John Alabazowski of Maclaren McCann

This week’s presentation was by the Group Creative Director, John Alabazowski of Maclaren McCann. I really enjoyed the presentation and meeting John afterwards. 

Some of the work John showed us includes clients such as:

• Buick
• Chevy Cruze launch (one of the largest launches of GM’s history).
• GM Motors
• RBC
• World Vision
• OLG
• Nescafe
• Camp Couchiching (Fun to do something that’s not for money – but for charity)
• Viral Campaign for Halo 3
• and more!
  

He talked about designing for mobile phones, which is like going back 15 years in time. The process and importance of building online communities and how together we are "Genius", which is Maclaren McCann's process. As well, how collaboration is key.

 Finally, he gave us some tips for the interview:

• Bring work with you.
• Bring your own computer.
• Only include the best portfolio pieces that you are proud of.
• Develop a tough skin, since your work will be critiqued.
• Creative Directors try to stump you with questions (be aware of what’s out there – websites, technology, designers, and campaigns).

Contact Information:

MacLaren McCann Canada
10 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5J 2S3
Tel: 416.594.6000

http://www.maclaren.com/

Corporate Social Responsibility

This week’s presentation was about “Corporate Social Responsibility” and was presented by Pamela Divinsky and Alden Hadwen, where Corporate Social Responsibility is their field of expertise. The presentation focused on the idea that: “who you work for, why you work for them and the kind of work you produce are obvious indicators of your job satisfaction. However, understanding and being aware of community support, ethics and eco-friendly practices are important too.”

Pamela Divinsky is the founder of the Divinsky Group and has over 20 years of experience in corporate strategy, social change research, management consulting and corporate responsibility strategy development. She believes that the companies that stand for something socially meaningful will gain trust and respect and will be a profitable and an enduring business. Pamela works with her clients to develop Social Missions and Social Capital Strategies in order to earn the pride of employees, the trust of consumers,  respect of investors and watchers, and ensures that the result has a true impact. Pamela has developed the Return on Social Investment evaluation, which demonstrates the impact on business from developing both corporate and community capital.

Alden Hadwen is the Manager of Corporate Social Responsibility for Groupe Aeroplan/ Aeroplan Canada. Groupe Aeroplan is a global leader in loyalty management. Alden is responsible for the development and management of Aeroplan’s CSR program including  Community Investment, Environmental Stewardship, Employee Engagement and Art Partnerships. Alden was a big part of writing Aeroplan’s first Code of Ethics and has led the creation of innovative CSR programs throughout the business. She helped create and manage the on-line donation programs Beyond Miles, Charitable Pooling,  Community programs and employee engagement trips. Currently, Alden directs Groupe Aeroplan’s Environmental strategy and Aeroplan Canada’s Green it Up program. Since 2007, Groupe Aeroplan has participated  in the Carbon Disclosure Project and has offset 100% of its corporate carbon footprint worldwide.

Here is some interesting information from Pamela's presentation:

What is everyone doing?

• Social action, social purpose, and social involvement
• For example: Coke is adapting good practices and contributing to the world in a positive manner
  
  
  

“Every thoughtful man must concede that the purpose of industry is quite as much the advancement of social well being as the production of wealth." - John D. Rockefeller

What is corporate responsibility?

• Integration of social, environmental and economic considerations into decision-making and processes within a business

She showed us an interesting video:

Within Every Woman raised over 400 000 miles last year, which allowed them to film for 3 months throughout China, Korea and the Philippines.




Support 'Within Every Woman' with your Miles TODAY! from swb films on Vimeo.

Standard Reasons

1.)  License to operate (allowed to open the store, errors forgiven, strengthen reputation equity)

2.)  Loyalty – deepen bonds with consumers, customers, employees and communities

3.)  Pride – elevate pride of employees (cultivate ambassadorship, improve service and performance)

4.) Risk mitigation – healthier relations with stakeholders

5.) Access & respect

6.) Commodification – stand out status (have a social purpose that a consumer is in love with)

Some people think it’s silly and that business is for profit.

