I caught the tail end of Jeremy's presentation which I sort of regret having caught this tail end. He was a very meek guy and very personable. I appreciated what he told us about learning. I had already completed a few lessons on the site he referred to codecademy.com, and I've found several other tutorial sites that will help me a lot. But that he was so honest about having to still cleave to google search and painstakingly try to figure out his way around programming issues. Issues that I'm sure are way more challenging than anything I can do. Yet. It sounds sappy but it was really encouraging to hear him tell us about being in the dark himself and pretty much that being the case for everyone at some point.
From having had to wear just about all of the hats he has a pretty solid understanding of every facet of his business and this must be a tremendous asset though sometimes a headache. But to be able to sort of troubleshoot everything and eventually manage everyone (in the event that the company expands personnel) must leave one with a very secure feeling about the whole thing. I guess its one of the perks of being your own boss.
Showing posts with label Media Organizations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media Organizations. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Fashion's Collective
Elizabeth Schofield's venture, Fashion's Collective sounds like an interesting idea. It seems like its in a very young stage, and it was hard for me to sort of understand the sort of business model that she was going for, but I think that I kind of get it. Education seems to be her primary focus. I feel like the website is slowly morphing into an official publication, but I don't get the strong branding that you may find in a sort of tech news hub like cnet, wired.
I love the idea of providing a place for dialog between fashion brands concerning new media, social media, and marketing and such. I began exploring a projection interaction in the Interaction Design Studio this semester and my primary idea was to add a higher degree of visual interactivity to retail merchandising. Fashions Collective would be a great place for me to stimulate dialog about this and other fashion video marketing initiatives. The fashion video is sort of a unique hybrid of the short film and the editorial and in a way has a niche specific to this industry. Fashion's Collective would provide a place for me or other artists to engage brands with these and other types of ideas.
I appreciate that Elizabeth is so passionate about creating an educational resource. Classes anywhere are pretty expensive so I can imagine that there is a fairly solid business model for this type of work. Fashion brands are very lucrative and as Elizabeth told us they are on board with her vision of sustaining the new media dialog. I don't want to project on the cost of her operations but I can imagine that some of the brands that she works with would pay top dollar for the unique and insightful product that she is offering.
I did make it a point to speak with Elizabeth and intend to reach out to her to network. I am very interested in her career history and the progression of Fashion's Collective.
I love the idea of providing a place for dialog between fashion brands concerning new media, social media, and marketing and such. I began exploring a projection interaction in the Interaction Design Studio this semester and my primary idea was to add a higher degree of visual interactivity to retail merchandising. Fashions Collective would be a great place for me to stimulate dialog about this and other fashion video marketing initiatives. The fashion video is sort of a unique hybrid of the short film and the editorial and in a way has a niche specific to this industry. Fashion's Collective would provide a place for me or other artists to engage brands with these and other types of ideas.
I appreciate that Elizabeth is so passionate about creating an educational resource. Classes anywhere are pretty expensive so I can imagine that there is a fairly solid business model for this type of work. Fashion brands are very lucrative and as Elizabeth told us they are on board with her vision of sustaining the new media dialog. I don't want to project on the cost of her operations but I can imagine that some of the brands that she works with would pay top dollar for the unique and insightful product that she is offering.
I did make it a point to speak with Elizabeth and intend to reach out to her to network. I am very interested in her career history and the progression of Fashion's Collective.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Playmatics
I though that our trip to Playmatics was perhaps one of the most interesting yet. Nicholas's story of ascension to very real success in the gaming industry was incredibly inspiring. Again we find ourselves speaking with a young Liberal Arts graduate who somehow found the right mix of interest, intellect, gumption, luck, and community to catapult himself into a happy and successful new media career.
His presentation was very cut and dry and forthright. I appreciated him actually giving us his understanding of the emerging industry in cut and dry terms. His discussion of the necessity for work, sunk in and I was impressed by his real understanding of interactions and the sort of visceral ways that people react to being handled by unpleasant technological experiences.
I would be interested to take a gaming class to better understand interaction. Though it may not fit with my schedule. Perhaps the third semester. I really want to get a strong grasp of Interface and User Experience design! I do think that the nature of interactions is what really shapes technology. I was just checking out Bill Moggridge's Designing Interactions and in it he talks with, Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse. Engelbart describes how he basically invented the mouse by recalling a doodle that he wrote while bored once in a meeting, and applying the frivolous doodle to a real solution selecting and maneuvering between multiple selection items on a computer screen. The intuitiveness of good and bad interactions will always be a powerful force in the ways that we think about and develop technology. Nicholas seemed to be very bent on driving this point home to us in the end of his presentation. Technology should aim to be an extension of us. It should make things easier.
