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Barack Logobama - A Great, Simple Viral Site

March 31, 2008

www.LogoBama.com:

My friends over at a relatively new Portland, interactive agency, Substance, launched this site a few weeks ago. I asked founder Stephen Landau about his inspiration to do the site. He responded, "We figured if we've been talking about beliefs and change for the last 15 months, we should support the candidate who says the same stuff. Plus, it was a fun little project to work on. Not sure why we set the donation goal so high ($5,000) but then again, what's the point in shooting for a small, attainable goal when you can aim for a bigger, more audacious goal."

I especially like the way the logo you create can map into Flickr automatically and can be ported at any size into Flickr and a dozen other social networking sites. Nice work.

Here's my quick, uncreative creation using the site:

Comments (2) | Posted by ryan at 7:29 AM | Permalink

Communication Breakdown Workshop Off to a Slow Start

March 30, 2008

I know my employees aren't going to like this level of transparency, but I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with myself for NOT heavily promoting this non-profit workshop that we created from scratch for the benefit of The Boys and Girls Club of Portland. We had a lower than expected turnout at both workshops the past 2 weeks, but on the bright side, we learned some critical take-aways that could make this program a big success this summer or fall when we try it one more time.

Here's the concept behind the Communication Breakdown Workshop:
The acceleration of technology innovation like Web 2.0 and other online tools is having an adverse effect on family dynamics. Kids and their parents have always struggled to communicate, but these days, they don't even speak the same language - (IM'ing, hanging out on social networking sites for kids 8-13 years old like Microsoft LiveSpaces, Yahoo! Kids, Disney, and Millsberry). Parents want a way to communicate, connect, and bond with their kids, but still protect them from the predators that they fear in "online communities." The workshop is a lot like an online scavenger hunt with cool discoveries of safe music-making sites and blog posts on LiveSpaces.

What we learned:
1. Promote it heavily in email, web, search, in-kind media partners, and on-site at The Boys and Girls Club.
2. Don't schedule the workshop during Spring Break - bad idea.
3. Instead of having a wide age range like 8-13 years old, keep it to 11-13 year olds and their parents or 14-16 year olds. A four year age difference is like light years for kids at that age.
4. FREE pizza will always be the best on-site marketing ever.
5. Try a test run for this workshop at an organization like Friends of the Children where mentors are a huge part of the equation.

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 9:15 PM | Permalink

My Commencement Speech to the Art Institute of Portland

March 23, 2008

It's Easter morning before the kids wake up and I wanted to quickly write this blog post. On Friday afternoon, I gave the Commencement Address to the graduating class of the Art Institute of Portland and I must admit that it was a phenomenal experience. I had attended their Portfolio Show just a couple hours before and was awestruck and inspired by their design talent, creativity, and diversity of design in web, apparel, gaming, interior design, print, advertising, and more. Everyone has heard about Portland being recognized for its "Creative Class", but the Art Institute is at the center of it all. They teach their students to not only design well but present their designs with maturity and confidence. After the ceremony, I had drinks with many of the professors and administrators and was encouraged to see their passion to continually improve and draw inspiration from their students. I'm excited to see the future of the Portland creative community as more talent comes out of a growing Art Institute of Portland and more agency owners are collaborating on client work and community projects.

So here is my 15 minute speech (which is slightly more formal than when I presented it and had all the graduates stand and the audience of 350 people give a huge round of applause, high fives, etc for their milestone accomplishment):

"• I'm honored to be here. Thank you. I'm not a traditional choice for a Commencement Speaker of this esteemed college of insanely talented designers and professors. I am not a designer and do not have a design background.

• However, I am inspired by design, creativity, and innovation. Five and a half years ago, I started an interactive agency called eROI that is now 50 people strong. In just the past couple years, I've hired 7 of you - graduates of the Art Institute of Portland. And, I've got to be honest, you are some of the smartest, most talented creatives in the country, making folks from brand-name New York design schools pale in comparison. I'm even more convinced of this after visiting your Portfolio Show earlier today - wow, some great work there.

• Management guru, Peter Drucker, said that business has 2 functions: marketing and innovation. And, if you look at the market today, you'll notice that companies like Apple, Google, and Nike are rewarded with huge premiums in their stock prices due to a sense of creativity and innovation through every element of their products and how they conduct business. From this, we know that design isn't just about making pretty pictures, it's about having a profoundly positive impact on the world.

more..."

"• When I thought about what I was going to say to you, I realized I needed to step into your shoes to figure out what might be helpful or entertaining or both, so I'll do my best. You've MADE IT. You worked your butt off and you graduated from an incredible institution. You are PSYCHED. You should be - CONGRATULATIONS. So, now what? CHOICES, so many choices. For some of you, you'll take the summer off and explore the world a little before you get locked into a job. For others, you'll need to get a job ASAP.

