Tag: "tate linden"

Aug
26
2011

Can Your Strategy Be Proof That You Don’t Have One?

Posted by:
Tate Linden

When it comes to design? The answer is YES.

I came across a blog post today from a respected business strategist that made me seethe – just a little – but still a definite seethe or two was on display for a moment at Stokefire HQ. And all it took to cause this was a single word, “strategy“.  Out of respect for the strategist who was trying to share some genuine business wisdom I’ll not be sharing the link to the post where I found this.

In that unshared post (about using proper strategy to develop client trust more quickly) the following image was used:

At first glance it’s just your run-of-the-mill clipart special. But then you look closer. The word is presented directly facing you, the viewer. It’s got a soothing purple-to-grey-to-white vertical gradient combined with a rakish italic. Sort of like saying “let’s take it easy baby and go break down that wall!” As incongruous as that may be, at least it doesn’t violate the laws of physics or geometry. Which, if you couldn’t tell, is where we go after I rant a little bit more.

Perhaps you notice the cool dimensionality of the image? Good, because it’s pretty clear someone wanted to make sure you knew that multiple dimensions were involved. You’ve got the letters on a flat plane, the shadows on the letters, the shadows behind the letters, and the reflection beneath the letters.

There shall be no mistaking the fact that this is not just some plain old black text on a white background shiznit here. This took some serious CS-2 Photoshop-effecting skillz.

And yet the brilliance of the piece hasn’t even been touched upon. Check it – There is no combination of two effects that actually works together in the same physical universe. Seriously. Here’s the list I came up with:

  1. The light casting a shadow behind the letters is 45 degrees up and slightly behind your left shoulder as you view the text. So we’re starting off well enough here… But…
  2. The lighting on the letters is also above the text but apparently further to the left, as evidenced by the shadows on portions of letters that are casting shadows themselves in item 1.
  3. The lighting in the reflection is similar to that of the letters, but lets you see the hot spots that would only be visible if you were viewing the image from above, which you can’t do in a reflection beneath the image.
  4. The reflection itself has somehow shifted slightly to the right of where the letters themselves exist in space, without needing to do anything practical, like, say, tilting the mirror to one side or the other. The reflection just up and moved because it was, perhaps, strategically prudent to do so.
  5. The reflection compresses the font vertically, suggesting that we’re viewing the original text from above or that the mirrored surface is significantly slanted, but…
  6. The perspective given by the shadows cast behind the letters shows that the reflective surface is even.

But perhaps best of all…

7. The nifty descenders on the g and y descend below the (now selectively 100% transparent and non-reflective!) mirrored surface, forcing the inverted reflected letters to end abruptly before converting one pixel later to a matte surface onto which the shadows fall (on a different plane than the reflection.) Got that? Physics ain’t got nothing on this design.

No seriously. It ain’t. Or… uh… Doesn’t.

I’m sure some of you want to say, “Dude – why get so hung up on something as minuscule as some clip art used in a blog post? It’s just something used to fill space and sum up the fact that this is about strategy.”

My response (thanks for asking) is that this is exactly the sort of thing that led me to say  Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just sum everything up.

Instead of using a throwaway piece of clipart that adds nothing, makes no sense, and looks amateurish (if you can prove that it’s you and that you’re nationally known award winning designer I’ll buy you lunch for a week) you could’ve found something that actually communicated the point of the blog post in a different way.

There is no part of your identity on which you get a free pass. Everything counts. If it is associated with things you think, do or say? That’s you. So when you choose to use clipart – or stuff that looks bad enough to be clipart – it says a ton about you and your business. And unless you’re a discount store it is probably saying stuff you don’t want to say.

Clipart-like design conveys stuff like:

  • We think you’re not paying attention – nor worth paying attention to
  • We’re cheap
  • We’re not creative
  • We don’t care about the customer experience
  • We don’t value aesthetics
  • We’re like everyone else
  •  And if you find what we do for less than we do it? You should jump on it, because price is our only differentiator.

The person who took the time to build the impossibly bad clipart that started this whole rant doesn’t deserve this wrath. I think it’s more directed at a culture that thinks that just having the tools to do something makes us expert practitioners

So… uh… if someone can give me the number of the person in charge of that I’ll go yell at them for a while and leave the poor soul (who will otherwise likely be waiting for me in a dark alley with a”strategy” tattoo on their forearm and a shiv in their hand) alone.

