TreeWorks Blog

Ora Ito is currently known as the world’s hottest product designer. He was born in 1977.
Although it is not connected to the web, I shall post here some facts from his story because I find it to be instructively. It tells about attitude, about power and motivation. Although he was the son of one well-known French fashion designer (Pascal Morabito), Junior has not been supported  by his daddy, even more he changed his name from Ito Morabido into Ora Ito (I know it sounds Japanese but I can tell you that it is 100 % French).

His way to glory is a very good illustration of the well-known « Stay hungry, stay foolish ». He realized that he had no relish to be on the other’s tracks: fine arts studies – coffee maker in an agency – junior designer – designer and so on.
Instead, he tucked up and started doing something he was great at: design.
And not just for anyone … but only for brands such as Louis Vuitton, Swach, Apple or Levi’s.
It didn’t matter that nobody has asked him for it and that he didn’t really work for these brands.
What was really of great importance was the fact that his web posted designs filled up the shops with desperate people wanting to buy those inexistent products (Extraordinary fact was that one factory in China actually started producing Ito’s design for a an Louis Vuitton backpack :-D)

What was the brand’s reaction to Ito’s abuse? They liked him.
As a result, nowadays he really works for many well-known brands, and his creations increase sales and consolidate brands.

The main conclusion of this story is that if you really have something valuable to say you shouldn’t wait for the silent moment and expect everyone to sit down prick-eared. Because it is possible that moment never come. It is enough to say it directly, without mincing matters, fearless. And you’ll be heard.

http://www.ora-ito.com/

The idea for this post came to me from Gentlesmen Agreement, a post I’ve written on my personal blog.

I was writing there that it is immoral to work as an employee as well as a freelancer in the same field (actually illegal – the unfair competition being legally sanctioned) if it is not notified to the other parties (the employer and the client). What sucks is that practice destroys or at least widely decreases the value of an industry.

Therefore all the creative industries in Romania (design, internet, branding, advertising, software) are highly affected by this issue.

This creates the impression of amateurism picture for outsiders. “Man, these people are a sort of plumbers or electricians, nothing more. Not even repairmen, because those use more tools”. “Why should I buy the whole hog when I could have just the hamburger?”. “I’ll do only what I need, and I’ll see after a few months if I need to make some changes.

“Gratifications” keep prices to a low-level (“That much?”), unsustainable for companies, they decrease professionalism level (Well, Ghita told he could do it in a couple of days \”), and employee’s dedication.

The big problem is not when the x shop asks the y student: “Hey, make me a poster, a web page or a thing for printing tickets” That’s an ordinary process to learn the ropes and satisfy some basic necessities of small companies.

The real problem is when big companies resort to this kind of solutions. And they don’t ask students, but industry specialists, with  know-how and stuff.

I thing this is a loss-loss situation:

1. Companies tend to undervalue work in order to become more competitive. That implicitly declines the quality.
2.  Clients get the work done but not strategy/ consultancy/general ideas. There will be no long-term commitment.
3. The clients get home made services (of a lower quality and for sure more problematic in terms of turnaround time).
4.  The clients regard these industries as a sort of manufacture, amateurs job.( I hired the best man and I’m still not satisfied”).
5. Those who stoop to this level are affected by burnout and have no time left to experiment, to develop their own projects or relax.
6. My opinion is that for long-term you won’t make much money (because if that kind of gigs weren’t practiced, creative industries would grow quickly and salaries would be higher.
7. If somebody in this dual condition of freelancer/ employee wants to start his own business, he will have difficulty explaining why his prices got so high (additional costs + only one income source instead of two).
8. Only a few people from the industry would accept the assignment of educating clients.

Attention, I don’t say that companies are good and freelancers are evil. I just say that the half human and half rabbit condition tends to be harmful for everybody. Moreover, I agree that there are some projects which can be made under such circumstance and which actually need to be encouraged: nonprofit ones, those for friends and for the soul, but not when it comes to high-stakes corporate projects.