• I want to tell you a little bit of my story, then give you a few bits of practical advice that may help out. I went to University of Virginia and loved it. I worked hard and played hard. The reality was that I played a lot harder than I worked, but managed to do alright. After my freshman year, I drove solo across country to work as the night janitor at Lake MacDonald Lodge at Glacier National Park in Montana. It was a transformative experience - I hiked nearly every day, went backpacking in the heart of grizzly country, and saw some of the most beautiful mountainous scenery and wildlife in my life. I also discovered an appreciation for cleaning out the hot oil in the deep fryers in the kitchen every week - IT SUCKED. After that summer, I realized that anything was possible and gained the confidence to do whatever it took to do what I wanted to do.

• The next summer, I worked at Black Butte Ranch near Sisters, Oregon. That place is Paradise on Earth and the reason why I'm here today - there is no better place than Portland. I feel so lucky to be here. So, let's fast-forward a bit. I graduated with a double major in Environmental Science and Finance. There wasn't a single company from Oregon that came to University of Virginia to recruit, so I had to make it happen. Six months before graduation, I flew out to Portland and did an informal informational interview at Intel in Hillsboro. Three months later, the hiring manager called me back and said that he can only talk to undergraduate candidates from Oregon and Washington - that was the policy. Without hesitation, I said "that's great, I'm absolutely moving to Portland, so consider me from Oregon. When can we do the interview?" Within a couple weeks, I was offered a job as Financial Analyst at Intel.

• I lasted 3.5 years at Intel. I learned a lot of valuable lessons of some great things (results-orientation, well managed, and rewarding good behavior). I also learned what not to do in my next business - Intel, with its sea of cubicles and overall atmosphere, lacks creativity, to put it mildly. I found myself singing Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" whenever describing the culture there.

• It was March, 2000 when I left Intel to start a construction-related dot com. The timing couldn't have been worse - the dot com world was crashing all around me - and I was beating my head against the wall for over 2 years TRYING to sell technology to commercial contractors - PAINFUL. Now, that I think of it, our branding, design, and marketing was god awful, which led to the demise of that business. I tweaked the business model to form a web and e-commerce company called GCM Development, and at the same time, started a separate full-service email marketing company called emailROI. A year later, I combined the 2 companies to form eROI, which is part online creative agency, part software company. And over the past 5 years, we've been fortunate to do some amazing work for clients like Wacom, Disney, HBO, and Kettle Foods. That work has propelled us to be one of the 500 fastest growing companies in the country (recognized by Inc. magazine).

• Let's get back to YOU. You've got thousands of choices, but for the sake of time, I'm going to narrow it down to 3 professional choices - you can go to work for an agency (like eROI, W+K, Leo Ketel, and others in town), for a client-side or product-based company (like Nike, Wacom, or startups like SameUnderneath), or you can Freelance.

• No matter what path you choose, you absolutely need to begin networking. Tomorrow, while you are nursing your hangover, go to the following websites and sign up for the newsletters of Portland Ad Federation, American Marketing Association, AIGA, and pdxMindShare. Put the next event for each of these organizations on your calendar and go to it. Don't be shy, talk to people there. Ask stupid questions, but whatever you do, get involved and begin the conversation. Before that, email/call the Executive Director or President and set up a 20-30 minute informational interview meeting. Ask for introductions to other people you should talk to.

• Research the organization, agency or company before your informational interview. Have at least 3 good questions ready to ask. I meet with folks networking for jobs at least once a week and it is painful when I'm asking all the questions instead of the other way around - those type of meetings only last 10 minutes, not 30. Ask who else might be good to talk to.

• You might be an incredibly talented designer, but if you don't make that in-person connection with others in the Portland creative community, you won't get the job or the clients as a freelancer.

• When interviewing design candidates, there are 3 things I like for in how they present their experience and their work - thoughtfulness, maturity, and balance.

o Thoughtfulness - you need to be able to confidently present the thought that went into the design and why it fit that brand. Many of the cleanest designs seem effortless, but there is a very deliberate thought process that made it work. Clients will value design a whole lot more if they understand how it fits with their brand and why their logo, website, email, letterhead was designed a certain way.

o Maturity - hopefully, you've had some experience with clients. With experience, comes the maturity of not only tolerating but truly enjoying tough feedback that can make you better as a designer.

o Balance - with balance, you know when to push back on demanding clients and when to make the design revisions they ask for. Also, a balance in your design style means that you can adapt to many different styles instead of designing one way.

