Emerge Interactive News

AXE Anarchy RealTime Graphic Novel

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:29:00 GMT

AXE is a consumer brand best known for its ads and products geared towards young men, but in January, parent company Unilever took a new direction by creating its first fragrance for both men and women, AXE Anarchy. Emerge collaborated in a global campaign to promote the new product line, spearheaded by Razorfish (New York) and BBH (London), to create a high-end, custom YouTube channel application. The concept was to create a social-media driven, user-generated graphic novel, created in real-time as actual users interact with the story and suggest how it should develop.

The site shows off a high-end graphic novel created by the expert team at Aspen Comics. Visitors can browse through the story, suggest plot ideas and where they think the graphic novel should go next, vote to choose upcoming characters, interact with each other and much more.

As technical development partner, Emerge delivered the full digital implementation for the graphic novel, including a custom interactive reader, social-media integration, Content Management System, and scalable cloud hosting solution. We built the application using Ruby on Rails, and host it using both Heroku and Amazon EC2 servers with the ability to scale to handle millions of visitors a day.

It has been a great experience delivering the technical foundation for such a groundbreaking, original and extensive campaign. The reception has been excellent, with coverage in publications such as AdWeek, Mashable and MTV. Check it out for yourself before April 30th and see how the graphic novel develops!

The magic of flyinglike the pros

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:50:00 GMT

I have to admit that becoming a pilot has been a long-time dream of mine. The idea of flight is still magical to me; every time I am on a plane, you'll see me glued to the window. So, when we heard about the opportunity to work with a group of ridiculously experienced and passionate flight instructors to build the next-generation online aviation education application, I was all ears.

After 18 months of developing amazing content and building a cutting-edge online education system, Flying Like the Pros and Emerge Interactive-with our design partners at Hot Studio-are excited to launch www.flyinglikethepros.com. Join 2010 National Flight Instructor of the Year Jeffrey "MossY" Moss and his fellow master flight instructors as they teach tricks and insights that are often only known to the most experienced professional pilots.

To make their vision a reality, we worked closely with Flying Like the Pros to build a custom online education system that would provide general aviation pilots with an immersive learning experience, in which they could learn advanced flying techniques from professional pilots-"The Pros." After an extensive strategy phase evaluating a wide range of Content Management and Learning Management Systems, Drupal was chosen as the foundation for the website because of its customizability, strong user account management capabilities and large developer community. For Ecommerce, open-source Drupal add-on Ubercart was chosen, supporting both online and physical (shipped) products. For content delivery, Flying Like the Pros looked to an area they might avoid when navigating a plane-the Cloud. Emerge developed a comprehensive cloud hosting strategy, utilizing Amazon's S3, EC2 and CloudFront web services, as well as custom integrated Brightcove players to provide a seamless and scalable experience to customers worldwide.

Pilot or not, when you visit Flying Like the Pros, you will gain insight into one of the most fascinating professions-and experience some of what makes flying so magical.

Emerge Makes 2011 List of Healthiest Employers of Oregon

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:07:00 GMT

Congratulations Emerge for making the list as one of Portland Business Journal's 2011 Healthiest Employers of Oregon. That's right, folks, we are getting recognized for eating carrot sticks and playing disc golf!

But seriously, there are some real wellness superstars in our office that deserve a shout out: Julian Pscheid, currently training for Ironman Canada 2012. Erik Ruthven, Crossfit Hel master. Justin Barry, who finds time every lunch hour to play bball. Our mascot, Lukas, who can sit pretty and jump through hoops for cookies (organic cookies of course). And all the devoted bikers, hikers and foodies.

Since the company's humble beginning, the leadership team has always encouraged healthy group activities. As a team, we have completed the Shamrock Run twice, climbed the lava tubes at Ape Caves and even participated in some Bollywood dance line ups!

We also like to partner with clients that promote healthy choices. The YMCA of San Francisco and the California Strawberry Commission are just two of our clients with a mission to improve health and well-being.

So, good job team Emerge. Keep moving and shaking your stuff and here's to our health. Cheers!

