spasticrobot

Vanishing Act

As anyone who still checks in sporadically with this site knows, I am no longer updating with anything resembling regularity anymore. It's either because I'm too busy to write anything coherent, or because the time I could be spending here is being spent on other media & content creation.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to collect all my little digital selves and transmit that content. In the near future I will have something more substantial to post up. For now you can find random posts, photos, video, interesting links and more at http://jlangenbeck.tumblr.com/

Spring Break

I'm finally giving myself a bit of a break this week. First up, An Event Apart New Orleans where I'll be geeking out with fellow web-nerds for two solid days. Highlights include a BarCamp NOLA / AEA meetup tomorrow at Wednesday at the Square, the awesome event itself, and then dinner Friday night with Cameron Moll.

After AEA it's on to more typical New Orleans springtime fare. Chris & Rose are throwing a BBQ / crawfish boil Saturday, and then Sunday I'll be at the Jazz Fest stuffing my face with the usual suspects and listening to the joyous sounds of Irma Thomas, Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint and Hot 8, amongst others. Shanna's bff Sarah V will be in town and that always means extra good times will be had!!

The only point and motivation during those 4 and 1/2 days will be to relax, get inspired, and to get even more fired about about this amazing city I choose to call home.

Yeah You Rite!

A Springtime List

My beautiful, hillarious, vivacious, and fancy dancing wife!
Beautiful Weather
French Quarter Fest
Sausage Po-Boys
El Gato Negro
Panorama Jazz Band
Twitter
Making Work work
Loving Cycling Again
Completely off of smoking, once and for all
An Event Apart New Orleans
Crawfish Boils
Pastrami & Swiss at Stein's
Loving life

Ashley Morris, R.I.P.

We lost one of the great ones yesterday. Our city and certainly our little community of bloggers are worse for it.

You will be missed dearly Dr. Morris.

Rapping with divs, doctypes, and css

The SEO Rapper's word is truth. Funny and totally spot on in his advice on how to "design coding".

Interactive Media in Post-K New Orleans

Here's a quick whitesheet Blake Haney and I cranked out today for the Louisiana Dept. of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. It's a nice encapsulation of  a thriving emerging industry down here and how we think it could best be grown. This is also a subject that Annunciation Interactive will be exploring in greater detail soon with an upcoming project.

The State of the Interactive Media and Web Development Industry in Post-K New Orleans

Blake Haney, The Canary Collective and Jonah Langenbeck, Annunciation Interactive

Executive Summary
In Post-Katrina New Orleans, interactive media and web development is an industry on the rise. There are a handful of companies that are flourishing and gaining national attention for their innovative approach both in their business practices and in the interactive media that they are generating for their clients.

People are rapidly moving away from the television as being the central source of information and the telephone as their main source of electronic communication. The internet has become a means by which an individual can connect with others on both the local and global level.

In an industry that thrives on change, these teams are delivering innovative media that capitalizes on our society’s growing dependence on the internet.  While our local community is behind other cities of our size, there is a growing number of businesses that have taken the leap, making substantial investments in their online presence. As those numbers continue to grow so too will the firms that serve to help these businesses transform themselves.

As long as office rents remain cheap and abundant, the pool of available freelance talent strong, and as long as local businesses and non-profits continue to grow and thrive we see the industry surviving for the long haul.

Industry Breakdown
There are a variety of enterprises operating in New Orleans and they seem to be thriving in three general models:

1. Studio Model:
   These studios are nurturing synergistic relationships with one another, collaborating on projects and internal initiatives to utilize interactive media to help deliver a broad range of innovative approaches to online marketing, ecommerce, and community building for their various clients.
   
   Some of the most prominent companies working this way are Annunciation Interactive, Bent Media, and The Canary Collective (formally Whence: the studio). Their clientele range from local small & mid sized businesses to high profile national clients and NGOs.
       
2. Traditional Agency Model:
   Many of our local traditional advertising agencies such as The Netcom Group, Trumpet, Zehnder, Keating-Magee, and Peter Mayer Advertising have built their own small in-house interactive teams. They are using these teams to augment their multi-channel branding and advertising campaigns using interactive media.
       
3. Services & Consulting Model
   There’s also an emerging market that focuses specifically on niche, service based interactive marketing and development. Firms like Voodoo Ventures, Brian Oberkirch, Fabre Smith & Coco, and Killian Interactive are focusing on very specific niche services like outsourced development, social media consulting and search engine optimization.

Economic Impact
Any sort of estimation that we make here will have to be completely anecdotal. What we do know is that between our two shops we expect to generate more revenue this year than in previous years. The industry is certainly currently generating millions of dollars in taxable revenue here in New Orleans.

Factors for Growth

1. Increased Tax Incentives
   We’d love to see a tax incentive system similar to other creative economy initiatives currently being used to attract filmmakers, video game developers and musicians to Lousiana. Tax credits or breaks would attract more talent to the pool and increase our operational bandwidth by bringing in more specialty firms and contractors.
       
2. Other Economic Development Activity
   Obviously any work done to bring new businesses here or to incent the growth of small and mid-size businesses locally will help our industry. We rely on business needs to operate and the more we have housed in proximity, the better.
       
3. Higher Education Initiatives
   Our local talent pool would also be strengthened by the development of more specific interactive curricula at the University and Community College level. Currently most university programs are either centered on traditional Fine Arts / Design concentrations or Computer Science or MIS/IT. We think there should be a greater initiative towards education that deals specifically with Web Development and Interactive Media. Obviously this is a tricky thing to accomplish but it’s something worth investigating.

Some Notes of Interest

Here are some exciting notes:

Annunciation has been picking up lots of new clients.

We also launched a nice architecture site a few weeks ago.

I've had enough of Hillary Clinton's tactics.

Prospect 1 New Orleans announced the list of participating artists this week.

I think these videos are nice.

This site is an interesting idea with potential to be pushed even further.

I missed SXSW but will make up for it by attending AEA.

All the News That Was Fit to Print

The New York Times Machine is amazing.

TimesMachine can take you back to any issue from Volume 1,     Number 1 of The New-York Daily Times, on September 18, 1851, through     The New York Times of December 30, 1922. Choose a date in history and     flip electronically through the pages, displayed with their original     look and feel.

My Oscar Picks

Here are my picks of who should win for tonight's Academy Awards:

x Best motion picture of the year
“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company Production
JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers

✓ Performance by an actor in a leading role
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)

✓ Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)

✓ Performance by an actress in a leading role
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse)

x Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There” (The Weinstein Company)

✓ Best animated feature film of the year
“Ratatouille” (Walt Disney) Brad Bird

x Achievement in art direction
“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Art Direction: Jack Fisk
Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

✓ Achievement in cinematography
“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) Robert Elswit

x Achievement in costume design
“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount) Colleen Atwood

x Achievement in directing
“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) Paul Thomas Anderson

x Best documentary feature
“No End in Sight” (Magnolia Pictures)
A Representational Pictures Production
Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

✓ Achievement in film editing
“The Bourne Ultimatum” (Universal) Christopher Rouse

✓ Achievement in makeup
“La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse) Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald

✓ Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“Atonement” (Focus Features) Dario Marianelli

x Achievement in sound editing
“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Skip Lievsay

x Achievement in sound mixing
“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland

✓ Achievement in visual effects
“The Golden Compass” (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners)
Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood

✓Adapted screenplay
“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson

x Original screenplay
“Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)
Written by Tony Gilro

From Twitter

Latest from twitter.com/jlangenbeck :

Sunday can be the best work day of all. Good coffee, no bothersome phone/email interruptions, and a laid back workflow are the keys to this.