• Lastly, make sure you do your homework on the companies you really want to work for. This is where idealism meets practical real-world application. You want to look for 3 main things to make sure that company is a good fit for you: great work, a quirky but amazing culture, and financial stability.

o Great work - you can see it on their website, read news about the agency, and ask around town about the agency's reputation.

o Culture - perhaps the most important part of a company that will dictate whether or not you'll want to hang around for a few weeks or a few decades. Is it a fun place to work? Is it a collaborative environment? Do you feel like you have a voice and can make a difference? At eROI, a year ago, our processes had not kept up with our growth and it created a major problem. While everyone got along great on a personal level, there was some significant professional tension between our Design and Production departments and our Sales and Account departments - because we were not including design and production team members into the beginning of the scoping, ideation, and strategy of the project. I met with all 34 employees one-on-one, back-to-back for 3 days straight and wrote down 50 process improvements and held an all-company meeting on the fourth day and we created change and improvement immediately including a process team that meets weekly. The point is that every company gets off-course, but good companies make sure everyone has a voice, validates it, and makes change happen quickly. The more transparent, the better. You need to find out - are people at your new company all aligned with the same vision - to do amazing work for clients and utterly delight people and customers?

o Financial Stability - a company can do great work and have an amazing culture but you want to make sure that it doesn't go bankrupt - at least not for a little while.

• You are about to start the greatest adventure of your life. Make your choice - travel around the world, start networking for a job, begin your own company - whatever you do, do it with conviction, do it with confidence. As Robert Pirsig said in Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, "in your journey, the sides of the mountain sustain life, not the top." In other words, enjoy the creative process of whatever choice you make. It will be full of excitement, anxiety, and stress, but enjoy it! There is no better time than now.

• Thank you."

Comments (4) | Posted by ryan at 6:35 AM | Permalink

Important New Email Survey: Cradle & Grave

March 22, 2008

Here at eROI we go to great lengths to keep you up to date on the latest trends in email marketing. Our latest survey asks for your input on the Subscribe/Unsubscribe Process.

This survey should take just a minute or two, and we will share the results with you when complete.

All survey participants will be automatically entered to win one of a handful of iPod Shuffle mp3 players!

Take the Survey Now »

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 3:29 PM | Permalink

Greenlight Greater Portland: Software is in Top 3 Focus Industries in Portland

March 21, 2008

Greenlight CEO Tim Priest shared this really insightful report of Greater Portland's economy and which areas are most ripe to recruit for. Here is just a small sampling of the Recommendations from that report:

"Considering the data as a whole, Greenlight has selected these clusters for its first RECRUITMENT initiatives:

1 - ALTERNATIVE/RENEWABLE ENERGY combined with ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES AND RECYCLING TECHNOLOGY

Rationale:
• Our region has a significant electronic services workforce that can easily transition into renewable energy.
• Significant venture capital is flowing into alternative/renewable energy.
• Our region has momentum in this cluster, with recent announcements from Solar World and other companies, and other regional economic development groups are embracing it.
• The Oregon Legislature recently increased incentives for renewable energy companies.

2- COMPUTER SOFTWARE and IT SERVICES

Rationale:
• The greater Portland region has significant human capital, 20% greater than the national average, in the cluster.
• Software is the number one cluster for venture capital.
• Of the region's specializations, the cluster provides the highest-paying jobs.
• The region has a strong software community and reputation for both open source and software that interfaces with hardware.
• Portland is strategically positioned to capitalize on the Bay Area and Seattle's software strengths.

3- DESIGN

Rationale:
• The region boasts big consumer brand names -- Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Adidas.
• The cluster is consistent with and feeds the region's green, sustainable brand image.
• We have a 40% higher concentration of talent in these fields than the national average."

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 3:32 PM | Permalink

Chuck Porter, Crispin Porter Bogusky, Inspires: The Power of a Story

March 19, 2008

At the OMMA Hollywood event, finally, a true creative breathed inspiration into an event dominated by metrics, analytics, and agency and media organizational models.

Chuck Porter talked about the power of a story that are sometimes bigger than life, like Burger King's Subservient Chicken, which has become a cult following in Spain and Japan (long after the site had its heyday).

Also, it's not always about a new medium. Porter's agency took an age-old marketing medium in print magazines and placed ads in Cosmopolitan, Maxim with cheesy 80's style male models with puppy dogs,and Molson Beer, then placed ads in male-targeted magazines about the psychographic effect of 100,000's of women having a positive association of the male species due to these ads. The creative implementation of both real and faux ads and even made-up magazine covers placed on the back-cover of real magazines was all done brilliantly with a huge comedic and viral impact.

In Porter's last anecdotal story about the difficulty of selling a risky idea into a brand, Chuck said that Burger King franchise owners wanted to kill Porter if he implemented an idea about killing their best selling product - The Whopper - with a campaign called the "BK Whopper Freakout." The agency recommended trying it on Cable TV in a zip code for 1 restaurant in Las Vegas and it turned out to be wildly successful.

Takeaway for MediaPost - get more creatives as speakers and show the work - Porter rocked!

