Dan O’Connell

My mate Matt Burden has just launched a new version of his portfolio.  My personal favourites are ‘Pigling Bland’ and ‘Coping with death’.

It’s a dark, naughty place.  I like it.

I heard today that my friend and old work mate Stefan Marinov passed away this week.

Stefan was without doubt the one of the nicest, most unassuming men I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.

I’m sad to see him go.

I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. If you’re not easily offended, check out Modern Toss.

Some videos here as well.

Battles have got to be one of my favourite bands of recent years. A super-group of sorts, they play pattern based ‘math rocky’ tunes held down by some SOLID drumming. Here’s a great video of them live. You’d think John Stanier would do himself a favour and bring that cymbal down a little though.

Why?

Because unlike many designers they don’t try hard to make things cool. They try hard to make things work.
Here’s an example.

Responsibilities and Expectations

The role of producer within the digital team at McCann sits between creative, design and account team.

There are two key success criteria:

1. Efficiency - ability to make things happen in a positive and energetic manner harnessing the resources of the agency teams and 3rd party partners. Be prepared to challenge existing systems and break down barriers if necessary.
2. Creativity – be imaginative and contribute to the creative process by inspiring account teams about what is creatively possible as well as pushing creative teams advance their ideas into digital platforms, as well as instilling confidence in the designers through solid insights into their craft and technical challenges.

Specifically the role requires:

• Knowledge and insight into file formats, technologies and software behind all digital solutions.
• Good grasp project time requirements for web design and development
• Help identification opportunities with account teams across all agency accounts
• Be clear and realistic on creative brief requirements for designers
• Translation of resource requirements for less informed account teams
• Help creative teams improve their grasp of digital possibilities
• Insight into the realistic timing requirements to protect the design team and to educate the account teams
• Good insight into what constitutes a competitive budget
• Be abreast of new trends
• Be able to liaise with 3rd party developer teams
• Keep projects on track
• Be available to attend client-briefing meetings

So, after 3 weeks, 3 Recruitment Agencies, some 15 applications, 5 interviews and 2 offers, I’ve taken a 3 month contract at McCann Erickson as a digital producer.
I decided not to blog the whole job finding process as it happened as I was aware that my blog URL was on my CV and potential employers might not appreciate me telling the world that I’d just done an interview at their place and wasn’t actually too keen on working there.

Having managed the finances of a small but growing company for over 2 years, you’d think I had a good handle on my
own cash. Wrong. My personal financial situation has been neglected since leaving college. A plumbers taps always leak and all that.
I decided to do something about this recently, and have been recording everything I spend onto Google Spreadsheets. Generally though, I find these far too slow to be usable and for some reason they crash Excel when I download them for use there. So I’ve been looking for a personal finance app for the Mac, which I think I’ve found. It’s called Moneydance.

After a day of use, I can conclude that it’s simple, not too feature heavy, usable without reading the guide, and generally a very neat, little package that comes highly reommended. Winner. I discovered it though this post which is interestingly the top of the page when googling for personal finance software on mac. Someone’s missing an opportunity there.

In a couple of years, I imagine that we’re going to have this kind of app online, automatically hooking in to our banking, mobile micropayment devices and so on. Personally I can’t wait.

This is an application question I’ve just answered for a job application at Channel 4. I’m kind of sceptical of buzzwords like ‘web2.0′, and if anything, we’re coming to the end of the whole web2.0 thing anyway, but that’s another story. The 4000 character limit I had to answer the question didn’t allow for that much explanation, and I found writing within such a limit a real challenge, but here’ my answer anyway:

“It’s impossible to ignore what’s been happening online in the past few years –widely termed web2.0. Here’s what it adds up to for me:

Recent years have seen a migration online, with 2005 seeing the world’s billionth web user. And once people and their offline habits get online, they’re staying. People use the net to shop, share media, and socialise, and as such, this ‘social web’ as it has become known, is one of the key components of web2.0. People spend as much time on MySpace as in the pub. People are getting together and hanging out.

It’s about more than friend counts though. It’s about the little guy claiming the web. Through participation in huge numbers, audiences have become powerful: look at the 1.7m names on a recent Downing St. e-petition. Moreover, technologies have empowered users further – consumers becoming publishers. Blogs and social networks enable anyone to stake their claim and have their say, and nothing is sacred.

Content is remixed and republished, and customisable homepages coupled with publishing technologies allow us to tailor make the way we distribute and consume media, levelling the playing field. Politicians and brands can’t rely on traditional, one-way broadcasting to get messages across. Web2.0 is about direct, horizontal, multi-channel communication, encouraging reaction. The lecture is now a conversation.

It’s about new business models too. I can set up, promote and profit from a company more quickly and at a lower risk than traditional models allow. Standard bearers of web2.0 like Google and YouTube began as two-man outfits and have ballooned in under 10 years.

So how would I apply web2.0 thinking to channel4.com?

Take advantage of the fact that the technologies are cheap and quick to implement. Throw as many techniques and ideas at the site as possible, concentrating on what sticks. What works for some users might not work for others. Make the most of this.

Let people take content. Add ‘Digg this’ ‘post to deli.cio.us’ ‘share this’ and similar links to articles, video, and other content. Like BBC Backstage, open up to developers with a C4 API.

TopShop get 5% of visitors to their online store from their MySpace page. Follow their lead. Use popular online networks and get viral. Run YouTube competitions, start groups on MySpace.

Make communication with site users two-way instead of top-down. Invite feedback: ‘review this film’ ‘rate this programme’. Encourage with competitions and prize-draws.

It’s great that users can watch videos, but they can’t share, embed and moreover, players like the C4 player are non-standard. By publishing video content via a dedicated video site like YouTube, users get the tools and functionality they’re used to and C4 gets content in front of new audiences through user distribution.

Open up 4OD to non-Windows users by publishing in a non proprietary format e,g. podcasts.

Replace static editorial with dynamic user submitted content: comments, ratings etc. Display this on every page, including the homepage, where it should take pride of place.

Create a social network or web service. Ideas include: Customisable views on content a la pageflakes.com; in page tools allowing users to recommend, favourite, rate, and interact with content; let users build an online viewing schedule to share or publish; email and SMS reminders when shows are about to start; competitions, perks and premium content for members; C4 recommendations based on preference.

Use resources, reputation and know-how to create a new business that uses web2.0 technologies and business models to raise revenue. The Economist are pursuing such an idea with their Project Red Stripe initiative.

Partnerships are emerging between traditional and web2.0 organisations (Nike and Google, BT and Podshow, The BBC and YouTube) that add value to both parties’ offerings. Consider entering into similar agreements from the very small (recruiting influential or celebrity bloggers) to the very large (C4 shows on iTunes). ”

Let’s hope it gets me an interview.

As part of this blog I plan to post up (what I perceive as) excellent drumming as and when I come across it.

Here, for starters, is Joe Morello. Joe played for the Dave Brubeck Quartet of ‘Take Five’ fame, and is a legend in drumming circles.  Gotta love the bare hands.

Had some trouble getting this to embed at first, but this plugin came to my aid.