AGI Training » creativity

Jennifer Smith awarded Microsoft MVP award

agi — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:11:53 +0000

Congratulations to Jennifer Smith for receiving the Microsoft MVP award. She has been working extensively in mobile design, application design, and pushing the effective use of design tools including Expression Blend for creating great user experiences. She is one of the founders of AGI. Her blog post about the MVP award is here: http://www.jennifersmith.com/2011/04/i-was-awarded-the-2011-mvp-award-from-microsoft/

Creative economy showing signs of stabilization

Christopher Smith — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:26:18 +0000

Headlines make it appear that the creative market is in a freefall. Layoffs at agencies, newspapers and magazines closing their doors, even online advertising has taken a hit. But digging a bit deeper, there are some reasons to be optimistic.
Publicis Groupe, the parent of many large agencies, reported this week a drop in profits that is close to 10%, and revenue for all businesses dropped from $6.5 Billion to $6.2 Billion – a $300 million drop. But the good news is that their CEO is indicating that their business is recovering, and that they expect to see revenue growth in 2010. The slowing rate of decline is being reported by their peers at Omnicom and Havas, and recent forecasts from Interpublic are pointing towards a recovery in ad spending later this year.
AOL, in the middle of a major rebranding and conversion to a media company, reported a decline in online advertising revenue last quarter that was only in the single digits – but they were profitable and made over $1M in profits after losing $1.96 Billion, with a B, in the same period last year. They’re still predicting declines in ad revenues through the end of the year, and – no surprise here – even larger losses of subscription revenue.
Ad pages placed in magazines are still declining, but it is now in the single digits. The good news is that nearly one-third of publications are seeing an increase in advertising pages, and those that are succeeding and profitable are implementing multi-platform strategies to reach their audiences via mobile, on-line, and in print.
Overall, the signs are looking more positive for the creative economy for 2010. While this may not lead to more hiring or more tech spending, it is showing a return towards normalcy.

Microsoft Mix: Thoughts and impressions for the creative, design, & marketing community

Christopher Smith — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:07:07 +0000

Microsoft has made some pretty significant announcement here in Las Vegas today that will impact the way you communicate on-line, develop Web and interactive content – and event how you think about what is on-line and what is a desktop application…

Silverlight 3 was announced here and has some technical features that are useful for developers -things like GPU acceleration and support for additional CODECs such as H.264, MPG 4, and AAC but the real mind-blowing things revolutionize the user experience:

Live streaming with full DVR-like controls – pause / slow motion / rewind for live streams. This puts Silverlight live streaming miles ahead of anything else. NBC announced they are renewing their use of Silverlight for all streaming of the next Olympics (Vancouver) using Silverlight.
HD streaming – you’ll see this at the next Olympics as they’ll be streaming all content in HD.
Out-of-browser experiences on Mac and Windows – not just a browser plug-in
Off-line support: Silverlight 3.0 applications can run as stand-alone applications. So they can consume services while connected, and then switch to an “off-line” mode when not connected.
Support for multi-touch – like the “pinch” – think Minority Report or iPhone

I’ll have more updates throughout the event… as I’m at a Microsoft-focused event, most of my posts will focus on their technology this week…

The night I met Paul Newman

agi — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:00:59 +0000

I normally write about creative technology and items that impact marketing and design areas. But today I’m reflecting on a creative genius who died on Friday – Paul Newman. We can learn a great deal from the way he lived his life – both professionally and personally. I had the chance to spend an evening with him, his wife, along with one of his daughters and several of his grandchildren – and it reinforced why so many hold him in such high regard.

I don’t know many folks that are as equally popular with grandparents and grandchildren alike. While younger viewers may only know him for his role in Cars, those of us who know his earlier work are also reminded that our creative energies can be put to good use. He showed us that we can and should invest in causes greater than ourselves, and that corporations can be successful and do good work. His leadership in supporting a camp for children with serious illnesses reminds us of how fortunate we are and how much good we can do, and his Newman’s Own brand has donated more than $250 million to many charitable organizations.

When I met Paul Newman a few years ago it was unforgettable. We were both backstage at a theater. I was there at the invitation of a good friend that knew the performer well. Mr. Newman was there with his wife, daughter, and grandchildren. We were the only people backstage. I spent a great deal of time talking with his wife, not knowing who she was – what a wonderful woman. Mr. Newman walked over and joined our conversation and we talked about my several month old baby daughter. As I didn’t have any other daughters or