 “The only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” – Milton Friedman

Evidence that CSR creates leading and innovative companies:

• Johnson & Johnson
• Tim Hortons
• Whole Foods Markets
• Stonyfield Farm Organic

Why people love companies

• Honesty
• Commitment
• Trust worthy
• Real action

Marketplace of Meaning

• People are looking for sources of meaning, values, and trustworthiness
• Opportunity for corporations/brands to be beacons of trust
• Business is about human relationships
• You need to pay attention to conditions of existence
• Social issues are now business issues

L’Oreal – program to help women in Africa with HIV

• Authenticity and geniuses
• Revealing you soul earns you love and loyalty
• Social purpose can be your competitive advantage

What companies do (good behavior)

• Enticement/participation
  • Buy something, we do something
  • Reward model
  • Conversation
• Ex. Starbucks and Gap

Good behaviors made easy

• Make behaving sustainability easier
• Provide an easy way for consumers to feel better about consumption
• Ex. Estee Lauder

Conspicuous Caring

• Clearly stating support for issue and organizations
• Noteworthy and innovative action
• Ex. Nike – "change starts with a girl"

Product/ Service Offering

• New service or product offering that reflects commitment
• Offers “solution” to problem
• Making it easier to know you are improving your impact

Involvement

• Involving people in the activity
• Providing participation and purpose
• Ex. Pepsi and American Express members project

Stand for Something

• Demonstrating authentic stand and commitment
• Multi-layered commitment
• Driven by the brand/business
• Most well loved company in Canada – Tim Horton’s making a true difference
• Ex. Tim Hortons Children’s Foundation and Junior Hockey
• Business being part of the community

The Cheat Sheet

• Define who you really are
• Authentically is everything
• Make it personal, relevant and meaningful
• Make it easy for people to understand and participate
• Be consistent and true
• Be interesting and compelling
• Success and impact = authentic action and compelling communication

Here is some main points from Alden's Presentation:

Make Your Miles Matter

• Amazing story about how with donating your miles, you can make change be helping people be able to fly to those in need, such as doctors wanting to help in Africa
• As you can see, miles donated can make a difference. Below is the total amount of miles donated since the idea has started

CSR/ Community is one of the 5 pillars of our business

• Web based applications
• Use of social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
• Interactive way to build a community of giving that builds the brand (transformational, innovative, humanization of the program)

Leveraging out assets

• Using our own currency as a base
• Leveraging out communications and partners
• Creating a circle of fulfillment (ex. win/win situation)
• “Aeroplan Beyond Miles” – could use these miles for something else
  (ex. Earth Day Canada, War Child, Kid’s Horizons Enfance Air Canada)
• In term, these partners leverage the program
• Carbon offsets (members, corporate, Beyond Miles)
• Employee engagement (Green Commute, NGO partners, tangerine days (1/2 day off to volunteer, power of partnerships, interconnected programs = sustainability)

Contact Information: 

Pamela Divinsky

Phone: 416-562-6414

pamela@divinskygroup.com

Website for Divinsky Group

Alden Hadwen  
Groupe Aeroplan
50 Bay Street,
8th Floor Toronto,
ON M5J 3A5
LinkedIn

Website for Groupe Aeroplan
Website for Aeroplan Canada

Royal Ontario Museum with Cheryl Fraser

This week the Sheridan Web Design class visited the Royal Ontario Museum. Cheryl Fraser, Web Producer and Coordinator of the ROM, met with us to talk about her job role and all the exciting projects the Web Design team has lined up for 2011. Some of these projects include more interactive displays that will be added throughout the museum. Cheryl Fraser also told us other neat facts about the Web Design team at the ROM, such as how the team is so busy they are unable to meet the demand, so they hire a lot of contract work with designers.

We talked about the interactive displays that were in the exhibit, Earth's Treasures. The exhibit featured breath-taking stones with interactive displays that allowed you to explore facts about these stones. My favorite feature was being able to pick the stone from the shelf and being able to zoom in to see the fine details of it. 