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Bad, Branding, Creativity, Design, Graphic Design, identity, Rants, Strategy, thingnamer | No Comments »

Jun
24
2011

The Terrorists Formerly Known as al-Qaida (That Could’ve Been)

Posted By:
Tate Linden

Can changing the name of an organization without changing anything else actually work?

The news today says Osama bin Laden was recently considering a rebrand. And before anyone tries to tell a joke about it – The Daily Mash sort of predicted this all the way back in ’07,  so… you’re already behind the times.

The AP helped break the story:

The problem with the name al-Qaida, bin Laden wrote in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, was that it lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America.

Maybe something like Taifat al-Tawhed Wal-Jihad, meaning Monotheism and Jihad Group, would do the trick, he wrote. Or Jama’at I’Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida, meaning Restoration of the Caliphate Group.

As bin Laden saw it, the problem was that the group’s full name, al-Qaida al-Jihad, for The Base of Holy War, had become short-handed as simply al-Qaida. Lopping off the word “jihad,” bin Laden wrote, allowed the West to “claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam.” Maybe it was time for al-Qaida to bring back its original name.

(via an article by MATT APUZZO, which can also be found on Google News)

But was the problem really about al-Qaida’s brand?

It’s easy to make that assumption. Think about all the organizations – governmental, business, or grass-roots – that have assumed it was true that all we have to do is call something by another name and SUCCESS WILL BE OURS.

Remember Blackwater? They rebranded to the easy-to-spell but hard-to-say “Xe” to escape their scandalous past. And then they continued to behave scandalously, tarnishing their new brand in exactly the same way they’d done the last.

Or “Diebold Election Systems” changing their name to “Premier Election Systems” after the CEO used his corporate influence to raise funds and directly support a presidential candidate that his machines were responsible for electing. Even with the rebrand the division was sold for a loss, rebranded a second time, and then sold again.

Or the shell game AIG went through via an interim AIU Holdings brand to today’s Chartis. Which until recently was led by the same people that had caused the scandal in the first place.

Reactionary rebranding – trying to cover up a tangible screw-up or known negative affiliation – by just calling yourself something else violates the essence of my (admittedly evolving) personal theory on identity.

It’s not what you say that matters. It’s also not what you do. It’s your reasons for saying and doing – and whether others believe in and relate to those reasons – that matter.

Great brands are only effective when the communicated intent is believable and meshes well with motivations of the people they need to impact.

The problem with an al-Qaida rebrand (had bin Laden not been killed) would’ve been that the only thing changed were words. The deeds and the intent behind them wouldn’t change. Changing the existing perception of the intent isn’t something that can be done by just slapping on a new slogan or name. If that worked all that folks like Bernie Madoff would’ve had to do is change their names and adopt nifty slogans so all would be forgiven.

Sadly for Bernie and al-Qaida it just doesn’t work that way.

 

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Posted in Branding, identity, Naming | No Comments »

Mar
31
2011

How about you aim that thing somewhere else?

Posted by:
Tate Linden

In the branding and advertising industries we’re supposedly hired as partners, experts and advisors. When the cost, time, and quality are dictated by the client to the agency that relationship is killed. We instead become supplicants.

I’ve learned I can’t run an agency without ensuring I’ve got a backbone. Agencies that truly supplicate themselves to the client are doing themselves and the clients a disservice. We cease being partners and become the paintbrush or the pack-mule that delivers exactly what the client wanted to see before they even knew we existed. We allow them to stay within their walls and execute the ideas they already have rather than helping them break out of what they see and think every day. That’s great if they’re experiencing unprecedented success, but typically they’re not when they knock on our doors. I understand and agree that the client ultimately should call the shots, but we’re supposed to help them aim and find alternative weapons to shoot.

Think about that. When a client dictates cost, time, and quality they’re basically aiming their weapon (that you’re supposed to be helping them aim and shoot) at you. They prevent the development of all the stuff that leads to success (like strategy, brainstorming, and iterative processes) by eliminating the time and money that is needed to enable it. In these instances the definition of quality is twisted to mean “what pleases the client” rather than “what will lead to success.” The project, even if it makes the client happy near-term, ends up in trouble because the trusted advisor wasn’t trusted to execute the job using the processes they’re comfortable with and something inevitably gets missed.

Great brands and campaigns come from a relationship of trust that has the agency working behind and with the client rather than in front of and for them. If an agency isn’t trusted to exist behind and within the defenses of an organization, and can’t be trusted to represent the clients best interests while candidly and visibly controlling at least one of the three critical aspects of the project (time, cost, quality) then that agency isn’t worth hiring. And agencies that find themselves in that situation after signing a contract need to think hard about whether the project can lead to success.

