Posts Tagged ‘Imagination’
My Imagination Internship
6 Jan 2010
by admin
As an editorial intern at Imagination, my skills are put to the test each and every day with a wide variety of writing assignments. Whether it’s writing stories for nationally published material for some of our clients or simple blog posts or tweets, each time I walk through the doors of this place, there’s something new and different on my plate.
My Internship Experience
You all know the theory that interns at some companies don’t truly get a ‘hands-on’ or a resume building experience, right? That couldn’t be farther from the truth at Imagination. My experiences have already led me to include Imagination on my resume as well as have the ability to show future employers the work I was doing here through my clips.
I have a friend who interned over the summer for a newspaper publication. He had one piece of work to show for it at the end of the program. I had one piece of work to show within the first two weeks of my internship at Imagination. Although I’m a journalism person at heart, my writing here has not only helped Imagination, but it furthered the knowledge I need to succeed in any writing industry.
The Imagination Difference
It truly is a great place to work and if you are even remotely thinking of entering in the field of custom media publishing, give Imagination a chance. I’m extremely thankful for the experience I’ve gotten here thus far and only look forward to the new projects that are in store for me.
To get a better idea of how the internship is from someone besides me, watch our video on the program. We, as interns, put it together to give all those interested a better idea of what work we actually do here and what kind of place Imagination is. After watching, feel free to apply, you may find it as rewarding as I did…
by Michael Van Der Harst, Editoral Intern
disconnect: who’s the sustainability officer?
5 Nov 2008
by Riley Bandy
Marketing companies struggle when it comes to sustainability. It’s not that employees don’t love nature or care about humanity’s impact on the earth (trust me they do, probably a little too much) but they don’t necessarily have the highest ratings when it comes to implementing eco-friendly tactics around the office.
I have a personal theory about the role of a production sample and the time and materials that go into its creation, but there is another reason that marketers tend to fall short on sustainability. The giant disconnect about who’s the sustainability officer. (Or, what’s a sustainability officer?)
While some companies create entire departments based on the implementation and strict adherence to sustainable processes, many smaller companies don’t have the necessary resources and therefore are not sure about how to become a more sustainable business and what practises they should discontinue in favor of a little more ice for the polar bears and a little less guilt while printing full color.
While I am not trying to recommend practises, I will commend our new COO Andy Schultz as spearheading this shift for imagination. While I may still opt for the occasional single sided set of copies, Andy has made it a personal goal to push each and every imagination employee to recognize their personal role in office sustainability. So while his business card may say nothing about being green or cracking the whip on environmentally friendly practices, Andy recognizes that each and every employee must recognize their own role as a sustainability officer in the work place and monitor their own practices around the office.
So follow the charge, turn off your light, recycle your scraps, and vote YES to PDFs and NO to single sided copies!
Innovation…Inspiration
14 Oct 2008
by Laura Chavoen
The Wired NextFest was came through Millenium park here in the Windy City last week. My team and I snuck out of the office at 3:30 last Wednesday and went over to check it out. Xerox, an Imagination client, had an exhibit and was also a sponsor of the event, and, well, I always appreciate some brain food and good conversation.
In this instance, it was more like brain candy, but it was interesting to see how people define innovation. I gravitate towards innovation that applies commonly understood principles in new and different ways, or innovation that takes something I use/see/experience every day and flips it upside-down.
In the case of the NextFest, it was all about Innovation-Capital-I. Things you’ve never seen before and likely will not be able to afford for a long time, if ever.
They had the WOW factor going, though! Check out this ‘personal transportation vehicle’. I want one. Of course, I’m also the chick that would have sold my dog into servitude for a Segway.
Xerox had reusable paper in their exhibit, complete with disappearing ink. We riffed many ways to use it…some of them highly illegal. Made of Awesome!
What feeds YOUR brain?
Laura driving (and riding) a Personal Transport Vehicle
What Imagination Looks Like, Part 2
20 Aug 2008
by Joel Witmer
Below is a word cloud representing What Imagination Is All About culled from the text speaking to that mission on our website. The size of the words is determined by the frequency with which they appear. (The order, arrangement, and color of the words is random.)
The word cloud is a great way to quickly asses which components of a message are being emphasized. Are we emphasizing what we should in the copy on our website?
(This cloud was made with the nifty online program at Wordle.com)
What Imagination Looks Like on Twitter
7 Aug 2008
by Joel Witmer
StreamGraph is a new online application that visualizes Twitter. Huh?
The StreamGraph shows the usage over time for the words most highly associated with the search word. One of these series together with a time period are in a selected state and coloured red. The tweets that contain this word in the given time period are shown below the graph. You can click on another word series or time period to see different matches. In the match list you click on any word to create a different graph with tweets containing that word. You can also click on the user or comment icons and any URL to see the appropriate content in another window.
