The latest Juxt Interactive work for Sprite and the NBA is now live. Case study to shortly follow. In the meantime, please enjoy the experience at: http://www.nba.com/dunk_fanfaceoff

In just a few hours the latest project which has consumed the past few months will be live, stay tuned! Here is a preview/teaser:

Employees tweet at work just as they use instant messaging services assuming your company doesn’t have a policy prohibiting them said usage. So here is my views on how to harness Twitter in the workplace:

Define a strategy for your company, just as we have done! I believe transparency is important so here are excerpts from the concepts behind the strategy we are implementing at Juxt Interactive along with explanations of the driving factors behind our approach.

• Have each and every individual that wants to use twitter at work to benefit the company determine their voice. How will they position their messaging and how can that help your company? If you follow me you’ll notice at least 80% of what I say is focused towards business. tasks I’m currently working on, industry news, and research & development.
• Have more seasoned users mentor new users. Technology is usually inherently confusing and twitter is no exception to the rule.
• Adjust your email footer to include a link to follow you on twitter, this is simple and a great way to gain followers.
• Be aware that your clients, prospects, vendors, and staff follow you, if you send messages that are offensive to any of these groups, you probably shouldn’t be part of your company’s twitter team.
• The time of your tweets matter. If you have an important message sending it at 10pm on a Friday night may go unnoticed by many [at least those users who stream in real-time.] with the exclusion of people in different time zones.
• We live in a global economy, if you don’t already do business internationally be prepared to do so, don’t limit yourself to local discussions.
• Retweeting is imperative, but don’t use your companies Twitter account as a straight unidirectional promotional channel.  Have employees retweet as necessary at different intervals so your message is seen by different groups of people at different moments in time.
• Deliver content that is relevant to the audience that you wish to target.
• Make sure your voice is authentic as is your message.
• Engage others in your field in communication.
• Understand Twitter is a push/pull medium – don’t just speak; ask, listen, react.
• People are as smart as you give them credit, don’t just promote your company. Good rule of thumb: think of your audience as your wife, or husband. Don’t be condescending, be respectful.
• Watch the length of your tweet, 140 characters is obviously short.  Use it wisely.  If you @reply to many users in a tweet it becomes an issue when retweeting.
• Lastly, Twitter is dynamic — always changing.  Understand this and embrace this.  Change the structure of your tweets, the sequencing the people you reply too, the tags, etc.

Again, we’ll see over time if this strategy proves to be sucessful.  Currently this is just aggregated research and an attempt at creating a strategy to streamline and organize communication over this specific medium.

Today, we launched a new juxtinteractive.com corporate site to replace the 2004 placeholder that’s paid its dues since 2004.  The previous placeholder site was designed by Seth Weisfeld and Joe Stewart.

While, doing some sunday cleaning (massive shredding of old documents) I found what I believe to be the funniest note I’ve ever received regarding client work.  This email was sent to me after the 2003 launch of samadams.com by JUXT Interactive.  Prior to shredding this, I want to make sure the memory is kept alive:

“To whom it may concern,

I am intending to dress up as Sam Adams (not the historical Samuel Adams but the character associated with your beer). I was wondering if you could provide a description or list of his attire as I would like to try to assemble the best costume possible. Thanks for entertaining this rather whimsical request.

(name redacted)
  

You can view the case study on samadams.com in my portfolio: http://www.brianjeremy.com/what-ive-done/samuel-adams/

After receiving a great deal of feedback and suggestions both from customers and our internal team we have decided to make some design revisions to Zigabid.  Below is a sneak peek of the homepage which should find its way to your browser in the coming weeks. A few key elements of the interface include a prominent video explanation of Zigabid’s products and services, a simplified process diagram, a prominent call-to-action to view tutorials and a explanation of the most active events diagram.

Well, a suppose this is a glimpse into the future and past. Yesterday we did a soft-launch of Zigabid.com so that is an ounce of stress that has been lifted. It is a strange feeling, I thrive off creation and previously at Juxt Interactive and Go Farm we released multiple projects each year, however Zigabid was a 19-month creation.

As far as the past goes, I re-connected with a old friend last night… It was insightful, I realized that not only do I have a love for music, but I have also have a knack for collecting rare and odd tunes that play a role in my life. I believe I first heard Scatman in a club in Asia or the Middle East in the early 90’s. Cheers.

I can’t really figure out why most cities make zoning such a big deal. We moved into our new offices in March of this year, and still haven’t had our sign approved. If my math is correct that means we’ve spent over 1/3 of a year without a sign… that seems ridiculous to me. Wouldn’t the city want us to prosper? Well, that aside we finally were allowed to have our logo placed on the door. Very exciting after such a long time.

The ticket industry is about to change and when it comes to ticket giant Ticketmaster there seems to be truth in the rumors I’ve been hearing over the past year and a half. First, the news came that Live Nation (one of the largest and most powerful promoters) would be severing there relationship with Ticketmaster at the end of 2008. Then noise this past January about Ticketmaster’s plans to acquire TicketsNow (one of the largest ticket brokers and player in the secondary ticket market). And now… Ticketmaster will apparently be $750 million dollars in debt when it is spun off from its parent company IAC.