I finally got around to uploading one of my old films to Vimeo. It’s titled “The Letters”. I made the film in the Fall of 2008, so it is very old and the production quality isn’t the best. I thought I’d include it in my portfolio. Enjoy!

The tagline for FUSiONthetic is “art.science.design”. With that being understood I set out to try and develop a logo that illustrated the hybrid mix between those three elements.

Initial Test Designs:

At first I was just experimenting in a lot of different directions, trying any number of logos and designs. I wanted to keep the design simple and not too flashy. The problem with all the designs on the right was they didn’t fully illustrate a hybrid “fusion” between art, science and design. I needed something that looked technical, yet simple. Then I stumbled on this graphic in an article discussing UX design.

Something about this graphic really spoke to me. I thought it was beautiful and very simple. I loved the colors and the way it illustrated each section within design, strategy, business, science, etc. I thought it was perfect for a foundation of building my logo for FUSiONthetic.

Melbourne Designs:

The next step in the process lead me to some logo/brand design that was done for the city of Melbourne. I was fascinated by the way all the designs they developed were based on triangles.

Triangle Based Test Designs:

I began developing a few options of my own to try and experiment with triangle layout design. The triangle based design allowed for a very clean, simple, elegant layout that seemed perfect for the “art” part of my slogan.

I later decided to use the same colors from the Venn diagram visual above in an attempt to illustrate “design” through the colors.

I then realized that when separated the white space between the triangles provided a grid to the logo and made it look for scientific or exact. This was a perfect visual for the “science” aspect to my blog.

In the end, I developed this logo and knew instantly that it was perfect for my blog. In the world of design, less is more and I believe this logo is a good mix between simple and complex. If you wanted to try and deconstruct the logo it is fairly complicated, but from a glance it seems childish and basic.

I imagine the FUSiONthetic design will be evolving and changing as time goes by, but for know I thought I’d share the basic design I have developed so far.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, I’m curious to know what others think.

If you want to get a glimpse of the future of Human Computer Interaction, take a look at what small start-ups and university research is developing in the area of gesture based interaction.

Below are a list of resources to refer to in seeing what is being developed right now in this industry:

(P.S. I don’t know how practical it is to have Disney help children stop eating cereal with chopsticks)

 Freenect

DEPTHjs

After watching these videos I will just add my commentary. Gesture Based Interaction is a relatively new industry. As a society we are pretty tied to interacting with a mouse and keyboard. However, with the advent of touchscreens phones/tablets we have begun to branch out into a new style of interaction.

It is interesting to watch how quickly and easily people have adapted this new interaction so effortlessly. I predict in 5-10 years that gesture based interaction will be far more common than we suspect.

The real work still needs to be determined as to what are common gestures and movements that best improve the user experience. Stay tuned.

Web Analytics has changed the way marketers more effectively target audiences and determine what changes need to be made with their site/products. My buddy Zach Olsen has a blog where the title is “By Data Be Driven“. I like that motto a lot. No longer does marketing need to be guided by “hunches”, “intuition” or biased opinions.

This post is meant to explain the importance of Key Performance Indicators and why they are not simply Web Metrics.

Important Note: A KPI is a Metric, but a Metric is not necessarily a KPI.

Examples of Metrics are the following:

• Visits/Unique Visits
• Pageviews
• Page/Visit
• Average Visit Duration
• Bounce Rate
• Percentage of New Visitors

Each of these metrics provides information as to how a user is interacting with your site/product.

However, building effective and relevant KPIs is a more thorough process. KPIs are usually created by an organization to determine it’s success or failure of a particular area within it’s strategic goals. KPIs are far more custom and individualized then simple web metrics.

Dennis R. Mortensen wrote a great article where he lists out the 7 processes for determining a good KPI:

1. A KPI echoes organizational goals
2. A KPI is decided by management
3. A KPI provides context
4. A KPI creates meaning on all organizational levels
5. A KPI is based on legitimate data
6. A KPI is easy to understand
7. A KPI leads to action!

Metrics simply provide data, but to build effective KPIs you have to ask questions. The following are questions that need to be asked when looking to build custom reporting for key performance indicators:

• “What are you hoping to accomplish for your business by being on the web?”
• “What are the three most important priorities for your site?”
• “When a user is on your site, what do you want them to do?”

These objectives could be, “Selling more stuff”, “Create happy customers who come back.” or “Generate more awareness about my cause.”

I remember while working at a previous business the senior level executives decided they wanted to introduce a new metric to measure our success on the PPC/SEO team. It was referred to as “Life-time Value” or (LTV). (In reality, it wasn’t a new metric but everyone at the company felt we were on the cutting edge).

That meant our new metric to focus on became “New Customers”. We spent more on acquisition and went to the ends of the earth to encourage users to purchase from us once. We improved total new customers, revenue increased and long-term net profit grew. The companies goal was to, “Sell more stuff” and they adopted a successful KPI to help measure that success.

