effect/vibe coach. Most of the time if it isn't cool it isn't going to work. The team can be comprised of all of these parts, fewer, or more - to me, the most important part is that everyone is thinking strategically and that all minds are on the same page working toward the goals. If that happens, a whole lot can get done with fewer people.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Interactive work needs to fulfill a definite, established need in the consumer. Not to be confused with a made-up or hoped-for need, as is the case many times. I'm talking about Maslow's Hierarchy here - old school stuff. The basic human needs like self-actualization, communication, survival, reassurance, information - all of these are behind any successful interactive execution. And if the need is perceived, or hoped, the thing fails. Think of Second Life, or Wal-Mart's social network try a while back.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
The notion of too much noise and overcrowding in media seems like the most likely factor in shaping the new Internet and advertising. Everything will be so filtered and feed-ed and customized that a brand will have to either A) become as human as their consumers and provide relevant, interesting content instead of just messages or B) utilize Ad Exchanges to give their placements a sickening, scary amount of relevance based on each of our surfing histories. Big Brother is watching, and he knows what kind of underwear you'd be interested in buying.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
I don't think I have much wisdom. But a belief I'd like to share: all of this new technology, apps, i-this, i-that, web 3-point-something, they are all all just new vehicles for ideas. There is no replacing the value and utility of simple, great ideas. And we mustn't lose sight of that; if you can't get the idea out on a sheet of paper with a line or two, then start over.

Urbian Legend

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
My name is Gary Willmott, Producer/Partner of Urbian in Cape Town South Africa. Urbian is an independent Online Creative Production Company with a sole purpose of doing great work! Although we are based in Cape Town 80% of our projects are from the UK delivered from some well known agencies such as TribalDDB , Analog Folk.

We are a team of specialists (think Ocean's 11) which we formed in 2005. We do motion and interactive in all its hues and shades, but combining the two is what makes us tick! We research and develop things all the time. We eat food almost every time we meet and some of us have grown mustaches. The Jingle sums it all up.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
Started off in my early school days with a friend who managed to get a copy of 3D studio ( DOS version). I got so hooked, that I left school to focus on 3D animation and ended up finishing school from home. I was doing some great work but got frustrated with the machines back then, my good old 486 just took forever to render decent animation. So I ended up taking on online projects to finance myself to get better machines. It just snowballed from there, from HTML to flash, working as a Interactive Developer at numerous agencies around Cape Town. Eventually got tired of working for companies that limited my growth. I formed Urbian with a partner who had similar views with me, to do SICK ASS Projects! Nothing ELSE!

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
There are the normal blogs that I subscribe to via Google Reader, Twitter Feeds, theFWA.com etc. But I must say after a good surf or kitesurf I get ideas flooding in, there is something about being in nature and getting away from the machine that helps produce fresh ideas.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
An progressive educated client with a good knowledge on what makes this online social world tick makes the world of difference. That's why we have opted to mostly work for UK clients as South African clients are still very far behind in their thinking. Had a client who runs the marketing on wine farm the other day request an Augmented Reality, I was gobsmacked! It gets so ridiculous sometimes, I have even been thinking about putting clients on a course before we can do work for them :P

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
We go through a very detailed and story-boarded process as much as possible at the beginning of every project. Making the client aware of what they can expect but more importantly what they can't expect.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
We just wrapped up a project for the Glade Festival 2009 (http://www.gladefestival.com/2009/ ) . We built an interactive map where users are able to navigate through the festival line-up via scrubbing back and forth on the timeline to see which artists are playing where and at what time. It was a pleasure working with Ans and the team there, they completely respected us, and when they gave input it was always appreciated and made sense. We fell so in love with the project that we built a competition mechanic that generated so many hits, that the server fell over twice.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
2 active projects, 2 in a start-up/wrapping stage. Anything more than that and you end up just managing the project instead of adding value.

Q: What tools do you use to help you better organize your projects?
Microsoft Project, Goplan, Springloops, DropBox, Google docs. Keen to try out "omniplan", any recommendations?

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
Urbian, seriously. Even if I had to work for a company again, not too sure where else I would want to go.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Education, Communication. I think the biggest key is not to use certain technology for the sake of using it. But finding the right mix of ingredients that suits a project.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Its in a weird place, even though I feel like user generated content is going to fall-over, I still think its got a long way to go.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
Work to live as apposed to living to work, try it yourself and you will notice your work just gets better. Here is a freebee: Find a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Integrity. Communication. Honesty.