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 2:49 AM | Permalink

MediaPost OMMA Hollywood: Patrick Keane, CMO, CBS Interactive

March 18, 2008

Here at the OMMA show in Hollywood, a gorgeous sunny break from Portland rain, it's been great to connect with the Email Insiders crew, the EEC, KickApps, and others in the social networking / online video world here.

From a presentation standpoint, I was most impressed with Patrick Keane, CMO of CBS Interactive. He talked about trends in online media and marketing:
1. Engagement - advertisers don't want vanilla users, they want engaged users who spend a lot of time on a media site like CBS or social platforms like Facebook, MySpace.
2. Cross-platform - advertisers want to buy across ALL mediums and channels.
3. Flexibility and Customization
4. Branding + Video - moving faster, demand video
5. Data - need better Audience Analytics

Most interesting, however, was Keane's central theme of how the online medium is an incremental effect, not cannibalizing in any way. He used the show "Jericho" as an example - on TV, it had a 4.2 Nielsen rating, but online video views added another 0.9 points to it - 1.4 million video views of the current and past shows in the few days following each show.

TV, web, and mobile all work TOGETHER to have an incremental engagement effect. No cannibalization.

Another key takeaway: media sites like CBSSports.com appears like its all original content, but there are actually a significant portion of community features and user-generated content (e.g. Fantasy Leagues, etc.).

BTW - CBS is streaming all March Madness games this Thursday - I hope no one at eROI finds out about this.

Comments (1) | Posted by ryan at 9:12 AM | Permalink

I'm a Twitter Virgin

March 17, 2008

One trend of online marketing and the tech world as a whole is that there is an acceleration of distraction and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). And, I'm sitting next to the King of ADD, Dylan Boyd. We are listening to the first keynote at MediaPost's OMMA show in Hollywood, but Dylan has been showing me how Twitter works and it's quite addictive. Yes, it's unusual (from my Twitter Virgin perspective) that respected CEO of ReturnPath just Twittered details of the birth of his child and it's also weird to learn when some of my business associates have a bowel movement.

But, there are some newsworthy uses of Twitter, as the ADD King showed me. The Oregonian is feeding its news into Twitter, Tri-Met has its traffic updates posted real-time to Twitter.

Lessons learned from a guy who started an email marketing company - many people WANT to communicate all the time - don't fight this human need / addiction - fuel it. Why not?

Comments (1) | Posted by ryan at 9:04 AM | Permalink

Startups: My Delayed Response to Calacanis and Cuban

March 16, 2008

I love entrepreneurial passion and how both Jason Calacanis and Mark Cuban's blog posts 'tell it like it is'. In the process, there has been quite a bit of controversy from Jason's blog post "How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips)" that got picked up by TechCrunch and the TechCrunch blog comments were charged statements of brutal opposition or strongly in favor of Jason's tips, especially #11:
"Fire people who are not workaholics.... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. don't work at a startup if you're not into it--go work at the post office or stabucks if you want balance in your life. For realz."

Jason goes onto give advice of where to spend money and where to cut back. I have to admit that I disagreed with a lot of Jason's perspective, especially expecting all employees to work as hard and long as a founder/owner when there is much less upside for that employee. Jason - 16 hours a day, 7 days a week is not sustainable. Startups are marathons, not sprints. Make sure you got some honest perspective from your employees, your spouse, your family, and their spouses and families to see if everyone is enjoying the creative process of starting your startup when they are burnt out.

Mark Cuban had some good advice on his blog post "A Couple of My Rules for Startups" - very opinionated - but surprisingly mature comments. You can tell he really knows what he's talking about. I think Cuban is a hot-head, wannabe cool guy, but he is hell of a sales guy from his past success in startups and growing $billion companies.

Here are a few key excerpts:
"1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.

2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.

3. Hire people who you think will love working there.

4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.

5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap

6. An expresso machine ? Are you kidding me ? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs."

"7. No offices. Open offices keeps everyone in tune with what is going on and keeps the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show them how to use the lock on the john. There is nothing private in a start up. This is also a good way to keep from hiring execs who can not operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over their secretary, run away. If an exec wont go on salescalls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.

8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the cheapest way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista... ask yourself why, then use it. Its a startup, there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.

9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.

10. NEVER EVER EVER buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, its ok to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your Yobaby.com polo you sent them in public, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money

11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.

12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out 100 dollar bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or 10 for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party :0"

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 10:03 PM | Permalink

Do you think you are young & hot?

March 12, 2008

I'm surprised this ad has less than 9,000 views on YouTube. It's brilliant and has the potentially to be passed around from inbox to inbox because it hits the mark with nearly everyone older than 24 years old who will always view themselves in that 24 year old body. I need some Centrum Silver vitamins. Check it out:

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 9:56 PM | Permalink