Pricing in a Tough Economy

A large part of our business is providing services to clients and them paying us for those services. Inevitably the conversation of pricing comes up. In the current global economic times, finances are much more of an issue than they were a couple years ago. Because of this, we need to model our pricing differently than in the past. The struggle for us is that some of our creative services are tough to price by the hour. We know going in to a project we need to devote X hours and generally speaking those hours are billed out at Y dollars per hour but in the end, creative services are not that cut and dry. Over the last year or so, rather than look at pricing that way, we have had to say "we need to deliver this result/product and it's worth this amount of money." If the hours work out to make an hourly rate, great, if not, maybe on the next one.

On the traditional pay by the hour services, we have definitely looked at our pricing. We normally look at pricing every 6-12 months to be sure we're in line with what we provide and what the market will bear. It doesn't matter if we offer a service that is worth $200 per hour, if someone can offer a similar service for $100 then we lose. Even if we believe the service is worth $200 per hour, if our clients don't believe there's value, then we won't get a chance to show we're worth it.

Most of our clients don't even know we're making some of these changes since they have received the benefit of it already. One of the misnomers of IDEAS pricing is "they are too expensive" - that is not a reality when you factor in our flexibility based on many factors - time of year, volume from the client, new ways to create the solution, etc. We believe this is smart business. Our goal is always to offer the best product at a fair price. We know the quality of work we provide will not change but the definition of fair will always change and we need to be on top of it to make sure we don't lose clients. It's not about saying the economy is bad so we need to charge less. It's about making sure we're offering a fair price for what the client needs based on understanding the scope and being a very creative place, we can be creative with our pricing as well.

Friends with Benefits

Get your head out of the gutter, not those kind of benefits. When we first started talking about moving to Downtown Orlando more than a year ago, one of the things we said would be great was that we were going to meet so many new people. We've now been in our new home for more than 8 months and it is still one of the best things about where we are. We have met so many great new people and companies and it's not always about just finding a client that will hire you and pay you lots of money. Sometimes just making new friends and being able to help each other in non-monetary ways is important too.

Case in point, our friendship with Vitamin Water. Someone on our team knows someone from Vitamin Water. Back in April or May the people from Vitamin Water asked if we "rented out" our Conference Room. They were having a meeting and most of their team doesn't work in traditional office settings so the needed a suitable place for a group to meet. They needed a space and we have it so we figured why not let them use it. Rather than charge them a small amount for the room, we trade the space for their products since we like Vitamin Water products. Every time they come, which is about every other month, they bring cases of their products for us.

The best thing about having them around, even better than their products, is that they are great people. They are very nice to our staff and treat our building as if it was their own. It's certainly not a profitable relationship but they are good people and who knows, maybe someone on their team knows someone who we could help in the future. It's never a bad thing to help out friends.

Teaching is too Important to do Alone

Teaching is too important to do alone.™ That’s why the IDEAS Learning team is preparing for the national launch of TeacherStudio™, our new worldwide professional learning community allowing teachers to see, hear, and collaborate with exemplary educators in action. Through a unique combination of networking technology, rich-media, and proprietary tools, TeacherStudio™ allows educators from member districts to come together anytime, anywhere to share ideas, receive mentoring, and learn best practices. We’ll be manning a booth with our sales partners (eSchool Solutions) at the National Staff Development Conference held this year in St. Louis, December 5-9.

The product, designed and developed by IDEAS, is currently being alpha tested by teachers and administrators in Seminole County (Florida) Public Schools. We are so thankful for the efforts of their district instructional technology team, led by Diane Lewis. Diane and her team have provided us with myriad suggestions throughout the year for how to make the product better, and they’ve been wonderfully tolerant as we have gone through the development process.

Just before Thanksgiving, we also signed the Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township in Indiana as our first Pilot district. We are excited to begin the rollout there and to connect their users with those from Seminole County so they can begin sharing classroom best practices immediately!

We’re also looking for other districts who might want to use the product FREE OF CHARGE throughout this school year. Check out http://www.teacherstudio.com/ to learn how districts are using the product. You can even drop us a line if you’re interested in attending a Webinar by clicking on the “Request More Information” link on the website.

The Future of Education

IDEAS is wonderfully eclectic. We are often working on a new kids website, a highly technical immersion center for a government or corporate client and an organizational transformation program for a fortune 500 company all on the same day. That diversity is what leads to the extraordinary opportunities we get to interact with world-class professionals. We are as we speak in the woods of Kiawah Island in South Carolina participating in a two day think-tank with some leading superintendents and educational reformers. We are having a very robust session built around a new protocol for teaching teachers better skills called The Power of Teaching developed by our old friend Joey Wise. Part of the work today is sharing the progress of our new TeacherStudio (http://www.teacherstudio.com/) on-line professional network with this top user group. We got a lot of good feedback and its always awesome to see how the right group of minds can co-create given the presence of a compelling need and an opportunity to fill it. It helps when the place is beautiful too!

The Worst Presentation EVER

Last week we sat through a PowerPoint presentation and as we watched and listened all we kept thinking was that we wish they had hired us to help them. Right there, within 5 minutes of sitting through their presentation, we could make the decision that this was not a company we wanted to work with. The presentation was sloppy, the presenter didn’t know their talking points, the visuals were busy when they needed to be straightforward and it was boring when it needed to be flashy. It had made an impression on us, and it was not good.

The best thing about PowerPoint is that it’s easy for just about anyone to use. The worst thing about PowerPoint is that it’s easy for just about anyone to use.

Which brings me to my point, our company has been helping businesses with their communications and branding efforts for many years, for as long as we have been in existence. Over the years we have seen that some of our clients have chosen not to use us for this type of work as they try to reduce costs by moving to in house resources. And let me tell you, presentations like the one we sat through this week have proven to us what a bad idea it is for them to do.

There’s a difference between "can do" and "should do" when it comes to communicating your brand. Just because someone in your office "can" create a PowerPoint deck doesn’t mean they "should" be the one to create your PowerPoint. I can write a script but what would take me a day would take a writer an hour. I can edit on an Avid or Final Cut Pro but that would take me weeks when a professional editor could do it in a day. That plus the quality would be better.

The point is, we tell our clients to do what "they" do best and let us do what "we" do best. If you want the presentation that represents your company to be done by someone who does it on the side, you need to accept the results you get. Or you can hire us and have it done by someone who does that kind of work every day and has done it for years. It may be one of the safest decisions you will make.

Denver Snowstorm and IDEAS (Part 2)

Two weeks ago a team from IDEAS went to Colorado to present at a seminar and got caught in the early season snowstorm. We wanted to close the loop on the trip so here's part two of their travels. We have been playing with our StoryJam product this year to broaden the offering to fit different client needs. The idea behind this one was to see if we could use our tools to help the Colorado Association of Leaders in Educational Technology imagine and nail down a compelling story for the future of a broadband network across all of their schools. As luck would have it, the same storm that plagued our team getting to Denver wreaked mayhem on the attendance at the host conference (NASB) and it didn’t back off on CALET one bit.

By 5PM the day before the gig, our prime contact and fearless leader Denise Shorey was stuck n Phoenix and couldn’t get to Denver till just before start time. We told her not to worry, worked with the convention center to verify the room set-up (Bob's past life as an event-guy comes in handy. Its nice to be able to read a BEO and know how to ask nicely for a direct box for computer audio) and showed up loaded for broccoli (can you tell Bob wrote this blog, he's a vegetarian and would never point a gun at a nice bear!) Out of 12 confirmed and an additional 25 rumored we got a grand total of…8. It worked like magic. Everybody engaged, they got a great creative result, we validated a new half-day format for a StoryJam-type product and still made our flight back to Orlando to rest up for trick-or-treating. We also got a lot of interest from school districts around the country in our new TeacherStudio product (http://www.teacherstudio.com/). More later on that.

Audio A & Stage Update

It's been two weeks since I did a detailed update on the Audio A & Stage construction so here's where we're at. This has definitely been a different construction process than we had for the rest of the building back in February & March. For the original build out we drew it out and if we got to a point where something wasn't really working, we just changed it on the fly. For the audio build out, it is such a precise design and was put together so scientifically, that it has to be built exactly the way it was designed or the acoustics will be altered. In the original build out if we needed to move a door a couple inches, no big deal. For audio, when we found out we needed to move a door, we needed to move a cinder block wall so we didn't have the move the door. In the original build out if the builder could find a material a little cheaper then great, save some money. In the audio build out, if the builder could find 5 materials cheaper, too bad, the room was designed knowing the exact make up of the materials spec'd.