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
I’m Paul Marobella, the Managing Director of Wirestone/Chicago. Wirestone is an independent, national marketing solutions agency with offices in 6 US cities and over 175-people across our creative, technical & strategy groups.

We were born digital in the year 2000, when 5-disparate agencies were brought together to make Wirestone. We develop targeted customer experiences that manifest online and offline but all have the common thread of activating a brand’s most influential group(s) of customers and an infusion of powerful marketing technology that supports the programs.

We work with mostly global, leading brands across various vertical segments including: Nike, Motorola, Microsoft, Oakley, hp, Intel, SKYY Spirits and Apple.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
I have been in the digital game since the early 90’s when I was a wee-lad at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts. I had the chance to be on a steering committee for the company to infuse digital and multimedia technology into how the company conducted business. Anywhere from how the brand leveraged something called the internet, to their partnership with Healtheon and then overseeing the implementation of a digital selling tool for the sales force.

I fell in love with the new media channel and left the friendly confines of my hometown, Boston for the arch enemy city, New York to be a part of the movement. I worked for a company called i3 for a while, selling big brands on adding a digital line item to their budget and met a guy named Tucker Greco in NYC that owned an agency called Greco Ethridge Group – we teamed up and integrated digital production and strategy into his then-current traditional agency model.

GEG went on to win Agency of The Year for that approach in 1998. I come from the strategy, account side of the house and while I have threatened my teams that I am going to learn Flash and Silverlight to show them up, I haven’t gotten around to that, yet. We have awesome digital production teams here at Wirestone that inspire me everyday.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
These days you have be a knowledge-management ninja to keep pace with what is happening out there. Google Reader is a personal tool I use to parse through the thousands of blogs available and that keep me posted on how people are using technologies to further a marketing initiative.

Twitter has become an invaluable tool to track smart people and group them through Tweetdeck into categories of skill-sets. We keep De.licio.us groups where we share case histories, articles and blog posts with each other through the agency. With travel budgets scaled back this year, attending conferences are at a minimum, unless of course it is a Microsoft-conference since we are Gold Partner.

We encourage our people to dive in and learn new technologies and propose how they can add value for our clients, whether Microsoft Surface or 3D technologies like Rhino.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
It would entail long stays in Monaco with poolside planning meetings, realistic timelines and the ability to be both a business-driver for our client and raise the profile of Wirestone.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
I have people that are smarter than me working directly with our clients to balance their expectations with their key business-drivers and what is humanly possible. It doesn’t always work.

Often, people are held hostage by unrealistic expectations due to never having completed a project like the one we might be doing for them. On the flipside, I often feel like agencies are also victims of the knee-jerk reaction of over-scheduling a project that stops and makes you go hmmmmm, when you see a schedule.

It seems the bigger the agency, the longer the schedule. I’ve always wondered what that relationship was about. The timelines should be discussed before the agency decides to take on the work – it makes everyone’s life easier.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
I had the chance to work on The Central Intelligence Agency & their Association of Former Intelligence Officers. If I told you what we did, I’d have to…. well, you know how that ends.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
I never say no to a project that is reasonable. But, at the same time I have an awesome team that I work with to spread the wealth. These days, being grateful for work is the magic elixir to having a positive attitude in our business.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
My dream team would consist of people that could do my job at any given time – meaning they are smarter, more informed and probably better looking than me. I have worked with some very talented people over the course of my career and I’ve found that having a solid, well-informed technical lead is the cornerstone of success.

People that compliment my skill-sets is what I look for when I am building a team. I love to have people that run the spectrum from insights into the consumer through to how the technology will create value for the brand.

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
Integrity. Communication. Honesty.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
The irony here is that when I was asked this question 10-years ago, the answer would be the same because I believe that our business STILL has not adapted. We still have big agency people and networks that talk a big game but when you meet them, you can still tell that they are brainwashed in the ways of the old agency model.

I still think that the biggest inflection point in our business is yet to come and nobody has cracked the code. To me, I see the day of the consumer truly self-selecting marketing communications and getting closer with a total personalization across all media. I still like to be marketed to, I just want to see things that make sense for every dimension of my personality and I am a complicated dude, that’s for sure.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
There is one word that I live by, especially these days – Believe. Believe in yourself, your ideas and the people around you. We need positive energy in the world and we each play a role in filling this universe with energy. Boy, hope that wasn’t too new age!?