How often has your agency worked in front of and for a client? How many times has their focus been on your tactics and processes rather than on the strategies you bring that can get them to their goals? For us we’re finding that the frequency has gone way down. But early on it was almost constant.

How have you (or will you) turn(ed) around these relationships to enable you and your team to produce the work that gets the client where they want to go rather than what the want to see and hear?

Answer that and you’ve got a successful agency.

In response to the article Agency Decisions: Good Morale Or Bad Clients? By Branding Strategy Insider

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Posted in Advertising, Branding, Happy client | No Comments »

Mar
04
2011

On Convergent Creativity

As it has been eloquently said before, a playful conversation between divergent thinking (“the free form, often spontaneous, exploration of many novel ideas”) and convergent thinking (“the search for the most correct answer to a clearly defined problem”) is at the core of Stokefire. I couldn’t agree more.

But, I thought it only fair to show the view from the other side of those thinking couches:

I’m guessing for most creatives, this scatter isn’t uncommon or doesn’t even look like scatter to some. A divergent thinker lives works here.

Divergent thinking is the creative thinking that is consistently rewarded in our industry, because to most creatives, convergent thinking is stifling. The visible twitch from some at Stokefire upon hearing about the stage-gated processes, structure, and feedback loops of my former life is just one case in point.

The truth is the convergent thinkers are not here to stifle creativity, but to add to it. Linear, rational, and systematic it may be, but convergent thinking can be creative. Convergent creativity involves:

  • applying ideas to a client’s specific context, audience, and problem
  • seeing the trajectory of an idea and where it will take your organization or your product
  • combining existing, sometimes contradictory, ideas to build new solutions
  • planning how an idea can be turned into action

This isn’t about pragmatic buzzkill (even if I just made a neatly ordered list) but about both sides tweaking, adjusting, and exploring to make effective creative.

Tons of flashy, untargeted ideas don’t make effective brands. We believe the one consistent, core philosophy or message that moves your audience is what you need instead.

To put it another way, it is wonderful that you can think of 100 distinct uses for a paperclip, but until I have uses for those 100 unique ways, who cares? Right now, I probably just want to paperclip that stack of ideas together for when I need it later. But if you don’t position that use properly, I might just go with your competitor – the staple.

At Stokefire, I truly believe there are no stupid ideas. There are ideas that would be unactionable or might become stupid actions in a given context though. The divergent creativity here ensures you have the best ideas out there. The convergent creativity helps determine which ideas or actions won’t make strategic sense for your particular audience or problem.

Having both divergent and convergent creativity is part of Stokefire and all of us here are capable of both. I don’t think our clients would have it any other way. I definitely wouldn’t.

- Katie

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Posted in Creativity, Stokefire team | No Comments »

Feb
11
2011

Where My Creativity Comes From

I’ve got a recurring issue at Stokefire. There’s some confusion amongst prospective clients as to what my role is. Many think I’m the end-to-end creative solutions guy and I’ve surrounded myself with people that can help with execution.

Let me set the record straight. That’s absolutely not the case. I’m very good at certain things, but absolutely horrible at a whole lot of other stuff. Thankfully the stuff I’m not good at most people have no desire to have me do. (I get very few requests to paint houses, balance books, or do high-fashion modeling. When I do get a request like that it’s usually the last one.) I’m good a particular kind of creative thinking. But if you only have that type of creative thinking at your disposal you’ll end up with problems.

Stokefire (and I, as a part of the company) can do what we do because we have built an environment that embraces two distinct types of creative thinking. Last night someone sent me a link to a presentation on the topic of creativity that gave me terminology that I’d not considered using before. Per Bud Caddell, “Divergent Thinking is the free form, often spontaneous, exploration of many novel ideas. Convergent Thinking is the search for the most correct answer to a clearly defined problem.”

He continues…

Divergent thinking is imagining 100 unique uses for a paperclip. Convergent thinking is your typical standardized test.

Divergent thinking is imagination. Convergent thinking is reason.

To my mind both of the two comparisons above are different ways of presenting the same thing… sort of explaining divergence and convergence by using divergent and convergent descriptions. Pretty cool, really. And he builds from there [full presentation included at the bottom of the post]…

Divergent thinking can often lead the process of problem solving, creating many possibilities to be winnowed down by convergent thinking. But truly creative ideas are often birthed from many rounds of going back and forth between the two. [Emphasis mine. I'll come back to this in a moment.]

