That’s a Wrap!

Posted on March 23, 2012 by jhobby10 Posted in Blog | Leave your thoughts

And so it is. The end of a term, the closing of a chapter, the end of possibly my favorite class to date at the University of Oregon. After a mere 10 classes over 10 weeks with David Ewald from Uncorked Studios, I have learned more about design, code, wireframes, users, and Europe’s “Final Countdown” then I have over the 4 years of my collegiate experience.

Not only did Ewald himself provide amazing insight himself, but he established speakers on almost a weekly basis that were beyond amazing to gain insight from. Without naming names, we had speakers from Wieden + Kennedy, Uncorked Studios, Goodby and Silverstein, Huge, Brain Traffic, and Fight just to name a few. All of these speakers were extremely bright, influential, and captivating in their own individual ways.

My favorite thing about the course and its direction, or purpose lack thereof at times, is that there are two very distinct ways to of interpreted the information. Either you could take it at face value, for what its worth and leave it at that; therefore providing no substance, like juice from concentrate without the water. However, if you took what was in class and applied it, looked into it deeper and embraced the ideologies by adding water to the concentrate, well by golly then you’ll have juice. I think you all knew it was coming…when life gives you lemons…well…you know the rest. I really look forward to applying user stories and everything else I have learned in this course to my future work.

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Users // NOT Customers

Posted on March 22, 2012 by jhobby10 Posted in Advertising, Agency, Blog | Leave your thoughts

In Aaron Sharpino’s book Users, Not Customers, the idea of advertising to users rather than customers is discussed, proven more efficient and sustainable, and more than anything, by creating user stories and developing around a user-centric model, agencies will see progression and success in a much higher rate.

The main focus here is on creating something that is user friendly, not agency or client friendly.The user really controls all aspects of the success of any advertising, markting, or product success. Because of this, it is the user that the agency or client should be focusing on; not themselves. When creating a website of a mobile app, developers must think about its functionality for a user and understand that not everyone has similar logic; it must be understood by the average reasonable person to achieve success.

The big takeaway in his book was the idea of TCPF sales. This is broken down in how to market a product and how to compete with competitors in that T stands for Trust, C stands for Connivence, P stands for Price and F stands for Fun. This TCPF model that Sharpino discusses in his book really stuck with me. When thinking about new brands or markets, this thought pattern is extremely essential. If you’re not going to make price a viable factor in your product, you better be damn sure that trust, connivence, and fun are all foundational elements that make your product or service sellable.

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Dabbling Into Code

Posted on March 19, 2012 by jhobby10 Posted in Blog, Design | Leave your thoughts

About 6 months ago I embarked on a personal mission to learn how to code. What did that mean at the time? To be honest, I have absolutely no idea. I knew I had to start with HTML and maybe do something with Java script…but then started branching out into Python, learning about hosting and local versus cloud text editors and contant management systems….deep breath. With all that being said, it wasn’t until about a month ago that it all finally clicked.

A couple amazing people from Uncorked Studios in Portland, OR visited a J 460 class I was enrolled in and stripped the theories, ideas, concepts, and thoughts about code all the way down to bone. I had many questions…of which included how and what are coders used for in an agency setting? Is code being framed from the ground up? Will code ever become obsolete as software such as Adobe Publishing Suite and Muse come out?…the list goes on. Nonetheless, all of those questions somewhat formulated into one very distinct answer that I’m going to share with you all!

The just of it goes something like this: Coding is essential to the development of just about anything digital. Be it software, websites, mobile applications etc…coding is the foundation for it all. However, with that being said, not all code comes from the ground up. There are hundreds if not thousands of sources online to trade and share code or other words described as ‘Social Coding.’ Website like Github make all of these sharing options possible. Therefore, not only does most code not start at line 1, but much of it is shared, traded, borrowed and pasted all back together to create something new. While sharing and borrowing like this have made it much easier to code, it by no means suggests that code is going anywhere, or that its importance is either.

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The Shifting Sands of the Advertising Industry

Posted on March 17, 2012 by jhobby10 Posted in Advertising, Agency | Leave your thoughts

Okay, so let’s just take the advertising world (if you want to call it that) and pretend it is one huge desert. But, imagine that desert having all the sand on one side leaving the other half to be baren and fairly flat. This is how the landscape in the advertising world is today…lopsided with a dominate old-school fashion of industry standards looming high above any off-beat tendencies of new and exciting techniques to communicate to users (not customers). *in come the winds of change*

As we grow deeper and more invested in the digital and post-digital user marketplace, old-fashioned advertising techniques are going to continue to become outdated and more than anything, useless. Everyday we see more and more small shops come up with great ideas that challenge the traditional advertising techniques. For instance…and now ironic after creating an example of a smaller agency…but Huge (not only not a small agency but their name itself is quite the opposite) has done just that in the past few years. The highlighted example here is their work with Pepsi Refresh. Rather than spending 40+ million dollars on a few Super Bowl TV spots, Huge took a fraction of that budget and devoted it not only to something worthwhile to society, but something that benefited both society and Pepsi as a brand.

I myself am entering into this world of advertising/branding/design this June and hope that wherever I land I will challenge this ideology of spending as much money as a client is willing to give, just to do it. But instead, thinking of the most logical, rational, and ideal situation for the client and not the agency to do the best work to keep that client coming back for years to come. I believe these longterm relationships and thinking about the agency as working and representing the client first will but any agency or advertising-esk individual far ahead of the curve as the sands in the desert of advertising continue to shit as I type these last few words.

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User Experience

Posted on February 16, 2012 by jhobby10 Posted in Agency | Leave your thoughts

In today’s marketplace its more than just delivering a business model, it’s about delivering an experience that is easily navigated by a user. Many companies simply just publish an app to publish an app. But, what good does an app do if it is not user friendly?

User experience is more or less an all or nothing goal. You either attain an easy navigation for a user or you fail miserably. As seen in the model above, the entire business model is derived around user experience. If one part of the triangle breaks down, the entire business breaks down. In the digital era, it takes much more than an idea to generate a profitable business. It takes a full circled approach starting with listening labs to decipher how your product is impacts the average or reasonable person.

Swiping, gestures, click on release, all these features contribute to the makeup of an ideal user experience when it comes to a website, app, or pretty much any other digital form. This day and age is about the user, not the customer, and more than anything, not the business itself.

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