 
Here is a further description of the exhibit: 
 
“Showcasing exceptional mineral, gem, rock and meteorite specimens, the Teck Suite of Galleries: Earth's Treasures is one of the finest museum collections on display. The 6,900 square-foot combined gallery space is divided into the Vale Inco Limited Gallery of Minerals, the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame Gallery and the Gallery of Gems and Gold."
 
"Highlights of the Teck Suite include two of the ROM’s Iconic Objects, the Light of the Desert, a giant 900 carat cerussite gem and the largest faceted cerussite in the world on display in the new Gallery of Gems and Gold, and the Tagish Lake Meteorite, a rare form of meteorite containing some of the oldest and most primitive organic material dating back to the formation of our solar system."

The rest of the day the class enjoyed the other exhibits within the ROM, such as El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, Reed Gallery of the Age of Mammals, and Fryderyk Chopin & the Romantic Piano. The day was very inspirational and educational. 

Contact Info:
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario

Cheryl Fraser (LinkedIn)

Presentation by SapientNitro

This week’s presentation was by SapientNitro (Toronto office) and was presented by David Han who is the Senior Art Director and a Sheridan graduate, Sonia Janovjak who is the Director of Human Resources (Hiring Manager), and Eiko Kawano, who recently joined the team last March, and is Associate Creative Director (UX focus) and manages a team of Information Architects.

Company Information & Work

SapientNitro has 6 thousand employees globally with a large variety of jobs. The Toronto office has around 200 employees. SapientNitro has end-to-end capabilities. For example, they have the technology and resources to build their idea of an interactive Coke machine from scratch. 

The number one reason why Eiko wanted to work with SapientNitro is that she came up with good ideas, but past firms she worked at couldn’t create them. However, SapientNitro has the resources to technology to make any idea come to life. There is a great diversity of people who can make ideas come to life because of their vast variety of skills sets. SapientNitro prides itself on going beyond expectations and delivering amazing results. As well, the company doesn’t have to outsource many design projects.

SapientNitro focuses on big end projects, print, TV ads, digital, and more. The focus in Toronto is digital. The New York office is full production.

SapientNitro has amazing work and is currently working with Target (huge budget in the millions). Some of their clients include: Nike, Sprint, Sony, Healthy Choice, Talbots, Logitech, Coke, Twix, Foot Locker, Powerade, and more.

Check out SapientNitro's work on YouTube

What are your hours like?

• Employees work all the time, but still have a very balanced lifestyle and value workforce balance.
• You are also given ownership over your work.
• Great ownership = great responsibilities.
• 9 to 5, unless you are out of balance if there is poor time management. What matters is meeting your deadlines.

What is the culture?

• Transparent culture.
• Very collaborative group environment.
• Many employees (junior to senior) are an important part of design projects.
• Opportunity to move office to office.
• On boarding, which are training one-week sessions with global hires (Atlanta, Miami, Toronto, etc). There are workshops and team building exercises where employees have opportunity to meet other people in the company from different offices.

Wanting to work for SapientNitro?

• Need to demonstrate that you are good at talking to people and there is a ton of opportunity to step up and do different things.
• Great experience to build your portfolio and learn as much as you can.
• Lots of opportunity to relocate and work on projects in different states and countries (ex. Germany).
• Many sessions and courses provided in order to grow as a designer. 
• A lot of lifers at SapientNitro, great place to work and currently will have it's 20^th anniversary this year. People like to stay for the growth and positive change.
• Employees always have a voice and can impact change.
• Employees don’t stop growing.
• People want to see you promoted.
• Being a team player is the number one most important.
• Be able to work with all types of personalities and build strong relationships, along with high quality work. 
• Get to work on amazing design projects.

What do you look for?

• Do you fit with the personality of the company.
• Want to see detailed wireframes and the thought process.
• Design fundamentals.
• Strong typography.
• Talk about constraints of the project.
• Some agencies want to see big brands, but SapientNitro is more about its work itself.
• Interested in thinking, discipline, and attention to detail.
• Hobby section in websites (creative expression important).
• Creativity, refreshing, personality, surprising, tangible, passion (ex. If you are from a fine arts background  you should add one or two pieces in your portfolio book).
• Research and prepared, but not aggressive.
• Book portfolio, progress portfolio (they love seeing the process), and a strong portfolio website. 
• The Wow factor.

