To make a long story short, my computer died. Yes, my precious little machine baby. The devastation! Oh, I’m sure it’s repairable and at some point I’ll lug it over to the Apple store to have it resuscitated in the most glorious and dramatic of fashions (imagine Anakin slowly rising in his Darth Vader outfit in the 3rd film after he rolls around like a jackass and gets all burned up on whatever planet that was), but for now, I’ll let it sit dead on my shelf because I noticed an interesting and important shift since it bit the dust.

Recently, I’ve been finding that an easy way to fall into a creativity rut, nay, abyss, is to succumb to the idea that constantly consuming content online will somehow translate to producing. It’s the mindset that if you look at enough pretty designs or scroll through countless pages of Tumblr posts or read enough blog entires that you’ll overflow with creative thoughts and ideas yourself. Does this help with the inspiration process? Sure it does. Is it necesarry to staying alert and aware in regards to thinking and making and being a Creative in this field? Sure it is. But there is a delicate balance. At a certain point, you overload yourself with things that others have made, and you yourself stop making. You aren’t consuming content that your mind can do anything with. The gears upstairs aren’t turning and instead it’s just a mindless intake of stale media. And it drains you.

I realized that after my computer died, I stopped coming home and hopping back online to mindlessly surf after having been in front of a computer all day at work already. As my MacBook slowly collected dust, I used this time to unplug. I read all the books I’d been meaning to get to. I caught up with people I hadn’t spoken to in awhile. I took walks around my neighborhood and checked out things I’d never seen before. I watched movies and actually saw them instead of just listening to them while I looked at random Facebook profiles for no apparent reason. (At this point I’m aware I sound like a recovering internet addict. That isn’t the case, I just like to use a dash of hypberole for dramatic/comedic effect.)

And joy of joys, ideas started coming back to me without much effort at all. I had, for too long, been sitting in front of my computer, consuming the creativity of others and hoping it would translate to ideas for myself. That doesn’t work. At least it doesn’t work for me.  I won’t say that people often ask me how to be creative because 1. it’s been written about to death and 2. no one asks me that anyway, but the answer (since you didn’t ask) is to take in as much real life as much as I possibly can. Go outside. Walk around. Listen to new music. Read new books. Visit new places. Talk to people. Ask them questions. Wonder about things. Write stuff down. Draw things. Appreciate everything. Notice everyone. Notice everything. Soak it all up. If you give yourself enough raw material to work with, your mind will make sense of it and do the rest for you.

For the record, I still love the Internet. It is a vast and magical land that constantly surprises (and often horrifies) me. It has affected and changed everyone’s life far more than most of us can appreciate and without it, my job and possibly this company wouldn’t exist. I’m not renouncing the Internet or computers, but I am emphasizing the importance of unplugging every now and then to appreciate the balance between consumption and creation.

This article is copyright © 2012 

Pinterest is not a unique idea.
We can all admit that Pinterest grabbed the best parts of our favorite platforms.

In addition, many have preceded Pinterest in their attempts at a similar social-sharing concept. To name a few:

1. Stumbleupon and Gimmebar help you discover and share great websites. However, they make it difficult to find your friends. By not forcing users to sign in through either Facebook or Twitter, these features are hidden behind too many clicks.

2. Tastespotting shares a collection of mouthwatering dishes and recipes, but if you want to upload a photo, it has to be reviewed and approved. Too many rules and legalities make it difficult to keep users participating.

3. Flickr offers online photo management and sharing, but the UX is very difficult and it’s built for a very specific niche audience. Many features are hidden behind too many clicks, and the thumbnails are so small that you have to click on them to get a worthwhile glimpse of the actual photo.