CRE8CON Returns to Portland

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:22:00 GMT

Emerge had the opportunity to partner and contribute to another local event, the Portland Creative Conference. If you’ve been in the Pacific N.W. for the past decade or so you might very well be aware of this endearing conference aka ‘CRE8CON’.

There are many folks and organizations involved in putting this event on annually and the ticket and raffle proceeds go to supporting arts education in the state of Oregon for grades K-12. After a brief hiatus (seven years), Steve Gehlen, the event chairman and crew are bringing it back – in full force. He came knocking and we happily obliged with a commitment to do a mobile conference site for this year and be prepared and queued up for something fun & delightful next year.

The event kicked off with this intro video produced by Funnelbox Production Studios.

The format and atmosphere for this creative conference is much like TEDx. If you attended TEDxPortland, you’ll know what I mean. One big difference was that most of the CRE8CON speakers had 1-hour for their presentation and most did an excellent job sharing with us mementos from their creative thinking and processes.

The speakers ranged from film, advertising and communications, food, music and radio industries all to ‘explore and celebrate’ the creative process.

Here are some goodies:

Rob Legato – He channeled Martin Scorsese to share something from his experiences to talk about when Legato worked on ‘Key to Reserva’ an attempt to document and preserve a movie that was never made by Alfred Hitchcock. Yes, you read it right, ‘the movie that was never made’.

Watch the trailer, you won't be disappointed. Full English version!

The actual short film on Google has the audio removed due to copyright.

Brynn Bardacke – A quote of her’s I liked, ‘To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal.” I concur. One of her shares also included a story from her TBWA/Chiat/Day days working on the Apple account where she received an email from yours truly, Mr. Jobs, containing five words.

‘Shit copy. Can’t approve.’ –Steve

Jelly Helm - He spoke about how he starts his creative process by asking the question of, ‘What is the deep story?’ And how do you tell that deep story? Picture a very old, tall and wise tree with deep roots.

And I am quite looking forward to the new NBC tv show starting up, Grimm, as in the Brothers Grimm that is being filmed here in Portland with screenwriting by Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt.

My takeaways, rather reminders are that the creative process that feeds and drives creativity in all of us never stops. Inspiration and lessons are had from your peers, environment, competition, your state of mind, state of the economy and experiences both good and bad. Failure can be great. Make it comfortable. Embrace change. Love what you do.

Until next year CRE8CON! We’re already thinking of the possibilities.

Surprise performance by The Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers.

Blogging Triathlons

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:51:00 GMT

It's been 5 years since I began participating in triathlons (swim/bike/run). I started out with a simple duathlon (bike/run) in central Oregon. Since then, I've worked my way up to racing half-iron distance events (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) multiple times a year.

This year I had the opportunity to work with a great sponsor, Portland's own Bob's Red Mill, who graciously supplies me with their fantastic food products. As part of my engagement with them I've blogged for their Train with Grain program, sharing what I've learned over the years. In case you are into triathlons or are considering trying one, I thought I'd share with you some of my posts:

Three Ways Bio-Mechanics Can Improve Your Triathlon Times
Each sport is unique, but all three can benefit from optimizing the motions your body goes through to propel you.
Schedule Adjustments And Staying On Track
Triathlon training is a delicate balance of time management, and sometimes outside factors can throw things off. Here are some tips to keep your season on track.
How Not To Be "That Guy" In A Racing Group
I had a run-in with an overeager age-grouper at a race earlier this year. Please don't be "that guy!"
Race Report: Pacific Crest Half Ironman 2011
My race report of my first long-distance race of the season, and also my favorite race each year.

Sencha selects Emerge as featured mobile developer

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:09:00 GMT

Sencha, the developers of the popular Sencha Touch HTML5 mobile and EXTJS web application development frameworks, selected us as their featured developer for the month of August. Considering there are more than 1 million developers using their tools worldwide, we feel honored to receive the spotlight! Check out the article below:

Technology is Art

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:05:00 GMT

These days, the audiences we're trying to reach use a rapidly evolving set of platforms to engage brands across touchpoints. This creates significant challenges for many brands. Brands must meet these challenges by transforming how they attract, engage, serve, and retain their audiences. It's no small task to address an infinitely growing and shifting digital landscape!

