In order to reinvigorate and revitalize downtown Ottawa businesses hit hard by the recession and the bus strike, Thornley Fallis and 76design  conceived, developed and executed the Picture it Downtown campaign for The City of Ottawa, where residents were encouraged to go downtown, snap a photo and share it online.

Point, shoot, share – a simple concept to get Ottawa excited about all it has to offer. The “Picture It Downtown” concept we developed served to visually promote downtown Ottawa as a whole, but also the eight specific areas being promoted:  Byward Market, Downtown Rideau, Sparks Street, Bank Street, The Glebe, Chinatown, Preston Street (Little Italy) and Wellington-West Village.

Residents could participate in the campaign contest to win daily ($50), weekly ($250) and grand ($500 to $1200) prizes by taking pictures of downtown activities and uploading them to the campaign website.

The campaign included a media launch event involving the Mayor, a website with a list of downtown activites, a description, videos and photos of each area, contest rules and regulations, a photo gallery for people to submit and view photos, and YouTube videos, featuring all that’s cool in several neighbourhoods, print, radio, online and transit advertising, weekly news releases and ongoing online outreach using other social media tools including Twitter and Flickr.

Thousands of people participated and competed for prizing provided by local businesses.

The campaign was to remind Ottawans of all the diverse experiences and excitement downtown Ottawa has to offer, and entice them to visit downtown — ultimately spending money while engaging in the various activities highlighted in the eight main areas being promoted.

For the City of Ottawa, running a marketing campaign with a heavy online and interactive component was not only a smart business and communications decision, but its creativity generated a lot of buzz within Ottawa and got people sharing ideas and photos of great things to do and see in the city.

The fall 2009 campaign resulted in over ten thousand unique visits to the campaign website, more than 1300 entries (photos uploaded to the website), significant earned media in targeted outlets, photo and video assets for future use by the City, and a general buzz across the City about the creativity of the campaign, particularly by government.

Picture it downtown would not have been possible without our lead technologist Brett Tackaberry, senior developer Steve Lounsbury, our superb designer Steve St. Pierre, the ad campaign led by Laura Mindorff, the videos by Ryan Knuth, writer and producer LeeEllen Carroll and our SEO expert Shaun Scanlon. Special thanks to our GM Keelan Green, who has a knack for assembling the best teams to deliver outstanding results.

Thank you IABC for the recognition. It’s nice to bask in the spotlight… and great to share successes. As I used to say in my former journalistic career, you’re only as good as your last story. So that means back to work. Right now.

In an attempt to reduce the cost of its annual report, The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) engaged 76design and Thornley Fallis for our unique concept of a paperless report. Highlighting achievements and documenting successes,  World Class Care (TOH’s 2008-2009 Annual Report) contains a special feature allowing readers to create their own versions of the report including only the sections and stories appealing to them.

For some, those stories include the 6808 hospital births, the woman who was paying it forward by donating her kidney to a stranger because her own husband was receiving one from an anonymous donor in Ottawa – who had selflessly stepped forward to transplant hope, or the CF soldier, blown to bits in Afghanistan after coming into contact with a land mine. He died. Twice. The second time he was resuscitated during his evacuation flight. He arrived at TOH doped up on morphine. Months of therapy and compassionate care in the Rehabilitation Centre got him back on his feet- running in fact – he recently took part in The Olympic Torch Relay Race, with a new ‘bionic’ leg.

Allow me to cast the awards spotlight on other members of our talented team, who took those stories and turned them into an attention grabbing report: writer Bradley Moseley-Williams, who’s never met an adjective he can’t love, web developers and code masters- Brett Tackaberry and Steve Lounsbury, Mr. Shaun Search Engine Optimization Scanlon, ‘video is the new media’ Ryan Knuth, Resource and Account Manager Laura Mindorff, video killed the radio star LeeEllen Carroll, and top 40 under 50 SVP and GM Keelan Green.

A very special thanks to TOH’s CEO Jack Kitts and VP Nic Ruszkowski for renewing their investment in TF and 76 by inviting us back to partner on their next online annual report.

Here’s to more success stories for The Ottawa Hospital, Thornley Fallis and 76design, our peers at IABC and everyone in our communications community.