If you look at the new walls built for the new Audio A they are almost as long as my arm from shoulder to finger tips. The obvious question is WHY?!?! When we first started the process our acoustic designer came here and did all kinds of measurements to determine how much material and air was needed to get the appropriate acoustics for what we were trying to accomplish. Building inside an existing building is good because a lot of the building stuff is already done but at the same time it's bad because you're stuck with what you have. So in order to achieve the acoustics and sound isolation we need, it was scientifically determined that we needed X layers of materials for the walls. The east side wall includes a double layer dry wall that already existed. Then the new wall includes 3 layers of 5/8" drywall then 2 layers of 5/8" sound board on top of 6" of insulation. The west side wall includes 5 layers of 5/8" drywall, 2 layers of 5/8" sound board, 6" of insulation plus 2 inches of air. The back wall of the room has 3 layers of 5/8" drywall then 2 layers of 5/8" sound board on top of 6" of insulation. Then the back also has 24" of airspace with sound absorbing insulation hanging inside the 24". All of these walls will then have the framed soft walls. Every time they put another layer up all of the seams are also caulked so there's no sound seepage through the walls and when one layer goes up the next has the seams off set so none of the seams line up which would possibly allow sound to seep through. Each time a layer goes up we look at each other and say "is that it?" and thus far it has not been, they keep adding layers but we think we're all done. Next up is the soft walls. They begin being framed up today then once they are framed the fabric gets stretched over the frames to give the room a finished look.

Speaking of fabric, our designed gave us renderings a couple months back of what the room will look like. The room looks great in the renderings but it was all one color. We didn't know if we could change it so we were ecstatic to find out we could add more color. For the front of the room we chose black fabric. Our thinking behind that was that the projection screen needs to be the focal point of the front of the room. We want the rest of the room to sort of go off in to infinity. We didn't want someone looking at the screen but having their eye caught by the walls around the screen. The ceiling gave us a similar concern so we went with a dark gray for the stairs of the ceiling. The back, however, is where we could lighten things up and add color. Under the chair rail, we went with a lighter textured gray and above the chair rail and on the ceiling in back we went with a bright bold red. From day one in the building we wanted to have some red but in the rest of the building we couldn't make it work so we were happy to be able to incorporate some red in Audio A. Then there are multiple client workstations in the room. In the front of the room we went with a textured middle gray for the counter tops. In the back we went with a textured black. We think the back workstations in black will look really good with the red and gray fabric around it. For the flooring, the back of the room has a raised platform for clients. We matched the edit suites in the building by going with the same color and design that we previously chose. Then for the main floor of Audio A we went with a wood planking in a Honey Oak finish. For those who have been in our building in the lobby and lounge we have dark brown wood planking. It's a great look and is very durable so we went with the same material but different color in audio.

On the stage side, we will be repainting the cyc so it's a clean white. Then the new wall on the stage will also be white. We have the extra large, extra think rug that was on our old stage so that will be on the floor. Then we have gray fabric fiberglass panels that will hang on the non-shooting walls on the stage to help the acoustics. In addition, as part of the Audio A build out we are having some 6 ft. custom mobile sound baffles being built that will be positioned in the room depending on what we're recording. Beyond that, it will be trial and error testing the acoustics. Once the construction is over we will do some recording, take it in to our acoustical measuring devices and determine what other acoustic tricks we need to do for shooting and recording. We have done some internal recording in there already even with the Stage in construction disarray and the sound is good so we are very confident that when we're done doing what we're planning the sound will be excellent on the stage as well.

So there you go. That's the update. Things are coming along very well. A little slower than we had hoped for but when designing such a precise room it's better to be accurate than fast. We have done 3 webisodes on the audio process as well as lots of construction photos. You can see them all on our new home website www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome

American Red Cross

We have been working with the American Red Cross for the past six months of so. Rick Stone has been the primary member of our team working with the Red Cross and he recently took a trip to Houston for the project. As his connecting flight was pulling away from the gate in Memphis last week, the pilot came on the intercom to inform everyone that weather in Houston was quite nasty, and that there was a distinct possibility that the flight might not be able to land. To be safe, they had to pull back in to the gate and top off the fuel tanks. The flight did make it down but it was about as rough a ride as Rick has ever experienced, and the weather only got worse from there. There were flood warnings and the Red Cross was considering opening shelters in parts of the city.

How ironic—Rick's there to work with them to help them better tell their story so folks like you and me who hear the Red Cross mentioned in almost any story that entails a disaster, but think nothing of it, will think twice and consider donating money to sustain the good work. The stats of their contributions to local, national, and international relief are staggering—in Houston alone they respond to over 700 house or apartment fires a year. That’s two a day. While the assistance they provide to families who have been devastated by the loss of everything in a fire is routine for them, the meaning and relevance of their help has monumental importance for the people they serve. Unfortunately, the Red Cross is not alone when it comes to not adequately telling their story. Nearly every nonprofit we have run into, from big organizations down to small endeavors, is deficient in preparing their staff and volunteers to effectively tell their story to the people that matter—their donor base. And the same is true of for-profit companies. It’s what we call the organization’s Narrative Assets—perhaps the most valuable thing in a company next to its people. So, are you capitalizing on your Narrative Assets and putting them to work to build greater support or sell your customers?

Denver Snowstorm and IDEAS

So, a colleague and friend of the company set us up to do a couple of speeches and a workshop at the National Association of School Boards Technology and Learning conference in Denver. Who knew an early season snowstorm would almost shut Denver down! Anyway, we accepted the invitation to speak and sent our owner and Chief Storytelling Officer Bob Allen and Kelly Pounds, VP, IDEAS Learning, to conduct the workshop and also take advantage of this collection of top level educational decision makers to talk-up our new TeacherStudio (www.teacherstudio.com) product.

The saga started at 4:45am on Wednesday the 28th as the United website said the dreaded words FLIGHT CANCELLED. By the time Bob & Kelly got on another flight that could get them to Denver, it was nip and tuck to make the first talk they were scheduled to give (one called “Pandora’s X-Box” about games, mixed reality and other virtual tools for learning). They got to the room 10 minutes late after a slushy cab-slide through the white out on I-25 but there was a sign posted on the room saying “Session cancelled due to inclement weather”. The day wasn’t lost though. They met with a potential collaborator for TeacherStudio content and Kelly worked the room positioning TeacherStudio with a number of potential district clients. Bob was up at 4:30am local time on Thursday re-working the talk for that day (STEM to TEAMS: Arts in the Science/Math effort). Bob had the privilege of presenting with Dr. David Thornburg who is a deity in this world. The man’s resume is unbelievable and he’s a brilliant and entertaining presenter. They had 12 minutes to synch their talks before showtime. The feed back was great! They didn’t throw rocks or tomatoes. We'll post another report after tomorrow’s workshop called “The Colorado Broadband Revolution”.

Audio A Construction

We've been doing a lot of Facebook and Twitter posts about the construction on our stage and Audio A but it's been a while since I wrote about it here. There has been a lot of progress. Actually, there's something new every day. Whether it's another layer of drywall, HVAC ducts going in, HVAC work on the roof or door framing there's something new to look at every day. We got over a big hurdle yesterday. There has been quite a bit of back and fourth between our designer and our HVAC contractor. The concern has been whether the HVAC unit will create too much noise in Audio A or the Stage. Not just coming out of the vents but the whole until coming from the roof above the ceiling in to the room. After, literally, weeks of conversations and drawings we all came to an agreement on where we are. Now just the final execution is needed. The sound attenuators arrived this morning for the duct work so those will be installed today & tomorrow, almost a week early.

All of the framing has been up for a couple weeks now. There's a total of 5 layers of drywall that make up the hard walls of the new Audio A. In most areas all 5 layers are up. It has been interesting to see how they do the layering so no seams match up. Making sure no seams line up is very important for the sound proofing aspect of the room. After the hard walls go in the final electric gets surface mounted on the most inside layer of drywall. It's amazing how important it is that there are no penetrations in the walls. The acoustic integrity of the room can be ruined by one small hole the size of a nail. If there is a penetration in any of the wall structure it effects how the sound bounces off walls and how sound is let in to the room. So all penetrations need to be in the far front of the room under where the mixing console will be.

Yesterday the platform for the front and back of the room were framed out. The back step/platform is interesting because the design plans were so precise about the curvature of the step. I wasn't out there with my protractor checking the angle but hopefully they followed.

Last week we picked the colors for the walls. All the soft walls have fabric so we had to choose the fabric colors. We're doing with black on most of the walls in front and a light gray in the back with a decent amount of red on the back wall. Then the ceiling is dark gray. Our old Audio A was a light green so as long as we stayed away from that we were good. And it was important to us to have more than just black & gray. Knowing we needed the black & gray in front so there's no reflection on the projection screen, we focused on the back wall for our color. We looked at a couple reds and blues and red won out. We're excited to see it.

On the stage side, we're learning more about how we're going to treat that space to get it to where we want. There's a lot of HVAC work going on in there and we have a number of acoustic treatments available to us so we're extremely confident that the stage will be great for VO recording, ADR, Foley and shooting.

So there's some detail on the construction process. We're posting pictures almost every day on our new home website http://www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome/index.php and we've done 2 webisodes focusing only on the audio construction. The webisodes can also be seen on our new home website. It's been exciting, it's been exhausting but we can certainly see the light at the end of the tunnel (or hallway). It shouldn't be too long now.

Teachers Helping Teachers, A Way To Improve Education

We have a product that we have been developing for more than a year now. TeacherStudio™ (www.TeacherStudio.com), is a multimedia, research-driven, Web 2.0 site where teachers can see, hear, and collaborate with exemplary educators. This online professional learning community allows teachers across districts to come together anytime, anywhere to share ideas, receive mentoring and experience global best practices. Supporting each other, they can improve their skills in the classroom and build confidence.

