I believe strongly in collaboration – both internally and externally (though that can sometimes be challenging in a competitive market).   Inside T2 +Back Alley Films, our groups and skill sets are integrating more and more in every job we do.

The Kauffman Grand Opening work this past September was a perfect example of that – with four internal groups – interactive & Experiential combined with motion graphics and animation, editorial and Smoke finishing, and Back Alley for the production and shooting with the Weiss camera – working together to make it happen.   No single group could have achieved what we did on that project without the creative input and skill sets of the other groups.

This is essentially why eCamp started; a group of people in the production and post production industry got together and decided that we could only benefit from sharing what we know. We each come from a different market, but the same industry and so, without feeling the need to be competitive, we are able to talk frankly about what has worked for us and what hasn’t — the challenges we face, and our best operational practices. This has been particularly helpful these past few years – as our industry was struggling with the recession and technology advances that were significantly changing the nature of our business.   It has been interesting to see how each business is evolving to meet the needs of the changing world we are all experiencing.  It was also interesting to note that most of us  had called on other companies within the group this past year  – to collaborate on a project or two.

A definite perk.

I was thrilled to introduce my colleagues to a local genius right here in KC – who was our guest speaker.  Stefan Mumaw is the author of several books about the creative process – but he focused on his latest, Chasing the Monster Idea, which explored the difference between good ideas and great ideas, and how to deploy the great ones. Several in the group plan to book Stefan to speak in their own markets.  Finally, we ended our time together by a work showcase – where each company got 10 minutes to show their best work.  It’s always my favorite part.

Thanks to the eCampers for a great weekend.  And those of you who couldn’t make it this time, we missed you.  Next time – in Columbus, Ohio.  See you all there!

Simply put, we’re growing, and we need more design collaborative brainpower to move forward. You must be willing to experiment and work within the applications of Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop and AfterEffects. Google SketchUp experience is a huge plus as well!

You’ll be working on real projects, doing on site visits of spaces and helping design the experience from beginning to end.

If you feel like you would work well in an active environment, please email 6-10 examples of your work along with 2-3 paragraphs of how you could contribute to Garrett Fuselier by June 1st. Not to belittle any of your print skills, but we’ll be primarily looking at digital work, so be sure to weight your sampling appropriately.

We’ll go through a selection process, and the interns will begin on July 1st.

Great experience design served up in an Angry Birds Cake? Oh yes – and we’re just jealous we didn’t think of it first. A techie dad in the UK has provided not only an example of great experience design, but whetted our collective appetites for all things Angry Birds.

Perhaps the greatest time suck on the planet, Rovio’s Angry Birds app is a huge success. Now, with a working cake in the mix, we’re going to go ahead and call it a piece of experience design.

Electricpig’s Mike Cooper is responsible for the amazing cake, concocted for his 6 year old son’s birthday. Cooper has a rep for crafting imaginative birthday cakes, and it’s easy to see why. Not only do we get to see how the cake is constructed, the look on the little boy’s face as he realizes what it is, is pretty incredible.

With more than 12 million sold, most coming from iPhones and iPads (at .99 each, nice) and more than 30 million downloads of the free Android version, mostly on Google’s mobile OS, that’s a whole lot of popular.

Rovio’s whopping success with this app, generating over a million dollars a day via the ad-supported Angry Birds on Android, probably means a whole lot more Angry Birds in our futures. In fact, the Birds are coming to Sony’s Play Station and Play Station 3, the Windows Phone 7, Wii and even a 3d version of the game is expected later this year.

And Mike Cooper? Well, he can not only bake up a pretty stellar cake experience, he’s managed to throw some viral video in the mix as well. Well done, sir.

In our book, infographics are not only cool, but a great design strategy. Clients and prospective clients can often process information easier when it’s presented to them visually, in addition to or in place of text.

While this infographic touches on a topic that may not seem all that important, it doesn’t take long to dig down and see that lack of sleep is a big deal – and contributing to lots of … well you get the rest.

As a designer, if you can create a killer visualization, you are definitely showing that you have some serious skill.

But don’t forget designing infographics is an art - and in order to do it well, be sure you’re getting enough sleep.

In case you can’t remember all these experiential design beauties and others (that happens this time of year), the campaigns identified by Creativity Magazine as the cream of the crop featured this great body of work:

The Old Spice campaign, which was not only brilliant, but relied on consumer generated video and social media to hit it out of the park–interactive experiential design at it’s most basic level;

The Pepsi Refresh campaign, which again relied on social to support its cause-focused effort;

Domino’s Pizza, which relied on consumer input and social media channels to help improve its brand and turn the corner following a disastrous event;

Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco and their tremendous online effort that included leveraging Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, web craziness and some traditional advertising to focus eyeballs on the star’s return to TV on a different station.

