coexist

As “Coexisters,” our team strives to stay aware of global challenges in addition to quenching our daily thirst for all things digital. We often pride ourselves as “change agents” partnered up with emerging brands – but we truly found out what change is all about with our recent participation with fellow Portland, Oregon neighbors – Green Empowerment.

As the Coexist Portland office was taking shape earlier this year, it was amazing to see the outpouring of friends and associates looking to introduce our new Portland studio to other local businesses that were beginning to make waves. It was through one of these early introductions that we got to know the folks at Green Empowerment (GE). GE is a non-profit organization focused on bringing renewable energy and water systems to developing countries. GE empowers community leadership in these ailing countries and they are leading the charge to help the 1.6 billion people that live without electricity and 1 billion without clean water.

The more Coexist began to appreciate the Green Empowerment mission – the more eager we became to get involved and help share this story online.  Coexist worked with GE to completely re-design their existing website and in essence “turn up the volume” on the GE story of providing life-changing solutions to those in dire need.

In the digital age the common question is always “what’s next?” Green Empowerment and Coexist hope the answer is “using technology to make life for everyone much better”.

www.greenempowerment.org

Portland Advertising Federation Event

Thanks to the Portland Advertising Federation for hosting a great presentation by Dean McBeth, the Sr. Digital Strategist of P&G Brands for W+K on how they pulled off an incredibly successful, integrated campaign.

Five tips for creating your own break-out campaign (these are paraphrased and based on my cryptic notes):

1. It’s not a social media success story. It’s an integrated success story.
2. Trust (between the agency and client) enables you to be nimble, flexible and timely – key elements for real-time relationship building.
3. Collaboration across disciplines = greater, deeper impact.
4. Get the idea right first. Worry about the channel second.
5. Know the digital landscape. (not just where to be but how to best use each digital channel and to be sensitive to making sure key influencers opt-in to the campaign)

Something I found particularly interesting, beyond the strategic direction of building this campaign around a “big brother that doesn’t take himself too seriously” persona, was how they pulled off the real-time response aspect.

They actually built an application in a couple weeks that aggregates comments across social sites. Approved comments went into a production queue where the response was scripted and passed into video production. They posted 186 video responses to YouTube in two and a half days. They were posting a video about every 15 minutes.

Some results:
- 12 million views on YouTube
- 1.5 billion impressions
- Twitter follows up 2900%
- Google search up 2000%
- Sales up 107%

Really impressive stuff. Well done W+K!

With summer just around the corner (and productivity invariably slipping), it was the perfect time to break away—1300 miles away—to sunny Denver, CO for a nice jolt of inspiration. The city hosted the 2010 HOW Design Conference, which I was thrilled to attend on behalf of the CX design crew last week.

The conference boasted a panoply of sessions on design, business, and inspiration, delivered by a panel of industry luminaries, including my personal favorites: Gail Anderson (of SpotCo), Debbie Millman (AIGA president), Mike Perry (midwestisbest.com), and Armin Vit (of Brand New). (more…)

Just ripped through Ignore Everybody on a cross-country flight the other day. It’s a fun read and a good book to give the creative soul a stir.

A few themes grabbed me. The hard work thing is covered in Outliers (another good read) but this book touches on it too. “Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. Ninety percent of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina.” I don’t know about saying “failed people”. That seems a little strong and it’s possible to fail at something and not be a failure. It’s truth though that anything worthwhile typically comes from hard work of the above and beyond variety.

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As we did in 2008, Coexist traveled to Ohio University to exchange ideas and listen to industry visionaries at Spring <br/> 2009. Our tweeting was in full force from arrival, exchanging the numerous resources being presented at each session. Conferences are certainly one of the events were the collaborative nature of twitter really shines.

The campus in Athens couldn’t have been a better place to hold a conference – the lush green landscape, the state of the art Baker Center, and a number of great local eateries. It’s intriguing to consider the stark contrast of the rural, relaxing environment with the overwhelming number of superb amenities available. In a way, I find it similar to camping in a beautiful location, but retaining the option of a high speed Internet connection back in your tent. I realize the purest may balk at such a thing, but that’s my utopia.

(Photo Credit: Sarah Barnes)

I know enough people that complain about Columbus. “There’s nothing to do.” “It’s boring, I’m moving to [insert Chicago/NewYork/SF]”

I suppose I felt the same way several years ago—but all it takes is a little proactive seeking, and the “boring” becomes beautiful. Quirky events start to jump out at you. Agora 2009 at Junctionview studios felt like a culmination of all these little Columbus quirks, and it also felt like some sort of summer kick-off. I suppose that Coachella back in April may have been the real kick-off for the festival crowd, but I like my little bubble where seemingly random artists, musicians, and vendors get together for a care-free day of fun for the steep $5 admission price. Trendy button included.

So, despite the rain, which pushed everything back ~2 hours, the day was a massive success. Particularly for Tawd of Rad Dogs, who was serving up meatless dogs non-stop until he ran out of buns well after “closing time.” Delicious.

My personal “best-of” included the Couchforts set towards the end of the evening as well as Paego Paego, a great group from the Dayton area. I was also pleasantly surprised by the dance troupe that was performing indoors (Corner 1-4-1 Dance) throughout the later half of the day. Normally not my cup-o-tea, but I couldn’t look away. Kudos!

Already looking forward to next year—and everything inbetween that goes down in this awesome city.

Clocking Out

A week on the West Coast (Encinitas) is the perfect tonic for all that ails you. From surreal surf breaks to the simple act of breaking off the grid for a few days – not much else can do you much better. You will be hard pressed to find someone as inspiring as the iconic soul surfer that has lived life as you should while always yearning for a new day and what lies beyond. I still can’t wait to peak around the corner.

The old and new of it – the high and low of it. BCN is unspeakably beautiful and interesting.

(From the iPhone)

First we let Ohio State check us out. Now we turned the table and invaded Ohio University in Athens for the Spring Break 2008 technology conference.

Headlining the event was Eric Meyer, a renowned CSS voice who spoke on the benefits of controlling page styling by hand. Sessions were also given for Flash, Flex, Air, Podcasting, Accessibility and Usability.

As expected, we came back with a few new ideas and new contacts. The conference was a steal at the low prices they charge. Let’s keep that part just between us though; we don’t want to give them an excuse to join the other conferences at 1K a pop.

If you didn’t get the chance to attend this year, check out their site and hopefully we’ll run into you at next year’s event.