It is with great pleasure that we announce the launch of the City of Ottawa’s Light Rail website!

Many Ottawans felt as though they were left in the dark when it came to the City’s big Light Rail Transit (LRT) plans. Well folks, there is no longer any need to feel mal-informed. Thornley Fallis and 76design in collaboration with the Light Rail Implementation Team have created an “information-sharing mechanism” that arms the citizens of Ottawa with more than sufficient information relating to the project plan.

The communications efforts applied by Thornley Fallis & 76design were strategic and smart; we have received positive results on the site and its search functions, information content, structure and ease-of-use.

The website in particular has proven to be the most crucial piece of the puzzle. The website we’ve created is meant to engage the entire City; to provide all the facts our users require to fully understand the project and to provide them with a platform to communicate their feelings towards the project.

With the integration of various social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), interested citizens are able to keep up-to-date and connect with the Light Rail Implementation Team with any questions or concerns. Any questions submitted to the team will be answered in a timely fashion; responses will then be posted on the website. The LRT website helps make a difference by providing comfort to Ottawans by reminding them that Light Rail green and it will only improve the City.

Since yesterday’s launch, the LRT project is getting great media play, print and radio; it is noted that there are happy people all around.

Overview

This first round of 76design Skunkworks gave us (Jordan Boesch and Shaun Scanlon, both web developers) the opportunity to utilize the Twitter API to create a fun project.

We decided to try to integrate Twitter with Mozilla Jetpack.  According to the Jetpack website, Jetpack is “a newly formed experiment in using open Web technologies to enhance the browser, with the goal of allowing anyone who can build a Web site to participate in making the Web a better place to work, communicate and play.”

What this means is that Jetpack is an API which allows the average web developer to develop add-ons for the Mozilla Firefox browser using languages they already use on an every day basis.   This was an attractive feature of Jetpack as web developers.

Project Phases

Concept Development / Brainstorm
After some brainstorming we decided to develop an unobtrusive twitter feed add-on in the style of a sports highlight ticker.  This was to be a collapsible bar at the bottom of your Firefox browser which could display new tweets and past tweets.  The tweets were to scroll in a manner similar to a sports or news ticker.

Design Concept
Jordan applied his design skills to develop a concept in Photoshop.

During this phase we came up with the idea of a news flash for new tweets.

Prototype
The work for this phase was shared between us.   It involved taking the Photoshop mockup and converting it to a regular HTML/Javascript/CSS file to be used in a regular browser.    We were able to get the basic logic done in creating the prototype.

Jetpack Integration / QA
We found this was the most difficult phase.   Jetpack has specific JavaScript hooks that are used to set the status bar icon for the add-on and to handle the initial loading of the JavaScript.

Within the scope/context of Jetpack a few of JavaScript’s default variables (such as “window”) were not accessible so we had to look for alternatives.   We also tried to extend the basic functionality of the prototype.   The extension of functionality required a lot of additional quality assurance time.

Challenges

• Jetpack development must be tested in the browser
  • The Jetpack plugin allows for development of the browser which is great because we can use common web development debugging tools
  • All code must be entered within a tiny textarea box on a webpage
  • This is very cumbersome because it is next to impossible to read an entire plugin within the box
  • We had to essentially work in a separate text editor and copy and paste into the box on the website
  • This makes for a frustrating debugging process

• Working on a single JavaScript file in a team environment
  • A Jetpack plugin must be self contained within one JavaScript file
  • The Jetpack library does allow access to the JQuery JavaScript library which allows for easy manipulation of HTML and CSS
  • Even with the ability to use JQuery, this set up does not lend itself well to team development
  • The fact that there is no separation of logic and visual layers into separate files makes it very difficult to contribute to the file without conflicting with teammates’ changes
  • As well, Images must be hosted on a separate server and linked to from the JavaScript
  • This makes for a cumbersome development process
• Jetpack is really only JavaScript-like, it’s not pure JavaScript
  • Because of the scope of being within the Jetpack API we found out the hard way that not all of JavaScript’s built in variables (such as the “window” variable) are accessible
  • This required us to revamp code to work around these unexpected roadblocks

What is next?

