Our Rich Media team recently attended an Adobe User Groups (AUG) tech tour for Adobe Flex 4 and ColdFusion. Needless to say, we were a bit cautious (given the word "ColdFusion" in the title). In a nutshell, ColdFusion is a commercial rapid application development tool for interfacing with databases through its own markup language, all bundled into one hefty-priced package from Adobe. Most of our Flash/Flex developers have experience interfacing with open-source tools and languages for pulling data, so naturally we were reluctant about this part of the presentation. Still, we wanted to hear about the new Flex 4 features. It was disappointing to say the least.  

First off, the presenter spoke for some time about a new tool called Flash Catalyst. It’s a tool for non-developers to use when designing interfaces. Hmmm...non-developers. Must mean designers. Do you really think ANY designer will give up Photoshop and Illustrator when it comes to designing web applications? Of course not. So basically, Adobe spent all this time making a tool no one will use and still have yet to address many of the problems with the Mac Flash CS4 IDE. I ask you: Why spend money on building new useless products when you could be fixing and improving on your top-selling ones? Flash CS4 on the Mac has so many problems we only use it when necessary. Help us, Adobe-Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope (sorry — that was bad).

After designing a simple interface in Catalyst, the speaker opened it up in Flash Builder (the new Flex Builder) and published it. When I say simple, I mean VERY simple — one text field and one dropdown. One of our developers asked the speaker how big the file is. It’s a known fact that when creating a SWF from Flex, it adds in all the Flex overhead and is much larger than a SWF published from Flash. We were hoping this might be addressed in the latest Flash Builder application.

The file was 500k. The same piece published from Flash would have been about 30k. So unfortunately no, this was not addressed — yet another reason why we shouldn’t introduce Catalyst as a bridge between designers and developers. That same application could be built in Flash by a developer and much less expense in file size.

ColdFusion came up next and we were out the door. Honestly, the speaker knew very little about Flex 4 and integration with anything besides ColdFusion. This provided a very lopsided view of this new framework and thus didn’t help us much as far as learning about the true benefits of Flex 4 and the new Flash Builder IDE.

Adobe needs to stop focusing on tools that will get limited to no use. What we really want is to hear that Adobe is making their tried-and-true tools better.

In this tough economy, many municipalities are looking for new ways to make ends meet, and, wouldn’t you know it, advertisers are answering the call. Many cities are turning to corporate America to help fund public services in exchange for naming rights.

While selling naming rights is nothing new for sports arenas, entertainment venues and even museums, it’s a rarely an out-in-the-open phenomenon for public services, despite years of private-public partnerships. But attaching corporate identities to public services appears to be gaining traction.

In Tampa, there’s the Teco street car line, which is sponsored by Tampa Bay Electric. New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority recently approved an agreement to rename a Brooklyn subway station to coincide with the development of a new NBA arena. Naming rights to the Barclays Center stop costs the company $200,000 a year.

Looks like a win-win for both cash-strapped cities and companies looking for new ways to connect to consumers. But the question is: how far does this go? A swig of water from an Ozarka water fountain in the city park? Sitting in traffic on The Goodyear 101? Taking snapshots of the FreeCreditReport.com Statue of Liberty?

Marketers need to evaluate the impact on brand equity before dishing out the dollars for naming rights.

Bus displays are one thing, but if I were a phone or a cable company I’d think twice before branding an entire transit line with my logo. As a consumer, I’ve spent more than my fair share of time on hold waiting for customer service. Waiting for a bus or train brought to me by the same friendly folks who bring me the internet would aggravate me to no end.

On the flip side, if the cable provider could provide broadband in the bus or an accurate, real-time map of when the next coach would arrive, it could give me a positive impression of the brand.

What’s more likely to be the case is that corporations will provide little more than a lump sum subsidy to the municipality in exchange for the naming rights. Rather than enhance the quality of public services offered to citizens, the corporation’s funds are a band-aid effort to keep public services afloat, which means that citizens aren’t going to realize what the brand involved has provided. All they’ll see is a logo.

And that’s the moral to this story in this brave new world of branding: if the public feels short-changed by these naming rights partnerships, it’s a failure to both the municipality and the brand involved. Citizens shouldn’t feel like their government sold them out for nothing in return. Brands need to offer more than just their calling card.

While I try to avoid self-righteous '90s alt-bros as a general rule, I've got to agree with Trent Reznor here: music is now essentially free, whether we like it or not. But then, this is true of information as a whole (just ask Chris Anderson). If it's digital, it will eventually be available to everyone for nothing. Blame the internet — it's turned us all into mini multimedia moguls.