An example: How long have I yearned to be able to type whatever I want in the url form and have it take me to a page. One of my first instincts as a first time browser in the 90's was to just type what I wanted to search in the URL field. Today, I can type "what color is the sky?" in this google chrome URL field, and a live web page (not an error one) will appear. I may never use Safari again.
His presentation was very cut and dry and forthright. I appreciated him actually giving us his understanding of the emerging industry in cut and dry terms. His discussion of the necessity for work, sunk in and I was impressed by his real understanding of interactions and the sort of visceral ways that people react to being handled by unpleasant technological experiences.
I would be interested to take a gaming class to better understand interaction. Though it may not fit with my schedule. Perhaps the third semester. I really want to get a strong grasp of Interface and User Experience design! I do think that the nature of interactions is what really shapes technology. I was just checking out Bill Moggridge's Designing Interactions and in it he talks with, Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse. Engelbart describes how he basically invented the mouse by recalling a doodle that he wrote while bored once in a meeting, and applying the frivolous doodle to a real solution selecting and maneuvering between multiple selection items on a computer screen. The intuitiveness of good and bad interactions will always be a powerful force in the ways that we think about and develop technology. Nicholas seemed to be very bent on driving this point home to us in the end of his presentation. Technology should aim to be an extension of us. It should make things easier.
An example: How long have I yearned to be able to type whatever I want in the url form and have it take me to a page. One of my first instincts as a first time browser in the 90's was to just type what I wanted to search in the URL field. Today, I can type "what color is the sky?" in this google chrome URL field, and a live web page (not an error one) will appear. I may never use Safari again.
Robofun
I enjoyed our trip to Vision Education & Media. You could tell from Laura's conversation that she is a very business minded person and is incredibly passionate about her business. Though she experienced the crawl during a different era, I am still inspired by her ascent up the ladder to success. It makes me appreciate the sort of in the dark feeling that I have been having through out my first semester at Poly. Laura, like some of the other people we met this semester (Cindy from Kickstarter and Nicholas at Playmatics) seems to have been able to adapt to a media calling sort of on the fly, developing, skills, expertise and networks organically as work was completed and experience gained. This sort of Darwinian experience of adaptation and career survival is a little indicative of the new media industry. It is a vast sort of progressive, evolving business and requires people who can survive in such an environment.
VEM has been able to find a unique niche in the sort of childhood education/camp/babysitting realm. I asked Laura if she ever got feedback from other parents on ideas for curriculum and what not and she said that most parents are just glad that the kids are doing something that they don't even worry about it. Laura and her colleagues demonstrated to us the design process of the curriculum. It is a good thing that they are encouraging children to be more involved with practical and modern science and technology.
Though I am not spsecifically interested in careers in education, I can see the real need for innovation and attention in this area.
VEM has been able to find a unique niche in the sort of childhood education/camp/babysitting realm. I asked Laura if she ever got feedback from other parents on ideas for curriculum and what not and she said that most parents are just glad that the kids are doing something that they don't even worry about it. Laura and her colleagues demonstrated to us the design process of the curriculum. It is a good thing that they are encouraging children to be more involved with practical and modern science and technology.
Though I am not spsecifically interested in careers in education, I can see the real need for innovation and attention in this area.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Union Square Ventures
I enjoyed our trip to Union Square Ventures to speak with Cindy and Gary. I had never really heard of Kickstarter until recently so it was very interesting to get a firsthand understanding of this type of business. Its really fascinating to think of this type of service community building can make someone incredibly rich with the right interface and marketing tactics. The idea behind Kickstarter really is an amazing idea and a testament to the power of the human imagination really.
I enjoyed listening to Cindy. She had a lot of great information about the company and knew it very thoroughly. I was pleasantly surprised that she held a role that could be filled by someone with a liberal arts background.. I enjoy the fact that Kickstarter places an emphasis on curating and editorializing ideas to give each of the initiatives a fairer chance of being funded. I also really love the idea of the community aspect. Its this sort of strange byproduct of a successful online business. Most successful websites have something to do with bringing people together. Ebay and amazon bring far flung merchants to eager, consumers. Kickstarter brings people with not enough cash to people with too much cash. Facebook brings everyone to everyone. Yelp brings firsthand accounts and candid ratings to the frugal and discerning local. There's something about bringing like people together and keeping them there that spells success. I mean even MySpace got a piece of that action.
I enjoyed listening to Cindy. She had a lot of great information about the company and knew it very thoroughly. I was pleasantly surprised that she held a role that could be filled by someone with a liberal arts background.. I enjoy the fact that Kickstarter places an emphasis on curating and editorializing ideas to give each of the initiatives a fairer chance of being funded. I also really love the idea of the community aspect. Its this sort of strange byproduct of a successful online business. Most successful websites have something to do with bringing people together. Ebay and amazon bring far flung merchants to eager, consumers. Kickstarter brings people with not enough cash to people with too much cash. Facebook brings everyone to everyone. Yelp brings firsthand accounts and candid ratings to the frugal and discerning local. There's something about bringing like people together and keeping them there that spells success. I mean even MySpace got a piece of that action.
