Think Tank Creative welcomes GetWellNetwork to its client roster. Think Tank Creative has been retained to provide monthly marketing support for GetWellNetwork, which includes the design and production of its patient and staff user guides. GetWellNetwork provides a comprehensive solution to hospital patient education and entertainment by turning an in-room television monitor into an interactive experience.
Project: Spring Newsletter
Client: The Benchmarking Company
Industry: Agency
Overview: Design and layout of the first issue of the The Beauty Benchmark
Think Tank Creative welcomes the League of Conservation Voters to its client roster. Think Tank Creative will be designing an email graphic, invitation package and event program for the organization. The League of Conservation Voters is a national non-profit organization that works to turn environmental values into national priorities.
Project: 2011 Trends Preview
Client: The Benchmarking Company
Industry: Agency
Overview: Preview of The Benchmarking Company 2011 Trends Report
Think Tank Creative welcomes The Mertz Company to its client roster. Think Tank Creative will be designing and developing a website for the company. The Mertz Company, an esteemed construction company in Connecticut, has been in business since the 1800s. This will be their first website.
The Washington Post recently hosted an online contest for the top tweeps in DC. In order to be eligible for the award, contestants had to be nominated in one of twelve categories which ranged from favorite food truck to favorite non-profit. Think Tank Creative was nominated in the Favorite Entrepreneur category, accompanied by seven local entrepreneurs including Pete Snyder of New Media Strategies and Melanie Spring of Sisarina. Voting took place over the week long period from December 27th to December 31 and winners were announced on Monday, January 3. With over 5,000 votes cast in the contest, we were shocked and excited to learn that Think Tank Creative was voted as DC’s Favorite Entrepreneur. The full list of winners is available here.
Many, many, many months ago, I decided my website needed a little sprucing up. My then site was a good a website — a stones throw from the very first website I designed, and it suited my purposes: it was easy to update, it had decent content and it wasn’t completely awful to look at. But, in this Web 2.0 world, it was looking more tired and more dated by the day. And while the website’s cute little table structure worked (even in IE 6!) it wasn’t exactly search-friendly. It was very 2005. Coincidentally, I think the site was designed in 2005. But, as the saying goes, “We’ve come a long way, baby!”
So, I set off on a redesign of the site — a beautiful, fresh, clean, timeless look — a look very similar to the design style our clients love to see from us. The age of web-safe color palettes was a thing of the past, so our drab maroon was brightened to an excited magenta — our actual “corporate” color. We even took the site from its little 800 pixel width to a seemingly gigantic 960 pixels! Web fonts were added in (sparingly) to further reinforce the brand identity. With the basic structure and look done, it was time to have fun. Widgets and gadgets and javascript and do-dads and do-hickeys were all envisioned. And when it came time to program the site, my amazing (and I mean amazing) development team was able to build a site that does ALMOST everything I pictured. I sacrificed a blinking purple unicorn that would follow the cursor around the screen (not), but ultimately, I pictured it and they made it happen. I really could not have done this with out the amazing Related Media team and I’m so thankful that they took my vision and made it a reality. (Shameless plug in 3, 2, 1…www.relatedmedia.com)
I really could not be more excited about the new site, and while there are a few areas I still want to flush out and a million work samples that need to get added in, it’s time to send it off into the interwebs.
But, before you go marvel at the beauty that is my new site, there is one final piece of business to attend to:
I remember when you first came into my life. You made my dream — my business — seem real. Suddenly, anyone in the world could find me, see my work, and hire me. When the phone would ring, the magic words “I saw your website” were often the first words out of the caller’s mouth. You helped me grow, but more than that, you helped me believe in what Think Tank Creative could one day be. And you, you my little website, helped me get there.