What attributes are they looking for?

• Ownership and transparencies (it is a collaborative world and if you worked with a group, make sure to tell your exact role. Honesty is key).
• Acknowledge weakness, but talk about how you plan to improve upon it.
• Enthusiasm, passion, and interested in hearing your story.

How do you hire?

• Juniors - target certain recognized academic programs.
• Seniors - target work experience with brands (networking).
• Build network through LinkedIn, Twitter, referrals, and online portfolio.
• Who you know is key. Up to you to build a strong network (ex. past classmates) and go to networking events. 
• Be part of the “art” community. 
• Prepare great questions.
• simplyhired.ca (where SapientNitro puts their ads).

What is the interview process like?

• Typically 4 to 9 interviews.
• Like a very big conversation where you tell your story and show your passion.
• SapientNitro sends you Linkedin profiles of all the people that will be interviewing you.
• The resume has to be an amazing design piece (clean 1 page resume, doesn’t look at cover letters, amazing typography, bullets 60% black compared to type).

About the speakers:

David Han  
Sonia Janovjak 
Eiko Kawano

About the company:

Website
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube


129 Spadina Ave.

Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario Canada
M5V 2L3 

Tel: +1 (416) 645 1500
Fax: +1 (416) 645 1501

Resume Writing Workshop (Creative Niche Inc.)

This week the class had a Resume Writing Workshop with Creative Niche Inc. presented by Adele Wootton, Director of Client Services, and Stephen Hodges, President. The presentation was very informative about resume writing and ways how to break into the design industry.

A little about Adele and Stephen:
Adele has had over 20 years of advertising industry experience and some of her past jobs include being a print production manager, studio manager, project manager, and account manager. She currently has been a recruiter for 10 years. Stephen has over 20 years of design industry experience and some of his past jobs include being a graphic designer, production manager, and studio manager. He has been in the recruitment industry for 13 years.

A little about Creative Niche:

Creative Niche is a business services agency that matches outstanding advertising, communications, design, marketing, and interactive professionals with their clients’ job opportunities. The company has a team that includes former account service, project management, design, and production professionals.

Creative Niche talked about current market trends, which include:

• digital, interactive, web
• mobile 
• rich internet applications 
• social networking

As well, they talked about how when looking for jobs we should look for obvious job titles (production artist, graphic designer, etc), less obvious (studio manager, production manager, content manager, project manager, etc), and not so obvious (U/X designer, SEO/SEM specialist, online community manager, etc). We also talked about different work environments, such as advertising agencies, design firms, studios, independent contractor, freelancer, and freelancing through recruitment agencies.

Ways of finding work and ways to research:

• through Creative Niche
• general job search websites and publications
• industry-related websites and publications
• social networking
• professional member associations
• potential employer websites
• recruitment agencies

Ways to research for jobs include identifying a list of potential employers, research market trends, consider your needs and goals, and carefully read job descriptions.

How do you assess your skills?

• do an inventory of your skills, abilities, accomplishments, and achievements.
• create sample case studies of your contributions to clients and employers.
• create PARs, which is a great exercise for thinking about your accomplishments. Problem (what challenge did you face), Action (what action did you take to overcome the challenge), Result (what was the result of your effort).

 Other important topics for resume writing:

• how to identify your soft skills (universal skills that your can use for any job, such as patience, sociable, resourceful, and strong communication).
• how to write your objective (quick statement including your title or how your skills can impact the company).
• how to write your experience (ex. being concise and specific about your accomplishments with high-impact statements. An example of a good statement is: secured $200,000 account by creating high-quality mock-ups, storyboards, and editorial communications). 
• writing your education (ex. with over two years experience in the field, don’t put your education at the top and write descriptions of your programs.

