I was able to attend two sessions, one on user experience/interaction design and the other on business models. Most agree that the UI conventions employed on the device are well thought out and user-friendly, but there's a lot to consider when designing an iPhone app and there are still some areas where there is room for improvement. UX designers will want to think carefully about balancing the intuitive standards they need with some unique elements that differentiate and improve on the core app set.

The interface builder emerged as a hot topic for its promise of WYSIWYG development for the non-coder. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near ready.  

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about Apple's app store. There is also a great deal of enthusiasm about its potential to improve the mobile app economy. Most developers seemed to like the idea of iTunes for apps. In particular, developers seem to like the idea of setting their own prices. If the opinions of the Dev Camp discussion's participants prove an accurate gauge, we can expect to see most apps released at somewhere between free and $15 dollars.

Dan Neumann

Over 500 of the country’s top diversity advertising executives gathered in Boca Raton Florida, on November 4th. The ADCOLOR™ Awards, a program that honored outstanding diverse professionals at the junior, mid and senior levels in each segment of our industry, was the first of its kind. After this first awards program, ADCOLOR is anticipated to evolve into the next generation of diversity programs (for more info, check out Adcolor.org).  With sponsors like Yahoo, Microsoft, McDonald’s and Google, it turned out to be an electric night!   

The Ad Color Awards opened with a cocktail reception. Networking and introductions to some of the most talented people in our industry was my goal.   The role of niche marketing and boutique agencies dominated most of my conversations. Another popular topic revolved around the future of traditional media and how digital is impacting our industry.  It was inspiring to hear the diverse views and opinions of theses industry influencers.   

The evening continued with opening remarks, dinner and then finally the awards presentation.  There were 15 individuals selected from over 100 nominations. Nominations were based on the person’s ability to: deliver strong outcomes; contribute to their company, industry and/or community; having a reputation as “best in class” by serving as role model for others; and, strong professional character and leadership. The award categories included; The Legend, The Innovator, The Change Agent and The Rising Star.  As each honoree took stage and accepted their award, it was evident that all were passionate about their craft. But most important, was each person’s role as an ambassador for diversity and inclusion in advertising.

By the close of the evening, we were all inspired to head back home and continue to push diversity initiatives and create great work.   Ad Color was a wonderful reminder of all the efforts that have been made in the name of diversity and also a great motivator to “add a little color” to our canvas.

Rebecca

Companies and organizations are recognizing more than ever that great talent is becoming more and more difficult to attain in a constantly-growing economic climate. There is now a growing trend to attract candidates prior to college graduation. A recent survey by Decima Research found that only 16% of professionals under age 30 deem salary a priority. The 'money can't buy you happiness' adage holds particularly true for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered (GLBT) communities. With no legal protection in most U.S. states, GLBT individuals have historically gone underrepresented or into hiding at the work place.

Although there has been much progress over past decades for GLBT rights, there is still a long way to go.

Fact: In 36 states, it is legal to fire someone based on his or her sexual orientation.
Fact: In 46 states, it is legal to fire someone based on his or her gender identity.

While many companies have very specific clauses, most do not include protection against sexual preference and gender identity discrimination in their sexual harassment policies. Even fewer extend benefit rights to domestic partners of their employees.

Organic sees the value of how variety in the workplace can translate into more variety in talent, greater ideas, and ultimately better overall creative. To this end, several Organic employees from San Francisco, Toronto and New York traveled to Washington, D.C. for this year's 'Out For Work' conference. This youth-based, GLBT-supported conference and employment fair gave Organic the opportunity to show support for this community.

Mark Kingdon spoke to an attentive audience on the importance of working for an organization that supports diversity; how one can truly flourish, be happier, and ultimately be a stronger employee if he or she is within an environment that welcomes and embraces those from all backgrounds. He also spoke personally of his own workplace experiences, and how important it is not to allow others (or even yourself) to impose limits on you.

During the employment fair, which included envoys from large companies like Target, Ernst & Young, Boeing, and Merk, Organic's human resources representative Paulette James Anderson, and Group Director, David Albright, spoke to GLBT youth with respect and encouragement about opportunities at Organic.