Designed by our own instructional designers (former public school classroom teachers) and built by our design and programming department, TeacherStudio is currently being tested by teachers in Seminole County Public Schools (SCPS).

Diane Lewis, Director of Instructional Technology at SCPS says, “Teaching is a profession where, oftentimes, professionals don’t get to observe each other. A teacher knows teaching from their own experiences or from limited examples that they may have had during a peer teaching phase, but they don’t usually get to spend a lot of time going into classrooms and really studying master teachers and how they teach. What TeacherStudio offers us is a way to capture that master lesson and get teachers to feel as if they are in other classrooms, many classrooms, getting a lot of experiences and broadening their understanding of teaching and learning.”

TeacherStudio allows users to share teaching strategies via online videos. These videos demonstrate how strategies and techniques are incorporated into lessons and provide a true visual of what great teaching looks like. Via TeacherStudio, educators can participate in continual, non-disruptive professional development. It supports cross-district collaboration and mentoring and allows districts to focus on and promote what works best for student learning and achievement.

This is a product that we have a passion for. Our teachers are suffering, not just in Florida but throughout the United States. It's not just about money, it's about the lack of support they get. This product is a way a teacher in Florida can get and give support to a teacher in Wyoming. We are now looking for other innovative school districts to help us Pilot the product and provide feedback to guide further development and enhancements to TeacherStudio. If you’d like to learn more, visit www.TeacherStudio.com and drop us a line!

Enhancing the Patient Experience at the Naval Hospital - Jacksonville

We are commencing work this week with the Naval Hospital - Jacksonville on a number of fronts to enhance the patient experience throughout their system as well as identify ways to improve patient safety. In many ways it’s a classic example of the way we approach to culture change. We are beginning with extensive interviews of all of the leadership within the organization, both civilian and Navy. Following these interviews we will “embed” ourselves in the system—interviewing patients to discover their stories, extensively interviewing clinical and non-clinical staff to increase our understanding of the Naval Hospital’s culture vis-à-vis its impact on patients’ experience and the degree to which it supports various safety initiatives which have become fairly universal features of most hospitals’ attempts to improve their delivery of care.

The Naval Hospital is in many respects like any other community hospital, but it also has some unique challenges. At any one time 10 to 15 percent of their doctors and nurses rotate out of the hospital to medical facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. This destabilizing factor is not new to the military, but it tests the organization’s resilience and complicates the institutionalization of initiatives such as TeamSTEPPS—a program with its roots in the aviation industry that focuses on communication and teamwork, especially in the operating room. We will be examining how the Naval Hospital can continue to improve, ensuring that these initiatives remain viable and effective.

We’ll also be looking at how new staff are on-boarded. They currently have a 4-day orientation program, and they recognize that in addition to not being totally engaging, it’s not as effective a tool for quickly integrating these new staff into the fabric of the organization.

We’ll also be taking a hard look at the physical plant with regard to how it impacts the patient experience. It often comes down to simple things, like being sure that patients and family can find their way around - more in a few weeks as we learn more.

For more on our process in transforming culture visit http://www.ideasorlando.com/innovation/innovation_culture_transformation.php

YouTube Channel

So I think this You Tube thing is going to stick around a while. I know, I'm a genius for thinking that all by myself. But what I really meant was that creating our own IDEAS You Tube Channel is really going to help us. Here's the story. A couple months ago I got frustrated because any time we wanted to send a client a video to watch to learn more about us we needed to put it up on our FTP site, tell the client how to download it and then they could watch it. But even then we needed to get the file made, upload it and hope that the client could play the type of video we created (WMV, QT, MPEG, etc.). All of that takes time and once you do it once there's no telling if we'll remember where we put it for the next time.

Then the next option was to post it on our website but that required us to get the file to one of our programmers, have them compress it and build the page on our website. For that to happen the programmers would need to be available which would mean they were not working on a client project which is never a good thing.

So, someone made the suggestion to use You Tube and let me tell you how easy it was. We created our own channel then started posting away. A month, 60+ videos and hundreds of views later, I don't know why we didn't do this a long time ago. If we want to show a client a video we go to our site, find the video and copy the URL in to an e-mail or in a document and once the client clicks on it they go to our You Tube channel and can see that video and others. It has really helped our company's visibility. http://www.youtube.com/ideasorlando

Playshop for the Nat'l Assn of Tech Prep Leadership

IDEAS is always experimenting. We also have a long history of collecting fascinating colleagues and friends on the road of story. A few years back, we were doing some work with the Navy Learning Strategies Consortium and we were part of a discussion panel on “learning games”. The dialogue was, to shine it up a bit, “robust”. In the middle of the melee, we got to know a fascinating and passionate young man from Texas named Jim Brazell. Now, there are a lot of people who glom on to the label “Futurist”. Jim is the real deal. He has a handle on what is going to happen next, particularly in education and with a strong focus on how we can and MUST integrate the arts, science, math, engineering and technology so that we can HAVE a future.

Recently, Jim, Kelly Pounds (IDEAS’ VP of Learning) and Bob Allen spent a couple of days with two other wonderful thinkers-Mary Shenck-Ross and David Thornburg. What came out of it is a new co-venture called Radical Platypus. We’re a Platypus because we come from such diverse backgrounds and world experiences just like our namesake expresses a lot of different genetics. We’re Radical because we’re pooling our speaking, leadership and creative talents to help organizations-especially in education-change the future through playful investigation and strategic action.

Last week, Jim and Bob Allen had a chance to do what we’re calling a “Playshop” for the National Association of Tech Prep Leadership. For those of you who aren’t current in the lingo of education (as we weren’t), “Tech Prep” is the name today of what we used to call “vocational education” back in the day. Its also called “CTE” (Career Technical Education) and it is way cool. Jim set the stage with three stories about how CTE looks today, how it bears on jobs and how it may affect the future. Then Bob dug into our StoryJam arsenal and we facilitated several explorations that enabled about 100 educators to craft a revolutionary platform from which they will build their action plans for bringing TPE into its proper place. In the end, we got good feedback from our audience. One quote was “You and Jim complement each other in terms of styles and presentation skills. It was like the right brain and left brain processing the message and playshop.”

The Platypus is on the loose! We’ll keep you posted on where we’re playing.

Audio & Stage Moving Along

This past week was pretty much the midpoint of physical construction for our new post production audio mixing suite and our insert/Foley stage. All of the framing is completed (hard walls, closets, ceiling), doors are cut, rough electric has been run for Audio A. We should be obtaining final permits and inspection this week then it's off to the races. We made some final decisions Friday about how to handle the HVAC situation that will give us the best overall control and functionality for the various spaces. Last week we also obtained additional curtain track and curtain for the stage side. We will now have a black curtain running over 1/2 the wall space on the stage. This will obviously help the acoustics but more needed was additional flexibility in backdrops for shooting.

This past Friday we shot new interviews for our next Behind the Scenes webisode installment documenting the entire moving process that we've gone through the last 8+ months. The previous interviews have been in a controlled setting but for these we decided to shoot them in the middle of the construction site. We'll be editing this week and should be able to post the finished webisode before the end of the week. We also got our fabric samples last week for the soft walls in the audio mix room. Whatever we do we won't be picking a light green like our old Audio A or a mauve like our old Audio B & stage. We're thinking something in the gray area near the front of the room as to not distract or reflect color on the projection screen. Then towards the back we're hoping to include some red or burgundy. We'll see but it's exciting to have options.

We go tomorrow to get a full demo of the board we are buying for the mix room, an ICON console. The order is in but it's going to be nice to see a full working studio with the board we'll have. Renderings of the room are on our new home website: www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome then go to the Pictures tab and click on 9-28-2009. You can also see the renderings on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ideas.orlando

Building Social Capital Through Storytelling

For a number of years an organization in Winston-Salem called ECHO has grappled with ways to build social capital in its community. In short, social capital refers to the richness of trusting relationships in a community—the premise is that the more these exist, the better a place it is to live and grow. Lots of communities around the country are grappling with how to break down barriers in their communities—ethnic groups living and working in isolation, often distrusting the other. Breaking down these barriers, some of which are more than relational (there’s a highway that runs through the heart of downtown Winston-Salem that is the literal divide between the historic African-American community and the rest of the predominantly white community). In addition, over the past years other ethnic groups have been moving into Winston-Salem, and they too have felt the sting of exclusion from the mainstream of business, commerce, and government. In many ways their voices are rarely heard when important decisions in the community are being made. And n many ways they are invisible to the white community—their only identity being associated with menial labor.

ECHO became convinced that perhaps the best way to tackle this issue was through the age-old art of storytelling. They began with a simple question: could people sharing their stories build bridges of understanding and compassion. It was a bold idea, and looking around for potential models for using storytelling, they became curious about the national StoryCorps initiative in which people come into a recording studio in pairs, share their story, and these stories are these shared out through NPR. How this would build social capital was unclear, but there was a large enough group of volunteers who were energized by this notion that they got seed funding and called their initiative Storyline. With a lot of sweat equity, they converted an old van used by the library to lend books to areas in the community into a decent traveling recording studio. This past April the van started showing up around town, and people showed up to tell their stories. Many of these have been edited down to 3 minutes in length, and a number of radio stations have even agreed to regularly air the stories.

