A couple years ago we were trying to come up with creative for our then new website. We kept coming back to one thing- while the work we do for clients is important, what we really sell is relationships. Ultimately for a project to be successful there needs to be mutual trust between us and the client. The client needs to trust us enough to do what we do best. And we need to trust the client that they are telling us everything we need to know and openly and respectfully participating in the process. Having that mutual trust is huge in order for us to be successful together.
So, as we were coming up with what the website should look like, we believed that someone viewing it needed to be able to get to know us personally instead of just reading about us on a flat text website. Building the relationship with the client needed to start from their first look at the website. The result is the images of each employee on the website. One image has us dressed and looking in our normal everyday work attire. And the second image of each of us has us in our personal off-hours attire. Those are the photos that people really had fun with. Most brought extra cloths, a lot used props, some even brought their pets. It started out as a little thing and quickly got out of control, in a good way. In the end, the result was one of the most popular elements of our current website.
In the next couple weeks we'll be rolling out a new and improved website so we thought we'd give everyone the opportunity to update their photos if they wanted to. Today was the update day. We had a number of people that brought in changes of clothes, props, children (I think belonging to them), and a couple dogs. When we did it the last time it was over a couple days and it was a lot of fun and today was a lot of the same. Keep an eye out for the new website and you'll see some of the results from today.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Bob Allen Honored at Modeling and Simulation Event
Written by Bob Allen
Last night there was a quiet celebration. The Simulation Interoperability and Standards Organization and the Society for Computer Simulation International teamed up to host “CELEBRATE Central Florida Modeling and Simulation”. Now, that’s a mouthful of organizations and pretty geeky looking till you look deeper. 11 of the honorees represented work right here in Orlando. That has assured that our military is better able to face the rigors of the battlefield, our hospitals are beginning to be able to “rehearse” the most pressing kinds of emergency care and that commercial aviation is safer than its ever been- not to mention how we get human beings safely to space and home again.
What struck me the most in the array of future projects was the incredible potential of this set of largely misunderstood disciplines offers. Orlando has the most potent critical mass for the next generation of solutions for mission and life-critical human immersion in the world. Why? Its because of what I characterize as our four “power vectors”: UCF and its centers of academic excellence, Research Park and its corporate and organizational reach into a world of technological excellence, Medical City with its “greenfield advantage” in research and applied medicine and Creative Village- the nascent downtown nexus of creative digital media and entertainment professionals. As was noted last night, the puffery of “who’s the biggest” in any segment is empty compared to the real issue of who is actually innovating.
I like to think that’s where we get in the game at IDEAS. The 12th honoree was me and I’m really grateful that Priscilla Elfrey, the undisputed QUEEN of MS&T, saw fit to include me. We are an Innovation Studio. Our definition of innovation is “The applied confluence of creativity, artistry and intentional action over time for a specific purpose.” What we’ve been able to synthesize from our early efforts creating Battle Stations 21 for the Navy and Essentials of Modeling and Simulation for the ADL Co-Lab, have carried our work into online virtual worlds, our TeacherStudio™ collaborative professional online community for educators, new cultural attractions and redefined patient experiences in both military and community healthcare. As my old friend Chris Stapleton said last night, its invention until someone actually does something- then it can be innovation. I’m grateful not only for the kind recognition from SISO and SCS but moreover for being part of what is happening in Orlando. This is the right place for the next 20 years.
Last night there was a quiet celebration. The Simulation Interoperability and Standards Organization and the Society for Computer Simulation International teamed up to host “CELEBRATE Central Florida Modeling and Simulation”. Now, that’s a mouthful of organizations and pretty geeky looking till you look deeper. 11 of the honorees represented work right here in Orlando. That has assured that our military is better able to face the rigors of the battlefield, our hospitals are beginning to be able to “rehearse” the most pressing kinds of emergency care and that commercial aviation is safer than its ever been- not to mention how we get human beings safely to space and home again.
What struck me the most in the array of future projects was the incredible potential of this set of largely misunderstood disciplines offers. Orlando has the most potent critical mass for the next generation of solutions for mission and life-critical human immersion in the world. Why? Its because of what I characterize as our four “power vectors”: UCF and its centers of academic excellence, Research Park and its corporate and organizational reach into a world of technological excellence, Medical City with its “greenfield advantage” in research and applied medicine and Creative Village- the nascent downtown nexus of creative digital media and entertainment professionals. As was noted last night, the puffery of “who’s the biggest” in any segment is empty compared to the real issue of who is actually innovating.
I like to think that’s where we get in the game at IDEAS. The 12th honoree was me and I’m really grateful that Priscilla Elfrey, the undisputed QUEEN of MS&T, saw fit to include me. We are an Innovation Studio. Our definition of innovation is “The applied confluence of creativity, artistry and intentional action over time for a specific purpose.” What we’ve been able to synthesize from our early efforts creating Battle Stations 21 for the Navy and Essentials of Modeling and Simulation for the ADL Co-Lab, have carried our work into online virtual worlds, our TeacherStudio™ collaborative professional online community for educators, new cultural attractions and redefined patient experiences in both military and community healthcare. As my old friend Chris Stapleton said last night, its invention until someone actually does something- then it can be innovation. I’m grateful not only for the kind recognition from SISO and SCS but moreover for being part of what is happening in Orlando. This is the right place for the next 20 years.
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