Friday, October 14, 2011
McGraw-Hill
Our trip to McGraw-Hill today was very exciting. I felt like I was really getting a grasp of a full on media experience. It was wonderful to be walked through the process of planning and implementing a unique media project (an entire social media site), and it was very eye opening to understand that massive media ventures can happen within a company without ever seeing the public light of day. And even this internal initiative can impact profits and revenue in a dramatic way, as Edward explained to us. I am working on constructing a social media site for my Web Studio Seminar project and I was glad to be introduced to this type of product from inception to going live.
You could really tell that Edward, Patrick, and Ruth really enjoyed the work that they did for McGraw-Hill. Edward and Ruth's presentations were particularly educational and helped me understand more about interaction and usability design. The internet already exists and as they mentioned, a lot of the hard coding and engineering tech has been done so the real work now is to design an experience that is meaningful, easy to use and productive. Just listening to them present, I can imagine that their department would be a great place to intern. I was really impressed that the department really places an emphasis on usability, experience, and also teamwork (clearly, just based on the nature of the product that they are working so hard on).
I really enjoyed this trip, and would be interested to reach out to Ruth, Edward and Patrick for advice about learning user experience design and also navigating the new media career arena. I loved the idea that they encouraged leveraging of skills with the progression of digital media. I have more confidence in my ability to succeed in new media given my background in liberal arts and writing as opposed to technology or computer science.
You could really tell that Edward, Patrick, and Ruth really enjoyed the work that they did for McGraw-Hill. Edward and Ruth's presentations were particularly educational and helped me understand more about interaction and usability design. The internet already exists and as they mentioned, a lot of the hard coding and engineering tech has been done so the real work now is to design an experience that is meaningful, easy to use and productive. Just listening to them present, I can imagine that their department would be a great place to intern. I was really impressed that the department really places an emphasis on usability, experience, and also teamwork (clearly, just based on the nature of the product that they are working so hard on).
I really enjoyed this trip, and would be interested to reach out to Ruth, Edward and Patrick for advice about learning user experience design and also navigating the new media career arena. I loved the idea that they encouraged leveraging of skills with the progression of digital media. I have more confidence in my ability to succeed in new media given my background in liberal arts and writing as opposed to technology or computer science.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Delivering Happiness
I have to admit that I was a little turned off initially by this book. As a reader, you are already aware of the glorious final outcome of the story and the rivers of money that Tony must be swimming in. With this in mind, the first part of the book is little hard to swallow. He basically tells a story of growing up fairly privileged (a majority of public high schools don’t demand community service requirements, offer fencing as a PE alternative and feed Harvard and Brown), graduating from Harvard, walking out on a good paying job only to make millions of dollars on a start up, so that he can open a rave loft and throw parties. And now that he’s rich he starts having problems.
But while the first part may sound like gloating, the second part takes a little bit of a turn as we watch Tony dealing with his particular set of problems. I found myself slightly fascinated by the magnitude of the situation that Tony was facing and the level of ingenuity and insight that he and his colleagues employed to save themselves. Still, I can imagine that Tony’s idea of broke was nowhere near as low as what I can fathom.
It was enriching, though to basically tag along as Tony and his colleagues basically shaped their company from a multipurpose loft space to Zappos 2011. I was impressed by that whole loft selling, logistics ordeal. There must have been such a desperation, and comradery among the hand full of workers at such a low point. And its interesting to watch the comradery sort of blossom into a strange corporate family sort of unit as they experience things like the move to Vegas or the financial crisis. You begin to understand the beginning of the book a little more as you become aware of the company that Tony is trying to build once the revenue is coming in. He seems to be aspiring to a level of unity and frequently mentions his appreciation for experiences rather than things. This sort of tribal pihlia sounds a little hoaky as a reader but when you thinka bout it as a customer or a potential worker it is a little refreshing. At Zappos there is a level of transparency and honesty that you don’t typically hear about in other companies, say a financial institution. I appreciate Tony’s focus on customer service its interesting to basically watch that become the company’s saving grace. This sort of invisible byproduct, the experience, that keeps the customer coming back. That letter to the company about the 2008 crisis was really interesting. It’s a little hard to believe that you could be that open with even the lowest employees. But I’m not a CEO yet so I wouldn’t really know.
I really love how the ability to continue to cross brand basically becomes never ending once you have the customer base and their money. I love that there are inspirational blogs and that Tony is invited to speak and so are his employees. Zappos is clearly providing its own brand of experience. Is a sublime user experience (and a heck of a lot of technological savvy and problem solving skills) the key to longevity and revenue online?