The complexity of creating and implementing a digital strategy can be daunting. For some, this means the end to marketing as they know it; the challenges are testing their abilities to adapt, to the breaking point. For others, these challenges are presenting a new era of opportunities and inspiring a new artistic renaissance. How do we rise to these challenges with thousands of channels across the digital landscape to choose from?

A recent article from Fast Company highlights this theme: "Creative teams, now need to behave more like improv actors -- "story building" instead of storytelling -- so they can respond in real time to an unpredictable audience. Marketing actually needs to be useful -- "use-vertising" instead of advertising -- which means that you must think more like a product developer than an entertainer. While campaigns once promised glossy anthemic concepts, perfected before being shipped off to the waiting client, digital is incremental, experimental, continually optimized..."

At Emerge, we meet these challenges head-on and take advantage of the opportunities inherent in change. We started by rethinking how we deliver solutions. We've completely changed the traditional silo model of separating creative and technical services. We've taken down the walls between the creative and technical teams, both metaphorically and literally. We look at technology like art; it brings new ideas to life. Now everyone is part of the creative team. The result is an environment that transforms the conversation, improves the way we collaborate, and allows us to build more innovative solutions across the digital landscape.

I hearts Emerge

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:13:00 GMT

Let's just say it and get it out of the way, I ♥ Emerge. It's been six months since I joined the team and I cannot exclaim enough about how much I enjoy working here. One of the many reasons for this is because of the group of people I work with. They make me look forward to coming in to the office every day.

I’ve been in the communications and marketing industry for my entire professional career and I found myself looking again for a place to do good, exciting, impactful and fun work. My number one priority was finding the right group of people to do that work with. As an Interactive Producer here, I have to rely on the team and that starts with trust.

Over all else, it needed to be the right fit, for everyone. And by George, I think we’ve got it!

I wanted to get my hands around some great mobile projects. Emerge has got that.
I wanted to utilize my skillset be valuable to the team. I’ve got that.
I wanted to be surrounded by smart, creative people with a sense of humor. I have that!

Since I’ve started, we’ve grown even more and it gets better and better. Could it be?

We’ve gotten in new clients and projects and continue to do so. Emerge definitely has momentum and I see no end to it.

Here’s a look back at the past six months.

We’ve thrown a party…

Attended an Afterparty…

Had BBQ’s on the deck…

Had a team off-site…

Get to know our mascots… Lukas and Seafus.

I ♥ Emerge. I'm just sayin'.

6 things you need to know before asking for an HTML5 website

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:40:00 GMT

Over the last few months we have seen an odd trend developing: more and more clients are asking specifically for HTML5 websites, without being too sure of exactly what they are asking for. In some ways this reminds me of the early 2000s, when everyone wanted a "Web 2.0" website experience. At that time, "Web 2.0" stood for something greater-using best practices for information architecture, design, and web development that were becoming more common. "Web 2.0" also replaced the previous all-encompassing buzz-word, "DHTML". While HTML5 actually is a real markup language (with its own set of specifications), it too is quickly becoming a fuzzy, feel-good term used by marketers to describe the "new" web, just like its predecessors. To help sort things out, let's look at some examples of the cool "new" web and play a game of "HTML5 or not HTML5?"

Parallax Scrolling Websites

Websites using the parallax effect wowed the web earlier this year. But is it really HTML5? Turns out, everything that is visible to the visitor has been possible for years without HTML5: the scrolling parallax effect is plain old JavaScript, and the videos use Flash. In the case of Nike's "Better World" website, the structure of the page does use HTML5 semantics (such as section tags and data attributes), which allows for cleaner, easier to manage source code. But all this is behind the scenes--in the end, everything about the parallax effect is pre-HTML5.

Verdict:

Websites That Know Where You Are

You've probably seen the annoying "This website is requesting your location" messages on Twitter or Google Maps. Websites can now request access to your physical location and use it to geolocate your tweets or pinpoint you on a map. While the location itself is furnished by the browser, the interface to provide the access to your geolocation from the website is part of the HTML5 device access specification.

