Archives for Community
Are We Ready for the Digital High School?
Is the US system ready for a digital high school? Has the effectiveness of the traditonal brick-and-mortar come to an end? I think a virtual high school plan may be the solution for overcrowded, underfunded school districts, and breathe a spark of excitement back into the educational system.
A Few Lessons Learned from Food Bloggers – Part 1
If you know a thing or two about me, you probably know that I am a culinary junkie. I spend a huge amount of my time reading about food, watching food-related videos and shows, walking around kitchen stores, and as you probably guessed, I do my share of cooking and eating as well. So when clients [...]
How My Favorite Places Use Social Media, or Should
As a newbie to Portland, I have truly enjoyed discovering all that this great city has to offer. There are many ways to learn about local restaurants, activities, events, and volunteer opportunities. In addition to suggestions from coworkers, neighbors, and friends, I have used social media to discover new places and to stay up-do-date with [...]
The Pepsi Strain: Viral Cause Marketing with Social Media gone Amok:
In Michael Crichton’s 1969 techno-thriller The Andromeda Strain, an extraterrestrial microbe infects humans, spreads rapidly and leads to insanity, suicide and murder. Pepsi’s current viral cause marketing campaign “Refresh Everything” is causing similar problems. No, not really, it is just annoying me a little bit while I simultaneously admire its brilliance. How it works: Six months ago, Pepsi [...]
Augmented Reality Promotion for the Oregon Lottery
To build buzz and excitement around the new Mega Millions® product, Pop Art and the Oregon Lottery® teamed up to create an experience that allows users to envision what their lives would be like should they win a Mega Millions jackpot. This program leverages Augmented Reality technology to allow users to create a unique, virtual [...]
Humanize Technology or Become Mechanized?
An interesting question in these technologically driven times. The title of this post sums up the “big take away” from the recent Web Visions 2010 conference. Leave it to Portland, Oregon to put on a mind bending technology palooza of trends, implications and applications. Brad Smith’s brain child, the event celebrated its 10th anniversary this [...]
Trip Reports: Best Practices, including the need for Dual Avatars
I’m sorry it has taken me so long for me to post my photos on Facebook and to create my trip reports from my vacation three weeks ago. The good news is that my personal photos from the trip are now published on Facebook; I have posted some restaurant and hotel reviews on TripAdvisor; [...]
Geolocation; localized content hits home
The online user experience is becoming more localized and we expect to see major growth in the coming years as AT&T, Google, Yelp, Foursquare and others get into the action. We already have geo-targeted ads, segmented content and social search serving content in a more personalized way. But now, we are seeing the emergence of [...]
Great Clients make for Great Campaigns
A friend once told me that behind every great campaign is a great client. Of course, what they meant was that a client who trusts you take their brand in new directions will likely be a collaborator in the creative process. This could not have been truer than in the case of the latest online [...]
Did You Really Think This Was a Good Idea?
Technology that Failed, and Hard Since man first used a stick to dig under some roots and accidentally caused a tree to fall on him, humans have been doing stupid things with technology. Since the invention of the microprocessor and instant mass media, this has only become that much easier. Thankfully 2009 is gone, and with it one [...]
If I Could Tell All Young Writers One Thing…
Passing into the waning end of my twenties during a recession (which makes you age in your career faster) means I can now get away with two things: I can say “back in my day” when referring to anything before 2006. I get to dole out useful information to students and other people trying to get into [...]
I say potato, you think Vichyssoise. Let’s talk.
In my 10+ years of managing projects, teams and client expectations, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most common threat to the success of relationships and projects is simple lack of communication. Why simple? Because usually the simplest misunderstanding at the outset of an engagement is where it all starts to skid downhill. For example, [...]
Content Marketing is not what it used to be
For the last 15 years, I have made my living as a content developer. I started off as a photographer documenting and telling stories through static images. At first, this was a pursuit in art and process related to photography but these explorations opened the door to many other mediums. Along this journey I bridged [...]
