Do not adjust your monitor. Besides being shot in 3D, the image above is indeed a man working a sound board for a rock show amidst the naturally historic exhibits of L.A.’s Natural History Museum. Last month, fellow TuesBlogger/Art Director Bill S. and I attended the the second First Fridays of the 2010 season at the museum. We were there to take in L.A. band and fast favorite Warpaint, who put on a great set. They were followed by the also fantastic Yeasayer. The bands performed surrounded by the displays of exotic creatures from our own back yard in the North American Mammals exhibit. Needless to say, it was a pretty awesome setting for a show.

But we were hardly bound to North America as the entire museum was open to explore. All the while, the bands’ performances were captured by several 3D video camera rigs, peppered throughout the crowd. The video was shown on a giant projection screen, suspended above the even more giant freestanding T. Rex and Triceratops fossils. Rocking out in three dimensions beneath battling dinosaur bones — what more could you possibly ask for? Well, there was certainly more there to be had. The African Mammals exhibit housed a DJ Lounge and First Fridays also feature talks by scientists in addition to the musical performances. Then, of course, there are the regular exhibits. The NHM houses a wide range of exhibits from the history of both the animal kingdom as well as humans. There’s something for everybody, whether you’re weighing you’re own bones, controlling the airflow over the model of a bird in flight or observing NHM employees hard at work on fossils in an observable lab. Interacting with unique, tactile interfaces like these brings complex scientific material into terms we can understand, young and old alike. What’s more, exploring these displays after normal museum hours is a intimate experience and not to be missed.

It’s great to see museums reaching out to younger audiences, not only through the events themselves but through social media as well. First Fridays has a presence on Facebook, MySpace and Flickr and are generating buzz for both the museum going and music obsessed hipster alike. First Fridays are, obviously, the first Friday of each month. The season began January 8th and runs through June 4th. There are multiple admission options at present, allowing for a visit to just the museum or the museum and concert. Be warned though, the show sold out last month so get you’re tickets well in advance — only a limited number were available for purchase at the venue the day of the event. This Friday’s (3/5/10) lineup:

FIRST FRIDAYS : No Place like Home: The Science of Southern California
/ TOUR “Flies: They’re Everything You Think They’re Not” with Dr. Brian Brown, Curator of Entomology
/ DISCUSSION “Emotion Circuits in Model Organisms, or Do Flies Have Feelings?” with Dr. David Anderson / moderated by Dr. Michael W. Quick
/ PERFORMANCES with Deer Tick and Everest, and a DJ Lounge with Them Jeans and DJ Shortee

In closing, shout outs to Warpaint (Elephants from Exquisite Corpse EP, video directed by Bruce Muller) and Yeasayer (Ambling Alp from Odd Blood, video directed by Radical Friend).

Ambling Alp

Yeasayer | MySpace Music Videos

In 2009, we sent all our senior developers on a field trip up north to learn the ways of TeamSite at the Interwoven training center. After many days of intense training under Interwoven experts, they returned to our office with a better understanding and appreciation of the technology. Almost immediately, we were able to put our training into action with the redesign of Dignity Memorial. After the initial learning curve, we found out that the Interwoven platform lives up to its promise of handling large scale site development with enough flexibility to customize it to specific project requirements.

For those who are unfamiliar with Interwoven, it is a company that is almost synonymous with its flagship CMS product, TeamSite.  Over several years of development and enhancements, Interwoven expanded their line to include several products and technologies to complement TeamSite.  Some of these products were developed at Interwoven, others were created from acquiring other companies’ technologies, and others exist as software as a service (SaaS).

Ironically, one of the first aspects of dipping into their technology is simply to understand which of their products are necessary to drive your project.  For you designers out there, think of it just a little bit like all the different Adobe CS bundles:  Web Premium, Design Premium, Production Premium, etc.   With that example, if you buy Web Premium, it doesn’t come with InDesign…so you’ll find yourself out of luck if you need to do a print project months after purchase.

Interwoven is similar in this way.  TeamSite standing alone is essentially a tool to manage the location of content.  Think of it much like the documents folder on your computer – it’s a way to store your text documents and photos.  TeamSite is like your documents folder on steroids.  Following the same analogy, you can see how your documents folder could not all of a sudden be a beautiful website.  You will need something else to make that happen.  Enter OpenDeploy.