Pinterest is the first platform that combines everything into one easy website for all levels of web competency. Aside from smart marketing tactics (such as their invite-only feature, browser bookmarklet, and genius use of Skimlinks to gain revenue by avoiding paid advertisements), they took expectations from other platforms that were already built and managed to further simplify and refine the experience. Pinterest’s low barrier to entry has an average of 80% of female users (ages 18-54) generating over a million pins per week. The simplicity of the website’s functionality makes Pinterest’s UX unbelievably easy for just about anyone to use without creating a learning curve. Within seconds of signing up through Facebook or Twitter, your friends are there waiting for you and you’re hit with an influx of images that you can “Like,” “Repin,” or comment on. Anyone can pin at any time from almost any website through their easy bookmarklet, and all the thumbnails are big enough that you don’t have to necessarily click on them for the larger view. In just one click you can do a multitude of actions.

Now… would this social platform be just as successful without a beautiful UI and a superior UX? Absolutely not! Because the truth is, if it’s not easy to sign up, if users are confused, if it takes too many clicks to get to desired content, or if it takes too long for something to pique their interest, they’re gone and on to the next website. Say goodbye to your good idea and its content. Often times, the importance of UI and UX is overlooked. The idea and the strategy, although incredibly important, disappear without an effective user interface and experience. Jason Gross states it perfectly in a recent article on Smashing Magazine:

And because the content on Pinterest is user-generated, this means the ability of users to interact with the website and each other will be completely driven by the interface.

So, I’d like to give a nod to Pinterest for proving that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel if you put your efforts into the areas that count most. Its low barrier to entry, beautiful UI, and streamlined UX are certainly the drivers of their success. Now start pinning!!

This article is copyright © 2012 

You’ve spent countless hours gushing over shots on Dribbble, bought every book from A Book Apart, and followed every Brooklyn Beta presenter on Twitter – all in preparation for that first “real” design project where you’ll prove you have what it takes. The time has come and you’re pumped to start. You open a blank canvas in Photoshop, head buzzing with inspiration, and begin. A few hours pass…then a few more. You begin to realize that it’s not as easy as it looks…

Unfortunately, this is far too common an experience amongst aspiring designers, and a situation that can be quite stressful for someone trying to make their first mark in the industry. Passion for good design lends itself to setting high personal standards, which in the competitive world of design, is a must. These standards can become somewhat of a catch 22 as you find yourself in the middle of a project that isn’t living up to personal or professional expectations. Nagging questions like “Why doesn’t my design look as good as theirs?” or “What are they doing differently?” may begin to surface, and the effect can be sobering. When plagued by thoughts that you may not be good enough or that you may never be able to attain the level of skill necessary to excel in the field, it’s easy to give up. Design often is a roller coaster of emotions – one minute you can’t wait to hit the ground running on a new project, and the next you’re at your wits end trying to make it look top notch. Every good designer strives to create compelling work that stands out from all the rest, so it is easy to feel disheartened when you become aware of the gap between your work and the work that you admire.

In times of self-doubt, it’s important to think about why you chose this field in the first place. Chances are, you had a passion for it – a gut feeling that moved you when you saw something you liked. Maybe you pushed a button on a site, not because you cared where it took you, but because you had to see if it looked just as polished when pressed. Or maybe you spent hours figuring out what made that combination of typefaces work so perfectly in that header. Perhaps it was the subtle background texture that you felt was so unexpectedly fitting. The irony of it all is that as successful as you are at qualifying good design from bad, you’re not yet able to create the things you admire.

This is perfectly normal. It’s okay to just be okay in the beginning of your career. In fact, as difficult as it is to believe, even great designers have gone through a period when they knew what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. It is incredibly rare for someone to consistently create amazing work without pushing through those awkward learning phases, and it has happened to the best of them. Take a look at Jason Santa Maria’s first web design. Or how about an early design by Cameron Moll. These designers have willingly displayed their old work to highlight a very important point: never let go of your passion for design. They began their careers in the same position as everyone else but their love of design pushed them to work incredibly hard and enabled them to create a large body of work over many years. Thus, they were able to refine their skills and become great. The point being, this stuff takes time. But as long as you keep producing and building a solid foundation, your ongoing passion will fuel the momentum of your career and carry you through periods of self-doubt. Even if the improvement is slow, thrive and build on small victories – use them to propel yourself forward.