As an 'out' lesbian working at Organic, even I found the experience to be eye-opening. I learned new things (like where transgendered individuals can buy business-appropriate work wear), and also gained an even stronger sense of pride in Organic for taking this  'visible' leap forward. Organic's participation at this conference has introduced us to another highly-talented pool, all the while publicly showing that Organic practices what it preaches by actively seeking and embracing diversity - and that our company excels partly because of our values and inclusion.

Clare

Hey battah battah battah…

Almost 225 Detroit Organic staff piled into 2 buses and headed to Comerica Park to watch the Tiger’s take on Tampa Bay on August 9th, 2007. 

The day started with a Tiger’s-themed All Hands, bringing everyone together to celebrate our many accomplishments in the last 6 months.  The sea of Tiger’s apparel spanned the seats of the auditorium; vast ranges of gray, blue and orange.  The walls of the auditorium were decked out with Tiger posters, pendants, signs and balloons which eventually got raffled off to a few lucky winners.  Peering through the strands of orange and blue ribbons attached to the 60 plus balloons hanging from the ceiling set the mood for the day to come.

After the meeting adjourned, the crew headed upstairs to a catered make-shift hotdog vendor stand.  The sounds of “Take Me Out to The Ballgame” and “Center Field” flooded the air in the main kitchen.  Ballpark franks, veggie franks, chips, cookies, soda and beer were on the menu.  With the crew fully fueled, the busses were loaded with coolers full of water, soda and beer, along with the eager participants.  In route, many stories were shared, many beers were guzzled and many people bonded.

Arriving at Comerica Park in the heart of downtown Detroit, the sky was shedding a few tears, but the determined Organic crew didn’t let that stop them.  Equipped with umbrellas and ponchos, the crew headed upstairs to their seats in section 340 and 341.  Once everyone grabbed a refreshing beverage, the first pitch was thrown and the game was underway.  Throughout the game, the entire crew cheered our Tiger’s on but that wasn’t enough for the win unfortunately.  Although our mighty Tiger’s fell short that day, they can’t say the Organic crew didn’t bring their game face; cheering them on with thunderous claps, booming yells and the ever-popular and always-encouraging wave. 

Some of the Organic crew chose to linger in Detroit after the game; not letting the loss put a damper on their celebrations.  Others piled back in the busses and headed to back to the Organic office with their heads held high.  The crew kept the beer flowing as they wrapped up an eventful day at Comerica Park.  The day was a success and there was fun had by all.  Thank you to everyone for making this event all it turned out to be! 

For more pictures http://organism.organic.com/groupdetails.aspx?id=41

Anne/Debbie

I had the pleasure of attending the Organic-DET outing to the Detroit Tigers game last Thursday.  I wanted to point out how important it is for us as a recruiting staff to continually build relationships with our hiring managers.  Please see the attached photo of Dan Sicko, Sam Cannon and I.  As you can see, they are hanging on every word I am saying.  Thanks!

Alan Robertson

Last week the M-Team rolled into Toronto and treated us to an early Beer Bash followed by a trip to the Sky Dome, (no Mr. Rogers, the new name didn’t stick) to see the mighty Blue Jays take on the Anaheim Angels. Lured by talks of hotdogs and beer, twenty five (or more) of us headed to the game.

I don’t know what it is, but I have always had this innate need to entertain the people around me, and on that beautiful Wednesday evening I was in full force. Maybe it was the smell of popcorn and hotdogs; some say it was the beer, but whatever it was drove me to become the official cheerleader of section 130c.

Backed by my fellow Organics we managed to start a few chants that were echoed by the rest of the stadium, and a number of waves that made it an impressive four sections over. In the end we had helped the Jays score the two runs they needed to send the Angels home with their heads down low. Team work all around!

Steve Coomber

On Thursday, August 9th, Dimyka Roberts, Traci Armstrong and I had the opportunity to meet and network with the future leaders of the advertising industry.  The 4th Annual AAAA MAIP Diversity Career Fair hosted over 150 advertising interns and 50 advertising agencies at the NYU Kimmel Center.  With resumes and portfolios in hand, students flocked to our Organic booth to learn more about the exceptional opportunities that we have to offer. Inquiries about location, clients and corporate culture were answered and received with enthusiasm (along with our “exceptional-ly” branded cookies!) It was an amazing experience for all of us and we are confident that we have made connections that could prove to be the industry’s best and brightest young talent.