Some interesting hints were given for the format and design of the resume:

• determine layout, format, structure, and content.
• should be visibly pleasing and easy to read.
• consider a skills-based vs. chronological resume.
• Number of pages depends on your experience.
• avoid large blocks of colour.
• keep it vertical and 8x11 in size.
• have two versions: word (.doc) and PDF.
• review, proofread, and spell-check your final document.
• ensure grammatical phrasing is consistent.
• check that the design and layout is appropriate for the role and the company.
• save various copies and track where you have applied for jobs.

Overall, Creative Niche gave us a lot of good hints and advice. Some other ways they suggested we break into the industry and stay updated include:

• keep you resume up-to-date and ready.
• stay informed and look forward to industry changes.
• update your technical skills and knowledge.
• continue to participate in portfolio reviews.
• grow a personal network.
• build a great personal brand.
• always ask about the environments, does it fit you?

To Learn More

Visit their website

  
Contact Information

Twitter 

Facebook 
YouTube 

Toronto Head Office 110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 604 Toronto, ON M5V 2K4 t: 416.360.3893 x237 f: 416. 360.0137

Fall Interactive Tour

This week I went on a two-day Fall Interactive Studio Tour by Oddly Studios. We explored different interactive design firms in Toronto. The tour was very rewarding and it was interesting touring different design firms. The event was also a great opportunity to network and meet some really awesome people. Both days were jam packed with activity, so I am going to focus on my favorite moments for each day of the tour.

Day One Highlights:

Amoeba St. & John St.
Phone (Amoeba): 416-599-2699 
Phone (John St.): 416-348-0048
172 John St.
Toronto, ON M5T 1X5 
 

 Highlights:

• Touring the studios (very artistic, including balloon lights, abstract art, and a Bambi painting). 
• John St.'s Vision: We are agents of positive change and we aim to discover better ways of doing things through design. It all starts with an idea.
• Case study on John St.'s Guy at Home in his Underwear.
  The Challenge: Consumer perception of the brand (Stanfield's).
  Their Goal: was to reinvigorate the brand with a younger more digitally-savvy audience.
• Case study on John St.'s work with AutoTrader.
  Client’s Objective: Increase unique visitors to AutoTrader.ca 

Mighty 
Jon Toews - Creative Director 

jon.toews@mighty.ca

Phone: 416-927-3316
420 Wellington St. W
Toronto, ON M5V1E3 

Highlights:

• Touring the studio (artistic, 24 employees, and loved the bicycle rack in the office).
• Case study on the Worst Parking Job Ever with Hyundai Canada.
• Case study on Make Me Mighty.
• To work here you need to be dangerously obsessed with the Internet.   
• Mighty is about Measurement & Analytics, Digital Strategy & Engagement. 
• Presentation on the Super Heroes website.
• Presentation on the Knowing is Better website.  

Organic 
Phone: 416-874-7000
33 Bloor Street East, 14th FL
Toronto, ON, M4W 3H1

Highlights:

• Touring the studio (artistic, moving locations so half the studio was in the process of moving, gaming area with Guitar Hero, and an amazing Lego painting).
• Advice on the interview process (they find most employees by word-of-mouth, they invite people to contact them, main point is that interviews are given mainly based on networking).
• The most important thing is passion, a good vibe that will match the team, and a unique portfolio. They can always teach skills later.
• Jobs are very specific (need exact set of skills). It is good to specialize (ex. Flash Developer). 
• Culture is very important - will you be able to fit in and work with the team?
• It is normal to jump from agency to agency (agencies can’t support or there is better opportunity elsewhere).
• Many designers get jobs on contract basis (which earns twice as much salary, but with no benefits). For example, a third of the designers at Organic are on a contract basis. These designers jump from contract to contract.
• Portfolios must be: an advertisement about you (and be able to sell yourself), be interactive, show your attitude, creativity, your ideas, and your thought process.
• You usually don’t meet with clients face to face at a digital company.
•  If you can’t make it the way you wanted, sell it anyways! Confidence is key.
• Have a strong online presence. For example, your portfolio website is sometimes the determining factor for an interview. Keep an eye on your online social networks (reputation on line).  Keep your online portfolio professional, with some personal touches (know your limits!)
• Invest money into yourself (ex. good execution of portfolio).
• Stand out (ex. video entries and do something eye catching online). You can also do something to catch the company’s attention. For example, one employee placed training bicycles outside of industries with branding on it that advertised he is fresh out of school, but willing to work hard to take off his training wheels.
• If you can’t advertise yourself, how are you doing to be good at advertising for clients, such as Nike.
        

