Pop Art Blog

There was a great article called "Innovating Through Design" in the Dec. 2006 issue of Harvard Business Review . The article explored how informal collaboration amongst design professionals in Lombardy, Italy, produces incredible innovation in product design. The Lombardy firms' R&D operation, for the most part, can be found neither inside the companies nor in interactions among them. Rather, it comprises a free-floating community of architects, suppliers, photographers, critics... Read More...

If you haven't signed up to attend WebVisions , you should do it now. If you are not familiar with WebVisions, it is a creative web conference that takes place here in Portland. Many of us from Pop Art are going and if you are there, be sure to say hi. This year, the speakers at WebVisions include: Jeffery Veen, Roger Black, Bill DeRouchy, Lynne Johnson and many more! I've often thought when attending WebVisions in previous years that it was missing an awards show celebrating the best in... Read More...

Last month, I heard something that made me gasp: “ Scion isn't cool anymore ”. Granted, some of you may wonder whether it was ever cool. If you don't appreciate the design personality and in-your-face attitude of the 2005, boxy xB, you are likely to say that Scion's lack of cool factor is not news. To me, it is. Let me backtrack a bit: for Generation Y, “marketing” is often a word that comes charged with negative connotations. There is a lot of confusion on whether a product really is... Read More...

Once upon a time, computer and console games were the bread and butter of geeks – they brought on the image of people glued to their monitors and lost in a world very far from reality. More recently though, that stereotype has begun to erode. Entire generations are now growing up with digital activities as their main source for entertainment and learning. Other gaming platforms, such as the Nintendo Wii, are already making strides by appealing to non-typical gamers. Understanding how these trends... Read More...

Guy Kawasaki had a great post the other day on his blog. If you want customers to be happy, give them less product Information. Here's a counter-intuitive thought: Shoppers with less information about a product are happier than those with more information." He cites a study conducted by the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business. The researchers used three experiments to arrive at their conclusion. Two of them were consumer test-style experiments in which subjects were asked... Read More...

The most successful e-business implementations excel, not just by being great in one area, but by being good in all areas and great in some areas . Critical E-Business Success Factors Clear business vision and measurable goals A marketing plan that drives your campaigns and programs Scalable and diversified advertising channels A technology framework that is secure, reliable, extensible and agile Brand growth, management and evolution Customer support Alignment of enterprise activities with vision... Read More...

In yesterday’s New York Times , Target was reported to ignore the feedback of a blogger. A Target PR representative explained, “unfortunately, […] Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets”. The blogosphere soon reacted by showing solidarity to the independent writer and wondered our loud, if Target isn't listening to its consumers, wherever they may be, whose input are they considering? The story quickly received coverage on a huge number of blogs and eventually in the New... Read More...

So Fred Meyer's got this coupon where you get a free, frozen turkey when you buy $100 worth of groceries. And we ALWAYS spend $100 on groceries, especially the weekend before Thanksgiving. But we don't actually need a turkey, right? Nor do we have room in our tiny freezer. But a free turkey is a free turkey, so we took it. We figured we'd be able to find some organization who'd love it. Bang! A Google search for "Food Donation, Portland" turned up Metro's "Fork... Read More...

For many content mediums, it can be difficult to tell to what extent the potential audience influenced a work -- how much the invisible reader influenced a story, or how much an observer was in mind when an image took shape on a canvas. In the instance of a web site, though, it's more often assumed that the medium and the audience are inextricably connected. To design a web site is to design a user experience: a web page isn't just a page, it's a space that users navigate. Any testing... Read More...

One thing I've loved about Facebook is finding old high school friends. People I haven't spoken to in ages, right? So when there's a "friend request," Facebook wants to know how we know each other. So I check the box "went to school together." But then there's these other boxes, right? "We hooked up." "We dated." And, in some cases (extremely rare, sadly, but that's another story for a different blog), that might be true. So, here's... Read More...