There have been a few mentions of our internal C++ library (codenamed Flint) around the web over the last week or two. Over the years we’ve had opportunities to work on some really interesting installation projects and data visualizations, and along the way we decided it would be a good idea to use some common bootstrapping, so that we can get the art side of things rolling a whole lot faster. That bootstrapping has turned into a somewhat larger scale library that makes it easy to do a whole lot of amazing things that used to take us a good deal of time to get working. It goes all the way from simply creating windows and draw-able contexts, to shaders, VBOs, and the once-feared (for me) Quaternion.

At the moment, Flint is very much in Alpha. We haven’t made any plans to release it to the public, but we also haven’t made any plans to not release it either (apologies for the double negative). We should have more news in the upcoming months, as we add necessary features and fine tune everything. We highly recommend checking out OpenFrameworks and Processing if you’re interested in doing high-end graphics or other interactive projects.

Oh, and if we do decide to release Flint, leave a comment and we’ll try to get you on the beta. Again, we still don’t know what the future holds, so no promises ;).

Maker Faire 2009 was basically epic to the max.

Highlight of the day (demonstrated above by Josh Carr) was an “adult sized playground” that was composed of two sets of swings and a see-saw. These were then connected through the magic of arduino (a Barbarian Group favorite) to a computer, which then generated music using the measured voltage to modulate the signal. A swing set, that was basically synthesizer. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?

Are you still not convinced? There was also a life sized version of that board game Mouse Trap that was basically this epic Rube Goldberg. AWESOME! Do you love socially awkward people wearing corsets, welding goggles, and far too much make up? OMFG SO DO I!! There was about a gabillion steampunk kids at Maker Faire as well. I also saw a Tesla Roadster, infinity robots, a belly dancer, a diet Coke + Mentos explosion AND a high school band whose guitarist played a totally amazing flying V guitar. Shred Nation!

You’re super duper jealous, admit it.

Next up in Rick’s ad travels we have Coachella!

So: this is an interesting one. I wrote about sponsorship opportunities at SXSW this year, and we did a partnership with the gang at C3 Presents and Lollapalooza last year for Adobe (I’ll be writing more about Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and other festivals as they get closer). But Coachella, one does not really think of as an advertising venue. Unlike the other major festivals, Coachella is not “sponsored by” or “powered by” anyone, and the stages have names like “Gobi,” “Mojave” and “Sahara” rather than “intel” or “AT&T.” AEG/Goldenvoice also puts on a bunch of other festivals, and the sponsorship opportunities are notably less in-your-face at Coachella than, say Stagecoach (powered by Toyota, also sponsored by ABC, Bud, Sony, Home Depot and BootBarn) or Bumbershoot (Powered by Samsung). This article from the Creator’s Syndicate sums it up nicely:

It’s this low-key nature of the sponsorships at Coachella, though, that I think give them some interesting potential. State Farm had a very well-received DJ/Mixing booth (air conditioning, of course, helps), and Sony’s Playstation tent was very well-attended. The sponsorship opportunities @ Coachella invite more hands-on participation.

Another factor, I think, that really adds to it is the installation artwork all around Coachella. This is one of Coachella’s unheralded benefits – and they’ve really expanded and enhanced the art in the five years I’ve been going there. There’s an amazing array of ten to twenty mammoth digital, interactive, mechanical and fire-based pieces of art there.

These two factors, I think, give Coachella some potential that no one’s really exploited yet. As I walked around the festival, occasionally my interactive agency guy would come out and I’d envision that no sponsor has really nailed doing something truly awesome at Coachella yet. Maybe not in a tent. Maybe sponsor something awesome – like commission some amazing piece of interactive art. The crowd here is notoriously brand-cynical, of course, but I think taking this approach could be analagous to Benjamin and Johnny’s Branded Utility theory – a brand being a good citizen in the whole enterprise, sponsoring some amazing art that no one else could afford.

The potential, I think, is pretty great. Something like about 150,000 people attend Coachella, and they are almost all in the 18-24 range, disposable cash (otherwise how are they paying $300 a pop for a ticket + camping, etc), and trendy, etc (many of the bands on during the day at Coachella go on to be huge). I don’t know the sponsorship feels of Coachella, though I imagine they’re comparable to the equally-great-potential Lollapalooza. But I’ll bet a financial case can be made.