Divergent thinking requires the courage to make mistakes, the freedom to play, and a push to explore new perspectives. Convergent thinking requires necessity, well defined objectives, knowledge and reasoning skills.

When I showed these last two to our team at our end-of-week meeting there were audible gasps and a couple laughs. Someone asked who wrote it and how they had snuck in and spied on us.

The last statement of real interest to me is on the tenth page of the presentation. It says,

The design of systems and environments that foster creativity is a process of balancing equal opportunity for, and ensuring interaction between, divergent and convergent thought.

I didn’t show this one to our team.

Because I didn’t have to.

If you work at Stokefire you know this even if we’ve never said it. Divergence and convergence are at the center of every breakthrough we’ve had for years.  The way we’ve gotten there is birthed from the rounds of interplay going back between the two.

For those that haven’t visited Stokefire HQ, let me give you a peek at the executive office from behind my desk…

Tate and Katie's Domain

While you can see that Katie McIntyre’s desk is nice and clean – and about 18 feet away from my own – there’s a space between the two desks that invites connection and discussion. When Stokefire is at its best the “thinking couches” (as they’re affectionately termed) are in constant use. Without realizing it we created a haven for exactly the sort of back-and-forth interactions that Bud Caddell suggests are necessary in the early slides of his presentation.

I can’t speak for Katie (who, as our lead strategist, speaks very well for herself,) but for me the reason why we’ve been able to develop breakthrough and effective creative is that we don’t have a one-way arrow from divergent creativity to convergent creativity, which is how I imagine most shops and organizations (if they can tolerate divergent creativity at all) might operate. On the rare occasions where one of the two co-execs is sick or time doesn’t permit the interplay of our two abilities (Katie is far more capable at systematic thinking than I am, I’m more improvisational than she is) we end up not getting where we need to go.

Interplay – or even the word ‘play’ itself – is key here.  For a divergent thinker coming up with fifty ways to solve something is easy, but selecting the right one, determining the exact steps and sticking to them during development is hard. To get both at the same time requires that each type of thinker feels safe and can enjoy the process of switching between the two to see what happens. It requires almost turning it into a game.

Divergent thinkers are typically hammered by the convergent ones in a corporate environment. (Note my victimizing framing of we poor divergent types here. I’m pretty sure there are some that would disagree.) We’re the nail that needs to be put back in place. Our ideas break the models convergent thinkers have made standard, so we have to be dealt with. Sometimes harshly.

What makes our thinking couches sacred in my mind is something that I’ve never found anywhere else in my career. It isn’t their location, it’s the fact that the couch opposite mine is usually occupied by a talented convergent thinker who, rather than bashing my ideas to bits to find ways that I’m wrong, sees it as her responsibility to figure out how to frame or adjust a loosely defined, but potentially monumental, world-changing, and unworkably challenging concept into something that will fit within the minds and budgets of our clients or our own efforts.

I love to work at Stokefire because we have created a rare haven where divergent and convergent thinking don’t do battle with each other. When I sit on the thinking couch and have the right person across from me we have divergence and convergence working in tandem to create something that is unbelievably powerful and eminently achievable. We have divergent thinking that understands convergence is needed if we’re to move forward, and convergent thinking that sees divergence as the way to fill our creative pipeline with compelling ideas and options.

So… Where does my creativity come from?

My creativity comes from my surroundings. From the ability of my associates to coax half-formed ideas out of me so that they can help validate, strengthen and build on them. From my comfort in knowing that I can ask “can I bounce an idea off of you for a minute?” of anyone in the office and will have a willing participant who will add something that will make my own understanding of the concept better.  From the fact that I have no fear in spluttering through five, fifty or five-hundred unfeasible, impractical, or downright idiotic ideas in front of my team because I know when we hit on one with potential it will be because we got all the crap out of the way so we could see the right one clearly, or that someone saw a spark of promise and was able to bring it to fruition.

My usable creativity comes from my team, from my office-mate, from my environment, and from our clients. Take any one away and you end up with something unusable.

Divergence & Convergence. Yin & Yang.

And while both qualities exist end-to-end at Stokefire the most visible representation is something many of our clients have called “The Tate & Katie Show.” That, however, is a topic for another day.

Now, for those that are interested… Here’s Bud’s presentation in full.