So the image below is what ‘imagination’ looks like this morning.
Apple’s Poor Customer Service Ruins Cool
19 May 2008
by James Meyers
It started off great, but ended in a big disappointment.
After ten years of using a Dell PC desktop and laptop for business, I decided that it was time for me to try on Apple’s Mac for size. Now I must confess that I am the owner of a mid-sized relationship marketing agency called Imagination with more than 40 Macs in use on a daily basis. But a handful of us “business types” have traditionally stayed loyal to our pc’s for business.
I purchased an IMac from the online Apple store last week and couldn’t believe how beautiful it was when I took it out of the box on Saturday. Out of the box, the Apple logos on the front and back of the sleek all-in-one monitor were well protected with sheet of acetate as if to say, “this is our brand, we protect it at all costs”! It was simple to set up, just three easy wires to plug in. None of the hassle that is typical of the many PC’s I have owned.
Open pressing the power button and hearing that brand distinctive tone, my heart raced with anticipation. On screen a beautiful animated graphical sequence seemed three dimensional and breath-taking. How could I have waited so long for this experience?
Next I went through the brief registration process, had my picture taken by the embedded camera for my personalized registration and was ready to try the internet. As I opened Safari, the IMac suddenly shut off. I restarted again and again it shut down. After trying several more times, the same disappointing results occurred over and over. However, I know that nothing, even Apple is perfect, and it was apparent that I had a defective Mac. Certainly, a brand as well protected, as beautifully designed and as customer-friendly as Apple would do everything possible to recover from this setback. Boy was I wrong!
I called Apple customer service where the first rep, “Laura” listened to my problem and then suggested that I should purchase Apple Support to insure that if I had problems in the future, I would be covered. Not really comforting and not all that helpful. After declining to purchase Apple Care, I told I really wanted to replace this IMac that I had just opened and installed 15 minutes earlier. She said she would have to transfer me to Tech Support. After a three minute delay, I was connected to what I believe was an oversees call center as I could barely understand the woman with a heavy Indian accent, and she mispronounced my name “Meyers” several different times. After she had me restart the computer several times and experienced the same results, she transferred my back to a different rep who would help me with the return.
She explained that I’d have to send the IMac back and when they received it, they’d send a new one. In all, it should be here in 5-7 business days. I guess I’ll be working on my old, ugly, but reliable PC a little longer. None of the Apple reps were very helpful and certainly none of them apologized or seemed sympathetic. When I asked if I was going to receive a credit for the expedited shipping I had paid for ($33), the rep said that she would file a claim to see what she could do but couldn’t promise anything. By the way, the return slip that I was promised via email within 24 hours is still not here 48 hours later.
All of this pointed out what we preach to our customers about everyday. That a successful brand must make sure that every TOUCHPOINT with their customers is a consistent experience that together results in the brand experience! In this case, the beauty and theatrics of Apple ownership was trampled by the quality of the product and the poor customer service received when something went wrong. If I could meet with Steve Jobs tomorrow, I’d remind him that he should be as concerned about what goes on in his call centers as he is with what goes on in his design studios. To the customer, the total experience determines the image of the brand.
The New Marketing Imperative: Conversations
6 May 2008
by James Meyers
I’m here at the American Business Media conference, an annual gathering of the major B2B business publishers from around the world. The talk at all the sessions and the cocktail hours centers on what’s happening to the traditional publishing business and what can be done to regain momentum. Mortgage crisis, higher prices and consumer uncertainty has publishers scrambling for answers as advertising revenues drop and readership wanes.
Yet in the midst of all this, the attendees here continue to be baffled by the continued, unabashed growth of everything digital. Talk of blogs, community, rich media, social networking, SEO and analytics are everywhere but traditional publishers who have been slow to react wonder if this is a bad dream and will all just go away or if it’s already to late to jump into the pool. One of those publishers, David Calhoun, CEO of Nielson warns that “this time you’re not going to be able to budget your way to success” and goes on to say “that this is a new world where the customers and readers are totally in control and are making choices minute by minute”.
Edward Abrams, Vice President of Marketing for IBM followed by agreeing that IBM has come to the say conclusion. That first, the customer is in control. Second, that customers and the marketplace are having a conversation. And third, that companies like IBM must participate in that conversation or be left behind.
Of course, the enabling source of these conversations is the digital world where every customer has a voice and information is transmitted and accessed instantly on a worldwide basis. Conversation cannot be controlled but they can be invaluable in learning about what customers, readers or members think about your company’s products and services and then moving quickly to satisfy needs. In this way a company can become part of the conversation and over time create advocates worldwide that spread your message to a larger audience than you can ever afford to reach through traditional advertising.