In conclusion, it’s good to be aware of web metrics associated with your site, but it’s more valuable to build effective and relevant KPIs to measure your success according to your specific goals and strategy.

For better or for worse, our attention spam for advertising has decreased dramatically, and we have less time to spend reading, watching or listening. So the good marketers have learned, “Less is More”. Check out this Coke commercial and then let’s review:

How many times did you hear the commercial say, “Now only $1.25!”, “Now on Sale”, “At your local retailer!”, “Now with less sugar!”, etc? In fact, the only words that appear in the entire video are, “Hug Me” and “Open Happiness”.

A novice brand marketer will tell you, “Let’s highlight how the product will improve your life” or “What is the story of the product?” But often times our brands or emotional connection with consumers gets drowned out in nonsense.

Let’s list out a few fun examples:

• 1-800-Hurt911 (I really hope this site is a joke, try scrolling down)
• Ad Banned for being ‘too quick’ (Listen to the terms and conditions)

Jakob Nielson has said in his article, “How little do users read?“, Nielson explains that when you add more verbiage to a site/page people will only read 18% of it.

A few fun facts that he explains are:

• On pages with 111 words or less, users read only half of the information.
• An equal amount of time is spent understanding the page layout and navigation features and images on the page.
• On average, users will read about 20% of text on a page.

In conclusion, the next time you’re tempted to create a brand campaign that overwhelms a user with multiple features, pricing and stories, remember that often, “Less is More”.

“Big Data” is the new trendy word that is used by marketers and businesses to make themselves appear smart and up to date.  The truth is, we are doing an awful job of making sense of all the data we have.

This week, Fast Company published an article titled “Content Curators are the New Superheros of the Web“. In it there is a quote that reads, “Yesterday, 250 million photos were uploaded to Facebook, 864,000 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube, and 294 BILLION emails were sent.”, “What’s happened is the web has gotten better at making data. Way better, as it turns out. And while algorithms have gotten better at detecting spam, they aren’t keeping up with the massive tide of real-time data.”

We are figuratively drowning in too much data. What any VC or business analyst will tell you is, “How can we create value from all that data? The answer is, “We need to make that data relevant and highly targeted to you as an individual.” And INDIVIDUAL is the key word!

The old  “One Size Fits All” approach may have applied to the internet in the beginning, but businesses that insist on building  content that will be spread out to the masses and spamming/flooding people with irrelevant offers will begin to fade away as more highly targeted businesses are able to completely utilize data to create a personalized customer experience.

Becky Wang (SXSW – How your data can predict the future) also mentions a stat that states that the average website today collects 105 data points on each user that visits. Frank Moss the former Director of the MIT Media Lab has been quoted saying the following:

“Every time we perform a search, tweet, send an email, post a blog, comment on one, use a cellphone, shop online, update our profile on a social networking site, use a credit card, or even go to the gym, we leave behind a mountain of data, a digital foot print, that provides a treasure trove of information…forming a ‘societal nervous system’ that is generating a cloud of data about people that is growing at an exponential rate.”

What that means is that every action we make can, and often is, captured in a set of data. In this way, our personality becomes nothing more than an expression of data. One tiny piece of data means very little, but when you compile all the data together it begins to develop into a mosaic image of who/what you are.

I’m not trying to say this is a negative thing, but could benefit us in many ways. The Nike+ Fuelband is a perfect example of a product being developed to help you utilize the data that can be gathered about you as an individual.

Hopefully, some of you may be asking yourself, “What can I do in my position to fully utilize the data that we have to create something new?” And that’s the point of this article. The future of “Big Data” is uncharted territory, it’s the Wild West frontier of the Internet. Many ways of how we can use data haven’t been developed to their full potential yet.

We are about to entire a new stage of Web adolescence. Becky Wang explained it in the following  way (see image above):

Web 1.0 – E-Commerce / New Economy

Web 2.0 – Social Media / Enterprise 2.0

Web 3.0 – Semantic Search / Data driven highly targeted content

“Big Data” is taking over, and if your business wants to stay relevant in the age of Web 3.0, your business will understand this and embrace it.

Let’s just add some perspective to the seemingly mysterious medium of “Social Media”.

Social Media is less mysterious and more like real social life then many of us are lead to believe. In my opinion, most businesses problem with social media is they jump to ROI too quickly. Most businesses treat social media like a mathematical equation:

Investment in Social Media – Revenue Generated from Campign = Social Media Profit

This is incredibly short sighted. I’m going to list out a series of requests that a business could potentially request from their social media:

• “We need to increase social media participation in our brand.”
• “We need to generate more likes on our posts so we can appear more on our fans Facebook walls.”
• “We need to push our (event, product, service) on (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) and get the word out there.”