Now that this milestone of regularly producing stories for airing and making them available on their website, the Storyline steering committee realized that as wonderful as many of these stories are, there was still a lot of ground to cover to get them to their goal—demonstrably increasing the social capital in their community. Moreover, they realized that they didn’t have a cohesive story that paints the vision of what they’re going to do to make a serious difference.

To that end, 30 people (including Winston-Salem’s mayor, representatives from a number of stakeholders in area organizations, community activists, business leaders, and many of the volunteers who have nurtured this effort) gathered today for an 8-hour conference to build that story, and imagine what else they could do with storytelling to achieve their goals. The material we generated in this short time frame was astounding.

Our next step is to analyze the breadth of stories that were developed for key themes, look for clear action steps, and build a cohesive story that can inform and clarify their mission and vision. Equally important, they will now have a compelling story they can take to potential funders to enlist their support.

As the project develops, I anticipate that we will be engaged to assist them further to build a scalable approach that can be replicated in communities across the country. For more on Storyline Project visit http://www.storylineproject.org/

Employment Help in a Bad Economy

There's nothing good about a bad economy and people losing jobs. If you can't make the economy better and you can't hire everyone that has been laid off, the only thing you can do is try to help people find new jobs. One of our clients, Navigator Executive Advisors (http://www.navexec.com/), does just that. The Navigator Career Institute serves as an online career transition support system for corporate and individual clients participating in the outplacement programs of Navigator Executive Advisors, Inc.

We created a media-rich eLearning course that featured an on-screen narrator, and video-based drill downs featuring helpful tips and techniques. The eLearning course is supported by a database where learners can answer reflective questions and work with career coaches to reach their goals and work through their career transition. The objective of the course was to provide users/learners with the specialized coaching and technical expertise necessary to improve their ability to engage in effective and successful job searches. Whether they are just graduating and have never yet had a job, are presently in a job and want an employer or career change, or are “in between” jobs, the online instruction and guided exploration via database questions and interaction with professional coaches will help them navigate through their career transition.

In the end, this is a project that has taken on much larger importance since we started. We can't fix the job market on our own but we can help people get back out there when they need to.

Emmy Awards Review

Here's what I thought of the Emmy Awards last night. First, Neil Patrick Harris was great. Since he started on How I Met Your Mother he has gotten increasingly silly and I don't mind it. With everything going on in the world I don't mind a celebrity that acts like a sophomore sometimes and isn't afraid to poke fun at himself.

I found it very interesting that a couple of the shows thanked the geographic area in which they shoot. I heard a specific mention of Hawaii, New Mexico and NYC. Coincidentally those places have very aggressive incentives for production. I hope the state if Florida did the math: Major Production Incentives = Big Time Productions.

I follow the ratings of prime time shows pretty closely. It's amazing to me that a clever show like 30 Rock still struggles in the ratings. Here's the confusion for me: people complain that there's no good comedies anymore but when we get some no more than 6, 7, 8 million people watch. Last year a big complaint from people was that there were too many crime dramas on that were all about violence. OK, I agree with that but those shows still get 15, 16, 17 million people. I am reminded that Seinfeld didn't start out as a huge ratings show but grew in to it. I hope shows like 30 Rock and Big Bang Theory continue to grow to the level of Two and a Half Men and beyond. We see enough violence on the 11:00 news, it would be nice to see some people smile on TV.

And the Kanye West jokes were flying. I couldn't decide whether it was good or not. On one hand, it's nice to see that nobody supports what he did and maybe he and young kids learned something about being a mature professional. On the other hand, we're still talking about him so did he really win in the end? He obviously likes attention so was this a stunt to get us to talk about him?

Emmy Award Memories

Sitting here watching the Emmy Awards brings me back a couple years when a miniseries we worked on, Elvis, was nominated for 6 Emmy Awards. I don't even remember all of the categories but I do remember the one we were most proud of, Best Miniseries.

We got a phone call from a friend in December of 2004 and he said he was working on a miniseries and they needed some post help. We said sure send us the script and we'll do a proposal. A couple weeks later we were contracted to do the final video (on-line, color collection, etc.) and post audio (Foley, sound design, mix, etc.) for the 2 part miniseries that would air on CBS during the May sweeps period.

As luck would have it, the schedule was a suicide mission to begin with then it got delayed in off-line so we had even less time. We used 2 HD Avid systems and had a D5 deck in for 6 weeks since all the source material was transferred from film to D5. I lost 15 pounds in the 5 weeks we were doing post and spent more nights in our building during that time than during any other project in the time I've been with IDEAS.

In the end, we delivered Part 1 on Friday morning and it aired Sunday night with more than 13 million viewers, the most watched non-series program of the week. Part 2 was delivered Sunday, a day early, and it aired Wednesday. The work we did on Elvis opened the door to the movies and miniseries we have done since then. Including Elvis we have done 13 movies since 2005. We have obviously learned a lot in that time but we have also proven one important thing- that we can execute Emmy and Golden Globe winning work at a price worth coming to Orlando for.

By the way, Elvis did not win an Emmy but did win a Golden Globe. Go to http://www.youtube.com/ideasorlando#play/uploads/36/v0L7wjP7Y-o for one of our favorite clips.

Audio, Science & Navy

This was an interesting week at IDEAS, although not that out of the ordinary when it comes to the varied types of work. Except for the ceiling, we have a fully framed Audio A mixing room built inside our stage. There have definitely been bumps in the road over the last two weeks but we have a room framed out so that's where we wanted to be. By end of day Wednesday we'll have the ceiling and rough electric done.

One of our clients is the C-iT corporation. Their goal is to help teach science in a fun way using characters. We're at the beginning of our work with them but it's a really cool concept that we hope to be a part of for a long time.

Tuesday & Wednesday we had a large group of people in for a development conference for the game we're involved with based on the BattleStations 21 Navy training simulator we helped create. It was great seeing so many members of our team work with so many people on something that most of them haven't been involved with. Some of our team really had no background on the project before last week and to see them jump right in and be able to add value is a real tribute to our team.

IDEAS Helps BattleStations 21 Redefine Navy Training

Battle Stations 21 utilizes storytelling techniques and tested immersive technology developed in the entertainment industry. By delivering the Battle Stations 21 training content inside a rich story and a high fidelity, immersive environment, the U.S. Navy achieves better retention, comprehension, and integration of key training objectives.

The objective of the Battle Stations 21 Program is to provide Navy recruits with the culminating physical training exercise in the final phase of their training. This entire Battle Stations Exercise is comprised of 14 scenarios each containing specified events (e.g., move aboard a ship) and scenes (e.g., small boat attack) that push recruits to their physical, mental, and emotional limits, requiring them to draw on multiple aspects of their basic training curriculum.

The recruits must utilize the skills and knowledge they obtained during recruit training in an environment that approximates the stressors that can be encountered in the operational shipboard environment. Immediately after the successful completion of Battle Stations 21, there is a graduation ceremony where recruits are designated as sailors for the first time. A successful completion of Battle Stations 21 is required for graduation from recruit training.

The objective of this program is for an enhanced, World Class Battle Stations Exercise that will produce a sailor that is team-oriented and better prepared with more confidence to meet the challenges that may be faced in today's uncertain environment. All Battle Stations 21 events/scenarios are designed and located such that the recruits will not be required to exit the facility to transit between events/scenarios.

The Phase I Conceptual Design of Battle Stations 21 was developed by IDEAS along with a team of outstanding companies and was completed in July of 2003. As part of Phase II, IDEAS was responsible for the entire 12 ½ hour on-board audio experience. Field production, sound design and Foley was all part of the post audio process. The audio production portion of Phase II was completed in February 2007.

Today was day one of a two day of a developmental experience design conference with our partners on the VESSEL team. We are planning how to make the Damage Control Trainer Game more engaging. This serious game is training all US Navy recruits how to appropriately respond in the event of an emergency on board a warship. That's right, we're working to expand the original physical training simulator to a game. The more practice and training recruits get, the better trained and safer they will be.

To learn more about BattleStations 21, visit http://www.youtube.com/ideasorlando#play/user/5D974BAA47A212B4/5/jibm7kyIGcM to see the story from CNN.

Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Construction & MegaStructures

This week was busy, and it was a short week. We stepped up the social networking marketing. While we continue using Facebook quite a bit (www.facebook.com/ideas.orlando), we are stepping up the Twitter page (http://twitter.com/ideasorlando) and we have started our own You Tube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/ideasorlando). As of today we have more than 50 video clips of our work on our channel. We talked long time about whether to use You Tube or keep all that content on our website. In the end we decided that You Tube is hugely accepted as a content source and it's just so easy to use that we figured why not use it instead of having to set up our website for that much content.

Tuesday construction started on our stage to build our post audio mixing suite on one part and our insert stage on the other side. Lots of progress was made but it was a bumpy first week of construction. Our acoustical designer was meticulous about the details in order to ensure a perfect acoustical room. Making sure all the little details are followed by the contractors is a big deal. If one thing is not followed it could potentially hurt the acoustics of the room. Rob Hill has already gotten to know the crew very well and I imagine they'll get to know eachother even more over the next 2 months.

We finished our post production work on the MegaStructures episode about the UK Train for a new client. There were a couple bumps in the process but considering this was our first project with this client I believe overall things went well. We are looking forward to working more with this client in the very near future.