There’s probably a lot of politicking and cajoling and whatnot that would have to go on to get some truly great brand thing not in a tent on the side, but with the right art, the right client, and the right execution, I would think it’s doable. I think it could be really great, and I’m going to be keeping an eye out for a partner for it. Any volunteers?

So I know Ben and Noah have been roaming all over creation on behalf of GE for the GE Adventure blog, but I’ve been doing a lot of travelling too (sniff sniff), and I thought it would be fun to share some of the fascinating ad-related places and companies I’ve discovered and visited in the last few months.

The first place I discovered was while I was down in Austin in March for SXSW (which I wrote about from a brand perspective here). One night during the music festival I was enjoying a lovely set by Echo and the Bunnymen, and I get a text message from John Nussbaum, formerly of Goodby and now @ Fallon, and he offers to pick me and my friend up in a white limo, wherever we are, and take us out to the Red Bull Moontower party. This, of course, seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up, so we hoof it a few blocks and sure enough, John meets us and picks us up in a 70’s white stretch limo.

As we drive out to the Moon Tower, John makes some introductions and explains what’s going on. The Limo belongs to Nussy’s friend Neal, who is one of the partners in a company called Sustainable Waves. Sustainable Waves is a zero-emission sound, lighting, stage and production company with offices in Austin and San Diego. And the Red Bull Moon Tower party is both produced by them, and held on their lot.

Sustainable Waves, in their words:

So as we pull the limo into the back lot, we go into a quanset hut and slide into the Red Bull VIP area, which is behind the stage, connected to the stage by a fog-filled silver pipe that the bands come out of. It’s all made by the staff at SW, and the production values are stellar.

From here we take a tour, heading over to side stage and then eventually out onto the grounds, which hold a couple thousand people. It’s early still – maybe 1 AM – so it’s just filling up as Shepard Fairey is DJing.

The place is beautiful. There are several amazing interactive pieces – many owned or commissioned by Red Bull, shipped into the event, and many that Neal and his team has built. He explains to me how the hundreds of giant glowing blocks around the field are really giant cooking oil containers, that he bought in bulk from “a barrel man that I know,” reinforced with metal, implanted LED lights in them, and made several giant, interactive glowing walls throughout the party – with each brick maybe 3 feet cubed. “The best part,” Neal says “is that all hundred of them or so are using LEDs and are all running off of one circuit, powered by a fuel cell battery that we charge via solar.”

Everything SW does is zero emission – even the Limo, which isn’t zero emissions yet – is getting the fuel cel treatment. Later, as we drive back into Austin, one of Neal’s co-workers goes on and on about exactly how many fuel cells they’ll need, exactly how long they can hold a charge, etc. It’s monstrously complicated to keep everything zero emission and solar at rock events – they use a ton of power and are, of course, at night. So they charge fuel cell batteries, which can only be depleted to a certain amount or their effectiveness is diminished and the batteries are eventually ruined. So they have a whole engineering staff that monitors the batteries, swapping them out as the night progresses, making sure everything stays smooth.

The amount of light, sound and sheer volume of electricity at the event is obvious, and it’s impressive that it’s all running on solar.

Neal and Nussy and I talk about the controllers for the light wall, trying to make the lights dance in an interesting way. This is an area where I know a bit more about – mainly thanks to Robert, Chandler and Andrew and their work with Saturn, and processing, and Robert’s experiments with the USB Powermate nobs and our work at the McLeod Residence. The digital part is known to me, but I am always in awe of the people who bring that into the physical realm: interfacing with the computer to actually power and control hardware. Finding “a barrel guy” and repurposing old industrial containers into giant lights. Hanging the fabric to make the lights dance above the audience.

It’s all magic to me, and I can’t help being truly impressed with Sustainable Waves, the work they did for Red Bull, and their offices and workshops – a lot, a compound, really, filled with determined people making things with their hands.

Anyway, the place was marvelous. If you are ever in need of show production services – lights, stage, sound – or some awesome zero emission art, lights, etc. – definitely give them a call. I’m dying to find a way for us to work together in the future.

And getting a ride home from Moon Tower in a Limo instead of waiting with the masses for a cab back to downtown didn’t hurt either.

All photos reused without permission from China Shop Mag who had some great coverage of the events there. Apologies and thanks, and I’ll pull ‘em if you want.