Verdict:

Fancy Custom Fonts (without Flash)

Custom web-fonts have made quite a splash over the last 12 months, thanks largely to the groundbreaking work done by Typekit. Even though Apple claims this to be a HTML5 feature, web fonts have been around since 1998 as part of the CSS2 specification. What's new is that recent solutions have allowed for reliable cross-browser support and easy deployment, which is why we're seeing much broader adoption than we did, oh, 13 years ago!

Verdict:

Mobile Web Applications

If you have been anywhere close to mobile application development in the last 6 months, you've most certainly heard of the native vs. HTML5 app debate. The truth is, HTML5 provides developers access to a rich toolset that enables them to replicate mobile application functionality that was previously available only to native Objective C (iOS) or JAVA (Android or Blackberry) applications. Some of the key HTML5 feature sets that drive innovation in this area are Local Storage, Offline Browsing, Device Access (for camera, compass and accelerometer access), and network performance improvements. In the end, HTML5 is a significant step forward in the world of mobile web application development.

Verdict:

Microdata

Projects such as Schema.org promote including new metadata in your source code to help search engines identify content in your site in ways that were not previously possible. While other solutions, such as Facebook's Open Graph, rely on HTML4 metadata tags, true microdata has only become possible with HTML5. The new specification allows multiple sets of data throughout a single page. For example, if you sell products on your site, you can now accurately pinpoint the name, price, and many other types information, so that search engines can more easily index them.

Verdict:

3D Photo Galleries

What about those sweet new photo galleries that zoom into an image in 3D when you roll over it? They are using CSS 3D Transforms in the new CSS3 specification. And although CSS3 got a cool new logo as part of the HTML5 rebrand, it's technically a completely separate technology and doesn't classify as HTML5.

Verdict:

As you can see from the examples above there is a lot of hype around websites and technologies that might be groundbreaking in their approach, but do not rely on HTML5. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. As Jeff Croft said, "sometimes we just need a word to rally behind. And put in job descriptions. And claim we 'support' (another word that is mostly meaningless). It’s a language thing and a human psychology thing."

One thing I learned from my Dad

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:11:00 GMT

When I was growing up, my dad encouraged me to live by the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated. No exceptions. Most of us would agree that it's a pretty good rule to live by.

But how often is it actually practiced? How often do brands express this simple principle? More commonly we see exceptions: Treat others as you would like to be treated, but only if it's convenient or only if it's cost effective or only if it enhances an image... and so on. The exceptions invariably lead to counterfeit behaviors, and result in disconnection and isolation from the very people we're trying to connect with. Costly breakdowns in relationships are the inevitable consequence of becoming more disassociated from the core principle behind the Golden Rule.

As marketers, community managers, and change agents in a converging digital world, advising brands to live by the Golden Rule is a deceptively simple way to bring substance to words like authenticity, relevance, and engagement, and to get beyond the buzz. It sets a solid foundation for an effective and lasting communication strategy and empowers the relationships we work so hard to build.

CEO and Founder Jonathon Hensley Gets Profiled

Tue, 31 May 2011 14:19:00 GMT

Congratulations to our CEO and Founder, Jonathon Hensley for his executive profile in the Portland Business Journal. You will find some nice gems from his profile like his essential busin ess philosophy, 'Dare to be remarkable.' Read about his 'yardstick to success' and guiding principle.

We have the full scoop here or go to the Portland Business Journal online for the full article.

6 Reasons We are Excited about WebVisions

Mon, 23 May 2011 07:38:00 GMT

This week Portland's annual digital media conference is taking place, WebVisions. The schedule boasts lots of interesting sessions, but here are the ones we are particularly excited about:

The Best is the Enemy of the Good: Similarities in Perfection between Magic and Design

Thursday, 1:30pm
Jared Spool (@jmspool) is one of the funniest speakers in our industry. If you've ever seen him talk, you know that he is entertaining, educating and inspiring-all at once! We haven't heard him speak on this topic yet, so we're curious what he'll pull out of his hat this time.