We could:

• Extend the current functionality to finish off the “news flashes” feature.
• Add some more spark to the animation and effects.
• Re-brand this type of concept to be used for client projects.    Some clients may be interested in having a Firefox plugin to market their brand.

Conclusion

Jetpack while an excellent concept probably needs some work to allow for easier development.   Editing a huge JavaScript file in a small textarea box on a webpage isn’t very realistic.

Other plug-ins, such as those created for Windows Sidebar or Google Desktop, are comprised of several files (similar to regular web development) and are then added to a Zip archive file.  This concept is a much more realistic development scenario.

We would not recommend Jetpack development for group projects, but could be useful for single developer projects.

Conair Consumer Products Inc. (with our assistance) has recently released its newest product with a contest micro-site, driving its line of hair related products to a whole new level.

Conair, Helps You Tame The Beast

For all you lovely ladies out there who can’t seem to take control of that beast we all call “hair”, I introduce to you the Infiniti Nano Silver by Conair. Simply put, it is the #1 most effective hair straightener on the market. The person who thought of adding steam to a hair straightener is an absolute genius. Not only does it make your hair look vibrant and lustrous, removes all frizz and protects it from the humidity, it takes no time at all. Take my words and check out the website to see what other features and benefits this product has to offer, www.conairsteamstraight.com.

Aside from my obsession with this fabulous “life-saver”, you deserve a little S.O.S. too. The “Tame the Beast” website, was a concept conceived by Conair and 76design/Thornley Fallis. It is your gateway to owning one of these magnificent hair straighteners along with other Conair and John Frieda hair related products. The contest closes on December 17th so don’t wait too long, visit the site, watch some videos, enter the contest and most important…don’t forget to tell your friends. The secret needs to be unleashed so go spread the word.

ENJOY!

I just thought I’d post a short note to talk about Third Tuesday last night in Vancouver. This is the third time I’ve attended Third Tuesday on the left coast and it was nice to see some familiar and new faces last night as I was one of three presenters delivering “mini” case studies on social media projects. I chose to talk about a site we did recently for the Ottawa Public Library: “BOPL’s Book Club“. As a social networking site geared at kids, I thought the rather unique challenges we faced while developing it would be interesting to the group. I’m no seasoned presenter but it seemed from the questions I got from the folks there that I I did an OK job. Unfortunately the combination of a very packed house, a long narrow room and my non-projecting voice meant that I had to present twice — once to each end of the room — and both times I got caught going over the 7 minute limit. Oops… if anybody has read my posts on the blog they won’t be surprised at all that I had a hard time keeping it brief.

Thanks go out to Tod Maffin once again for organizing (and asking me to present) and to CNW for sponsoring the evening. Looking forward to seeing everybody in December!

Pollstar, founded way back in 1981, is probably the largest and most authoritative resource when it comes to concert schedules and tour itineraries. As a lover of music, especially live music, it’s been at the top of my bookmarks for many, many years. Even before I was old enough to get into clubs.

Apparently they were online in 1994, which makes them an early adopter of the web by most standards. Kudos to them. The earliest version of their site I can find is from late 1996. That’s probably around the time I discovered them. But since that time their site really hasn’t evolved all that much in 11 years.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Pollstar. As far as concert listings go nobody could touch them. They had every venue, all the cities, and just about every band — right down to the obscure indie guys. I can’t count the number of times I’ve found out about some of the best shows I’ve ever seen from Pollstar. To express my thanks I’ve given them something very, very few sites have ever gotten from me. And no it’s not the Steve Palmer premium five star endorsement. I gave them my money. For probably 5 or 6 years now I’ve paid the $10 US annual fee so that I can track more than the 5 artists and venues you’re allowed to with a free account. In fact, I’ve got 95 of the 99 available slots filled on my tracking list right now and the only reason it’s not filled is because I recently moved to a new city so I’m just learning which venues I should be keeping an eye… er, ear… on.

But… I do have a beef with them and it’s a big one. While they might have blown the socks off me back in 1997, today their site just ain’t cutting it. In fact, it’s sucking it… hard. I’ve always cut them tonnes of slack because they served up such a tasty platter of precious concert listings (even though it was in the most Web1.0 way possible).