So, I am back from that insane week that is known as South by Southwest, or SXSW. For the uninitiated, SXSW is three conferences in one – an interactive conference for the first half of the week, a music conference for the second half of the week, and a film festival spanning the whole week. It takes place in Austin, TX and is in its one millionth year or something like that.

This is my fifth year attending both the music conference and the interactive conference, and my tenth SXSW overall. I’ll try and get to another post on here about the interesting things I encountered at the interactive conference, and I generally blog about my experience at the music festival over at my Rock Tourism blog Rocktourist if you’re curious.

What I thought it would be fun to do this year, though, would be to critique SXSW as a marketing channel. This seems like it might prove useful to our clients, who are always looking for interesting ways to market to people. And while there has been no shortage of things written about marketing @ SXSW, I haven’t seen too many people critique the marketing from a conference-goers point of view. Given my long history in advertising, I figured I was the man for the job.

There are several ways you can market at SXSW. First, you could go the legitimate route and become an official sponsor of the conference or conferences. This ranges from something as simple as a ad in their program book, to an insert, to sponsoring a party, as we did, or becoming a full on partner for the conference.

Secondly, you could throw a rogue party, or host a rogue party house. During the interactive conference, this mainly means doing things like buying out a bar for a night and spreading the word on facebook that you’ve got an open bar tab for a few hours. During the music conference, this can also be this way, but can extend to being an insanely elaborate “house,” such as the Fader/Levi’s Fort or the Red Bull Moontower.

During music, you also have the option of throwing a day party – sponsored or not. Rachel Rae and Paris Hilton took this route, as did the Onion and Pitchfork. Typically this is a consortium of brands banding together – friends, usually – and getting together with a music label, magazine, booking agent, etc. in order to bring you some bands.

One other option is to sign on as an additional sponsor one of the lounges that is already in existence. Purevolume is the best example of this. Purevolume is a music website that hosts an after-hours rock lounge all week, and sponsors pay to be either a week-long sponsor (if, say, you’re a vodka brand), or you can sponsor a specific night. As a bit of an experiment, I sponsored a specific night at Purevolume on my own (well, with some friends, more on that in a bit), using my twitter handle. I mainly did this because I like a good party, and I was curious what the process would be like.

Finally, you could “go rogue” and be on the ground, doing hard core guerilla marketing – leaflets, free samples, etc.

So, first, let’s look at the official sponsors. Basically, the top level of being an official SXSW sponsor lets you be a “presented by” sponsor. This means that every booklet, sign in the clubs, banner, etc. has your logo on it. You can be a “presented by” sponsor for interactive, film, music, or all of it.

The interactive only presented-by sponsors seem to include Microsoft Silverlight.

The all-conference sponsors seem to be Miller Lite, Fuze, IFC, ZOne (the bars, I think), and the Austin Chronicle.

Pepsi seems to be a sponsor as well, though during interactive, interestingly, they sponsored the conference as Mountain Dew. On the site it says Pepsico, with the old logo. On the banner behind the bands, it’s the much-maligned new logo.

This sort of sponsoring seems to be a straight up numbers and impressions play. SXSW is a remarkably diverse festival, especially across interactive, film and music. Getting your logo in front of all of those people probably has value – especially for second-tier products like Zone and Fuze. I have no idea what this sort of sponsorship costs, but I would do a straight up calculation against any other sort of outdoor or display advertising. There’s not a lot of deeper engagement with the consumer, and anything ancillary the offer aside from your logo everywhere goes to a far, far smaller number of people.

Throwing a party during the interactive and film conferences, by contrast, seems an extraordinary value. For very little money, you get your name printed in the official schedule, and a TON of people will come to your party. It’s up to you to capitalize on that and turn it into good will for your brand, but after two years, I’ve found it’s really not that hard. You just throw a good party, and be nice to everyone. Seems a much better value. Red Bull takes this to the extreme with the Red Bull Moontower, an amazing party installation over on east Guadaloupe that has fantastic art, great bands, free drinks, all the red bull you want and zero carbon footprint.

Having this kind of control over the experience is powerful, and you can reach your target in a much more effective way. Potential customers can feel true brand affinity for you if you footed the bill on them seeing Monotonix or Erica Bayduh up close and personal.