Space Chimp, the World Wildlife Fund Australia’s compelling environmental message , produced in collaboration with musician Ben Lee;

Nike’s experiential design campaign for the World Cup, which included user-generated content integrated into the digital outdoor production, interactive film and a healthy dose of social media to spur awareness and participation;

Jay-Z’s promotion of his new book, “Decoded,” that was again an interactive, experiential design piece, literally bringing the book to life for fans in a myriad of different locations. This campaign produced by Droga5, also included an online element sponsored by Bing, that allowed fans who couldn’t physically participate in the outdoor extravaganzas the chance to do so online.

Mitsubishi’s virtual test drive harnessed technology for their Live Drive, the first of its kind by an automaker, and an obvious nod to the experiential design decade we have entered;

Dare Labs’ Remote Palette is nothing short of brilliant in the realm of app development and its popularity was spurred along by web video and social channels.

And finally, the release of Arcade Fire’s Wilderness Downtown campaign was an example of collaborative genius that combined music video production for the band’s “We Used to Wait” song, with Google Earth and created a musical experiential design piece.

The interesting thing about all of these campaigns is that they typify the massive changes in the world of advertising that are leaning so heavily in the direction of experiential design. Notice how many include consumer-generated content and/or provide an opportunity for interactivity with consumers? And how many rely on a variety of social channels to help spread awareness. And how experiential design is being tapped again and again to allow consumers to be a part of a campaign, not just passively watch from the sidelines?

As a digital media and creative services agency, the success of these campaigns is nothing less than pure delight for us. It confirms that we made the right move in expanding our brand beyond production and post-production into the fresh (and fun) new area of experiential design. This kind of substantive transformation has not been easy these past few years – new jobs and new people replacing the old model – lots of change can be stressful for sure. So it’s nice to end the year with news like this that lets us know that we are in a good position as we start 2011. Here’s wishing all of us in this battered industry a prosperous new year!

The Demo Slam has invited anyone and everyone with a little “maker juice” –not just motion design types–to be an advocate for one of the search giant’s products. You can choose to highlight the incredible user experience design and nifty features of:

Google Goggles
Google Voice Search
Google Instant
Google Translate
Local Search
Google Realtime
Google Image Search
Universal Search
Custom home page
Other Google technology

Basically you create a video showcasing why a product is cool, upload it to YouTube, then submit it to the contest. Every week two Slams compete against each other and users pick the winner.

Other motion design studios and filmmakers have already jumped on the contest. The range of ideas and creativity is incredibly inspiring. Not surprisingly, the amateurs using just their handheld cameras and an idea have really stepped up to the plate and shared their smiles.

The Search Mogul has hit a home run with this user experience design. A clever little old fashioned microphone swings with your mouse pointer while you decide which Slam contestant to watch and then which one to choose as the winner. The winner will actually be put into a Champion’s Hall of Fame.

This is Google’s way of getting you to “get the people who would never watch a tech demo — the people who ironically need them most … to not only watch them, but like them and share them with their friends.” Talk about a user experience design that engages!

So far the interest seems to still be in mounting phase…in other words we haven’t seen much in our motion design studio social networks…yet. But we expect that, just as Google hopes, Google Demo Slam will become “a place where boring tech demos become (hopefully) gotta-show-my-friends awesome–thanks to the creativity of Google users like you.” Once again, an incredible user experience design from the big guys with the weird name.

eMarketer reported today that iPad sales are expected to more than double in the coming year. With some 8.5 million of the devices sold in the U.S. in 2010, that gives Apple a sweet 88% of total U.S. tablet sales. And, while the devices are big in the U.S., total global sales of all tablets are reported by Gartner at 19.5 million for the year — and that’s not shabby either. No wonder other brands are scurrying to develop their own tablets and trying to swipe some market share from Apple. eMarketer predicts iPad sales to be in the neighborhood of 20 million for 2011 and reaching 30 million by 2012. Those are some massively impressive numbers.

At T2 + Back Alley, we’re finding more uses for the iPad on a daily basis, both internally and as solutions and innovative marketing tools for our clients. Apps are touted as the websites of the future and our creative team is digging app design, creating other mobile marketing solutions and doing tons of experience design.

Our favorite use of the iPad this past year might have been the way the fashion industry embraced new media and started creating content for use on tablets and other mediums. This moved designers into the realm of not only designing and creating beautiful clothing, but designing and creating content to showcase the fruits of their labor as well. We predict there will be more and more unique and innovative ways that brands use tablets like the iPad and that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg so far. And with Wired reporting that Apple’s version 2.0 of the iPad is rumored to be delivered in April 2011 (along with some intel about some spiffy new cases that are in the works), we’d recommend postponing a holiday purchase and waiting for the new, improved model.

What about you — any innovative uses of the iPad that have been your particular favorites?