The Visual Interface is Now Your Brand

Thursday, 3:30pm
It used to be that we'd pitch clients a web presence as an extension of their brand. The times have changed though and digital now drives the brand presence. But it's more than the logo on the site that sticks with the user: it's the whole visual interface and how easy they can interact with it.

What's Next for Web Fonts in CSS3

Friday, 8:45am
Web fonts have made a big splash in the last year. If this session holds true to its title, we will find out how we can best use them as the technology and browser support keeps evolving.

Good App/Bad App

Friday, 10:30am
Companies are cranking out apps like crazy, but how do you ensure users keep using your apps over time? Push notifications, in-app notifications and dripping content are just some of the tactics to ensure long-term engagement.

Mapping a Unified Experience Across Multiple Devices

Friday, 11:00am
One brand, one consistent user experience, right? Wrong! At least that's how today's cross-device experience landscape looks. Let's go over how to do it right.

Mapping the Unknown: Diagramming 21st Century Experiences

Friday, 3:00pm
Admit it: last time you were tasked with diagramming the sitemap/workflow/process-flow you wished the rapture would just whisk you away from that arduous task. Digital experiences have long eclipsed what can be easily documented using 20th century methods. Let's see the latest methods to document our modern user experiences.

Are Dogs Better than Cats or How to Connect People using Mobile Technology

Thu, 05 May 2011 22:42:00 GMT

We had the pleasure of being creative collaborators for the inaugural TEDxPortland event--contributing our digital expertise to enrich the event experience. One of the pieces we worked on was an interactive networking "game" conceptualized together with Wieden+Kennedy (the event's lead sponsor) and Second Story (Portland's interactive installation experts). The project's goal was to connect attendees and digitally augment their networking (Emerge developed the web and mobile components for this project). It was primarily targeted at an exclusive list of attendees that were invited to the celebratory after party on Wieden+Kennedy's rooftop deck overlooking Portland.

The experience started when you received an invitation email. Via a link in the email you were taken to a unique RSVP page, which presented you with a form--prepopulated with your information-- allowing you to also connect your attendee profile with your Twitter profile and LinkedIn account (via OAuth). The last step was to answer three questions, and this is where the game itself began:

One hundred divisive and controversial questions were selected upfront to make the players think twice about their values and beliefs. The questions included the serious ("Technology is making us more alone than ever"), political ("Nuclear energy is the answer"), and fun ("Dogs are better than cats"). Part of the challenge was that each question could only be answered with "agree" or "disagree", forcing players to take complex subjects and simplify their values into binary answers.

Once at the party, attendees could answer the questions in one of two ways: via a futuristic touch-screen installation that was activated by placing your lanyard on a scanner, or a mobile website that was accessed using a code on your lanyard. As players were answering questions, a big screen displayed real time results showing how the audience at the party voted for individual questions (all data visualization were anonymous so no one knew exactly what your answers were).

For the mobile experience you weren't only able to answer questions, instead this is where the digital networking took place. You were able to view a list of all party attendees ordered by a real-time relationship score that indicated how similar you were to other individuals at the party. If you answered questions in a similar fashion, your relationship score for that person was high, otherwise it was low. After finding people with similar qualities you could pull up their Twitter and LinkedIn profiles right there from the app and connect.

The game was a big hit, with players still answering questions through the mobile site days after the event and using it to connect with other party VIPs (or looking up the names of the people they met but couldn't remember due to too many of the signature cocktails). For us it was a fun opportunity to collaborate with some of the brightest minds in town.

The mobile site was developed in HTML5 using the Sencha Touch framework, themed to match W+K's TEDxPortland branding. All data was communicated to Second Story's server using a JSON+REST interface for persistent storage and visualization purposes. [We also developed a native iPhone/iPad application using PhoneGap, but deemed it unessential to go through Apple's approval process for a single day event.]