Lots of other good things happening during the week as well. Key is converting good conversations and meetings in to good projects and happy clients. Lots of work on that over the next couple weeks.

Audio A Construction Begins

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that as part of our relocation to Downtown Orlando, the facility owner agreed to pay for most of the build out of a state of the art audio facility for IDEAS. Today, construction officially began. Around 9am the contractors arrived and demolition of the stage began. There wasn't a lot of work done today but what was done was significant to us. Miscellaneous things in the ceiling were removed. All the walls were drawn out on the ground so we could clearly see where the "hard walls" and "soft walls" will be. Where the one wall currently is will be punched out to be the entrance to the mix room, the door is outlined with lines and measurements. Inside the current closet that will be closed off from the stage and will go out to the back hallway has the same outline and measurements. Like I said, there wasn't a ton of work done but any work signifies construction has begun. Pictures from the progress from today have been posted on our new home website www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome then click on the pictures & blog tab. With any luck, within months construction will be done and we'll have an awesome post audio mix room and a nice insert stage.

The Week That Was

Nothing major this past week but a lot of little things. We spent the week in the Symphony with our client that is producing Megastructures for the National Geographic Channel. We were supposed to be done by the end of the week but mid-way through the on-line edit the client realized additional changes needed to be made. We quickly went from on-line/color correction mode to off-line edit mode. Instead of finishing this past week we'll finish this coming week. We continue talking with the client about additional future work which we look forward to.

We sent a team to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico this week to do two site visits for future resorts. Over the past couple years we have grown our Experience Design business. We work with clients to ensure the best guest experience possible. We do this for hotels/resorts, museums and even hospitals. While people don't necessarily want to be in a hospital the end result should be that guests (patients) enjoy their stay as much as possible. The overall principals are the same so our goal in Mexico is to begin formulating what the best possible experience can be for the guests before the resort is even designed and built. For more about our experience design work, visit http://www.ideas-innovation.com/innovation/innovation_experience_design.php

We had a team from Ascension Health in this week for a day long session to work further on the eLearning course we are creating for them. The course will combine teamwork training and simulation exercises in order to improve communication and teamwork skills and in the end, ensure the safety of expecting mothers and their babies. Our team then went down to Miami to experience the physical simulator at work. Ascension Health is the nation’s largest nonprofit health system.

We also spent a good amount of time this week working on our You Tube channel. We created a channel to make it easy to upload samples of our work for clients to view and/or people to stumble upon our samples and learn more about us. More on the channel later.

We also completed the prep work to start the audio build out next week. Our architect finalized the plans and our electrical engineer finalized the complicated electrical plans. Demolition work starts this coming Tuesday. Obviously more on that later.

And finally this week we celebrated College Colors Day Friday by people wearing their favorite college colors and we had a little tailgate bar-b-que for lunch. All to celebrate the opening of College Football season. Nothing like watching college football in HD with picture in picture.

Communication Tools for Children’s Cooking Utensils

The neat thing about working at IDEAS is that we get the opportunity to work on so many great projects that are nothing alike. One day we're doing an eLearning course for Hill-Rom, a major innovator in the medical technology field, providing medical equipment and health care solutions to enhance outcomes for caregivers and their patients with more than a million of their hospital beds in use around the world. The next day we're doing post production on made for TV movies for Lifetime or direct to DVD movies for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Then the next day we work on marketing for Children's Cooking Utensils.

The Head Chefs are a revolutionary new line of children’s cooking utensils by Fiesta Products that are "Cool Tools For Kids". The client asked us to create a suite of communication tools to be used at their trade show that would assist them with buyer relations, media relations, and brand support for their product launch.

We started by using our 2-day STORYJAM™, as a starting point of a total BRAND RING™ concept for the products. From the STORYJAM™ session, we were able to develop the core story of the brand and create names and character traits of each product. We began production of 3 key products necessary for a successful launch. These products included a character-branded web site (http://www.head-chefs.com/), a product video that included a 30 second 3D CGI animation and original production with the creators of the Head Chefs, and a full-color print piece for distribution at their trade show.

We created a web site that included descriptions of each product as characters, giving each of them a back story. Downloadable audio interviews with each of the 5 characters are available for users. The 30 second animation was also utilized in the web site. A unique spot on the web site was created to accommodate the future development of age specific games for children and a “Vote for Your Head Chef” allows visitors to participate in naming their favorite. A store locator allows consumers an opportunity to find retail locations where they could make their next purchase. The video includes interviews of the products’ developers and was integrated into the 3D animation to promote the whimsical and mischievous brand of the Head Chefs. The animation was so well received that we were asked almost immediately to translate it into several languages including Japanese, German, and French.

In the end, this is one of those projects that you just shake your head and say "wow, that's really cool." It's not the largest project we have ever done or even the most visible one, but my 5 year old will tell you, the products are some of the coolest things we've ever been involved with.

Favorite Lunch Spots

We've been in our new home for almost 5 months and one of the best things about being in downtown Orlando is the lunch options. Over the past couple days we've compiled our list of IDEAS favorite lunch places. In no particular order here's our list, let us know what you think.

Shakers, Edgewater Dr., College Park- Consistently one of the best overall lunch places in town. Portions are plentiful and they only use Boars Head products. Large menu and offers a ½ sandwich and soup option (with fruit) which is a bonus and the wide array of salad are yummy!

Beefy King, Bumby Avenue- 40+ years in the business as a family owned restaurant they have perfected the steamed roast beef sandwich, although they also offer turkey, ham and other types of sandwich meats. Always a favorite for their wonderful tater tots.

Daily News Cafe, Magnolia St.- Great burgers and surprisingly large menu of other items. Easy walk from our office if it's not too hot, otherwise it's a bit tough to get to because of parking.

Hot Dog Heaven, Colonial near 50- A bit of a drive from our place. Authentic Chicago Hot Dog place, great fresh fries. Not cheap for a hot dog and fries but worth it.

Royal Thai- Great prices and great tasting food.

Viet Garden- Great prices, great spring rolls!

Five Guys, Baldwin Park- Great hamburgers and underrated hot dogs. Regular and Cajun fries are very fresh. Expensive for a fast food burger but quality is as good as any sit down restaurant burger so it's worth it.

Little Vietnam- Great prices, awesome selection (menu has lots of pictures). They also have bubble tea and Durian smoothies.

Virgin Olive Market- Sandwich/soup shop, healthy options and good prices.

New York Deli, Orange Ave. & Colonial- Great sandwiches, walking distance from our office.

Shin Sushi (next to Virgin Olive Market)- A little more expensive than other sushi places, but different selection and you get to sit next to the chefs as they make sushi.

Pom Pom's, Bumby Ave.- Awesome soup/tea/sandwich spot, large selection of classic and crazy combinations and good cupcakes.

White Wolf Cafe- Seriously good sandwiches and salads, sometimes there is a small wait.

There's many more, but that's our first list. Let us know what you think about our list or if we forgot some.

Stage Prep

The Stage was the first place that stuff went when we started moving things from our old building to the new one back in March. Since that time the Stage has been quite the dumping ground. When we were packing if we didn't really have a place for something, it was assigned to the Stage. Then once we got to the new building if we didn't like where something was assigned, it went to the Stage. We knew all along that we needed to get the Stage cleaned out in order to start construction on Audio A. And as things progressed with the design of Audio A we would make baby steps in getting it clean. But every time we would get something out of the Stage, something would be put in there, or should I say dumped.

About 6 weeks ago we had recyclers come in and take a fair amount of things that we determined were no longer needed. Then today they came back to take the remaining items that we no longer needed. The arrived around 10am and by 11am they were done and the stage was as clean as it has been since the beginning of March. We still have a number of things on the stage but they are organized, stacked and covered with a tarp on the far west side of the Stage. We are now officially ready for construction to commence on the Audio A mix room inside the Stage. Design plans were locked last week, General Contractor was chosen and contracts signed last week, architect finished plans today and are now ready for turning in for permit. Scheduling reasons are keeping us from starting next week so construction is officially slated to start Tuesday September 8, 2009. For pictures of the Stage after it was cleared out visit our new home website www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome

Siemens Corporation

I was meeting with a potential client the other day and they asked the question: What is the perfect project/client for IDEAS. I proceeded to tell the story of our relationship with the Siemens Corporation. 3 years ago, Shirley Decker and I went to a luncheon for Operating Participants of Walt Disney World. It was at the Rainforest Cafe at Disney's Animal Kingdom, food was excellent. We sat at the opposite end of the table from a guy that, personality-wise, was eerily similar to Shirley's. After talking a bit over lunch, the conversation continued after lunch and we (not so much me as I was just standing there for the most part) decided to set up a meeting for a couple weeks from then to talk about what he had coming up and what we do. The person's name was Darren Sparks from Siemens.

2 weeks later, Darren came over and explained what Siemens had going on at Epcot now that they had taken over sponsorship of Spaceship Earth. Siemens had the opportunity to use the back part of Spaceship Earth for just about whatever they wanted. After the initial meeting with Darren he brought back some senior staff from Siemens to learn more about us. From there we did a proposal for a one day Story Conference with key Siemens executives, to understand what were the key message points and what outcomes were desired for the visiting guests. After the Story Conference we presented the findings back to Darren along with our recommendations of how to execute the Guest Experience plan.