OpenDeploy is the technology that routes through TeamSite file structure, grabs files and puts them where they need to go.  Greatly oversimplifying the process, when a site’s content is assembled together, OpenDeploy says, “take the graphics from this folder, the text documents from this folder, the buttons from this folder and put them all here for microsite #1, put a bunch of different files over there for microsite #2, and so on.”

Next, LiveSite is used to take the files that were gathered by OpenDeploy to draw a web page.  LiveSite brings together the actual content (files) and splices it together with logic of what should go where on a web page, including all the interactive functionality like search, menu functions, hyperlinks, Flash etc.  It also makes the correct localized content appear, for instance if a user has decided to change the language from English to Spanish.

Now TeamSite, Open Deploy and LiveSite have come together to draw a web page, but how do you then update the content of the page?  Well, for that you need SitePublisher.  SitePublisher is the front end tool to make it easy for WYSIWYG style editing of webpages and content…for you Adobe folks out there, it’s a tad like Dreamweaver, if Dreamweaver is a fishing boat and SitePublisher is an aircraft carrier.  With SitePublisher, one can control content on websites on a very large scale (in our case, over a thousand individual sites).  Using this tool, we are able to make global content changes, including automated logic for localization, without having to crack open any Java.

So there you have it – four separate Interwoven products coming together to power an enterprise website.

However, please let me take a moment to underscore that I’m just giving a high level overview of their products and I’ve been hugely oversimplifying the process we went through to build Dignity Memorial.  To make all this happen takes thousands of hours of programming, configuring, customization and testing.  Even more, I didn’t go into any detail on all the non-Interwoven effort behind the project, like design, HTML/CSS and a ton of Java programming to wire in all sorts of custom functionality and logic.  Interwoven certainly provides a framework of tools that brought some significant efficiencies to our process, but it still requires focus, hard work and talent to bring it all together.  I have to hand it to our entire team for a wonderful job and all the late nights they spent on the project.  Thank you everyone for a job very well done!

Contact us today to find out how TeamSite can work for you!

When Service Corporation International (NYSE: SCI) determined it was time to start a massive website upgrade project, including building 1,400 microsites, they selected Tuesday Creative to drive the process beginning by creating a deep definition study and ending with the launch of Dignity Memorial powered by Interwoven TeamSite.  Our project management, design and development teams collaborated with SCI to produce a content rich resource of relevant and respectful information about very sensitive subject matter. SCI is North America’s largest provider of funeral and cemetery services.

Working closely with SCI, we first created a deep definition study that formed a blueprint of what their consumer site Dignity Memorial would become. Next, we entered into a multi-track production process to build the site, including paths for information architecture, localized content collection for each of their 1,400 funeral home and cemetery locations, full Interwoven TeamSite installation and architecture, presentation layer design, and the implementation of dozens of TeamSite templates and modules. Just launched, the new Dignity Memorial features a brand-new look and feel, a robust selection of relevant content, a complete index of all national obituaries, an SEO friendly architecture and details about every location in their network. This was a large undertaking and our team stepped up to demonstrate our expert skills coordinating all the content providers, managing a new technology platform and designing a user-friendly site that ultimately celebrates life. Contact us today to find out how TeamSite can work for you!

For this month’s Team Tuesday we managed to corner our VP Business Development extraordinaire, Diana Scott.  See what we dug up about Diana when she answered 10 questions …

Title? VP Business Development
What is your most treasured possession? My time, I try to always enjoy it.
Who is your favorite fictional hero? Wonder Woman, I still want to be her!
What is something people would be surprised to know about you? I have many tales to tell. During my NYC days, I was quite the party crasher. Much to the chagrin of the Presidential Security team I made my way into a small private party for President Clinton on his 50th birthday and walked right up to say “Happy Birthday Mr. President” Marilyn Monroe style. Monica Lewinsky was there and she didn’t like it one bit.
What is your favorite TV show of all time? Fantasy Island, Donny & Marie and Rockford Files will always be special to me.
What’s the most embarrassing CD you ever owned? I have eclectic tastes and like to sample it all. I will confess to listening to a John Tesh CD twice before donating it.
Who would win in a fight between a Taco, a Burrito and a Hot Dog? Clearly the Burrito with its sheer power, heft and arsenal of spices and sauces.
Who is your favorite artist? I admire Prince, Madonna and Trent Reznor for all their different takes on ‘art’. Visually, I love Scandinavian design.
What technology most changed your life? Crackberry, it’s a good thing and a bad thing that I am available 24/7.
What is the best advice you have ever received? “Run your own race” from my good friend Kim. Nike’s “Just Do It” is a close second. It’s scary that I am considering well-crafted marketing messages to be advice.    