Photos: © Second Story Interactive Studios

View all photos from the event

Building a Magic Canoe at TEDxPortland

Thu, 05 May 2011 14:11:00 GMT

I was fortunate enough to attend my first TEDx event here in Portland, Oregon, which happened to be the first annual one in the Rose City. It was a great one that sold out within days of tickets being available and it wasn’t what I expected it to be. I didn’t expect the inspirational moments this gathering of people offered. Nor did I expect the many tearjerker, heart-wrenching and heart-warming moments. I’m thinking, it might have had something to do with the theme of ‘XRD’ or crossroads. When you’re at a crossroad, you’re usually confronted with some tough choices. When there are different forces converging at a crossroad, which way would you go?

Emerge Interactive happened to be a ‘creative collaborator’ along with Second Story in working with Wieden+Kennedy for the TEDxPortland event. Rather, the after party but more on that later, stay tuned for Part II. It’s always nice to get shout-outs as a creative sponsor.

It was a long day at the Gerding Theater at The Armory, which was the first building to be Platinum LEED certified globally. A very appropriate venue for the dozen speakers with topics ranging from cancer research, native cultures, community, environment, architecture, art, food and of course technology and how it all inspires and relates to us regionally and globally.

Here are some of my highlights and take-away’s from the day.

The music performances were right-on the money. A shout-out to my alma mater, University of Oregon’s a cappella group, ‘On the Rocks’ (as seen on "The Sing-off”) came out and did a few numbers. The School of Rock bands ROCKED!! I thoroughly enjoyed their performances. Rush’s ‘Freewill’ was their first song, really? RUSH impressive.

One of the tear-jerker moments was when PHAME came on stage and started with ‘Heart of Gold’ by Neil Young, then went on to Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. It was hard to keep the tears away.

‘Be a bamboo farmer and water the bamboo.’ If you want to learn more about what this is all about, check out Greg Bell, founder of Water the Bamboo Center for Leadership. He is an inspirational speaker and author who spoke about the philosophy of patience, perseverance and hard work.

Another tear-jerker moment was from the talks with Jim Riswold, named “one of the 100 most influential people in American culture,” by Newsweek and Dr. Brian Druker, whom Riswold credits with saving his life. Oh, and Riswold started by proclaiming that Hitler also saved his life while introducing his first slide giving a big WARNING to the audience. This was a talk from a cancer survivor and how art helped him through the whole dang process. All the while featuring the doctor instrumental in getting imatinib FDA approved in record time with successful clinical trials conducted right here in our yard at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute in Portland, Oregon.

There were a lot of moments like these from all speakers. Roberta Connor talking about the Tamàstslikt Cultural Institute and all her work for the indigenous cultures of the region and beyond. What if your language no longer existed? She urges us to ‘think longitudinally’. “Think of your descendants 1000 years from now.”

Switching gears to talking about development and architecture, Mark Edlen asks if being LEED certified is enough. Are we making a difference? The new parameter should be the idea of ‘net zero’. He would like us to think about measuring the success of a building to what’s right outside it’s doors in the first 30 ft. Think about it.

Then John Jay, ECD at Wieden+Kennedy, gave an inspirational talk on spiritual, economic and cultural transformations using personal, architectural, design and development examples from around the world and here in Portland. I’m really excited for what’s coming up for us here in terms of some revitalization and development!

There was so much more! Scott Kveton, CEO of Urban Airship, took us down memory lane of social media and how open source came to be mainstream. There was an audience participation experiment around food and the idea that ‘food is trust’. We learned of purple carrots and the ‘carrot whisper’. (Gotta track him down at the farmers market.) Genevieve Bell, Director of Interaction and Experience Research at Intel, asked us to think about being bored and demanded that we go out and ‘be bored’ for a little while and see where it takes us.

I’ll conclude my personal takeaways from yet another awesome Portland event with how I came to title this post, ‘Building a Magic Canoe’. This idea was from Spencer Beebe’s talk, Founder and President of Ecotrust. He told a story of Cecil Paul, a Native American elder that Beebe worked with to help protect a significant amount of land in British Columbia. (I can’t do justice to this entire story; you can get the full story from Spencer’s book.) The idea behind the ‘magic canoe’ is that it gets bigger with more people in it, learning to paddle together.

