Pop Art Blog

The other day I check my mail (snail mail that is), and find a postcard from Expedia.com. The postcard shows the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fran and reveals the statement "They say "economic stimulus", we say "free vacation."" Genius! Take something we're all talking about and leverage it for your product or service. Okay, obviously, this is not the first time this has ever happened (Sustainability, anyone?). Nonetheless, I found this instance pretty smart. So, we... Read More...

I recently helped put on a talk for the AeA Emerging Business Committee. It was entitled Authentic Leadership and it was presented by the leadership consultant Gordon Whitehead. His practice is Captus5 and he writes extensively on the subject of leadership. Good leadership is what drives organizations. Leadership is first and foremost about people . More specifically, it's about influencing people to do the right things (with heavy doses of motivation and encouragement) and making them better... Read More...

Since I'm posting this in advance, I hope my session titled Understanding LINQ was a huge hit and everyone loved it. I've been working on the content for a while and its tough whittling it down to fit inside the specified time slots; there's just so much cool stuff. I probably phat-fingered some keys once or twice, but hopefully I didn't start my sentences with "So...." too often or speak so fast that I made a whistling noise. I hope you enjoyed it. Here's what you need... Read More...

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...

One attribute of the Pop Art culture that I enjoy is the tireless pursuit of making ourselves better. We take time out to enjoy successes, but we are looking for the next way we can improve internally and how we can help clients in new ways. In that spirit, the book Corporate Lifecycles by Ichak Adizes was recommended to me by L.B. Day and Frank Roehr - two advisors that I trust. The book is about how all companies follow a certain cycle from infancy to death and some of the pitfalls along the way... Read More...

In the book 1984 , George Orwell illustrates for us the impact of a society that is no longer able to question the world they live in. It is groupthink at its worst. A world that is vacant of critical thinking and learning beyond the basic skills needed for survival. Any individual that attempts to question big brother is quickly corrected or disposed of. Many companies, and the individuals in them, suffer from a self-imposed version of Orwell's world. The person that starts asking the tough... Read More...

I'll be speaking at the InnoTech Conference in Portland, Oregon on April 16th and 17th. My session will get you started with LINQ , a new feature available in the Microsoft .Net v3.5 Framework. Language-Integrated Query is one of the most compelling features for your business in the Microsoft .Net 3.5 Framework. LINQ provides a succinct and expressive layer over your database tables, stored procedures, XML, and other objects. You’ll learn how to get started with LINQ and gain some visibility... Read More...

Such a casual question at party could have terrible consequences when you use weak passwords on the Internet. The best advice is to use a unique password for each account. If you spend all day online like me, plus a little more at home, you've probably garnered somewhere north of 50 or more accounts. The question to ask yourself is which of those accounts are just fine for a hacker to slip into because you used a weak password? Probably none, right? Just to put a little more emphasis on it, let's... Read More...

The discussion surrounding the value of integrated marketing is not a new one. With internet-connected computers in nearly two-thirds of American households it is becoming increasingly important for brands to tie the internet to their traditional marketing and advertising. And, with the internet migrating from a research tool to a retail tool to a conversation tool, it is becoming increasingly important for brands to tie their internet communications together. Niche agencies that focus solely on... Read More...