Date: 02/26/10
Last night's Utah Addys event was on the heels of a fairly epic powder day coming after more than a few weeks of a dry spell here in the Wasatch. Some serious pent-up demand for a ski day, and more than half our office was out playing in the powder yesterday. Some of us were up at the crack of dawn to take advantage of early Tram rides at the Bird, others getting first tracks in Honeycomb Canyon at Solitude. Nobody looked at the weather forecast on Wednesday night and said I better not go skiing tomorrow because I might be too tired to go to the Addys show. You deal. Early morning pow turns, full shift at the office, then off to rub shoulders with the suits at the museum. I for one knew I was going to feel like a zombie when I got there.
Before the event, they (the Addys folks) send you a letter telling you if you won anything for submitted work, but they don't tell you whether you won Gold or Silver. I guess they need a reason to get you to come to the event. What's the difference between Gold and Silver besides the obvious? For Gold awards, you get a nice little medal, and your work gets forwarded on to the Regional competition, and if you are lucky and do well there, then on to the National awards. Last year we won a National Addy Gold for our Hyundai work, so it does happen to small shops in local markets, to go all the way to the top through the tiers and layers of judging. But you have to get Gold in the local show first.
Here we go, another judged sport. Not as clear cut as say, ski jumping, where the skier who goes the farthest wins. Or ski racing, where the skier who crosses the line first wins. Makes me think about a friend and acquaintance, Billy Demong, who on the same day had just won USA's first-ever Olympic Gold medal in the sport of Nordic Combined. If you don't know what it is, or how significant Billy's medal is, read this article.
As I pulled into the parking lot outside the museum, I saw Paul Tuft from Cosmic Pictures & Universal Post. Paul did a lot of the editing work on the awards show video segment where all the winners are revealed. He said man, you guys cleaned up. Ok, maybe this video thing was going to be worth sitting through. A, because Paul did it. And B, because I was starting to wonder which pieces of our work were going on to the next level. I was thinking about how lucky we are to work and play in this market, being so close to the mountains, and having clients that let us bring their big ideas to life.
At the end of the night, we took home 8 Gold Awards for our clients, as well as a special Judges Choice Award for saynotoplumping.com, a site we built for our clients Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and their client Foster Farms. Even though we launched this site back in August of 2009, the work goes on with this client, and we are currently building some Facebook Applications to integrate with their Fan Page. Maybe we'll enter that stuff next year if they have a category for it. Doubt it. You can enter as many posters, billboards, and newsprint ads as you want, but this digital stuff, let's just lump it into 1 category and call it Interactive.
For our client Venables, Bell & Partners and their client PG&E, we took home 3 Golds: 1 for wecandothis.com in the "Websites-Consumer-Flash" category, 1 for the Solar Pinball game in the "Online Games" category, and 1 Gold for the entire campaign in the "Websites/Online Campaign" category. How many shops in Utah can say they do work for a client who made Fast Company's top 50 list of the most innovative companies? Yup. PG&E is right up there at #7.
There were 2 Gold awards for our iPhone Apps, Snowbird and Coke Magic Coke Bottle, oddly enough, in the "Mobile Marketing (Text Messaging)" category. For next year they might want to think about having an iPhone or Mobile App category. I'm sure there will be more entries both on local and national levels. Getting the Gold for the Snowbird App kind of brings this blog post full circle. It started with an epic day skiing with Clients & Friends at the Bird. An unspoken policy about being invited up for pre-dawn early Tram rides before the mountain opens to the public: you neither ask for it nor turn it down. I had my doubts about whether or not I could muster up the enthusiasm for the Addys show. Not being cynical here, I was just tired. Nonetheless, it was gratifying to see the Snowbird App take home Gold and now move on to the next level.
Congratulations to all of our team members here in Utah, our many creative partners in other places, and most of all, congrats to our clients. Unlike the Olympics, we don't have to wait another 4 years. Game on for 2010!