How Do You Design For Creativity?View more presentations from Bud Caddell.

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Posted in Creativity, Strategy | No Comments »

Nov
10
2008

Stokefire Delivers to the USPS

I had the pleasure of speaking with the experts at the US Post Office about direct marketing and naming.  It was a fun conversation and turned into a pretty informative article that can be found here.

…It’s a pretty long article, that should allow me to hit the pause button on the blog for a couple days, right?

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Aug
27
2008

What Is Creativity?




It appears this post has been making the rounds on the Interwebs.  We’ve gotten about 500 hits in the last couple hours – which is for us… well… a whole lot.  Feel free to drop us a note here and let us know what you think.  (FYI – the video was done without a script, though this was my second attempt to do it.  And I used all Mac default software to produce it.  For a higher quality video click through to YouTube and select Watch In High Quality on the right side above the Views count.)

I was asked to create a video answer to this question for Imagine Alexandria.  I figure since I spend almost all day every day flapping my lips about stuff I’d do something a little different. 

This was my answer:

Yeah, it’s a bit hard to read, and there was a shadow over the top quarter of the white board… but that’s what I get for doing a spur of the moment unscripted piece.

How better to show what creativity is than to attempt to show it on the fly?

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Posted in Greatest Hits | 15 Comments »

Aug
07
2008

Little Quote in Associations Now Magazine

I almost missed it …  Page 110 of Associations Now (published by ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership) has a short statement from me in response to the question “What is your most important key to success as a consultant to associations and nonprofits?”

My dollop of wisdom:

“Getting the senior-most decision makers in the room.  Any rebranding without senior representation will be derailed at the last minute. Every. Single. Time.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

(And I didn’t.)

I love the fact that everyone else interviewed provided quotes that make themselves look caring, smart, and insightful.  Me?  I’m cold, pragmatic, and I can’t. Use. Punctuation. Correctly.

Rock on!

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Posted in Branding, Interviews | No Comments »

Jul
21
2008

Consensus Building Made Not Quite So Hard

[Note: Evidently this post is making its way around the Internet.  We've had thousands of hits in the last couple days.  So... welcome!  Feel free to drop a comment if you like what you see - or send us a note to share your thoughts.  We find it eerie that this post is so popular and yet completely devoid of comments...]

Ira Koretsky posted a comment yesterday that prompted me to check on the reprint rights for an article I recently wrote for ASAE.  Apparently I’m in the clear – so here’s the article for all to see…

asae_logo_4c (Small).jpg

When Good Project Pitches Go Bad

If you have trouble winning buy-in from your board or members, maybe you’re lobbing answers when you should be fieldng questions. Here’s how to get consensus, step by step.
By Tate Linden

“To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.”—British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

How many times have you developed a promising organizational idea or strategy on your own (or with a small group), only to get shot down when you attempt to get approval from your board of directors or bring it to a membership vote? And what would you give to avoid the rancor, embarrassment, and frustration that too often rewards your most sincere efforts?

What is it about trying to build consensus within groups of people that makes it nearly impossible to get an answer anyone actually wants?

Over 15 years of helping corporations and associations develop their brand identities, I’ve been forced to become adept at consensus building. That’s because few things inspire as much passionate disagreement as the prospect of abandoning a brand history or taking a risky new approach to brand strategy. Employees threaten to quit, customers threaten to take their business elsewhere, members threaten the leadership, and leaders threaten to abandon their organizations.

Trying to arrive at an agreement under these circumstances is a little like skydiving in a thunderstorm—neither enjoyable nor productive, with significant safety issues.

An unpredictable art

As anyone can tell you who has encountered the tense conditions that require hiring consultants like me in the first place, consensus building often has more to do with politics than with the validity of the ideas presented. Bending the ear of the right board member or gaining access to an influential block of members can work wonders—whether you’re the project manager or someone wishing to stop the process.

The likelihood of successfully using the exact same technique in two different situations is, in my experience, quite low. Consensus building is an art—one whose techniques are constantly being developed, tested, refined, and discarded.

There are certain truths that you can have faith in, but these truths are general, not specific.

  • First, few people in decision-making roles enjoy being told what to think—and in a membership organization, every member has such a role. If you’ve got the best idea in the world and you tell people that it is, in fact, the best idea in the world, the instinct for many will be to look for reasons why the idea isn’t so great after all.
  • When you’re building consensus, an intelligent question is infinitely more valuable than a brilliant statement. If you want to bring minds together, I find that a gentle facilitative leading works better than vigorous prodding. Ask. Suggest. Consider. These are the methods that can lead us to consensus decisions worth making.