Now let’s take those same phrases and rework them. Let’s pretend that an INDIVIDUAL was to say those phrases to another friend. Let’s see how some of these things sound:

• “I need to become more popular and let people out there know how cool I am.”
• “I need to make sure people are always talking about me and that I’m in the middle of every conversation between my friends.”
• “I’m going to spam all my friends with fliers, texts, emails and notifications that they can now buy my newest (whatever) online.”

I drew up this comic to illustrate my point.

You can do this as a friend, but you have to be a CLOSE friend and you can’t do it too much. If a good friend of mine made an album and put it on itunes, I would probably buy it. But if that same friend told me everyday about a new offer or something he had that he wanted me to buy, I would get really tired of talking to him really quickly.

You may be thinking, “Yeah well, I have a (friend, cousin, sister) that has a huge social media following and she makes bank!”. That’s true, that does happen. But that same thing happens in real life. Many people are able to gather a crowd and inspire motivation, to the degree that those people will donate/give money to that person because they like them so much.

And the way the do it in real life is by CONNECTING to people and listening to them.

The problem is that people on the internet are disconnected from others and treat people differently than they would in real life. Whenever anyone asks the question, “How do I get more Twitter followers!?”. The answer is the same if the question would be, “How do I get more friends to hang out with me on the weekend.”

Engage in conversations, be fun, listen to people, respond back with questions and comments that demonstrate that you’re listening to them. It’s hard work, I’m not gonna lie. But if you truly care it will come through in your social media and your brand strength will increase.

Overall we need to treat social media people as if they were right in front of us. Brands can be people, hence my post Brands Are People Too. Brands need to speak to their customers like they would a friend, and less like a puppet they use to gain revenue.

This site seems to be making the rounds on the internet lately.  Titled simply “Wind Map” the map illustrates data of wind speeds across the U.S.

I thought it was a perfect fit to include on FUSiONthetic. Enjoy

WIND MAP

I was introduced to the music video “Time to Dance” by The Shoes recently and I was so blown away that I had to write about it. Before watching it I’ll tell you a few reasons why I’m so impressed.

• The depth of field is tweaked repeatably. The shot seems to be moving in and out of focus often giving it an uneasy feeling. The best example is at 1:52, watch the way the background ‘wiggles’ and shifts. I love this and I think it gives the film an independent, raw sentiment.
• Often in design you will hear people say, “Less is more” and this video embodies that.
• I think this is the direction that modern film making will shift. The style is so subtle, it’s not overwhelming and calling attention to itself. Audiences these days I believe are more interested in film subtlety and not exaggerated film techniques that draw attention to themselves.
• Of course Jake Gyllenhaal gives an amazing performance that is again, subtle.
• The use of quiet pauses. The video is able to ramp up a lot of tension during spells of pauses and non-movement. ie, 4:16 and 7:55

The Shoes ‘Time To Dance’ – Director: Daniel Wolfe from Tom Lindsay on Vimeo.

Overall, I loved this video and I think it’s worth consideration within my blog of film theory.

We need to keep an eye on director Daniel Wolfe, I’d be interested to see if he’s able to create something just as amazing a second time.

Recently, Mitt Romney made headline news by saying, “Corporations are people”.

From a marketing stand point, there is a lot of truth to this statement. Brands are people. Or at least they should be treated as such.

I think the best example of this principle is the well known Apple vs. PC advertisements.

Obviously, the mac guy is dressed down, really chill and laid back. While the PC guy is nerdy, dressed in a suit and made to look foolish. What Apple is doing is representing their brand through a person.

This is more than just a spokesperson, although that is similar to what we’re talking about. In the Apple example, those two people are literally representing Apple and Mircrosoft.

We can learn a lot from this in trying to think of what our Brands would look like if they were transformed into people. Let’s take for example the retailer store Target. What would Target look like if it their brand was transformed into a person?

How would you respond with the following questions:

• Gender?
• Age?
• How would they dress?
• How would they act?
• Would they be funny or serious?
• Laid back or professional
• What type of family would they have?
• Do they come from money?
• Do you want to be around them?
• Do you find them obnoxious?

People don’t always stay the same either. People change over years. They become more mature and adapt to their surroundings. Sometimes people are really funny and goof around, and sometimes they can be really personable and serious.

Brands should be treated the same way. We need to start treating our brands as if they are individual, living breathing people. They have personalities, thoughts, concerns, interests and fears. The best brands have figured this out, and if businesses don’t apply these principals then their brands will be sterile, fake and customers will be unable to identify with them.

So run a test on your brand and try to figure out what they would be like if they become a person.

UPDATE: Just read this article from my Google Feed. It’s talking about this exact same principle and it’s worth a gander. Check it out - I Am The Brand