3 years later, we're still working with Darren and Siemens at Base21, the Siemens VIP Center at Spaceship Earth, Epcot. We initially worked with the Siemens team to design the guest experience, which caters to Siemens’ employees from around the world, key clients, VIPs, and dignitaries visiting the attraction. Being able to create a branded Siemens space was the key to implementing a creative and immersive experience.

We developed guest experience concepts focused on the visitor experience with specific emphasis on attracting Siemens employees and their families and encouraging regular use of the facility for Siemens clients as a business closer. Specific attention was given to way finding, interior design, interactive design, media development, light and sound effects, and displays to highlight the key branded messages of their various operating companies that make up the world of Siemens.

We created a variety of media experiences that educate in an entertaining way, knowledge about the company, communicate its vision to their broad range of employees and stakeholders and become a unique location for all key client briefings and company sponsored events. These tools include hand held tablets that will allow the guests to interact with their environment, a 3D monitor featuring Siemens technology, a hidden display wall utilizing smart glass, a ten foot interactive wall, a simulated world command center, and a multitude of unique video formats. A media server and show control unit allow the staff to instantly customize the visitor’s experience based on their demographics plus allow easy updates to the media.

Base21 is a platform to showcase current and future thinking of the company and how Siemens impacts their visitors’ lives. We provided ongoing creative input and oversight of the user experience back during the construction phase and since opened, we continue to add new elements, and refresh elements within the center as the company continues to grow.

For a behind the scenes video look at the making of Base21, visit http://www.ideasmediastudio.com/studio/MakingBase21.php

The Dumpster

Since about February 1 of this year we have lived with a dumpster almost every day. Whether it was for 2+ months back at the old place or the 4+ months since we've been here, we have had a dumpster outside our front or back door almost every day. Let me tell you, having a dumpster gives you great motivation to throw stuff out. Unfortunately, the last 2 weeks we have not had the dumpster outside our back door and I feel like a piece of me has been missing. Thankfully, a dumpster has returned. The task this week has been to go through all the stuff that has been stored on our stage and put it in different piles: 1. Electronic stuff that we're keeping and needs to stay inside where it's cool, 2. Stuff we're keeping but can go outside in our storage unit behind the stage, 3. things that will be picked up by a recycling company that will then sell what they can sell and recycle the rest and 4. TRASH. #4 is my favorite.

Our acoustic designer is done for now with the design of the room, the drawings are now with our architect going over everything to ensure it all follows code, then we'll get our permit and be off to the races. Be sure to follow the progress visually with photos on our new home website (www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome). But before any construction can start the stage has to be clear and between the dumpster arriving today and the recyclers next Wednesday, that will take care of most of that task.

Kids Get A Plan Next Book

A couple weeks ago I mentioned the kick off meeting for the next phase of work for the Kids Get a Plan website (www.kidsgetaplan.com) that we did for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Yesterday we had a group of our team and a couple people from the client side to figure out what the topic of the next book will be. The purpose was to create a story for a book that would fit with the rest of the series while also being applicable for 4th graders. The topic ended up being forest/wild fires.

We'll write the book over the next couple weeks, then give it to our illustrator to draw to and then add it to the website, including the same elements as the other books have on the website: interactive stories where the user can have the story read to them, read on their own with just-in-time help if they get stuck, reading cues to help improve comprehension and a glossary to help increase their vocabulary, instructional activities include games that reinforce the learning from the books, including an activity that allows them to build a disaster supply kit for their own family, downloadable coloring pages, character profiles and fully produced and sound designed depictions of the books are also available. The entire project should be done by the end of this year.

Audio A General Contractor & New Webisode

This past Friday we signed the proposal for our General Contractor on the Audio A build out. After 6 weeks of getting proposals, working budgets and lots of conference calls we settled on The Collage Companies for the work. While all the Contractors were great, we felt Collage was the best fit for us.

Fittingly, last week we posted the next webisode in our Behind the Scenes series to our new home website (www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome). This was Audio Part 1. There will be at least a Part 2 and maybe even a Part 3, it depends how much there is to talk about.

Today started with the arrival of our portable storage unit. It arrived this morning so we'll start loading things in there so they are out of the way while construction happens on the stage. The rest of the day Dennis worked hard to mock up what the new Audio A will be like. The purpose was to get a sense of the size of the room and the positioning of things: the console, the producer desk, the couch, the window looking in to the stage, the projector, etc. It's been a while since we consistently posted many photos to the new home website. Consider today the start of getting back in the swing of things with that, new photos are up on the new home website from today.

New Interns

For the past couple months we had two great interns, Nate and Shawn. Both of them finished up two weeks ago so I spent last week interviewing a new batch of potential interns. We have been using interns for many years and some batches of interviews seem to better than others. This was definitely one of the best batches I have interviewed. I interviewed 8 people and I would feel comfortable if I had to choose any of the eight. Unfortunately, I only need 2 interns so the other 6 will lose out when if they would have interviewed at some other times, they would have been slam dunk candidates. We'll set schedules this week for our two new interns and I'll unfortunately have to inform the others that they did not get the internship.

Audio A Build Out To Start

When we made the decision to move a major criteria for our new home was the ability continue doing the level of post production (editing and audio) that we have done in the past. A couple months in to the process of looking for a new place we made the strategic decision to focus on the Creative Village area in Downtown Orlando. In doing so, we found a studio facility that was near perfect for or business needs. As part of the relocation, the facility owner agreed to pay for most of the build out of a state of the art audio facility for IDEAS. The design work is now complete, and the construction and build out is about to begin.

We will make a final decision on our general contractor this week. That group will work closely with our acoustical designer and our architect to lock the plans, obtain the proper permits and begin build out. Over the last couple months we have been lucky enough to have our Audio B up and running so we can continue doing most of our audio work but we are looking forward to having our larger mixing studio and Foley/insert stage up and running in a few short months.

For those who followed the build out of the main part of the building, you'll remember periodic blogs and in progress photos as things progressed. Once the build out of audio gets going we plan to do the same thing. Between status updates on Facebook, blogs here and photos and webisodes on our new home website (www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome) we'll keep everyone updated.

Lifetime Movies

I was flipping channels this past weekend and came across a movie on Lifetime Movie Network that we worked on a couple years ago. Back in 2006 we were introduced to executive producer Bill O'Dowd and his company, Dolphin Entertainment. Dolphin Entertainment was about to start shooting a series of 3 thrillers in Puerto Rico for Lifetime and they needed a place for post audio. A quick proposal later, we were on the team.

Set in the Caribbean, the three made-for-television thrillers debuted with “Stranded,” starring Erica Durance from “Smallville”. The second movie, “Vanished”, starred A.J. Cook from “Criminal Minds” while “Break-In”, the third film in the trilogy, featured Kelly Carlson from “Nip/Tuck” fame. All three movies featured Carlos Ponce as police inspector Raddimus.

The post audio process included Foley, sound design, dialogue editing, pre-mixing, final mix and layback. Also included was post audio supervision and domestic delivery in high definition and standard definition to Lifetime and international delivery in high definition to Power, a leading independent worldwide producer and distributor.

"Stranded" achieved a 2.1 rating and a 33 VPVH (viewers per viewing household) exceeding the normal Lifetime Monday Night Movie viewership by more than 11 percent and did better than the series premiere that was on immediately following the movie. “Vanished” did better on a Sunday with a 2.1 rating and a 39 VPVH. “Break-In” also did well with a 2.1 rating and a 37 VPVH.

The following year we worked on Christmas in Paradise for Dolphin Entertainment. The movie featured Colin Ferguson from “Eureka” and Charlotte Ross, who stared in “NYPD Blue”.

For Christmas in Paradise we were responsible for the final high definition edit and post production audio. The video process included HD conform and final color correction while the post audio process included Foley, sound design, dialogue editing, pre-mixing, final mix, and layback. As was the case the year before we were responsible for post supervision and domestic delivery in high definition and standard definition to Lifetime and international delivery in high definition of the two hour movie.

FYI, we love our partnership with Dolphin Entertainment. They are a great bunch of people that we enjoy having around when they are here.

National Museum of Crime & Punishment

A couple weeks ago I posted something on Facebook about our work on the National Museum of Crime & Punishment in Washington, D.C. and got a couple e-mails asking what we did on the project. So here's the story, about 2 years ago we received a call from people from Idletime Network, the prime on the contract working for the owner, John Morgan (for Orlando people, yes, that John Morgan - For the People!). We met with Idletime and understood our scope to be the audio/visual portion of the project and possibly the interactive elements. We had done work for John Morgan before on another venue of his, WonderWorks, so we felt confident in our chances to get the job. After a couple months, literally, of back and fourth between us an Idletime and us and John Morgan and us and anyone else who could give us info about the project, and about 10 proposals and budgets later, we finally settled on what our scope would be and the amount we would be paid to do it.

It was one of those projects that was big but I honestly didn't know how big the project was until we really got in to it. Before it was all said and done, we executed over 60 media elements for the museum. It was the exact type of project that we believe we add the most value for. We were involved in the creative behind certain portions of the museum, then we wrote scripts for the videos we were producing. After that we shot the elements we needed for the videos. Beyond shooting we had to coordinate hours and hours of stock footage and images. From there we created the entire look and feel for the interactive elements and then created, designed and executed close to 20 touch screen interactive games.