Just this year, I was sitting in front of you, updating you, adding a news post here and a work sample there and enjoying the little bit of time I got to spend with you. What had been a pleasant experience for so many years was becoming harder and harder on both of us. You were getting old and technology was getting younger. I didn’t have the time to constantly update you. I’d try to add in a new fancy accessory and you would rebel by sending something else out of whack. We’d play a technology version of tug-of-war before one of us gave in. In the end, I think we both knew it was time.
Letting go wasn’t easy and it was hard to look at you in your final days. Websites don’t get a last meal or a special tribute. They just go away. Not you my little site. Your pieces are all stored so one day, you can be put back together just the way you always were. One day when we’re both ready.
But, it’s time. It’s time to let go, say goodbye and hope that my new site helps me grow as much over the next five years as you have over the past five. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Now, get out of here, and go enjoy six-plus months of hard work! www.creativebythinktank.com
TED Take 3. Today, we’re at the Sydney Harmon Hall in downtown Washington DC for TEDxMidAtlantic. As I’ve experienced in the past, I’m filled with anticipation to hear the inspiration and success of so many distinguished speakers. The TEDx crowd is mixed, I’m surrounded by young and old, government workers and accupuncturists — if there is one thing I love about TED it’s that there is never a shortage of diversity in the crowd. The speakers today are just as diverse. Everyone from Steve Case, AOL co-founder, to Sam Shelton, local DC design icon from KINETIK will be presenting. Needless to say, I’m ready.
The first session is actually already over and I know I’ve been remiss is blogging throughout, but third row center is not the ideal place to blog from. For act two, Ive secured a balcony seat so, stay tuned. In the meantime let’s use this break to get caught up. Due to a last minute cancellation Steve Case (@stevecase) was actually our first speaker of the day and started off by taking a picture of the audience — check his Twitter feed- it may be there. Steve talked to about the change he’s seen over the past 25 years in the Internet, DC as an innovative city, and politics. Most interesting of Steve’s points was the second wave of the Internet revolution which ne sees coming — a revolution where we transform the Internet into a useful tool in our everyday lifemand use it in areas such as healthcare.
Next up, Matt Mountain, a telescope scientist. Matt spoke to us about science outer space and the possibilities of other Earths, and other life. Much like Galileo did when he first turned his telescope to the sky, if we innovate, we can find new things.
UVA professor Saras Sarasvathy was up next. Saris spoke about the entrepreneurship that has revolutionized brands. BFI, the waste management giant, was started by an individual as a way to solve his HOAs trash problem. he saw a need, found a solution, and eventually made it his livelihood. In Saras’ research, she has found that entrepreneurs resist the idea of predicting the future, and instead finds that entrepreneurs succeed when they co-create. Changing “what I know” and “what can I do” into “what we know” and “what we can do” is when new things are created.
Our fourth presenter was Otis Rolley, a Baltimore city planner. He spoke of the relationships that exist in neighborhoods, and how humans and relationships build neighborhoods, not city planners.
Our final presenter before our artistic performance was Esther Dyson. Esther spoke about genes and predicting death and how based on our current situation, our predictions of death changes. Esther works with a company called 23andMe.com which takes you genes and predicts your likelihood of contracting certain illnesses.
Break one is almost over, so I’m going to secure my blog-friendly seat and will be back in a few.
Susan Shaw is kicking off our second session. Susan was a speaker at TEDxOilSpill, and is showing the lessons learned since the Gulf Oil – corporate negligence and lying. So what are we doing about the oil and the oil spill? We’ve formed a DOI Working Group. That working group has pointed out the impacts on a number of areas – including health impacts. The health impacts are many, and range from skin reactions to internal bleeding and liver and kidney problems. Susan asks, what if corporate culture integrated public health into accountability?
Francis Beland, another TEDxOilspill speaker, points out that we have had the same oil spill cleanup technology that we had when the Exxon Valdez spill. To motivate advancements in this area, a competition has been formed to challenge teams to create this new technology: www.iprizecleanoceans.org.