Jalani Morgan
Phone: 647-400-4027
jalani@jalanimorgan.com
545 King St W Studio 407
Toronto, ON M5V 1M1

Highlights:

• Looking at his photography.
• His passion when he talked about photography. I felt very inspired.
• Always stick to your value system - people will notice and there will always be somebody who will relate to you.
• Favorite photo shoot is with Lights (first big celebrity and magazine cover).
• Don't make a solid 5 year plan, it may blind you to opportunities. Approach everyday to learning, adapting, changing, and being liquid. 
• Always invest time into personal work. His personal work is 20% analog (since it is so expensive) and 80% digital.
• Make sure to have blinders on since success can get to you.
• Does web on the side, but photography is his passion.  He also wants to eventually learn video.
• Some of his work includes photographs for John St., Verve Girl, and Much Music. 
• Always carry around a notepad since ideas happen at anytime.
• Forget the word “Pride”. 
• Personal work is just as important (ex. one of his personal projects is taking portraits of people in his old pair of glasses. The project has turned into his visual signature.)
• Social networks, such as Twitter, really helped him build up his reputation.

Pixel Gallery
Steve Di Lorenzo
Co-Founder | Creative Director | Curator
Phone: 416-889-4654

Highlights:

• Very interesting presentation on a firm that focuses on interactive displays. 
• Focuses on how inspiration can come from anywhere.   
• Does art gallery spaces, such as Nuit Blanche.
• Power of interactive displays with Sick Kids (a landscape with flowers in the waiting room that can calm people in scary situations of hearing if their child has cancer or not).
  The Challenges: The furniture in the hospital has to follow certain specs and be sanitized, the display of the sky and nature has to become brighter or darker depending on the time of the day outside, has to be calm and inspirational to help parents in a tough state while waiting to hear the news of their child.
• Graffiti project (where they painted the city with light, such as the CN Tower).
  

Day Two:

Secret Location 
Phone: 416-849-5298

 

Highlights:

• Case Study: Stanfields (The Guy at Home in his Underwear).
  • They worked with John St. on this project.
  • Live feed was donated for free.
  • Would have been over budget in two days since it is such a huge project and they needed a full-time crew at his house. 
  • Goal was 25,000 likes on Facebook in order to raise $25,000 for cancer awareness. 
  • On Day 19, 46,030 likes.
  • Half a million viewers in 8 days.
• Case Study: In Real Life Race to Finish Website (TV Show Interactive extension of YTV).
  • Children did user testing and tested early and often.
  • Challenge: had to be 3D, but still needed to be fast loading.
  • Children can make their own levels and save them on the website, along with being able to play levels made by Secret Location.
• Case Study: Storming Juno
  • No branding was done or would be complete until too late in the process, so they volunteered to create it themselves.
  • Interactive website that will be released this Remembrance day.

Digital Cement 
Phone: 1-800-354-0264
100 Liberty Street
Toronto, ON M6K 3L7 

 Highlights:

• Touring the studio (very artistic in an old building, large office space with around 70 employees).
• Life made Delicious website.
• XM Radio – iPhone app 
• The company is all about connecting:
  Connect to a customer, understand them.
  Connect communication activity.
  Connect to this business’ bottom line.
  Connect customers to potential customers.

Other Neat Design Firms visited:

Jam3 Media 

Phone: 416-531-5263 

171 East Liberty Street Suite 252
Toronto, ON 

sociMedia
Phone: 416-530-7851

171 East Liberty Street Suite 266
Toronto, ON M6K 3P6

Ryan O'Brien, Creative Director of CTV Digital Media Group at CTV Inc.

This week’s presentation was by Ryan O'Brien, Creative Director of CTV Digital Media Group at CTV Inc. The presentation was really interesting and taught us more about the world of digital broadcasting. I have always been very interested in CTV and thought their websites were very successful. As well, I have grown up watching CTV so I was so excited when I found out we were going to meet the Creative Director. 