 

  • It’s important to remember Newton’s Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you push a group decision vigorously, the natural reaction is what Newton predicts: to push back. This can mean failing to reach consensus—or ensuring that no one in the group gets exactly what they want so that everyone is equally displeased.

Not exactly ideal situations. They can be avoided, however.

The secret: Get buy-in first

The easiest and best consensus decisions I’ve facilitated were made possible by spending the time at first to learn the decision makers’ views of the concept’s goals. It is possible to get significant support for a project or decision before you even start discussing it.

The quickest way to get stuck with a bad decision-making experience is to come up with a plan based on ideas that are only inside your own head. Without external validation and an attachment to the needs of others, the barriers are very high.

Here’s a simplified view of how I’ve done it successfully:

  1. Never, never start the discussion by proposing a solution—any solution. First, decision makers and influencers must agree on the nature and importance of the problem. Without consensus on the problem and its parameters, you are wasting your time discussing solutions.
  2. Forge agreement on the definition of success. Develop criteria against which every proposed solution will be measured. Do this before any analysis or research on solutions begins.
  3. Set up a comprehensive, two-way communication channel with everyone whose assent you need in order to decide. Be as transparent as possible. Make sure there’s a way for members to express their concerns and to have a voice at the table.
  4. Be sure to include all staff members whose responsibilities are connected with the topic under discussion, and treat them as valued participants. You’d be surprised how influential staff can be with the membership—and how easy it is for a staffer with a legitimate-sounding gripe to find an audience. These same employees, when given respect within the process, can be your strongest advocates for the project’s success.
  5. Get as close to an either/or decision as possible. To obtain a majority decision, it is far easier to vote “yes” or “no” than it is to select from options 1 through 10.
  6. In presenting the “finalist” option(s) for discussion, describe the options considered, the roads not taken, and the reasons why. Reasons should refer clearly to the criteria and view of success developed in Step 2. Again, be free with information. Transparency builds trust; even well-meant opacity reduces it. Without trust, no positive decisions can be made.
  7. Once the decision has been made, be generous with praise (and, as appropriate, rewards) for everyone’s efforts. Appreciation builds satisfaction almost as surely as results do.

Many people believe that knowledge is power—and that hoarding knowledge can lead to great things. When it comes to building consensus, the one who holds the most information closest to the vest loses.

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Posted in Stokefire team, thingnamer | 2 Comments »

Jun
11
2008

Can You Imagine? A Place For Applied Creativity…

Ever notice that if you want to learn how to draw or paint or write poetry there are dozens, hundreds, or thousands of places you can go to hone your skills for minimum investment?  Why is it that the same thing can’t be said for writing good ad copy, creating commercials, or designing logos that help convey the essence of a brand?  Sure, there are folks that might teach it in schools – but even there it seems that too often they’re just teaching a soft art.  There’s no measurement of effectiveness, no consequence for work that under performs, and no way to determine which of multiple pieces of work might be better suited to a project or worthy of merit.

That’s going to change.

I’m proud to announce my affiliation with Imagine Alexandria – currently a grassroots movement to create the world’s first center for commercial creativity.  Its location in Alexandria is a wonderful balance to the existing Torpedo Factory – a regional project that exists to encourage, support, and teach the non-commercial arts.

The facility will have features such as a creative incubator, a speaking venue, classrooms, testing labs, and a museum where judged competitions share space with exhibits that show how some of the best creative work was developed.

MoodBoards_v3_Page_4.jpg

The final name of the facility has not been determined yet – we’ve just given the campaign a ‘handle’ so people can reference it (and write checks to it).  The name of the center – when built – will be determined through a combination of sponsorship and the traditional branding project that inevitably precedes the opening of a major design-oriented project.
 

So – (Shameless Plug Alert) – Please visit the website and consider donating any amount to the cause.  Those who donate a minimum of $100 are added to the online rolls and given an invite to the grassroots party – and for a little more investment can receive recognition like web links, logos, and mention on the home page of the site.  (The organization is set up as a non-profit – so the funds may be tax-deductible.  Ask your tax professional to be sure.)

Whether you’re in Alexandria or across the globe – a center such as this can benefit every company and organization in search of improved creativity.

Full disclosure:  I’m on the board of directors of Imagine Alexandria, and have personally donated to the organization.

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