Thus, let’s paddle together through our crossroads and the river that runs through this ever connected growing global village.

View tons more pictures from W+K here >>

AND here >>

Dear World Happy Earth Day

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Oh Earth, how we love you so. Let us count the ways- we love your sun, your wind, and your sweet sweet beer and barbeques! It’s been three years to the date since we first announced our sustainability program, and today and every day we continue our efforts to be a carbon neutral company, by reducing energy consumption by maximizing efficiency, using renewable energy sources and recycled products; and purchase carbon offsets for the emissions that we can't reduce directly. We constantly look for “best in class” sustainability practices that we can incorporate into Emerge every day.

Here are just a few examples of our ongoing efforts:

We purchase renewable energy credits for the servers we use that power our clients’ websites 24/7. These websites and applications run on 100% clean energy and are supporting the construction of wind-farms throughout the country.
We purchase carbon offsets for the electricity used in our office.
We pay for our team members to use public transportation for their commute to the office.
70% of our team members walk to work, use public transportation, ride bikes, carpool or telecommute.
We annually purchase carbon offsets for the fuel used in our business travel.

Using Liquid UX to Extend Your Brands Experience Beyond Your Website

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 09:04:00 GMT

Your brand's primary digital representation is your website, and traditional user experience design has shaped how websites are conceptualized for visitors using desktop computers and laptops. With the popularity of smart phones and tablets--and the ongoing development of devices such as Google TV--how do you address that your brand provides the correct experience across all platforms? Enter Liquid User Experience.

Most website solutions are designed with the following assumptions about visitors:

Your visitors will be at a desktop computer or laptop, using a relatively big screen (13+ inches), keyboard, and mouse to interact with it. Therefore we call it a "desktop website".
Your visitors can probably devote as much time as they need to explore what you have to offer, since they are sitting down and are focused on browsing your website.

Using these assumptions results in digital experiences that do not carry over well onto devices other than your traditional desktop computer experience. Liquid User Experience goes beyond traditional website criteria and introduces a new set of design principles that ensures that visitors can use your solution on their desktop, and it feels right there, but you can also switch to your handset, or tablet, or TV, and it feels right there too.

The primary principle of Liquid UX is Context, and Omar Green, director of strategic mobile initiatives at Intuit, describes context as "the circumstances around which a user expresses behavior, captured digitally. It can encompass geo-spatial, temporal, emotional, cognitive, and other domains, so long as the domain lends itself to electronic monitoring and data capture." He uses the following questions to understand the broader context in which your users are using your site:

Who is your user?
Where are they using your solution?
What's their situation? Are they rushed, can they focus?
What are they doing? What did they just do?
What's their device?
Can we interrupt them in what they are doing?
What are their expectations?

When creating the specifics of the solution, the key is to understand the context for each device and if it makes sense to use it in a certain situation:

What contexts are appropriate for completing the task?
What does it mean to initiate and complete the task in this context?
What will your visitor need to know to anticipate the next task?
How can we use data from one context in a new one and how?

By embedding context awareness into your brand's digital platform you enable truly dynamic user experiences across devices and locations. A great example of this is TurboTax's desktop vs. mobile application: On the desktop application you have a large keyboard, so it is easy to type in your W2 information manually, while no one would want to do that laborious task on a mobile application using an on-screen keyboard. Instead, take advantage of the mobile device's camera to take a picture of the W2 and the mobile app will automatically enter the data from the W2 for you.

There are several other great examples of liquid user experiences out there, and as you are looking to extend your brand beyond your desktop website, it pays to look around. For more information about Omar Green's research into Liquid UX, you can also check out his presentation on the topic.

Hot Hot Hot

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:50:00 GMT

If you want a challenge, try making a cutting-edge website that communicates the spirit, energy and vision of a cutting-edge company. If you really want a challenge, try doing that for an interactive design firm. But a new site for our long-term partners and industry-leading experience crafters Hot Studio? Now you’ve got an Emerge-worthy challenge!