We also created a fingerprint station that you could get your fingerprint scanned and then printed out with a fictitious accused crime on a card to take home. For one of the activities we needed to do a line up with the assailant in one of the videos to see if people could recognize the person at a later time. If you're going to do a line up you need stand ins. So, we dressed up a couple members of our staff as thugs and made them part of the line up. If you go to the Museum you can see a couple members of our staff in the line up. Who knew our staff made such good thugs.

On the video side we had numerous elements to create, some vertical some horizontal (aspect ratio), some video based, some graphic based, some SD some HD. The videos were all over the map. Then on the audio side we sweetened the videos, recorded background voices, created sound effects beds, and supplied various sound effects elements. The thing about the visual elements is that they had to be unique to the area of the museum they were in but they still had to have an overall consistent look and feel that was the National Museum of Crime & Punishment.

From start to finish, we had close to 20 people touch the project. We started at the end of September of 2007 and it opened in May 2008. David Bain was the project manager for the project. David and a couple others went up to Washington, D.C. to the location of the museum a couple times throughout the project.

The attraction takes visitors through early Medieval times, the swashbuckling Pirate era, the gun-slinging Old West, the gangster/depression era leading into modern crime, assassinations & conspiracies, serial killers and mass murders, the crime fighting technologies of today, and conclude with an entire area devoted to "America’s Most Wanted", the nation's top crime fighting television show. America's Most Wanted currently tapes their show from the Museum.

The difficulty in telling people about this project is that it doesn't translate in to writing very well. So while I'm trying to explain what we did, it would be better if you just went to the museum in person. To say we did some videos, interactives, audio elements doesn't do the volume of work justice. You walk in to the 3 story museum and see it, then you get it.

Audio Webisode

The end of last week was productive when it comes to getting a new webisode up on our new home website. It's been a while since we posted one because we've been here for a while and not much is new. However, as we move towards the beginning of the physical build out of our Audio A mixing suite and our insert/Foley stage, there's something worth editing. We are just about done with part one of the Audio webisode(s). It will be at least two websiodes and possibly three before we're all done with it. Part one should be up some time this week.

We also got the last of the bids for the project so we'll be making a decision this week as to who will be our general contractor. Once things get going there will be lots to write about so I'll keep you posted.

Audio A Build Out

About 2 weeks ago I posted that we were expecting the last of our 4 bids for the build out of our post production audio mixing suite. Well, 2 weeks later I'm still waiting for our final bid but it's not the 4th but rather the 6th. As things turned out, we got a few companies get in the game a bit late. One was a referral from our acoustic designer and the other was a referral because they have built this type of place before. Anyway, a couple phone calls, e-mails and site visits later, we should have the final bids today. Then the fun starts. We expect all of the bids to be over our budget so we need to figure out what's making up the numbers for each, determine how we can change the design of the room without adversely affecting the acoustics of the room, determine who's the best qualified for the job, then get going. This whole process has taken longer than we hoped but in some cases it's the most important room in our whole place so paying attention to detail is more important that getting it done fast. Fast and crappy won't cut it. Thank goodness we have Audio B fully functional so we can still record, audio edit and do some basic mix work.

Kids Get A Plan Kick Off Meeting

Today we held the kick off meeting for the next phase of a project we are very proud of. In 2004 we created, wrote and illustrated books for children in grades 1-3 for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The storybook for first graders, The Adventures of Rabbit, Possum, and Squirrel in The 30/30 Rule, teaches young children how they can protect themselves from lightning strikes. Professor Tinkermeister and the Wacky, Whiz-Bang, Weather-Watching Wonder, shows second grade readers how to protect themselves from thunderstorms. And The Oak Tree Club helps third graders learn about how they can create a Disaster Supply Kit for their families to prepare for a hurricane.

For the 2009 Hazardous Weather Week earlier this year, the Florida Division of Emergency Management partnered with us to create http://www.kidsgetaplan.com/. A 3D cartoon featuring “Professor Tinkermeister” and other characters from the books greets all Floridians on the home page of the site. Kids can choose from online interactive stories where they can have the story read to them or read on their own with just-in-time help if they get stuck. There are reading cues to help improve their comprehension and a glossary to help increase their vocabulary. Instructional activities include games that reinforce the learning from the books, including an activity that allows them to build a disaster supply kit for their own family. Downloadable coloring pages, character profiles and fully produced and sound designed depictions of the books are also available.

The kick off meeting today was for the next phase of the program which is for a 4th book and further enhancements to the website. This is a project that is near and dear to us since it helps children. All of us living in Florida know the variety of weather we get- lightning, hurricanes, fires, etc.- so to be part of such a great initiative is something we take great pride in.

Internships

Today we were visited by someone in the placement office at Valencia. We currently have an intern from Valencia and he was here to check in on his progress and how Valencia can help us more in the future. We welcome people from any local school to come in to see how we run our internships as we're proud of what we do. Over our 8 year existence we have had interns in just about every area of the company, probably close to 50 interns. People who want to be editors, audio mixers, instructional designers, writers and Flash programmers have all interned here. We have worked very hard over the years to make sure our intern program is fair. Our internships are generally unpaid so it's important that we provide them with the experience they deserve. That's the tradeoff. We don't work our interns 30, 40, 50 hours per week, we don't just put them at our front desk all day every day, we don't stick them in a closet every time clients show up. We try to teach the interns what they need to know to get a job in the industry when they leave. As most people I know will attest to, college gets you book ready for your career but it doesn't always prepare you for the real world. We hope after 3 or 4 months of an internship a couple days per week our interns are ready for the real world, either with us or elsewhere.

Client Relationships

It is refreshing when you have a client that really respects you. I know that sounds pretty simple but anyone that works for clients knows that having a client respect you doesn't always happen. Here's the story: we have a client, we'll just say it's one of our top accounts. Today we set up a meeting with a completely different division of his company largely because of his referral. This client goes out of his way to tell others about us and the work we do for him. Now this client gets angry at us sometimes and we get angry at him sometimes too. But at the end of the day, we are very lucky to have him as a client and judging by how he tries to help us out he respects us as well. On the other hand, it's tough to hear that other clients, no matter how much effort you put in to their projects, always seem to be trying to find a way to NOT come back. But today, rather than dwell on the clients that we can never please, we choose to focus on the ones that we can.

WIFT Meeting & Follow Up Meetings

Last night we hosted the Women In Film & Television 2nd Quarter General Meeting. My unofficial unsophisticated count was 108 guests and I know I missed at least 5-10 people. By far, the most people we have had in our new building. The turn out was one of the largest WIFT meetings in recent memory. We're assuming 99% of that was people wanting to hear State of Florida Film Commissioner Lucia Fishburne speak and 1% was to see our new building but that's ok, we're happy to ride anyone's coat tales if it means a full house at our place. We've have wanted to host a WIFT meeting for about a year and a half now but it made no sense to have the meeting at our old place before we moved so we've been putting it off each quarter so it was good to finally have it work out. This was second large function we have had since we moved, the first was the event with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer on May 21. Each time we have groups in the building we learn a little more about traffic flow in the building and where people like to congregate. We take notes so we can properly prepare for our big client party in the fall.

Remember the group Bob, Phil & Shirley went to Boca last week to meet with. They called on Saturday and wanted to come up here to see our place and meet our team. Obviously that's a great sign but man did it make for a long eventful day. We started prepping for them around 10am and left last night at 9:30pm and we were pretty much "on" the whole time. Hopefully more to come from this group.

If a Tree Falls...

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it really make a sound? If we have a busy day but no one is around, did we really accomplish that much? I sure hope so because our team was scattered all over the state of Florida today so the office was really quiet but we all accomplished a lot.

A couple people were down in Boca Raton having a meeting with a potential client/partner. The meeting went very well so that is exciting. Then I met with a person that might help in our sales department. It's a person we have known for about a year and we think she can help us so it's exciting to see where that might go. Then we had another team of contractors come by to see the proposed audio space so they can put together a quote/bid for us. The bidding process is taking a bit longer than we would have liked but it's more important to do it right than fast. And finally, a team of people were out at Spacecoast Executive Airport shooting an experiment with F-104s and former NASA astronaut Sam Durrance for our upcoming TV series Starfighters Supersonic Science. Nothing like an F-104 flyby at the speed of sound 100 yards away form you.

So there was lots of activity from South Florida up the Space Coast and back to Central Florida. But since we were spread out all over the state today it seemed like a quiet day until you thought about everything that was accomplished.

Duplication Discount & Changes to Studio Website

A couple years ago we did a promotion offering a discount on duplication involving HDCam when we got our second deck. It seemed to be well-received so we thought we'd do another one now to celebrate our new home. It's a good way to get people here to see the place (when they drop off tapes) and it also allows us to offer a cost savings with most people looking for deals these days. The e-mail blast went out today along with posting on Facebook and Twitter. It's 20% off all duplication involving HDCam, HDV and Digital Beta. Contact Carlo Simone at 407-601-7878 x5325 or csimone@ideasorlando.com for more details or to place an order.