Other things which undermine these industries are, in my opinion:

• strategy/ consultancy./ general idea isn’t paid or is ambiguous
• variable geometry requirements
• free proposals for everybody
• creator/inventor compulsory certificates issued by the state
• the human resources rarity (the state’s strategy (or it’s lack) when it comes to the educational field)

Or…that’s the idea beyond the Vista Industrial Design Toolkit – a set of suggestions that transforms the Wintel hardware into objects similar in terms of design with Apple products.

The big question is who will take the plunge to this direction? That would simplify hardware much more. I can’t see the people from Dell, IBM, HP biting the bait. On the other hand, if I was with Alex, Flamingo or UltraPro, I would launch a more luxurious line based on these specifications.

After being introduced in two dictionaries (Merriam-Webster- transitive verb: “to use the Google search engine to obtain information […] on the World Wide Web” and Oxford English Dictionary), “to google” started troubling brand protectors, who asked mass media representatives to stop using company’s name as a verb.

The reason? Naturally, the brand’s erosion. The fear that this phenomenon could translate brand’s name (and implicitly it’s value, of around bil. $12.4) from the company’s ownership to the public domain, and that “to google” might become synonymous with “to search”, and not with / instead of “ to search using Google’s services”

After ridiculing appropriate and inappropriate usage examples (’Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party. Inappropriate: I googled that hottie’) you realize that this fear is somehow justified. If “to google” means “ to search”, who’ll be interested in word etymology over 50 years ? Who will credit Google company from Mountain View, CA for it’s accomplishments?

For example, who knows now that Google derives from “Googol”, which represent the number 1 followed by a hundred zeros?

I xeroxed my courses with a Canon

This Touareg is one hell of a jeep

If you take a good look at my examples you’ll notice that xerox” and “jeep” are written with lower-case letters, while “Canon” and “Touareg” are written with upper-case letters. So, it makes sense why a company which defined a product category isn’t comfortable with becoming the class name next to the proper noun.

It’s not the first time when a company having become a verb or a noun has such a reaction. Another known example is Xerox which (if I’m not mistaken) had protested at a given moment against the official speech of a White House representative who stated that he had “Xeroxed” some acts.

Even though one of the branding “laws” provides that a brand should fight to detain one word in the consumer mind, it seems that the problems appears when that word is actually the brand’s name. Although this denotes the brand’s utmost recognition, there is also a flip side to that coin. In other words, it is grateful for Volvo to detain the word “ security” or for FedEX to detain “overnight”, but when “to google” becomes “ to search”, the brand might suffer.

Google makes a deal valuing 900 million with MySpace- exclusivity for search/publicity on MySpace and other Fox domains for a period of 4 years.

Google deals with MTV concerning video-content distribution. Some would say that Microsoft got the start with Urge MTV deal, but they forget that the most of audio content belongs to the recording industry (which - apparently - don’t work on the basis of an unique distributor). And if Google will see it works, it will immediately get into iTunes, for sure!

Therefore, Google has now the space as well as the product for selling them to the young generation. With a 4 years deal they will feel very comfortable in inventing specific algorithms for MySpace, algorithms that will be able to exploit very well the characteristics of the service (networking, profile section, collaborative filtering etc). Especially because they have enough experience with Orkut as to know from where they should start.

From Microsoft’s ”where do you want to go today?”, it will get to Google’s “today you want to buy a vintage album with the B-sides of Dr. Dre, and a pair of Converse shoes, red with black sole. We know it because we can read your behavior and demographic patterns”.

And if we also add the deal with Associated Press, I think that the business model will be gradually changed. Or they will rather complete it. Besides contextual advertising, I think that they’ll add up the distribution of intangible goods (music, video, articles, books) in the same contextual style. And with an action base distributed to all the major partner sites (AOL, MySpace) and to those from AdSense network. Especially because they already have a micropayments engine by Google Checkout.

For the next show I’ll burn my own suitcase. Is anyone from the public willing to assist me?

I remember the first website that I’ve done. Its name was Aeronave and it had free hosting. Don’t rush to click, let it rest in the sites’ heaven, from where it looks at me and smiles. It’s better if I tell you its story.