As the CEO and Founder of HotStudio, Maria Giudice, said herself:

"If you think it’s hard to get everyone in your company aligned around something as supposedly simple as the choice of a single word or a color palette, imagine being one of a team of 10 designers, producers, and technologists who had to satisfy one another... and the other 40 brilliant and opinionated people who work at Hot Studio! Let me tell you, it was not an easy task."

Well, Maria, if it was easy, anybody could do it!

Push the envelope, then push some more. Stretch the flexibility of the Content Management System, across multiple content types, contributors and audiences. Take the notion of a fluid layout to new extremes, all while maintaining pixel-perfect accuracy and a seamless, intuitive user experience. Oh, and since HotStudio has been leading the way in designing tablet experiences, make sure it excels on the iPad.

You know what it’s like when everyone *thinks* they’re an expert. Well, when Hot Studio is your client, everyone IS an expert. But instead of “too many cooks,” the result instead speaks to the dedication, smarts and talent of an extremely productive partnership. Cheers!

Dynamic Grammys

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:40:00 GMT

You’ve sponsored the Grammy Awards and now you want rich media as dynamic as the show itself. Leading up to and after the big show you have several distinct campaign phases, each with it’s own unique creative treatments, but you don’t want to retraffic a whole slew of banners each time- it would be great if the campaign could automatically change on, say, Sunday morning. As ever, k-weight is tight and there’s a lot of awesomeness to squeeze in. Oh, and we only have six weeks. Possible? Envelope please…

You bet it is. Thanks to time-based content when the show started on the east coast viewers there saw banners announcing the big moment had finally begun, while viewers anxiously waiting on the West coast continued to experience media counting down with them. Working with Google DoubleClick’s Rich Media Dynamic Ad (RMDA) platform we created rich units that a pizza-fueled Wieden + Kennedy team could change up on the fly while watching the show- if a giant eagle had swooped in to carry away Lady Gaga’s egg, it would have showed up in banner within minutes. All executed in a remarkably tight turnaround, naturally!

A few fun facts:

Real-time ad content manipulation during live Grammy awards; watched on CBS.com or vevo (Doubleclick RMDA ad platform)
Single ad unit displayed time-based content
Fast turn 4 phases in less than 6 weeks; including new platform and high-visibility live event

Maxs Moments and Nike LaCrosse

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:43:00 GMT

How better to engage Lacrosse fans than offering them the chance to explore Max Seibald’s amazing talent an immersive 3D experience? We can’t think of anything better than Nike’s “Max’s Moments,” designed specifically for Inside Lacrosse and Nike’s Lacrosse Facebook page. In addition to building out the experience for Wieden + Kennedy, we worked with the amazing team at Razorfish and Google DoubleClick to take the unusual approach of delivering the experience to Inside Lacrosse as rich media, enabling the full benefit of DoubleClick metrics, tracking, and serving. The project is a standout example of awesome and is currently featured on the front page of DoubleClick’s gallery of amazing rich media for the entire month of March.

Emerge Makes Tabloid Headlines with Sims3 Late Night

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:26:00 GMT

This year the fabled Sims game franchise made headlines by expanding virtual living to game consoles for the first time in its nearly twenty year history. Game maker EA and Wieden + Kennedy chose Emerge to help spread the word through a massive global media buy that enticed Sims lovers to “Simify” themselves and see their virtual antics splashed across the front page of the Tabloids. Not only did we face significant technical and scalability challenges with a project of this scale, we also had less than 6 weeks to pull it off. No Sweat, right.

We first determine how best to convert an uploaded image and render it out into an image of a tabloid newspaper as a truly Sims-like character. The result is a “Simmification” engine that takes user images from a webcam or upload and converts them into “Simmified” tabloid headlines on the fly across all platforms. From there we extended the campaign to include standard and rich banner units, a microsite, as well as a “Make Headlines” tab on the Sims Facebook page. Then we internationalized everything for global reach. Piece of cake!

Given the challenges of supporting the massive fluctuations in traffic inherent in such a large ad push as well as the heavy load of processing the images in real-time we chose to host the campaign in the Amazon AS3 cloud solution, a first for both Emerge and W+K. So far the results speak for themselves.