Comparing this to sponsoring something like Purevolume, the benefits become even more clear. After hours houses at SXSW are notoriously packed, impossible to get into, or so far away that they aren’t worth going to. You don’t control the brand experience, and the conditions are generally horrible. I paid maybe a third as much for my Purevolume sponsorship as we did for the Barbarian/Onion party at the (really wonderful) Mohawk bar. I don’t think I even got one tenth of the brand exposure. For days afterward, people were complimenting me on our great party at the Mohawk. For days afterward I found myself apologizing for the rude door staff, capricious rules, schizophrenic bouncers, warm beer and intolerable volume at the Purevolume house. The told us the VIP area held 100, limited our total number of VIP wristbands (not simultaneous attendance, but total wristbands) to 50, then took ten of those for themselves, even though they had the other 50, and then proceeded to cram 200 people in there. We had a wine cosponsor who wasn’t allowed to serve her wine. All of this was after we explicitly stated our concerns that exactly this would happen. Priority attendance was randomly cut off at 1AM for a 4AM party – even though the whole point of doing it there was for the 4AMness of the event, and such a cutoff was nowhere in our contract.

Having gone to SXSW many times, and been to Purevolume before, I went into it expecting exactly this sort of behaviour, and so I’m not surprised. But I cringe thinking of other sponsors who come by expecting to be treated well. Walk up to the door and say your a sponsor. You’d expect at least a “oh hello, this isn’t your night but come on in” or a “sorry we can’t let you in tonight but talk to so and so tomorrow and you’ll be all set.” This was a nuisance for me, but could be a serious drag if you’re a brand or trying to show a client a good time. It’s worse when you’re trying to get a client in, holding a VIP wristband for them in your hand, and are being yelled at by bouncers telling you that the place is full no matter what, while you watch them bring in underage girls.

Obviously I’m a little bitter, but I think it does actually highlight the risk of this sort of marketing. As you partner up with people, know who’s in charge. Purevolume has a business to run and an image to protect and that involves giving young aspiring rock bands the impression of upward success in the music industry. This is potentially true at any other party that’s not in your control.

I’ve noticed that Fader and Levi’s have had a long fruitful relationship on the marketing of the Fort, and it seems to work well for them. I’d have to question the immense expense and whether it’s had an impact on their brand, however, but at least I can’t fault the great experience the Fader/Levi’s fort provides. You’ll notice, however, there aren’t a ton of second-level sponsors for the Fort – it’s just a couple brands. So the impact is stronger.

I also have to put in a good word for the guerilla marketing on sixth street. Free handouts are THE BOMB and everyone is thankful. There are THOUSANDS of people on sixth street, just walking around – way more than actually attend the conference. And they love free stuff. There was a line 8 people deep wherever the little Red Bull car went.

This, then, I think, leads us to some guiding principle for advertising at SXSW.

#1: Do less, well. Don’t try and blanket the whole event unless you can OWN it. Have a single party, or maybe two, and have them be AWESOME. Facebook did this expertly during interactive – they found a great club and they had their single party, and it was awesome and I will be forever thankful for them for showing me the awesomeness that is Flosstradamus live. I still have people thanking us for Tokyo Police Club last year, even though we were the smaller party last year.

#2: Don’t worry if there’s something else going on. There are just SO many people at SXSW, and so many parties, and so much NEED for parties that it’s totally okay if there’s another, or bigger party down the street. So long as you’re listed in the official guide (or have great promo on your own), people will show up. People show up for bands in the lobbies of banks and at pizza restaurants. They’ll come to the party.

#3: If you’re throwing an event, have a stone cold badass party planner, and make sure you have your VIP situation sorted out: Any party at SXSW, no matter what, is going to have a line at the door. Hundreds of people long. Before you start. Make sure your VIPs know who they are, and make sure they know how to behave and where to go. Make it clear to them they’re the VIPs, and don’t call everyone VIP. There’s nothing that upsets people more than to be told their a VIP and then get to the party and realize that there are 500 other VIPs waiting in line.

#4: Keep your event downtown: This one is the subject of much debate – and the remoteness of the Red Bull Moontower definitely adds to its air of authenticity, and makes the locals feel a bit more loved. But do consider the ramifications of location. People are notoriously weary of lines. but they’ll give anything a shot if they know it’s not too far out of their way and there’s another bar next door.