That's why smart bands don't just write songs and make videos anymore. Instead, they use social media to build collaborative experiences on open APIs. Innovative artists empower their audiences, encouraging them to explore and examine the music until its secrets are revealed, then create and syndicate their own interpretations. The cream rises to the top, bands expand their reach and fans extend the brand by becoming part of it. 

It works. To promote the song You Came Out, for example, We Have Band shot a stop-motion video. Then they shared the building blocks (all 4815 of them), showed us how they were put together, bundled everything into a single package and spread the word tweet by tweet. Remixes, notoriety and new fans followed, and all it took was a solid creative concept, a good social ecosystem and a little guidance from W+K London (the kind of stuff we do for Dell Lounge every day). 

Smart companies could learn a thing or two from music scene pioneers. Like a great band, a strong brand inspires fans to participate so it can reach new heights. Just listen for the cues and join in. 

Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn’t tell me they can’t live without their iPhone. With this amazing piece of technology, unanswered questions are no more. Excuses for being unproductive vanish. Connectivity? Infinite. Boredom is experienced only by those without it. For me personally, the iPhone 3G-S is an everything-at-your-fingertips security blanket, as well as an interactive advertising must-have.

Working in account service at an advertising agency requires an individual to be versatile, flexible and (above all else) available for our clients. We all started with Blackberries, but now it seems like everyone here at Springbox has moved to the iPhone for its fun and sexy features. Why should the creatives get to have all the fun? We wanna look cool too.

It’s no secret that the iPhone has revolutionized how the world operates. And now, iPhone 3.0 software and the new 3G-S model take the account service power-user to the next level.  Some of the new features are only minor improvements, but are extremely helpful in account service. Voice Control, for example, allows you to call someone just by saying their name – which is very helpful when you need to return a client’s call ASAP. Compass rotates your maps to match the direction you’re facing, making it even easier to find off-site meetings or a client pitch, no matter where you are.

We can now cut, copy and paste! What a relief! We’ve waited so long! Such news may not excite everyone, but when you’re frantically scrambling to reply to your client on a critical project, this feature can save a ton of time. On the same note, the 3.0 software allows you to simply shake the phone when you want to start your sentence or paragraph over. How cool is that? This will come in handy when you reply to a client in frustration and realize that what you typed is totally inappropriate. Sometimes, it just feels good to type it so you can pretend you actually said it. 

And finally, there’s my favorite feature: Spotlight Search. At the brush of your finger, you can search the entire iPhone for anything. It searches all mail, calendar, applications, etc. to find that email received four days ago approving the scope of your recent win, or your favorite new app so you can kill time while you’re stuck in the airport with a layover.  

The 3G-S phone also comes with a 3-megapixel camera, video capabilities and tabbed browsing. No, this is not an ad. It is a love affair.

You know how sometimes, you’re smooth rolling down the highway and a piano falls out of the sky onto the hood of your car? It happens to the best of us. Sometimes in midstream we simply have to devise a new way to get to the same destination by the same time but via another route and vehicle.

That’s why it helps to maintain an awareness of the potential for mishaps and detours, as well as a healthy arsenal of alternate routes, tools and additional time — whether you are cruising in the car or building the latest and greatest web technologies.

Enough of dancing around the most dreaded word in the world of deadlines: creep — particularly, scope creep and what I like to call peep creep.

Everyone knows what scope creep is: the omnipresent phantom who puts the kink in your hose, the bump in your road and the check in your mate. In order to be prepared, you need to know the

Top 5 Causes of Scope Creep:

1. Human error: improper planning; we failed to consider such and such; miscommunication, etc.
2. Things that make you go, hmm: We thought this through thoroughly beforehand, but once implemented we realized things should be a little different.
3. The client or project owner changes their mind or direction.
4. Third-party issues that may require extra effort on your part.
5. Surprise: We didn’t realize this scenario could occur until we’d built out the product and actually started working in it from a user’s perspective.

… and now for Peep Creep: Similar to scope creep, except this involves a  key stakeholder switcheroo rather than a change in written direction — reassigning developers in  midstream, for instance. There needs to be time for adequate knowledge transfer as well as time to unravel the predecessor’s coding execution style.

There you have it: the creeps. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: From a quality assurance and usability perspective both creeps may actually be welcomed. If you realize you are headed down the wrong track, there’s a solid argument for taking a few steps back and re-evaluating the situation.