Alexander Rea

Section: Producing

Projects that Alexander has produced.

Spoke at TEDx SiliconAlley

Just wrapped a quick talk at TEDx SiliconAlley. Here is video of my talk along with a PDF of my deck. Great line-up of speakers and streamed live out to the world by LiveStream.

Also filed in Advertising, Talks, Technically Speaking | Tagged production, TED, tedx | Comments (0)

What was web tech 10 years ago?

Sunday, September 11, 2011 | Posted In Advertising • Producing • Technically Speaking

Screenshot By Mark Rosal

This morning Mark Rosal of Visual Gooodness (@visualgoodness) posted on their blog two screen shots of CNN’s website after it went down and came back online on September 11th, 2001. The attack on this country was 10 years ago. Can you believe that? Looking at the CNN website that Mark posted made me realize a couple things. First, I looked at where I was then and now. I remember being swept up in the sadness of the tragedy that day. Now, I’m getting married in less than a month. Second, I thought about how web technology and consumer technology as a whole has progressed. How much has changed for you personally and professionally in the last 10 years?

Also filed in Advertising, Technically Speaking | Tagged 9/11, advertising, history, technology, web tech | Comments (2)

19th Century Pier Hosts Technology Conference

Monday, June 14, 2010 | Posted In Advertising • Food • Producing

Last week, Pier 94 hosted Creativity magazine’s CaT Conference. Backed by AdAge, this is the second year the conference has been in NYC. The pier, originially constructed in 1894 and serving the Cunard ship line for most of it’s life it is now a “premier event venue” [according to their website]

1961 NYT article

The event started out a little too early in the morning. Someone had forgotten to tell the super to turn down the air conditioning because it was refrigerator cold inside.

You can see the entire schedule below. The better events for me were in the morning culminating with a great lunch panel with Boulder Digital Works at CU. They are spearheading a great hashtag campaign #10rules. A on-going working list of one liners that everyone in the business should read. I’ve posted the first 24 they handed out below. May favorites today are #’s 1, 7, 16 and 19.

These open in
Flickr–it’s easier
to read.

Alexander's collateral from CaT 6/10/10

The morning was one discussion after another that was engaging. Thor Watson talking about building truly interactive machines that help a former graffiti artist, now paralyzed write again to environments for kids (and grown up kids). Nick Law and Gerry Graf going at each other about story-telling. Just check out the schedule above and search for #crcat tweets to see the conversation.

Even though the room was freezing and the WiFi was terrible it was overall a great event. Though the afternoon was slow, they had an excellent food and cookie spread. Teressa Iezzi and the rest of the gang from Creativity/AdAge did a great job pulling it all together. You could even get a real tattoo at the Pointroll booth by an artist from Daredevil/Funcity. I’m not sure why.

Get a real tattoo courtesy of Pointroll

Cookie Spread

Food Spread

10 Things Not To Do: A Working List of Candidates

1. Want to make bad interactive work? Set up a separate group called “interactive”

2. You can’t preach it if you’ve never practiced it.

3. If you reorganization isn’t painful, your’re not pushing far enough.

4. Jettison hangers-on. Deconstruct teams to essential parts.

5. Don’t tackle everything at the same time.

6. Don’t hire a messiah.

7. Don’t keep ‘em separated.

8. Don’t think about the technology last.

9. You can’t make the new fit in old boxes.

10. Embrace marketing R&D. Some ideas won’t meet the brief.

11. Stop building tools. Start adapting to them.

12. Remove legacy. Force changes.

13. Don’t ask “what”. Ask “why”.

14. Advertising doesn’t alwasy have to be media based.

15. Less talk, more rock. Don’t just talk about ideas. Make them. Early prototyping is cricitcal.

16. Don’t leave mobile as an afterthought.

17. Presenting yourself in a torrent of techno-jargon isn’t a great way to make friends.

18. It’s not story versus utility. It’s about both. Find the right balance to meet your client’s business needs.

189. Interactive work that no one interacts with is a problem. Don’t confuse the user, provide a clear call-to-action.

20. Creative fricttion is healthy. But not every disagreement is ideological.

21. You can’t create advertising at the speed of culture when your organization operates at the speed of procurement.

22. Love architecture. Not concrete. Keep focus on the story, not just the underlying technology that delivers it.

23. Learn to organize around the minority.

24. Less egos. More chief common sense officers.

Also filed in Advertising, Food | Tagged 2010, cat, creativity, pier 94 | Comments (0)

Internet Week New York 2010

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 | Posted In Producing

My Card for #iwny (enlarge)

Did we meet during #iwny and I gave you one of my cards? Thanks for taking the time to follow-up.

I post and tweet about many different things. From advertising to theater to food. Please read and let me know what you think.

My LinkedIn profile has my professional history with recommendations.

Did we meet at Creativity’s CAT Conference on Thursday?

You can also find me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

I hope you enjoyed your time at the events during #iwny.

Thank you,
Alexander Rea

Contact

Also filed in | Tagged internet week new york | Comments (0)

BBH Labs article on T-Shapers strikes a personal chord

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 | Posted In Advertising • Producing • Recommendations

My menagerie at home

Metal Voltron

I wanted to quickly respond to a recent post and 140 characters were not enough.

Ben Malbon at BBH just posted a great article on T-shaped people and the new creative production paradigm and used Voltron as a visual reference. There have been a few other giant robot mashups since Voltron such as Transformers Constructicons that form Devastator but Voltron is the leader as far as I’m concerned. And Lion Voltron, not Vehicle Voltron or any other spin-off.

It struck a personal chord with me not only because I personally identify with the T-shape model but also that I’ve been a fan of many of the great robot properties from the 80′s since their original run and long into sydication. (We’ll keep this with animation only and not get into live-action because this would get long)

When I was a kid I was not able to have the Voltron toy because it was made of metal parts and had spring loaded projectiles. Remember, this was the era of Kenner’s Boba Fett mail-away action figure that had a spring loaded projectile backpack. Forcing Kenner to re-tool the line with the projectile attached. (One of the originals sold at auction for $16,000 in 2003). I’ve been collecting for as long as I’ve been able to buy my own things. When I had my collectibles company and was working the circuit my appreciation grew for both products and licensing. There was a plastic Voltron that was released years later but it lacked the character of the original heavy metal lions. I finally bought my own metal Voltron off eBay seven years ago.

Voltron is a great reference for the nature of the business right now. The work that’s going on at places like BBH is helping change a business long mired in out-dated practices. One day the word will spread up to the C-suite and we might see global change in how agencies are structured. And I don’t think this idea is necessarily restrained to the advertising community but could be adopted across the board to all varieties of client-service companies.

There was a panel at SXSWi 2010, Jack of all Trades or Masters of One? that I covered in my writeup that could serve as a great primer for Ben’s article today. I’ve included the presentation from SXSWi below and you can read Ben’s article at BBH Labs.

[slideshare id=3448651&doc=sxsw-specialistgeneralist-100316152054-phpapp01&w=600]

Also filed in Advertising, Recommendations | Tagged bbh labs, generalist, specialist, sxsw, t-shape, voltron | Comments (0)