#5: Control the event, or at least make sure you trust those who do: When we first came to SXSW, we did our party with the Onion, whose president at the time was a close personal friend of mine. I knew they wouldn’t screw us, I knew we could trust them. One of my employees was friends with the bar owner. Ditto. The minute it feels like you’re talking to your potential co-ponsor like a media channel or a media outlet, rather than a partner, beware. If your goals and needs aren’t aligned, and they’re in control, their needs will come first.

#6: Try to stay legit: There’s a LOT of weirdness with being a legitimate SXSW sponsor. They want you to upsell. They may discourage you from having your party on a certain night. They may not exactly tell you what their motivations are. Sometimes it’s a complete mystery. Why is the opening party for interactive THREE DAYS IN? Nobody knows! But in general, they’re good people, and being a legitimate sponsor is not only sound from an impressions and marketing point of view, it’s the right thing to do.

#7: Offer something unique: Bring a band who’s not playing (Activision OWNED this this year with Metallica showing up at their Guitar Hero party). Bands during interactive. Free booze. Something to give your party a little bit different of a spin.

#8: Get a ground crew: Having a local presence can help immensely. We have definitely benefitted from the Onion’s Austin ground operation through the years (thanks guys!)

#9: Become friends with the staff: If your event has a staff, try to become friends with them. They may change halfway through the night, that friendship may go out the window when capacity hits, but it can’t hurt. And stay cool. Treat them well and they will treat you well. Usually.

Okay, I’m running out of rules. Nine it is. This entry is so Mashable.

Hey, so a while back we created these awesome, interactive mosaic mirrors for an installation in the McLeod Residence in Seattle. Well, we’ve just finished v2 of them (in a stunning 7-foot tall aluminum body) and our friends at O’Reilly asked if we would loan them one for their awesome Web 2.0 Expo, going on right now.

So we did. And it’s there. RIGHT NOW. So you should go to the Expo because it’s awesome, and then check out our Mirror while you’re there.

The first version created mosaic reflections based on images of all of the people who had looked in the mirror before. This new version does that, too, but it also incorporates any photos tagged with “portrait” on Flickr.

It’s pretty awesome.

So recently I was working on a mirror and I ran into a problem setting the correct display resolution for the tv that makes up the “reflective” surface of the mirror. Basically the computer would think it was smarter than me and set a stretched resolution instead of a native one on reboot creating more of a fun house mirror effect than anything else.

To solve the problem I knew I was going to have to script something so I started poking around in applescript and quickly realized that there was no library to change the resolution, and I’d have to default to using click actions and menu items. Needless to say, this is terrible idea so I gave up on applescript and started looking around for some command line tools.

I found cscreen, but the project has been closed up and the developer took down the app. Shucks. Then I asked the venerable Adam Miller for a hand. After some google-ing we found this post in which a guy shares his code for a small C app to change the resolution. A few moments and a compile later and we had an app! An app that is super simple and works really well, in leopard even!

Here is a zipped up copy of Newscreen, remember its command line only, so you’ll need to put it somewhere on your hard drive and use it from terminal, Mac only.

Here’s a usage example: newscreen -h 1440 -v 900

The other beautiful thing about this is that you can set custom resolutions. For instance, I have a Mac Mini at home that I use as a media hub and it’s hooked to an HDTV. The Mac Mini doesn’t have a decent recommended resolution for the TV so I was able to use this tool to set a custom res, and again it worked like a charm! Now it looks great and actually fits on the screen.

Oh and standard disclaimer here, this works for me but might not for you. Use at your own discretion, this is provided as-is no warranty implied or otherwise at all, ever. And I’m not responsible if it destroys your computer or files. Or if it murders anyone in your family.

UPDATE: as pointed out in the comments, this is intel only! for now. I’ll see if I can compile a universal version later.

CBS Outernet announced last week the launch of GameStopTV, an in-store digital video network using high-definition screens. I am usually pretty annoyed with in-store TV channels because they are so, well, annoying. In this case the content is absolutely relevant to the retail experience and as such is a natural extension of the shopping experience. Awesome.

I wish my local Shaws would learn something from CBS. God, standing in-line to buy ground beef tonight I had to endure three back-to-back television ads for tampons. Ugh.