Consider yourself lucky to have joined a group of people who thrive on change, excellence, and collaboration. Because of shared enthusiasm and passion for their work, you have entered a community that provides an enormous network of support, and has many forums that can be used to your advantage. If you find yourself losing momentum, don’t be afraid to ask designers that you admire for advice. I have found that most people are more than willing to take the time to provide insight and personal knowledge for a fellow designer, regardless of experience or standing. Try using social media platforms for exposure and feedback; I think you may be pleasantly surprised by the magnitude of the response. Leslie Jensen-Inman, when speaking about the journey of a designer on A List Apart, stressed the importance of creating connections in saying “…that is what the web truly is – people collaborating and learning together.” And it is all of these things – practice, dedication, interest, immersion, transparency, and maintaining your passion – that will bring you closer to closing the gap and propel you toward becoming the designer you are striving to be.

Remember, design by its nature isn’t science; you can’t get it right every time, but every failure is an opportunity to grow and expand. So be persistent, be passionate, be collaborative and take chances because at its core, that is the creative process.

This article is copyright © 2012 

Our hack was an attempt to see how the camaraderie of your social sphere could influence everyday consumption habits. Using the Tendril API, we allowed users to track their real-time electrical energy consumption data in comparison to that of their Facebook friends. In addition to being able to visualize trends in energy usage between you and your peers, users were able to commit to energy saving goals. These goals could then be shared on your Facebook wall in an effort to educate the public.

Above, you can see a screenshot of the energy consumption
comparison between you and your Facebook friends.

I am proud to say that our app took home prizes for Best User Experience and runner-up in the Tendril Energy Internet and Smart Home App Contest. It was also demoed by Tendril at DistribuTECH, the utility industry’s leading Smart Grid conference in San Antonio, Texas. It’s refreshing to see a company like Tendril taking advantage of opportunities like this Hackathon and is a testament to the fact that social media can really change the world.

The Green Carrot Team celebrating their win with Eric Shiflet of Tendril.

In addition to learning about how information technology could influence consumption habits, we also learned how an extremely limited amount of time could influence the workflow of our team. Rather than following our conventional methods for producing a web project, we chose to use a more organic approach. In the interest of saving time, our team utilized Google Drawings to create an interactive wireframe that allowed all of us to collaborate in real-time. Opportunities like this hackathon give creatives the ability to test out new methods of working together and if any part of this experience seems interesting to you I would highly recommend attending one in your local area.

This article is copyright © 2012 

We all get comfortable with our lives, our jobs, our friends. We know what we like, and we know what we don’t. We get to a point where we feel established, accepted, and successful. And because of this, change is scary. I reached this point in my life two months ago. I lived in Boston, had five years of work experience under my belt, established a network of friends and business associates, and enjoyed my free time. But deep down I felt like there was something bigger I wanted to be a part of that Boston could no longer offer. So I took a leap of faith, and applied to all the top interactive agencies throughout New York City. I went to bed that night with many unanswered questions. I would be leaving everything I had worked so hard for — everything I had established since graduating college. Was I making a mistake? That night I decided that one thing was clear — I needed to land my dream job and then everything else would fall into place. And then I found Carrot.

With my iphone GPS in one hand and my laptop in the other, I navigated my way to Carrot for an interview. Two hours later, I left speechless. The energy, excitement and ambition hits you right in the face the moment you walk in. It’s very obvious at first glance, that the people at Carrot absolutely love what they do and who they work with, and it shows in the work they produce. Needless to say, I will never ever forget the night I received my job offer. After hanging up the phone I was jumping up and down in celebration, while also balling my eyes out. My life was about to change — I would be packing up my life and moving to New York City. I had landed my dream job.

