colin nekritz

Shooting for the Center

colin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:29:04 +0000

Making Ideas Happen

colin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:22:53 +0000

I don’t normally shill or review books but there’s a good one that, if I didn’t own an iPad I probably wouldn’t have bought it to read, but because it stares at me from the iBooks store “buy me, you’re a creative, look at the typography on my cover, it’s a book about creative ideas, you know you want me.” Okay okay sold.

Honestly I’m more into books that dive right in with hard facts I can apply immediately or even worksheets, seriously. Because if you don’t take action it’s all just extraneous fluff and your retention rate will plummet (if you don’t believe me or want it in a graphic, visit this post). So I was expecting to be disappointed when before getting a few pages in there was “Jimmy and Timmy were stuck in a rut when Tommy and Johnny…” (no, those weren’t really the names used) as in, telling stories to try to glean a result isn’t the best construct for a message. As I soldiered on though, it got better, nothing earthmoving and probably stuff you have or had read elsewhere but a good compendium.

In short:

You have ideas (or someone does) that you want to make happen.
Here’s how to organize them from a solo or leadership POV
Organization or, Organization (having one) will get you to manage and execute them
Ideas don’t happen in isolation (excepting if one is painting for oneself, no he doesn’t go there)
Innovation requires leadership (yes and no, depends on the type of innovation)
Have your own inner feedback loop for ideas and your team (if you have one)
Ambiguity isn’t a bad thing (and how!)
Failure isn’t a bad thing, provided you learn from it
Leaders need to get out of their own way (most of the time, unless you’re Steve Jobs, then carry on)

There’s also a lot of stuff about making lists which, I struggle with this too, from GTD method to pen and paper to various applications on my iPad, iPhone, Macbook Pro, etc., drives me bonkers. As a creative I like to keep things in my head but that’s not the best place. At various times in my career I had people to keep track of things for me, but even that’s fallible.

In the end it’s about motivation and making connections, which, I guess that’s what all creativity boils down to, and how things happen in the first place. So maybe you don’t need the book but, if you have room on your eReader or bookshelf, it’s not a bad book to get.

Mind the Gap

colin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:06:46 +0000

“Focus group results are what site visitors think they might do. Usability testing shows what visitors actually do.”

– Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflows that Work

logo quizzes are always fun

colin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:13:29 +0000

I only missed one and there’s one that I guessed near the end which I’m rather sure is wrong but won’t give it away.

Go ahead, see if you can guess these company logos by taking the interactive quiz.

another great infographic

colin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:36:31 +0000

Can’t seem to get enough of these, this one may hit many a bit close to home. I wound up with Dogfish Head. [hat tip to TopCultured]

What is a Brand (one of many takes)

colin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:24:25 +0000

“A brand is a person’s gut feeling or emotion about a product, service, or company.”

brand opportunity to increase awareness and customer loyalty

colin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:44:59 +0000

good advice is like chocolate [mmmm, chocolate]

colin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:14:12 +0000

“Internal creative teams need to seize their insider advantage by using deep knowledge of the brand to leverage their strategic value to the corporation.”

–Moira Cullen, Senior Director of Global Design
The Hershey Company

the problem with creative jobs and their titles

colin — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 23:56:30 +0000

Overlap.

Here’s what I do. Now, try go finding a job in what I do. “So you’re a creative director.” Technically I have been with client continuity running a team of people managing sprawling jobs and budgets, but I’m more of a brand manager. “Brand… uhhh, what?” You know, managing branding and identity, it’s perceptions, on a national and global scale, but I like design, I mean, it’s a combination of marketing and design. “So you’re a designer.” Right, I direct that art. “You’re an art director.” Well not exactly because I direct branding teams to get it done. “Brand director, I’ve never really heard of that.” Got a brand you need taken to a national level of ass-kickery or your agency needs someone to manage, cultivate, and deploy branding at every level, yes, that’s what I do. Why this has gotten some difficult to explain means either I’ve too many job skills or the industry isn’t ready for me yet or the entire methodology of classification of job titles is broken or probably all of the above. Being right-brain, left-brain seems more a curse than a blessing at this point.

Brand Experience

colin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:58:07 +0000

The interrelationship between consumers and brands are now multilevel, in fact one could suggest you put PR wheels in motion before the advertising. This infographic, although I’ve seen it done better, I’ve borrowed from a company called Sapient’s and tweaked a bit aesthetically. In reality it’s more like a Venn diagram of course with overlap, but you get the idea/point. So the best approach for any client and it’s agency for really almost any rollout would be taking one from the other and never forgetting the chain between which, really even as much as a decade ago, wasn’t much of a consideration. My how times have changed.