• The menu was created using a buttons generator
• I created an intro that I used to claim it was “Flash”, but it was actually created using timelines with Dreamweaver (my intention wasn’t to cheat the world, I just had no idea of what Flash was and I associated it with anything animated).
• There were no 2 pages looking alike. Each of them was an independent exercise of creation and imagination
• Using a tiny “morphing” software I created a 2Mb animation with a Spitfire that used to transform itself into a F-22. I placed it on the page as a design element so that everybody could enjoy my exaltation. I couldn’t understand why it used to appear so late.
• None of the page elements remained where I would have loved to, because I didn’t even discover the tables then (Even from those times I was table-less. And I was also clueless, sleepless and penniless)
• As a background I had images with planes and - here and there - it was no chance for one to read something.
• I created a sort of an animated logo with a bullet that passes off the word “Aircraft” and breaks it (Pixar who?)
• Any pictures went through 3 (three) to 100 (one hundred) special Photoshop effects. From them, let’s recall the planes changed into basreliefs, images garnished with 5 lens-flares (these were irresistible, one was never enough) and -my favorite - motion blur.

But there was something at this website! It had content. I had collected for weeks everything I found on the Web about aircrafts. Serious things, no nonsense. Drafts, specifications, history, air-raids, investigations, hypothesis, experimental projects. I even had audio recordings with a veteran who witnessed the Red Baron crash. 

As a conclusion: it was a web site full of high quality content, which - unfortunately - [the content] suffered the abuses of one child of the web-design stuff [that’s me] who dressed it into clown clothes, covered it with jam, pulled its hair, locked it in the closet and knocked it out with the toy-car. As a client and content provider I should have fire myself.

It happened in 1998 and I had the same keyboard I have now (no-name, for those who want to buy one). But many things changed since then. Today I don’t dress the content with clown clothes anymore. I don’t constrain visitors to bear my creative aberrations. I try to lead them exactly where they want. I want them to tell me “See you soon” instead of “Farewell” at their depart. I don’t let them to exude, to cross their eyes, to develop tears, to screw up their eyes, to turn up the eyes over the had, to blink frequently (I was an ophthalmologist in another life)… I don’t let them to frown, to scratch their heads for surprise, to swear my name, to loose their time. Now I don’t let them do stuffs that didn’t worth at least 2 pennies for me eight years ago.

Maybe one day I’ll remake it. And after another eight years I’ll laugh again. I hope my keyboard won’t leave me, because I intend to make the same joke.

Regarding of what Emil was writing about Ray Ozzie, there is an interesting article from Financial Times:

Microsoft’s Ozzie declares end to PC era

The title of the article is not mine, nor the idea. An idea that, between you and me, is absolutely brilliant. The initiator of the subject is Ray Ozzie and the original post is available on the current Microsoft Chief Software Architecture’s blog, I mean here.

What is all about… Well, in general it is about “give power to the people”.

Starting from the idea that the future of the Internet consists in the interconnection of the services, of the processes and, in general, of the information between websites and that currently this process is available only to the field specialists (developers, programmers and so on, who succeed this by designing those applications), Ray Ozzie suggests a way through which regular users can easily exchange the information on their own websites, by importing/copying the desired information directly from other websites.

The solution that was found is inspired by the technology that stays at the foundation of the interconnection of desktop applications: the “clipboard”. Ray Ozzie suggests “Live Clipboard“ - a technology based on JavaScript, Ajax and XML structures, which allows the implementing sites to facilitate copying certain informational structures between them. Why informational structures? Because, if it is intended only the copying of a simple text, this is possible by using the well-known low-end (of the desktop) clipboard variant: text selection, then copy (ctrl+c) and then paste (ctrl+v) to the desired destination of the original text. But considering that there are already predefined data structures such as events, contacts, profiles etc. it would be interesting for the user to copy the entire informational structure, not only excerpts that need to be manually integrated at the target location. And how could he obtain that? Well, nice and easy, with the same clipboard model (Select/Cut/Copy/Paste), just that the initial selection isn’t performed by manually selecting text anymore, but through the icon specially created for LiveClipboard (specially meaning for the conception/design, to show to the user that the application is LiveClipboard Enabled and not because it would have had specially attributes toward a normal gif ) where user clicks and selects the intended action (copy, cut or paste).