Twitter’s new home page
When I talk to people outside of the interactive business world about Twitter, most people don’t get it. “Why would I want to know what Thom ate for lunch?” they ask. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Twitter is a micro-blogging system which allows people to say something to the world in short “tweets”. People [...]
Open Letter to PortlandOnline Refresh Committee
In May, one of the largest interactive firms in Portland announced it was closing its downtown Portland office, and that its staff would begin “working from home.” In the last 12 months, nearly every web development firm and design firm in the Portland area has laid off staff (thankfully, a situation Pop Art has avoided), [...]
Portland Bike and Marketing Freak Out
Local web analytics powerhouse WebTrends recently rolled out a new transit ad campaign to demonstrate their ability to measure offline and online sentiment and conversation using the question, “should cyclists pay a road tax?” Kablooie. Cyclist meltdown and freakout. I’d chalk this campaign up as a “near miss.” WebTrends did a great job of getting the [...]
“Consumers will have these conversations anyway”
Stumbled across this interesting article about the mobile marketing, teens, and conversational marketing, and loved the following quote from Jeffrey Cole, Director of the Center for the Digital Future at USC: “Advertisers are terrified of [conversational marketing]. In their hearts, many really don’t want to interact with customers because they are afraid that either there will be [...]
Leading with Interactive Starts at Home (or Work)
Like good manners and learning to read, it has been said that positive behaviors start in the home. At Pop Art, where our mantra is Lead with Interactive™, this principle holds true. The way we approach online interactive begins in our offline work space. The 3rd floor of Pop Art is an open floor [...]
Use Social Media for Customer Service
We’ve all seen stories about rogue customer service teams using social media to help customers, but here’s a great way to institutionalize it. At the end of the article, you’ll find a reminder and links about why great customer service improves both sales and profits. Using Social Media Opt-Ins for Customer Service Imagine if at the end of [...]
Twitter 101: Tweeting for Fun and Profit
Everyone is talking about Twitter, and everyone wants to know how to handle a business Twitter account. As of recently, one in ten online adults in America are on Twitter. And trust me, if you spend just two weeks actually trying to tweet, you’ll be addicted too. Some Background Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service [...]
Managing During Hard Times: A First-Timer’s Perspective
What’s a new manager to do during their first real big downturn? There’s a lot of conflicting feelings, obligations and advice about how to manage during a recession. I’ve been sorting through it in my own mind, and have developed my own mental checklist. Know Yourself I went through the “dot-bomb” back in 2001, but I was [...]
Oh, Baby (Einstein)
As a new mom, my internet habits have changed a bit. I am part of a whole new world now, full of mommy blogs, parenting communities and endless companies pushing products you just MUST buy for your baby. (Bumbos, Boppies and Bjorns! Oh my!) One company that has impressed me from the very beginning is [...]
Liquid Holiday Cheer, a How-To Manual
After four years of college, and two as the head of my fraternity’s social committee (you try running a party of 300 and not melting), I graduated with an advertising degree and took the next natural step. I became a bartender. Over the next few years, as I built my spec book, I [...]
Gen Y Can Smell a Fake, or Why I’ve Watched Bike Hero 4 Times This Week and It’s Only Monday
By now, everyone’s seen the “Bike Hero” viral video on YouTube. If you haven’t, please, please watch it now, or else none of this will make sense. While you’re at it, watch the “Runaway Jeans” viral video too. Ok, now that we’ve got that out of the way, the big “Watching Comprehension” question: Did you notice [...]
Motrin Messes with Mommy-Bloggers and Loses
This morning, Annie told me about a Motrin ad that a bunch of mom-bloggers were angry about because it was critical of babywearing. She was really upset about it, and convinced that it was an intentional slam on mothers. Since I work in marketing, and Annie majored in Sociology, we tend to have conversations like [...]