“In the end,” Abrams says, “the power is with the customers and a conversation with customers is far more valuable than pushing marketing messages at them”.
The New Look of Imagination
22 Apr 2008
by Ethan Smith
As the launch of the new Imagination website approaches, the redesign team decided it was time to unveil a preview of the new look and feel. The chosen direction in the end was very close to our existing interim site. The team explored many different options, but in the end decided that we weren’t that far off when we first started this process. As is often the case with creative work, you have to fail a bit before you can come to a desired outcome.
The team included in this process was extremely diverse. Not only designers that crossed a lot of mediums – but account directors, management staff, writers and business development staff. There are a lot of different backgrounds within Imagination therefore it was necessary to gain perspectives that are outside of interaction and visual design.
There is always the temptation to go wild with your own website as the only limits are ones you set yourself. But in the end it’s the limits that add focus to the work. With that in mind we placed a few limits around where we were going:
- The site had to be extensible. Without the ability to grow and adapt organically we would ultimately be revisiting this process within a year. We would be remiss to think that even we know exactly where this site will be in two years.
- While we wanted to embrace the current marketing campaign, the site could not rely on it to survive. Marketing campaigns will come and go, but the site needs to survive that transition if you wish it.
- Use a simple clean design to allow content to come to the fore. In the end what you are interacting with is the content anyway.
The website is targeted for a mid-May launch thanks in no small part to all of the people involved in the effort. No matter how much strategy and thought goes into a site, the skills of those people involved are what make the project a success. We would like to thank all those that are on the team for a great job thus far.
James Meyers, President
Doug Kelly, EVP Creative Overview/Design
Rebecca Rolfes, EVP New Business Development
Laura Chavoen, SVP Digital Media
Michelle O’Hagan, VP Marketing
Erin Slater, Director – Business Development
Jane Hamilton, Broadcast Director
Gretchen Kirchner, Senior Art Director
Christian Campos, Art Director
Dave Barrick, Senior Media Producer
Ethan Smith, Senior Designer – Digital Media
Chris Mickshl, Designer – Digital Media
Tony Anasenes, Designer – Digital Media
Patrick Rovito, Designer – Digital Media
Joel Witmer, Broadcast Intern
Allen Tieri, Digital Media Intern
How to Redesign a Site
26 Mar 2008
by Bud Caddell
Warning: The title of this post is blatant false advertising –if you came here looking for some kind of 10 step guide, easy answer, or just a reassuring black and white perspective. None of those can be found here.
Maybe you’ve heard that Imaginepub.com is undergoing a drastic overhaul. Go “check it out”:http://www.imaginepub.com if you haven’t. Before you can even address how to redesign a site, you have to confront the ‘why.’
Here’s our why:
- Our clients’ businesses have radically changed.
- How we work with them has radically changed.
- The landscape has radically changed.
- We’re not the only ones that have noticed it.
- We preach to our clients the need for constant revision online, and we like it when we practice what we preach.
- *We got tired of the photos of us in the oversized sweatshirts.
In the last year, digital media has had a huge impact on our customers. It offers each of them new challenges and opens new doors and presents new opportunities. Digital media has also had an impact on Imagination. It now accounts for nearly half of the work we do for our clients, and a large part of our workforce. That same website which still referenced such emerging technologies as ‘digimags’ couldn’t keep up with what we were doing. Think of it like this, our website was in 1998 and we are leading our clients into 2010.
This site redesign is very much a work in progress. We decided to open up the process to the public, including our clients, and address the change publicly as well. We encourage feedback; which also includes internal feedback.
The most recent update to the site was this piece of video content, and from an internal perspective, we have mixed feelings. First, let’s be honest, we’re wading through somewhat uncharted waters. Most agencies would gnaw off their own limbs before opening up their process. We’re glad we’re not like most agencies. We just don’t know if this video communicated that. We can be more like human beings than this. We certainly don’t go home and use that voice with our friends and loved ones. And since we want you to care at all about what we’re doing, we’re working very hard to stop interrupting you with marketing speak.
In any marketing communication, there are usually two voices: the truth, and the brand. The bigger the chasm between the two, the more dissonant the message and unwelcome on the web. I certainly don’t want the truth to be drowned out here–that we’re committed to seeing this through the right way. In doing any work for ourselves, there’s the obvious hurdle of the paying clients and projects that must be served and accomplished. But at the end of this, we have to stand on our own feet and review what we’ve done.
Stick around. We’ve got more up our sleeves. But we need feedback from you. You will help decide where this goes, because the world doesn’t need another brochure-site and we don’t need to waste our efforts on delivering anything that isn’t useful to our customers.
–Bud Caddell
