Buddy, You Need an Agent

Let’s say you enter the real estate market as a first-time buyer.  The process at first seems to be a matter of identifying your budget and wish list (must: open kitchen; maybe: wood-fired brick oven), getting pre-qualified for a mortgage, looking at listings, pursuing your favorites, making an offer, etc.  As you start, though, you realize that with all this money at stake, so many variables in the process, and nobody interested in getting you the best deal, you could use an advocate on your side — a seasoned hand who can help guide you past serious mistakes, act as a sounding board to your evolving ideas, and help you optimize negotiations with the selling agent.

This is a broker.  The good ones are worth their weight in gold (especially the smaller good ones).  You can get them to clear an enormous amount of brush for you — weeding out the bad listings, giving you a sales history of any property on the market, speaking the secret language of brokers with the other side.  They save you time and ultimately money.

It occurred to us at Helen Marie, after many years of working with clients of all stripes and sizes, that this is desperately needed in the design and interactive industry: a kind of creative broker.  Clients often need to commit large amounts of funding, human capital, and time to a project with an outside agency. Ironically, while this is the stage where they most need expertise, they’re often unaware of, or resistant to, the option to bring in an outside specialist right from the beginning.  We want to change this.

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Dangerous Phrases: “I Know a Guy”

This dangerous phrase occurs mostly in the world of development, not in design (although there is a variation: “My friend is a designer”).  It could be a woman, of course, but in the world of IT and web development, you’re usually dealing with men.  This person will have some kind of experience with the web, or web servers, or some technology you associate with the web.  He may configure your email server.  He may be a friend who once had a web site of his own.

In any case, your (limited, possibly anecdotal) understanding of this person’s skills may lead you to think, “I don’t need an overpriced agency to design and build our site.  We’ll just get him to do it.  We know him, we trust him, we already pay him….”  You might also think, “Let’s keep the risk low this first time around by keeping the investment low.  If we need to, we can hire specialists to clean this up later.”

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Digesting the 2008 New Media Institute: Part 2

The NMI conference comprises different streams of activity, and changes format every year.  There are guest speakers, social events, and workshops, with the focus and theme changing each time.  One common element is a set of projects sponsored by NBPC, with each project produced or prototyped by a different team and presented at the end of the conference.

Here’s a rundown of the projects this year, starting with the two where we played a significant role.  These are all available on Black Public Media.

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Digesting the 2008 New Media Institute: Part 1

Last week, HM spent three days in DC for the New Media Institute.  As NBPC’s interactive and design partner, we’ve been there since the beginning three years ago in Boston.  This year, in the wake of Obama’s victory, the mood was a little different: excited; a little amazed.  Attendees from other countries congratulated us Americans for doing the right thing (implied: for once).  And everyone wants to know two things:

1. What was it about Obama’s web strategy that helped him win?
2. What does this mean for the web?  (And: How can I take advantage of it?)

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