Date: 12/18/09
Following hot on the heels of releasing the More Birthdays iPhone app for the American Cancer Society, we jumped right into another iPhone app project for our friends at Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort. We are happy to say that it was approved on the first try in the iTunes app store, and was released to the public on December 18, 2009.
One irony in this story is this: December 18 (today) is the date of our Holiday party up at the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird. You can bet there will be a few extra toasts to celebrate the timing and release of this app. We were hearing rumors that the iTune app review team was slammed with an extra workload going into the holidays, and that times of getting approval had stretched out to 14 working days, which would have meant a live date after the holidays, which would have been a missed opportunity. As it stands, we went from submission to approval in 5 working days, faster than we thought was possible. Happy Holidays to you too, iTunes.
This was a project we could really get everyone on board with, since everyone here at Welikesmall is an avid skier or rider, and equally passionate about The Bird, a very special place. This is also a big step for our friends at Snowbird who run the mountain. We believe this to be the first branded iPhone app released by a Utah ski resort and published in the app store. If you want to know about all the features, download the Snowbird app from iTunes and give it a test drive. Our favorite feature is the photo uploader. Snowbird has taken a big bold step in the direction of user generated content, and the built in photo uploader allows users of the app to upload images from the iPhone's camera or camera roll to Snowbird's community Flickr Photostream. Bold move.
What do you think? What other features would be cool in a ski resort iPhone app? What are some ideas for the next realease?
Date: 12/01/09
It's been in the works for awhile, but we are now proud to announce the release of More Birthdays v1.0, an iPhone app that we conceptualized, designed, and developed in collaboration with the American Cancer Society. It went live in the iTunes app store on November 30, 2009, and you can check it out by clicking this link to get More Birthdays, or simply search for More Birthdays. It's a free app that helps you remember upcoming birthdays from your contacts and Facebook account.
Why do we need this sort of app? There are a lot of "Birthday" themed apps in the store, and ours is certainly not the first. The American Cancer Society has claimed the right to be the "Official Sponsor of Birthdays." We think their goal to fight cancer and thus promote a world with more birthdays is a pretty good cause. When first proving our concept for this app, we did a lot of research centered on how people use apps and computers to help them remember important dates. It used to be a lot simpler, but in our digital age of "friending" co-workers, neighbors, casual acquaintances, our human networks have grown thanks to computers and mobile devices. We are simply more connected than ever before, and yet it's easy to let the birthday of someone close to you get lost in the cyber shuffle.
More Birthdays uses Push Alerts to remind you of daily or weekly upcoming birthdays. This is important because you don't have to actively seek the info out in the app, your chosen frequency of alerts will ping you and tell you whose day is coming up. You can then launch the app and use it to send a quick Birthday email to a friend or contact. It was also important to us to keep redundant data entry to a minimum. Hence the Facebook Connect functionality for Facebook users. Hit the Connect button, log-in, and you can import all of your FB Friends into the same database as your other contacts.
Check it out, and let us know what you think? Any suggestions for future releases?
Date: 11/02/09
The most challenging stop in our three-city tour with Big Juan™ and his 30 Canons certainly had to be Chicago. The weather was touch-and-go, the building manager at the Tribune building tried to steal our ladders, and an impromptu demonstration from out of work labor union folks provided some extra extras for the shoot. The first planned shoot day was knocked out because of rain, but the second day proved to be more productive. After getting the shots we needed, Big Juan™ was packed up in the rental van, next stop, the outskirts of Austin, Texas.
Date: 10/28/09
It was nice to hear from our friends at Venables, Bell & Partners today, and learn that a site we built for them was featured on the Commarts website as their Web Pick of the Day. Venables' client Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) wanted to create an experiential site for their customers to interact with information about clean energy production, provide helpful tips for everyday energy conservation, all in a bilingual (English & Spanish) easy-to-navigate site. We think it's working out pretty well. Check out the Comm Arts mention for PG&E's site.