What has 14 toes and loves to eat bananas?  Maggie the Tuesday Creative Tapir!  When we decided to adopt an animal at the LA Zoo Scott Seward, our aspiring zoologist, knew just what animal we should choose and he was right!  Never heard of a tapir?  Well here are some fun facts to help get you better acquainted with this gentle creature.

• Tapirs an vary in size, but most tapirs are about 7ft long and 3ft high and can weigh up to 700 lbs, with the world’s biggest tapir weighing in at nearly 800 lbs.
• The tapir has 4 toes on each front foot and 3 toes on each back foot.  The closest relatives to the Tapir are other odd-toes ungulates, i.e. horses and rhinoceroses.  Some scientists believe that the Tapir has changed very little over the last tens of millions of years.
• They spend their days bulldozing tunnels in the jungle undergrowth, they are excellent swimmers and can even dive to feed on aquatic plants and are known to live both solitary or live with small family groups.
• There are 4 species of tapir’s and all are considered endangered or vulnerable.

For more information on the A.D.O.P.T. an animal program and the many other programs at the LA Zoo please visit Tapirs live in jungle and forest regions of South America, Ventral America and Southeast Asia and the LA Zoo of course!

For the past month I’ve been using a jailbroken iPhone as my sole ISP as an experiment. What started out as just browsing pages on a tiny screen, panning and zooming turned into jailbreaking my phone and installing some 3rd party software to allow me to tether. There are a few apps that can be used to tether, some better than others, but they all get the job done so you can do the research yourself which one is best.

Using my iPhone and it’s unlimited data plan as an Internet gateway is actually very, very convenient: I always have it in my pocket! When I have my laptop and a 3G connection, I can do almost anything I need to do, The connection speeds are pretty decent, I’ve averaged about 1.2 Mb/s download and 250 kb/s upload. This is on-par with a basic Cable service that you would get for about $25 a month, except I’m not paying $25 a month, it’s free for now. Check out these screen caps:

The coverage area in Los Angeles is pretty good, I’ve rarely had problems getting connection and the speeds are consistant. I am surprised at how much “stuff” I can do at one time, on a few occations I’ve used Mikogo (remote conferencing software), and used Remote Desktop to access my workstation while on a phone call at home. Now that is multi-tasking!

So with all these praises are there any down sides? Well, there is spotty coverage outside of Los Angeles, and probably inside too. A jailbreak is mandatory at this time to tether, a double whammy since you are technically not allowed to jailbreak the iPhone and tethering is viewed as “stealing” and violates your AT&T contract. I’m pretty sure that tethering also eats up a lot more battery power, mine has usually always been plugged in, so I didn’t notice a trend.

February has been a good month, I’ll see what March brings and how the Sprint Overdrive treats me over the next four weeks. Stay tuned for next months update and final thoughts.

But then I was watching “American Idol” last night and as I was pushing the fast forward on our DVR, my wife saw a glimpse of the ad and asked me if I had seen it.  Since I hadn’t, she made me rewind and watch it.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Now, while this might not be your sense of humor, it certainly shows that advertising can STILL be effective in this day and age.  In fact,  just looking for this video on YouTube brought me to Old Spice’s YouTube channel where the remaining commericals in the campaign are listed (although this first one is still the best) and I wasn’t alone.  There’s over 500 comments applauding this new spin on an old brand.

It might have even gotten me to buy the product next time I’m at Target. 

Sorry this post has taken me so long to get up onto the blog. But now is better than never right?!