Rebecca

Eleven Organics participated Chicago Ad Tech 2007.  It was a great industry event in which we were able to continue promoting and raising our brand awareness.  Chris D and James K, participated in industry panel discussions while others continued to network with digital professionals at our booth.  We all enjoyed a team dinner on Tuesday night to celebrate the event and our accomplishments in Chicago. 

Carrie Herron

Twelve Organics joined me in Chicago for our first New Market Networking event on April 12^th 2007. In an effort to source new talent and spread the Organic brand, we hosted an exciting evening ….

Chris D’Alessandro presented “Futurecasting Personas:  Getting your client to adopt ahead of the curve,” as presented by Mark Kingdon and Chad Stoller at Forrester.

Mingled.

Talked to great people.

Played our reel.

Event original play list was courtesy of Sam C.

Great success.

Thanks to everyone who helped.

It is wonderful to work with such an amazing group of people.

Organics in attendance: Chuck R., Tracy C., Karen C. Mark B., Michael H., Sam C., Allison G., Scott L., Bob K., Chris D., Jerry P., and Alan R.

Carrie Herron

Forrester held their first Forrester Marketing Forum conference in Miami last week. Organic was one of three Gold sponsors of the event and the only digital marketing agency on the roster.  We had an action-packed two day session and Organic certainly generated a lot of buzz. Here are a few highlights:

• We had our first "unbooth" booth that was designed as a persona room (comfy sofas and chairs, a coffee table, and our virtual fireplace). It was the perfect non-threatening venue to engage prospects in relaxed and informal dialog
• Many people, including some key Forrester analysts, said they are active readers of our Threeminds blog and kept asking to meet with Misha Cornes, our brilliant and prolific Threeminds editor-in-chief who ironically asked, "Blogging can make you famous?"
• We unveiled our Blindspot offering (futurecasting personas) at the event and Mark Kingdon and Chad Stoller gave a wonderful interactive presentation to a packed room of almost 200 people. We handed out laser pointers and Mark invited everyone to play the "Have you ever ..." game where people were asked to use their laser pointers to answer a bunch of "Yes" and "No" questions as a dynamic precursor to the futurecasting discussion.  It was awesome to see all those little red flying dots flying dots congregating on the "Yes" or "No" portion of the screen – a real time, interactive survey at its best
• The new Forrester Wave report was released at the event and, as you know, Organic has retained and advanced its leadership position
• On the final morning, Kerry Bodine, the author of the Forrester Wave, did a wonderful keynote presentation on, "How to Deliver a Great Customer Experience," and she showcased our process and the persona work that we did for Geek Squad; it was an incredible validation of our methodology and a powerful endorsement of Organic as a leader in customer-centric marketing.

Individually, each of these experience elements would have made the conference a success for me - combined they created a truly exceptional experience.  A special thanks to Forrester for delivering an EE and to Mark Kingdon, Chad Stoller, Tim Armitage, Amanda Van Nuys, Ann Freccero, Tracy Richards, James Kim and the rest of the Organic cast and crew. Organic ROCKS!

David Feldt

On the evening of Monday, April 2, Organic Detroit hosted a group of Eastern Michigan University and University of Michigan graduate students at an event titled “Future Digital Leaders”.  The event was a very engaging event with our client from DaimlerChrysler, Organics from the Detroit office and the students.

Throughout the evening, we highlighted various cutting edge projects we have done with DaimlerChrysler.  Highlighted projects included the Pig and Bear MySpace Dodge Nitro campaign, the Jeep and Lost ARG, as well as Jeep Patriot and the Way Beyond Trail.  Throughout the presentation there was a great amount of interaction between Organics and our student group. Afterwards, the students interacted with the presenters and were able to talk to the talent acquisition team about current openings and future opportunities within the Organic network. The event was a great opportunity for us to identify key talent in our region, as well as continue to build the Organic brand. 