CTV has 50 radio and various television channels, including MTV, Much Music, and Discovery (all channels in image below). Ryan is responsible for brand management, usability, and video platforms. CTV does 200% to 300% more video than their competitors. CTV also works with creative agencies, marketing sales teams, and are running over 110 websites with a staff of 70 people. The staff is very team oriented in order to get things done. There are also several different teams within the staff. Ryan works in the digital branch of CTV. There are three different structures at CTV, which include radio, television and digital.

 

The presentation opened up with an interesting video about CTV. Some of the interesting points include:

1. CTV is the #1 network for digital.
2. Some sites include TSN.com and CTV.ca.
3. CTV had the most online coverage for the 2010 Olympics.
4. Primetime is now online.
5. Much Music signed up with Vevo, which was a big contract.
6. 50 online destinations.

Ryan started within the industry 15 years ago. Ryan grew up in Niagara Falls and attended an art high school where he became interested in audio, video, and setting up stages. Ryan got an internship in a staging complex in high school. He then attended the technical theatrical program from Humber College. He ended up apprenticing at a piercing shop after 6 months into the program. Years later he had the opportunity to shoot Breakfast television. His next big opportunity was when he started a clothing company called FuMan Skeeto, Inc. with a friend where he became the VP of online marketing and development. The company went really well and relocated to Hollywood. His clothing line was sold in big companies, such as Macy’s and Eaton’s. Ryan was responsible for production, design and development of websites, brand development, strategic consultation, and apparel design consultation. When 9/11 happened the clothing company went out of business because of the economy. He relocated to Toronto and became the Senior Web Designer for Much Music. He now works as the Creative Director for CTV Digital Media Group with a very highly skilled staff. 

 

CTV was one of the first companies to have television available on the web. They knew how important it was to have the transition of television on the web because Ryan and the rest of the staff have to “Live in the Future” and be 2 to 4 years ahead of their time. One of Ryan’s jobs is to give the viewer’s content that they want, and in a way that’s legal, easy, and makes money through advertising.

 

The staff has to be aware of advances in technology and has a large research department. For example, they have to be ahead of the times and know how to design for all the different browsers and platforms, such as the Blackberry, Android, and Apple products. Also, they need to be aware of 4G networks, tablets, mobile, Google OS, and other advances that involve the web.  Examples include how Google OS will always have an updated browser, Android is a different experience since you can run multiple programs at once versus the iPhone, video on the web will be better quality, how 3D television plays a effect and incorporating it on the web, and there will be around 105 tablet releases in 2011. As well, accessibility is going to be a big issue in Canada in the future. For example, the use of tabs to fill out forms and other problems since more of the older population is using the web.

CTV has to be aware of the amount of content and what content goes on all their websites. Since there are so many websites, they have to make sure there isn’t much duplication among them. An interesting event the staff got to do was attend the 2010 Olympics in order to photograph and develop stories for their websites. Another neat thing CTV did was that they offered the most online Olympic coverage in real time for the 2010 Winter Games. Also they have to be aware of right management, such as having to license songs and blurring out t-shirts that are not licensed. Since there are so many rules and so much content the team has to always be on the ball or they will miss something important and go sideways. 

One important thing when they hire is that the person looking to work for the team really knows the fundamentals of the web, since the web is always changing and moving so fast. This includes:

1. Having knowledge of how websites work with browsers, what code means, and know the  fundamentals of coding. 
2. Usability core sets.
3. A good portfolio (website and coding). 
4. Organization (you will never be the only one who works on the website, so the site needs to be   organized so your teammates can understand it). For example, always organize your folders, write notes on PDF’s, and make the files easy to understand. 
5. Good communication skills.
6. Passion about the Internet. 
7. Being able to code a site in notepad.

To learn more about Ryan: 
LinkedIn
Twitter

Contact Information:
299 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON Canada M5V 2Z5
Phone: 416.384.2247
Fax: 416.384.3465
Cell: 416.371.4706
Email: ryan.obrien@ctv.ca