Ok. Fine. Maybe I couldn’t subscribe to an RSS feed by artist, venue, or city. And yes, there was an odd limit of only 99 artists and venues you could track. And fine, you can’t get updates to a mobile device or query their listings database by SMS like Google’s ultra useful service. And big deal, you can’t interact with other users to recommend music or bands to them… or plan to meet them at a show… or post photos after going to a show. And there’s absolutely no sign of a Facebook app on the horizon… so what?

No Ajax… in fact no JavaScript, really.

Tonnes of bloated markup.

Font tags.

Barely wider than 640 pixels.

Yuck.

Not that I’m critiquing their use (or mis-use) of technology, because “technology” isn’t equivalent to “good site”, but these are generally regarded as the tools needed to provide a good user experience.

That’s what it comes down to — user experience. I guess it’s the sheer crappiness and massively untapped potential in how they delivered their listings that really irritates me. I mean, daily email updates? That’s it? To quote Gob Bluth: “Come on!”

Then I got this interesting note in my email box (which, as you guessed it, prompted this wordy rant):

Dear Pollstar Premium Subscriber,

Pollstar.com is in the process of upgrading our site, including many of our online features. Because the changes to Pollstar.com will be substantial, new or renewed Premium memberships are no longer available.

We still offer all users our free auto-notify accounts for five artists or venues. If you wish to continue to receive these free notifications after your Premium expiration date you will need to edit your list down to five selections.

We anticipate launching more new features in the near future and hope you will continue to enjoy using Pollstar.com during our time of transition.

Thank you for using Pollstar!

Don’t you think it’s kind of a weird way to tell me, a paying customer, that you’re upgrading your site? “We’re about to boot your paying ass down to free account status!” But hey, you’re Pollstar and I love you — I’ll patiently wait for whatever super duper upgrade you’re cooking up in total secrecy. Hopefully you’ve partnered up with a smart and creative web firm that really understands user experience that can help you capitalize (as in, you will make more money for doing these things) on the tonnes and tonnes of opportunities available to deliver your content to users in creative, useful and innovative ways that let them share it and mash it up.

Pollstar: the 2007 internet is calling… will you accept the charges?

Brilliant title, eh? Well, it’s true.

Google launched OpenSocial late last week to a lot of fanfare in the blog-o-sphere. If you subscribe to any feeds related to the web, or specifically social media, you would have seen it mentioned a lot. Probably had you wondering what all the buzz was about — like, why is everybody making such a big deal over this?

Well, Jeremiah Owyang did a good job of explaining the whole OpenSocial concept in executive (i.e. layman) terms, but if you can’t be bothered to read his post here’s why OpenSocial matters:

1. For developers like 76design, we can build widgets (i.e. mini applications) that will run seamlessly on a huge number of social networks without us having to learn how to make them work on each one individually.
2. More importantly though, with the trend towards company websites becoming their own micro social networks and the transition from desktop to browser OpenSocial defines a standard so that those that create content can take advantage of the extra functionality and features that widgets can bring in a very easy way. Ultimately, we build it and you reap the rewards by having a more engaging website that uses social networking practices to bring together your customers, employees and prospects — and you’re creating the conversation.

The web is being widget-ized and OpenSocial is a major step towards making it a level playing field where those that build widgets and those that use widgets can do so much more effectively and be able to tap into a lot of existing networks with a lot less effort. It’s still early on, but it’s pretty clear that OpenSocial has the potential to have a major impact on the social web. And you know that with Google behind the wheel, it will be widely adopted and has little chance of failing. The only question is how soon will it start realize some of its potential.
For the next little while we’re going to be collecting what we deem to be important resources, articles and discussions about OpenSocial and sharing them here on shift+control. Here’s a few that I came across in the last couple of days:

• Netvibes unveils Social Widgets and its next release called Ginger
  Netvibes, a provider of widget-based personalized start pages, are proposing their Universal Widget API as a way to address the issue of developing widget containers.
• OpenSocial Hacked Again
  In addition to this latest hack, TechCrunch reported an earlier one late last week. While the hacks were relatively harmless and don’t appear to reveal any flaws in OpenSocial itself, it’s clear that these developers were keen to be out there before anybody else and should ensure that they are taking the necessary security measures when building applications.
• Lending Club and OpenSocial: Striving to Make Social Networks more Useful
  Interesting perspective on the potential of OpenSocial from a truly social company, Lending Club, who started out as a Facebook app and then moved onto the wide open internet. You can really see how companies like Lending Club are poised to take full advantage of this new standard.

steve got the ball rolling with a couple of beauty posts documenting our new project at 76labs
it’s temporarily top secret
but our development process
is inspiring a whole lot of blogworthy thoughts…

it’s no secret that ours is a music project
so i’d like to talk about musicians
and what kind of lousy dough they make
because they make painully little
playing in cafes, bars, clubs, theatres, festivals
50 bucks sometimes
a hundred bucks a lot of the time
and for every quality gig that pays 2 or 3 hundred
another couple that pay nothing at all
which is why one of the main objectives of our new project is to increase the amount of money working musicians make!

and while it’s true that the legends are rich
there are very few of them
compared to the countless fabulous musicians
lifelong musicians
who live poor
and die
more or less penniless

and if you know how the music industry works
you’ll know that even selling a million records
or having a number one hit
is no guarantee of significant financial rewards
because there are so many predators, so many ways to get screwed
that time and again musicians get famous and go broke all at once

and so the project we’re working on is in large measure for them
real musicians who spend their lives making people feel good
we’re building an economic engine
unlike any other
based on an understanding of the real lives of musicians
and their fans
and designed for them and no one else
and when it’s ready to test (soon)
we hope you’ll give it a whirl
and let us know what you think
js

Yes, I’ve been a negligent blogger… but let’s forget about that for now. I’m writing again and damn I’m excited.

A wee while back (in November to be precise) I talked about an initiative at 76design called 76labs. Since then it’s remained largely cloaked in mystery. I wish I could say it’s because we were secretly toiling away, building the web’s next big thing, but alas it’s been quiet because we had our busiest Spring ever and when you’re busy with client work that leaves little time for experimentation.

Well, that was then and this is now. It’s Summer time and while we’re still abnormally busy, 76labs has gained some new focus and a whack of momentum thanks to the efforts of a few motivated and bright individuals (the brightest of which is undoubtedly John Sobol) who are determined to bring some of our ideas to market.

I’m excitedly writing this entry because we’ve begun development on a new product which we plan to launch in the Fall, on a beta level at least. I wish I could go into more detail but at this point I’ve got to keep it under my hat. The thing is, it’s an incredibly simple solution to a really complex problem… and so I can’t exactly tell you what it is or else you’d go out and make the product and collect our millions. I’m kidding. We’re fully aware that as social media advocates we’re being a bit hypocritical in the anti-transparentness of our development, but really – if you knew how surprisingly simple this idea is you’d understand why we can’t share it quite yet.

All I can say is that it’s going to turn the music industry upside down. Big words, I know… I don’t expect you to believe me just because I typed that. Just be patient and we’ll show you what we mean.

Even though it’s strictly on the DL I do plan to blog the process as we go. After all, product development is new territory for us and comes with a whole new set of rules. While it is ultimately web-based and obviously requires a lot of the core skills we use on a daily basis, the move from service-for-hire to R&D is pretty substantial. I hope to offer a few observations and insights as we go. Without further ado…

We’re already midway through week 2 and just entering the architecture and wire-framing stage. So far, the process has been much like a typical web site project for us. However, the one difference I’ve found is the difficulty in nailing down the scope. By its nature, the sky’s the limit with this thing. Unfortunately, we can only invest a finite number of hours and in the Web2.0 spirit of development we really want to get a foundation built and release a basic version of the product done and in the hands of real users. That feedback will be invaluable and we hope that it will ultimately shape the development as we move forward.

Alright… gotta get back to looking for available domain names for this thing. As it goes in the online world, we’ll name it once we know the .com is available! Why do you think this company’s called 76design, anyways? 71 through 75design.com were taken, duh.