Experience design is not just the hottest thing in marketing and for brands trying to drive engagement and sales, it’s soon to be an even bigger part of our lives. There’s a great new search tool, Qwiki, that was introduced during TechCrunch Disrupt this past September that brings experience – and experience design – into the search process.

Currently, when you search for something you get a list of links that may or may not provide all the information you seek. And it’s not always a very dynamic way to find what you need. Qwiki provides interactive video presentations with dynamic information pulled from a multitude of sources. What’s better, is that each information element that’s pulled into the presentation is interactive. So, if you click a video or photo while watching a Qwiki information experience you can interact with that piece individually. Also all related maps, timelines and other elements are highly interactive as well.

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

Right now Qwiki is a very cool interactive reference tool, but it is actively working on developing products for small businesses and social media users. Social media users will be able to create Qwikis based on their social data aggregate, while small businesses can aggregate reviews from sites such as Yelp, Gowalla and others. Regardless of the end user, Qwiki CEO, Doug Imbruce says their ultimate goal is to become “a ubiquitous layer that augments the traditional web.”

You should definitely go check out some of the sample Qwikis available on their site. The Eiffel Tower Qwiki is a great example of a simple search and infinitely more interesting than what you get from a Google or Wikipedia search. There’s also a Qwiki about Gregory Smith that shows how social media information can be aggregated

Qwiki founders believe that the best ideas are experienced – so if Search goes experiential – what’s next? Since experiential projects and experience design are a big part of what we do – and since we believe that any information is better when it is experienced by the user, we will love seeing how quickly Qwiki will change the way we all search for information. Love, love, love it.

This Friday, Nov. 5th there will be a very special happening at First Fridays in the Crossroads – and you know how much we love experiential happenings. “Limelight” is a live public art installation that is coming to KC after its initial installation in Glasgow, London and Arlington, Va.

For this work Sans façon, have taken a different approach to city street lighting by replacing two existing streetlight heads with theater spotlights, inviting passersby to temporarily transform the street into a stage. According to their press release, the theater spotlight is a universally familiar symbol of performance — both recognizable and appealing. This intentionally subtle alteration to the street lighting transforms an ordinary sidewalk into a stage where the passersby become both the actor and the spectator. A few dance steps become an instant spectacle, a few sung words become a musical and a kiss turns into a film scene. And the thing that I love is that a public space, a street, becomes a place — a place that showcases the creativity and vitality and energy ever-present in a city, but rarely shown in a public space. And that’s nothing short of magical.

Why Kansas City? Kudos to David Dowell and El Dorado Architects for making this happen. Turns out David met the two principals of Sans façon a few years ago and the two firms have since collaborated on multiple projects. Sans façon is a collaborative art practice formed between British artist, Tristan Surtees and French architect, Charles Blanc.

David contacted them about bringing “Limelight” to Kansas City as a public outreach event for 20th St. Streetscape Project – which is an El Dorado project that is working to transform and redefine 20th Street into a “Great Street.” Definitely check out 20th St. Streetscape Project which includes some sustainable elements as well as changes to sidewalks and street lighting. I can’t wait to see the whole plan for 20th Street…but I digress. Bottom line, Dave Dowell went out and raised the money to bring “Limelight” to KC. He made it happen and I’m grateful for his tenacity.

Suffice it to say, I will be hanging out at 20th and Main Street at dusk on Friday so I can be a part of the experience. I might be too insecure to perform but I’ll have fun watching. Then again, who knows. That’s what is wonderful about experiential projects. And I hope I’ll see you there.

Mobile and location-based experiences are on savvy marketers’ minds these days, as they are great at helping create buzz and compelling consumers to do something. Jimmy Choo’s Foursquare scavenger hunt during London’s fashion week is a great example of a location-based initiative that not only created a ton of buzz, but also drove sales as women ran all over London in search of the current “it” shoe.

We worked with the folks at PRNewswire to create a scavenger hunt experience based on QR codes for use at the PRSA annual conference held in Washington, DC this past week. This created not only excitement for conference attendees, but also doubled as an experience (and a competition) that served to make the event even more memorable. Additionally, it created a lot of buzz for the PRNewswire brand and, ultimately, got a lot of PR and marketing pros thinking about how they could use experience design in innovative ways for their clients.

Want to know more about how companies can use strategic media placements and a variety of new and emerging channels to engage their audiences? Join us for a FREE webinar sponsored by PRNewswire this Wednesday, October 20th, at 12 PM Central.

The panel will be moderated by Michael Pranikoff, PRNewswire’s Director of Emerging Media, and he’ll be joined by T2+Back Alley Films’ Interactive Experience Designer, Garrett Fuselier and the very smart Amy Webb of Webb Media Group.

For more information and to register, click here.