But while the first part may sound like gloating, the second part takes a little bit of a turn as we watch Tony dealing with his particular set of problems. I found myself slightly fascinated by the magnitude of the situation that Tony was facing and the level of ingenuity and insight that he and his colleagues employed to save themselves. Still, I can imagine that Tony’s idea of broke was nowhere near as low as what I can fathom.
It was enriching, though to basically tag along as Tony and his colleagues basically shaped their company from a multipurpose loft space to Zappos 2011. I was impressed by that whole loft selling, logistics ordeal. There must have been such a desperation, and comradery among the hand full of workers at such a low point. And its interesting to watch the comradery sort of blossom into a strange corporate family sort of unit as they experience things like the move to Vegas or the financial crisis. You begin to understand the beginning of the book a little more as you become aware of the company that Tony is trying to build once the revenue is coming in. He seems to be aspiring to a level of unity and frequently mentions his appreciation for experiences rather than things. This sort of tribal pihlia sounds a little hoaky as a reader but when you thinka bout it as a customer or a potential worker it is a little refreshing. At Zappos there is a level of transparency and honesty that you don’t typically hear about in other companies, say a financial institution. I appreciate Tony’s focus on customer service its interesting to basically watch that become the company’s saving grace. This sort of invisible byproduct, the experience, that keeps the customer coming back. That letter to the company about the 2008 crisis was really interesting. It’s a little hard to believe that you could be that open with even the lowest employees. But I’m not a CEO yet so I wouldn’t really know.
I really love how the ability to continue to cross brand basically becomes never ending once you have the customer base and their money. I love that there are inspirational blogs and that Tony is invited to speak and so are his employees. Zappos is clearly providing its own brand of experience. Is a sublime user experience (and a heck of a lot of technological savvy and problem solving skills) the key to longevity and revenue online?
emusic
Visiting emusic was really enlightening. Speaking with the Max and Rich was very enlightening because it was clear that these guys have a grasp of the particular financial and technological formulas that make e music work. I mean that, the nature of e commerce, especially music seems to necessitate a unique user experience or secondary product that no other retailer can really provide. In the case of emusic, they do a good job of providing that browsing experience when buying music. And I understand the allure of browsing for new music as this was my college passtime when Virgin and Tower were open and allowed you to listen to new music before buying/downloading it.
The experience makes me wonder what it is about the stores and services I like to use online that makes me keep going back to them specifically. There's a specific type of branding that happens with e commerce that is a lot different than a catchy jingle or a bright familiar logo. I never really thought of it in that way, but now I'm realizing how much I consume online specifically. I'm noticing my own online buying habits and how they play into the user experience as a whole.
The experience makes me wonder what it is about the stores and services I like to use online that makes me keep going back to them specifically. There's a specific type of branding that happens with e commerce that is a lot different than a catchy jingle or a bright familiar logo. I never really thought of it in that way, but now I'm realizing how much I consume online specifically. I'm noticing my own online buying habits and how they play into the user experience as a whole.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
NYU Poly Incubator
I was very inspired by our trip to the Incubator. Aside from the hum drum Amanda at Brainscape, I thought that the presenters were very engaging. She was informative however and she did say that she studied neuroscience so I can imagine that she's probably not been the life of the party for some time. Phil in particular did a really good job of evangelizing the entrepreneurial spirit. The presentations gave me an understanding of how a small media business is organized and how little staff you need to make a thing work as long as your staff is competent. The teams are incredibly small which means that work is shared, but the key roles, like developing are manned by qualified and seasoned individuals. I'm going to need to focus on beefing up my development skills. I am inspired by the idea that good businesses grow from good teams. I usually consider myself a bit of a loaner, but I am excited to work in a team environment.
It is reassuring that there are men and women who are willing to devote their time to fostering an atmosphere that pretty much encourages the trial and error nature of starting a business. It is good to know that there are real interests in those wanting to start small business besides that which we hear from the political arena about small businesses and taxes and what not. I always thought that it would be best to get a good degree and get a job with a massive rich company, but I am really starting to think otherwise.
I also had the pleasure of running into an old friend from undergrad. He Is the Co-Owner at Torch Films and joined the Incubator in 2009.
It is reassuring that there are men and women who are willing to devote their time to fostering an atmosphere that pretty much encourages the trial and error nature of starting a business. It is good to know that there are real interests in those wanting to start small business besides that which we hear from the political arena about small businesses and taxes and what not. I always thought that it would be best to get a good degree and get a job with a massive rich company, but I am really starting to think otherwise.
I also had the pleasure of running into an old friend from undergrad. He Is the Co-Owner at Torch Films and joined the Incubator in 2009.
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