Last week we had an internal meeting about updating our website. Some adding, more subtracting and some modifying. The Studio website (www.ideasmediastudio.com) was the easiest one to modify so we did that first to see if we like it. Basically, we wanted to reduce some text and get the samples front and center. We're finding people want to see our work, wither as video or stills so we put the samples up front and added stills to the other pages. If you have feedback please let me know.

Audio A & Sales

First blog with it no longer just being about the new home and of course, the topic is new home related. We received bid #3 of 4 this past Friday for the build out of our new Audio A. We spent some time today with the submitting company so they could explain their bid and we could ask questions. I thought the session went well, except their number was higher than we were hoping, although the number was what we were expecting. You can't blame us for hoping, right? We should get the final bid tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday. At that point, we make decisions- value engineering of the room itself as well as who will build it.

We're also anxiously awaiting some meetings this week about some great projects. Hopefully we'll remain in contention and maybe even get some of them. Bob's traveling pitching a couple people/places and Shirley continues working some new angles. We also have a little sales initiative coming out this week. Be sure to check your e-mail or Facebook for the announcement. Just a little thing to incent people to come see the new place.

Changing Blog Topic

We started this blog 6 months ago to help people follow the process of us moving to our new home. Now, we've been in our new home for 3+ months and there's only so much to talk about when it comes to the new home. However, we do have a lot to talk about when it comes to the day-to-day activities at IDEAS. So, beginning today, the topic of our blog will no longer be specifically about our new home and will be the general IDEAS blog.

We will continue to use Facebook and Twitter for short & sweet updates but we will keep blogging about what we're doing at IDEAS. Thanks to everyone who has followed us thus far and we hope to keep you informed and entertained going forward.

Final Cut & Cable TV

A while ago I mentioned that our Final Cut was not behaving nicely. After receiving a time out, and some new inners, everything is back up and running as of last week. It's hard to tell whether what fixed it was really the problem or a second problem caused by our first repair guy beating the crap out of the cards as he was taking them out and putting them back in. Either way, it's fixed, up and running and already back in sessions.

We're also making progress getting our cable TV connections up around the building. Obviously it's not a high priority thing but it is nice being able to check in on things on CNN or ESPN during the day. What's also nice is that we'll have "real" cable as opposed to our old Disney cable. We also have HD. I'm going out this week to use my Best Buy Rewards Points and buying myself a nice HD LCD TV with built in DVD player.

Our 1st Birthday in the New Building

Yesterday was our 8th birthday as a company. Our first day as an independently owned and operated company was July 1, 2001. It's hard to believe it's been 8 years. A lot has happened since then, for the company, for the world and for all of us personally. But while yesterday was our 8th birthday, it was our first celebrated in the new building. Each year on our birthday we bring in a special lunch for the staff. In the old building we'd set up the food in the main hallway, cover the pool table and fit as many people in the lounge as possible. Inevitably we wouldn't be able to fit everyone so the stragglers would go in the conference room. What that means was we couldn't have a "family" meal all together on a special occasion. In the new building however, it's easy to set up food in the Story Lab and get everyone around the table in the conference room. We can easily get 20 people around our conference table and if we squeeze and work at it we can get up to 26 people around the table. It was really nice to have everyone in one room enjoying our birthday. Here's to at least 8 more years together.

Dry Erase Boards

The dry erase boards are in and installed outside just about everyone's door. It took a while to figure out how to mount them so they are removable so people can take them down to write on them or change their picture but they also need to stay up. We're in that middle area where if they get bumped too hard or if someone pulls it off the wall too hard they will come down so we'll see how they hold up. If too many fall we'll use stronger mounting tape which will keep them up but will also make the backing more permanent on the wall. It's nice though we already have a few of our kid pictures up and people are already using them to write messages.

Audio Progress, Bay 4 & Previous Clients

We continue moving forward with the design of our new audio mixing suite. While we have certainly hit bumps in the road we think the makings are there for a really great room. As was the case with the original part of the build out, we get to a point where we have everything we could possibly want in the room and then the financial realities set in and we need to regroup. That's where we are right now. We have our initial budget numbers and we are over where we need to be. The next phase of the process is determining how to value engineer the room while NOT altering the acoustics at all. Aesthetics and "wants" will be addressed so the "needs" of the room are not sacrificed. The great thing we have realized since we've been here is our Audio B room can do a lot more audio work than we originally thought so we really haven't skipped a beat in audio.

This week Dennis mounted one of our plasma screens in Bay 4, our Final Cut Pro edit suite. Now we have the LCDs in Bay 1 & 2 and the Lobby and a plasma in the Machine Room and Bay 4. We're still figuring out the best allocation for the two DLPs and the remaining two plasmas.

And finally, we thoroughly enjoy having clients in that spent time at the old place and are now seeing our new home. It's nice to get the client's perspective when it comes to how much more welcoming our new home is. We've been here for 2 1/2 months now so we're pretty used to it so we like seeing the reactions of people who are seeing our new home for the first time.

Way Finding, Lobby LCD & Parking

Today was a very productive day. In between watching the final round of the US Open in HD on a 46" LCD screen in Bay 2, we put up all of our new way finding signage. Now there's no excuse if you can't find a bathroom on either side of the building. The signage looks good, the colors fit well and we'll see how well people find their way around.

Dennis also hung up the LCD screen in the lobby. Showing samples of our work as guests & clients come in the building is always a nice way to welcome people. Having cable TV, something we didn't have at the old place, will also be nice to catch up on the hurricane coverage starting in about a month. Hopefully we won't use it for that too much.

Unfortunately, we came to the realization today that there is one thing some of us really miss from the old building, parking in a covered parking garage. Getting in to a car parked in direct sun light after 8 hours of sitting in 110 degree heat index is not a fun thing. Oh well, we'll survive.

Parking Sign & Bay 4

As I have mentioned before, we have a problem with clients & guests coming to our building, parking and then walking to our back door instead of our front door. So we had to get a sign made directing people to the front door rather than the back (locked) doors. The sign was installed today so hopefully that will cut down on people banging on our back doors. Pictures of the sign are on our new home website www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome. Click on the photos tab then look on 6-19-09.

We also finished the redesign of Bay 4 today so the three edit suites we were redesigning, Bay 1, Bay 2 & Bay 4 are completed. The rooms look great and they will be much more client friendly.

Bay 2 & Dry Erase Boards

We received the remaining piece of furniture for the redesign of Bay 2 yesterday so the room is completed and feels great, just like Bay 1 when we finished it last week. Speaking of Bay 1, yesterday we had our first outside client in the room since we did the redesign. The great thing about this is that the client was also in the room before the redesign so they could do the comparison. I walked in during their session and asked how they liked it and both of the clients said it was very comfortable and user friendly. One client was sitting up next to Sam and the other was at the back client desk. Both had papers all over and had plenty of room to work. Mission accomplished in Bay 1 and we think the same for Bay 2. We have the furinture for Bay 4 also so we'll be changing that out today or Monday as well.

The long await for our clear dry erase boards is now over. They arrived yesterday, 40 of them. We are doing a couple tests to see what the best way to mount them is. We want to have them removable from the wall if people want to change a picture, put something else up, or if it's just easier for them to write on them. But, we also need them to be stable enough hanging so they don't fall down with a stiff breeze and we also don't want them tearing up the walls. We think we may have found a way to achieve all those goals, we should know by the end of the day. If that's the case, we'll start putting them up Monday.

Another Good Day

Yesterday was a good day. The second of our LCD screens was mounted in Bay 2. Now Bay 1 & Bay 2 have matching Samsung LCD screens. We already have one of our plasma screens mounted in the machine room so we have mounting to do in the lobby, lounge and Bay 4 left. While Dennis was mounting in Bay 2 yesterday he also did a massive clean up of the cables for the edit suite so the room looks really polished now. All we need is the last piece of furniture and that room is totally completed.

Our interior way finding signage also also arrived yesterday. It's currently flattening on our pool table, then Millo wants to do some trimming of a few of them then they'll be ready for install. Hopefully Monday we'll start putting them up. But they look cool and in a company full of creative people with lots of opinions, it's great that everyone was very complimentary about all of the signs.

We also had another good day of people seeing the building for the first time. Hearing people talk about how much they like the building when they see it for the first time never gets old.

Final Cut Pro & Fabric Panels

Since the move, our Final Cut Pro system has been, we'll call it temperamental. Dennis has been working almost daily for the last 2 weeks figuring out what the problems was. First was determining whether it was the Mac or whether it was Final Cut. Considering Final Cut wouldn't even load for a bit Dennis started with the computer. After finding a couple things out of whack the computer overall seemed to be working right so it was on to dealing with Final Cut. After seeing issues with the software we went back & fourth whether the problem was the computer or the software. It appears, and I emphasize appears until we see it for sure, that the problem may be the mother board. A new one will be in Thursday and we'll see what happens.


Duncan, bless his heart, put up 6 gray fabric panels in the edit suites yesterday. The acoustics in the new edit suites are surprisingly good already so the panels should only improve it more. And with the precision needed to do the job, Duncan was pretty much the only person for it. The first one is always the hardest but once it got up the rest went up much quicker and in the end, only a little touch up paint is necessary.