A special thanks goes out to the Organics who participated: Chuck Russo, Sam Cannon, Chris D’Alessandro, Russ Hopkinson, Katie Bolen, Chuck Sullivan and Alan Robertson!

Submitted by Alan Robertson

A client team based in our Detroit office recently decided to have a little fun after a requirements workshop; they set off for the NAIAS Autoshow! It sure is nice to try out all those Bentleys…Check out the image of our very own Misha Cornes (threeminds blog editor) making himself quite at home in one of these ultra luxury vehicles!

Thanks to Michael Heughens for the submission.

I arrived in Austin for South by Southwest for a little talent scouting at this major interactive festival on Sunday in the early evening, where I checked in to the hotel and headed for the convention center to pick up my badge and conference info.  I noticed as I rode the long escalator up to registration that I recognized the folks around me...not recognize in the sense of knowing their names or their hometown, but recognizing them by their dress, their attitude and how they expressed themselves. The looked, walked and talked like Organics. It was clear to me that I had come to the right place.

I spent Sunday evening doing the party circuit and in every location I found excited people talking about the technology, design and opportunities in the web space. I met people who did things like flash development, motion design, software engineering, product design, manufacturing, and R&D.

The amazing thing to me what that no matter what anyone’s "JOB" was they all held the same hope, admiration, respect and passion for the Internet. On Monday I attended the keynote address, which featured an interview between Jane Hamsher and Dan Rather, and on Tuesday I checked out the Will Wright talk. The Rather interview focused on integrity in journalism and reporting from the blogosphere. Will Wright discussed storytelling in the film and interactive forums as well as a demo of his new game, Spore. Even though the topics were dissimilar the same theme of using the interactive medium for a better world was clear. I left Austin and came back to  SF with a renewed enthusiasm for the work that we do and how we do it. I truly feel that we are pioneering of a new way of communication and I am absolutely grateful to be part of the intelligent, passionate and consciously aware community that is furthering it!

Dina Folkman

I’m going to India for a few weeks and I was actually scheduled to be on the same flight as my buddy Utpal until he had to delay his trip – only in New York, as they say, or, in the this case, only in New Delhi. In any case, I need to bring my address book with me because I will actually be offline for DAYS at a time. Trouble is, all of my contacts are in Gmail. I’m completely Outlook free at home – my name is Zachary and I was an Outlook user for years – so now I do everything via Gmail. The one weak link in the Google mini-dynasty of email, calendars, spreadsheets, word processing and more is their address book program. It’s a complete afterthought and has a lousy UI, doesn’t allow for categorizing, and is basically as simplistic as possible. This works well for remembering email addresses, but not for organizing your life. As an EM, I like to be organized.

I hunted around Google and couldn’t find a way to natively print my contacts in a readable format. What to do? Based on advice from a posting, I exported Google to a CSV, opened it in Excel (note, not Google’s Spreadsheet program!), and formatted away until I have a barely usable, printable address book. I had to alphabetize by first names since there is no separate field for Last Name, and I had to shrink the font to a size that is best described as really wicked crazy small. My colleague Daniel Modell pointed out that I also had to waste 30 pages of paper. Yikes.

Google’s plans for interstellar conquest probably won’t be delayed by more than a few nanoseconds by this usability blip, but I’d appreciate a bit more attention to detail as they take on Microsoft. Or turn into Microsoft. We’ll see.

Zachary Thacher

Organic participated in the 9th Annual Reaching Out MBA LGBT student conference and expo as a corporate sponsor. Our CEO, Mark Kingdon, was a panel speaker at the NY-based event and employees from the Organic NY office were there to represent us during the Career Expo. The conference promotes the education, visibility, and networking capabilities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender business leaders in the United States and around the globe; over 700 national MBA students and professionals gathered at the business leadership conference.

Organic was out there with dozens of Fortune 500 companies: Dell, Target, Intel, IBM, Morgan Stanley and Johnson & Johnson. Organic's Nantini Rauch and Martin Cis greeted and spoke to numerous attendees. The majority of the MBA candidates were in the financial and consulting space.  Most of the professionals that approached Organic booth were extremely interested in two things: our culture and our personas. A good time was had by all.

- Tracy Cote