Cesar Harada, developer of Protei, is developing a boat which can pick up more of the oil then the typical surface collection will (3%). By creating a fleet of ocean blimps and allowing crowd sourced control over the skimmers, we can pick up more of the oil. Adam Pruden, is also developing oil skimming technology — SeaSwarm. Using a self-controlled robot with an oil absorbent cloth, a swarm of robots can skim more of oil off the water surface.
Christoph Gielen is a photographer who takes shots from above to show land use and infrastructure to show the sameness of development. Christoph chooses his locations based on foreclosure rates to identify patterned communities — something he defines as proof that developments are not just visually unappealing, but also financially unsustainable. Additional environmental issues can be spotted from above near planned developments; something that has caused Florida to reversed some of its planned land use from development zones to development-free zones.
Jackie Savitz from Oceana, is dedicated to saving oceans and ocean life. As a result, she works with Oceana to move from drilling to find fossil fuels to ocean wind power. From their findings, wind creates more energy and jobs, and powers more homes. She wants to change our national chant from “drill baby drill” to “turn baby turn.”
Microbiologist Dickson Despommier asks what if cities behaved like ecosystems? Currently, cities are an unsustainable entity. Can we change that? Yes, if create an ecosystem for our cities using urban farming – no runoff, no crop seasonality, no weather related crop loss, minimal controlled chemicals, fresh foods, creates jobs. One indoor acre is equivalent to ten outdoor acres. Dickson wants to see a federal interest in vertical urban farming.
If we can move a ton of goods at 423 miles per gallon why do we move a person at 18? Bill James wants to know the answer to that. He has developed the JPods, which look like a ski lift pod on a monorail, but is powered by a small motor and solar connectors. By switching to this technology the average family will increase their disposable income by more than $5000/family.
Yash Gupta shows how through lessons from business, we can learn the skills of resilience, rhythm and renewal; all things that our society — and our children — need to achieve.
Back from lunch, Iyeoka, who actually performed earlier in the day, is now on stage. Iyeoka is a poet, performer and pharmacist. Her poetry is stories of her life, her experiences and her memories.
Paula Kerger of PBS, a visionary in arts and media, believes that artists are the keys to the future. We must transform our classroom into places where creativity in the classroom. Why are students starting businesses outside of the classroom in their garages in their spare time and not in the classroom? Our classrooms are designed for the industrial age, not the modern innovative culture we are in.
Diana Laufenberg, a Philadelphia teacher, leads with the title “Embrace Failure.” When you give kids the tools to learn, you have to give them the opportunity to fail. Learning has to include a certain amount of failure, because without failure you can’t learn. If we continue to look at school as a place to get information we will miss the mark — we need to make it an experiential place that moves beyond the right or wrong of the standardized test.
Full disclosure, I’ve skipped blogging about the last two speakers and am skipping ahead to Sam Shelton, who I mentioned previously. In addition to being a partner at Kinetik, Sam is an adjunct professor at the Corcoran and asked students to come up with a real problem within the community that the students could solve. The first problem students identified was the commuter problem in DC and created breakthejam.com. Pedestrian safety was the second problem identified. They researched intersections with the highest fatality rates. They drew chalk outlines and handed out information about pedestrian safety. The students took the skills they learned and encouraged change.
With that, our tired fingers are signing off. The event is still going on for a few more speakers, so catch all of the action here:
Project: Attendee Yearbook
Client: GYMR PR
Industry: Non-profit, agency
Overview: Facebook of the AF4Q attendees for the 2010 National Meeting
Aligning Forces for Quality Attendee Yearbook
Project: Pennsylvania Elk Timberlands Fact Sheet
Client: The Nature Conservancy
Industry: Associations, Non-Profit
Overview: TNC needed a fact sheet to generate funding and interest for its newest project in Elk County, Pennsylvania. Think Tank Creative worked with TNC’s content team to update their standard fact sheet for the Elk Timberlands project.