Behind interface, the programming part makes everything and when clicking the mentioned icon the proper structure it is visually marked, and after that, at the selection of a (let’s say) copying action, the xml structure that defines the informational object in question it is serialized by JavaScript and then it is kept in the personal computer clipboard. At the “paste” action on the icon of a container where we want to save the informational object from the clipboard, the de-serialization and the importing or the saving (if this is the intention) in the database using Ajax, it is made also from JavaScript. I know! at the first sight it doesn’t seems something extraordinary but that’s because you don’t have the entire picture :). But you can have it by following the 100% functional example that it can be found here.

And the most astonishing thing is the fact that the above-mentioned application also works between two different browsers (meaning that I can copy the structure of a contact in Internet Explorer and paste it in Firefox). And this practically means a small opened door through which, in the near future, I will be able to copy the same structure from a desktop application (such as Microsoft Outlook) and paste it in a website (and vice-versa).

Of course, so far, LiveClipboard is still at the concept stage and many things (including the standards of the informational structure types) need to be developed and especially to be accepted so that this new technology could be used on a large scale. But the perspective is extremely encouraging and you can be sure that in the future we’ll hear again about LiveClipboard.

“Give power to the people!”

From the very beginning I want to mention that the next lines speak about things that are well known and strictly respected by people and earnest companies, because they are part of that beautiful professional package. However, since every once in a while it happens to get in touch with entities that are not aware of these rules (there is no other way), I felt the need of posting this. Although it’s less probable that the targeted ones would read it, because our readers own intelligence and common sense

End of the introduction, so let’s start…

“We thank you for you proposal but we have already choose to collaborate with another company.”

It took me 12 seconds to conceive and type this phrase. And if I count another 5 seconds for writing the destination email address and for pressing the Send button, I sum up 17 seconds of sustained effort.

Of course, dear reader, probably you might think that I’m a special case, a keyboard wizard, so my performances go beyond the wonderland. To a common mortal this huge achievement would surely kidnap at least 20 seconds of life. 20 seconds, which can be used at making more enjoyable things, like crossing the eyes or trying to lick the elbow.

I know, I’m a tyrant, but when somebody wastes en entire day for answering at an offer demand with a detailed document, 5-10 pages long, providing assessments, ideas, opinions and other clever stuffs, I think that person is totally entitled to pretend those 20 seconds of life from the beneficiary. He is entitled to know if his work was received, if it was consulted, and if his effort (even though it might not have been fructified) was appreciated (even though this might be a lie).

I hate the situations when the professionalism is not rewarded at least with a receiving confirmation.

Sometimes, after a few months, one remembers of its “lost sheep” and visits the lost sheep’s address. Boom!! Website created by Tri Impex Nikky Super Boss S.A. S.R.L.

We do not pretend explanations for what an RFP* individual chose (although it would be nice to do it). But we do pretend a minimum of common sense. How difficult can it be to reward a one-day effort with 20 seconds of writing: “We thank you for your proposal but we have already choose to collaborate with another company.”?

From where it came this idea that respect should manifest only in one direction, from the company that offers to the one that demands an offer? Why some people don’t understand that once they send a RFP, they engage themselves in a dialogue that should be made with common sense and professionalism until the end, no matter if a contract was signed or not?

Pop Quiz

You invite a Lady to waltz, but while dancing you discover that you don’t want to marry her. How will you react?

A) You finish the dance, you thank her and lead the Lady to her place;

B) You stop in the middle of the ring, turn around and leave.

Please answer carefully, your mother might read this blog.

Thanks for your attention and no thanks for non-attention.

P.S. All the characters and the events from this post, even those based on reality, are all since fiction. These things didn’t happened before, they aren’t happening and will never happen. Obviously, excepting the facts that inspired this post, that are themselves a fiction.

 
* Ionut supposed that all people should know what an RFP is… although the situation might be quite different. So… for those who do not understand, an RFP is a Request For Proposal. (Irina)

Following Kit’s example and trying to help the protesters (hurrayyy), I wrote this morning an email to Khoi Vinh, Design Director at New York Times, and I explained the situation to him. Even if I didn’t get any answer yet, it was great to notice his name on the list of those who signed the petition. And at his place it was early in the morning.

896.
 Khoi Vinh
 

Dear SDPRs, I’m afraid we’re right.