The other weekend I had the pleasure of participating in the 1st Annual LA Street Food Fest. The festival included 35 food street food truck vendors and over 30 design vendors. My jewelry line, plastique* was one of the design vendors and I had a total blast. It was a beautiful day outside and perfect for an outdoor festival. Maybe a little too perfect. As the line outside the gate of LA Center Studios, the fabulous venue choice for the event, began to form a good hour before the festival started, the sun also began to show its face and beat down on everyone who was patiently waiting. Once the gates opened and the crowds poured in, the lines at each truck grew by the minute as the sun’s intensity grew as well. Many were not deterred and waited hours (literally) for some of the food trucks to dish out their tasty sample sized portions of food.

I was fortunate enough to be able to eat before everyone else since I had been at the venue a good 3 hours before the festival began. Once the doors opened I got all the bites I could fit into my tummy and I was set. My highlights included the red velvet chocolate chip pancakes from Buttermilk, the tamarind duck taco from Flying Pig, the various exotically paired ice cream sandwiches from Coolhaus, and the Fried Chicken from Chef Ludo Lefebvre whose truck was a one-time deal just for the festival.

By the time the festival was in full swing there were thousands of people inside the gates and hundreds more waiting in the long line outside to get in. With a $5 admission, who wouldn’t want the chance to scarf down on a slew of food trucks they had been wanting to try for ages? Apparently no one had anticipated the massive numbers of people until the very last minute so many were turned away. The attendance was capped at 6,000 people but it was estimated that some 10,000+ wanted to attend. I guarantee the next one of these will be better equipped for the masses.

The event was conceived of and coordinated by native Angelenos Shawna Dawson and Sonja Rasula, both seasoned veterans at running large scale events. Shawna worked at Yelp LA as the Director of Marketing and Community Manager and coordinated many of the Yelp events. Sonja is the founder and director of Unique Los Angeles which is the largest independent design and art show in the country now. The next Unique LA show will be April 24 & 25 and the next LA Street Food Fest is unannounced but I suspect it will be soon after that.

For more images from the festival (once events get going I always forget to continue to take photos), go to the flickr groups page here.

Follow LA Street Food Fest on twitter.
Follow uniqueLA on twitter.

Android won't be the only mobile OS to support Flash

Adobe announced at the Mobile World Congress that it’s releasing Flash player 10.1 and Adobe AIR for the Android platform. It also announced recently that BlackBerry would support Flash. Not only will Android be able to view Flash content through it’s browser, Android mobile applications can be created using Adobe AIR. Among the mobile platforms expected to support Flash 10.1 include Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, the Symbian OS, which is used by Nokia and other smartphone makers; Palm’s WebOS and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. Apple does not support Flash on the iPhone. Adobe has released a beta version of a white paper (http://blogs.adobe.com/flashmobiledocs/2010/02/optimizing_mobile_content.html) created by Thibault Imbert to articulate the process of authoring and optimizing Flash content for mobile platforms. The mobile version of AIR will make it possible for applications running on the platform to take advantage of features within the device’s OS, such as multi-touch, gesture inputs, accelerometer, geo-location and screen orientation. Although this is great for the Flash platform, it is still unsupported on some of the most popular mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch).

Source:

http://www.informationweek.com
http://www.appleinsider.com
http://theflashblog.com/

This month we sat down with Steven Rosenhaus to ask him ten silly questions!

What is your most treasured possession? I don’t know if I’d call them possessions, but it’s definitely my wife and daughter. And in 3rd – my PS3.
Who is your favorite fictional hero? Superman
What is your most special talent? I can sleep anywhere (is that a talent?).
What is something people would be surprised to know about you? I lived in Europe for about a year.
What is your favorite candy? Tie – Hershey’s Chocolate Bar or Peanut Butter M&Ms
What song best describes you? “I’m Too Sexy” OR “Uprising” by Muse
What is your favorite TV show of all time? Hmm, tough one. Three way tie between Family Guy, Lost and Quantum Leap!
Who would win in a fight a Taco, a Burrito or a Hot Dog? Why? No contest – the girth and weight of the burrito would crush the taco and the hot dog would just roll away.
What is your favorite invention? Airplanes. I love to fly.
What is the best advice you have ever received?Everything happens for a reason.