I’ve only been here for 2 weeks, but I can already tell you a couple of things; I now understand why New York City is the best city in the entire universe, the people at Carrot are some of the most talented people I have ever worked with, and change is good. I was told that Carrot Creative will one day change the world, and I already see it happening. I can’t wait to finally be a part of something bigger.

This article is copyright © 2012 

Let’s face it — 404 pages may not always be a top priority, but for creative agencies it’s important to embrace the opportunity an error page presents. Beyond the obvious utility these pages provide, 404 pages are a great chance to showcase your agency’s personality, creative chops, and attention to detail. Whether it’s treated as an extension of your brand, or a playful easter egg, these once dull error pages are now considered to be one of the most creative ways to exemplify the nature of your agency and the people that work in your organization. Here’s a round up of 404 pages from a handful of the agencies in our field:

Carrot Creative First thing’s first — let us present what we believe to be the best use of the 404 page scenario. Naturally, this is our own agency

Barbarian Group Barbarian Group cycles through 80 or so odd and amusing (seemingly custom) images, creating a unique experience each time.

Big Spaceship The randomized background is a particularly nice touch (especially the bikes!), but the failed google search attempt at the bottom of the page shows a bit of neglect.

Big Bad Collab Sporting a throwback space-themed design, Big Bad Collab’s 404 page is nice, but doesn’t show the “Space Ghost” we were expecting…

Big Fuel Moderately underwhelming. Womp womp.

Blue Fountain Media Pac Man! Novel idea, but this might be taking away valuable time spent learning about the agency.

Breakfast Simple, humorous, and to the point. However, clicking the FAIL blog image shouldn’t direct users away from the site. That defeats the purpose!

Buddy Media Sterile and utilitarian. Less is more, or something like that… right?

Bully This is the best of both worlds — a cheeky message combined with useful internal links.

Carsonified Well designed and helpful. We applaud you.

Centresource Another well done 404 page containing a nice mix of quirky narrative and useful links.

Cuban Council A vintage  (and humorous) art directed error page consistant with their overall site theme. Links back to the homepage.

Deep Focus “Just drop in the site map and call it a day.”  Meh.

Flightpath  Well designed and user friendly, this is an excellent example of a 404 page.

Free Association Nicely composed, but all of the useful links are well below the fold. And we all know how important the fold is.

Freshthrills  Nice wordplay and art direction here. We’re fans.

Huge Straightforward. Although, we expected something more from Huge.

Ignite Social Media Not the most stunning design, but it gets the job done.

Jumping Jackrabbit Beautifully illustrated page with a parallax effect. This page is a delight to stumble upon even though he is cooking carrots. EEK.

Odopod Snarky, but still quite useful.

Space150 With no additional links, this error page relies on the main navigation for users to regain their bearings.

This article is copyright © 2012 

While my favorite thing about Carrot is the people and being small enough to know everyone’s favorite food (note to self: pick up peanut butter filled pretzels for Dan), it’s still exciting that we’re large enough to offer great benefits that rival any New York agency. We’re still working on that free cafeteria, but we do have medical, dental and vision insurance plans. We prefer that our team members spend their time worrying about how awesome the work they’re creating is, rather than how they’re going to pay to get their tonsils out.

In truth, there’s only one thing missing from Carrot — you. We’re growing steadily and, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re right smack-dab in the middle of taking over the world. We can’t sail this pirate ship without a full crew, so check out the positions below that we’re looking to fill. Think you’re a good fit? Drop us a line/email/pigeon/parrot/baked good.

Developers
Carrot does things a little different than the average agency. We’re looking for devs who will have an opinion and cringe at the phrase “code monkey”. Everyone is a creator at Carrot, and we mean that.
Check out the full description here (PDF).

Strategists
Did you play Risk as a kid? Are you the bomb at Connect Four? If so, we want to talk to you! Carrot is looking for a strategist who geeks out on data, has experience managing marketing/sales funnels, and relishes the idea of being measured on ROI.
Click here for the full description (PDF).

Assistant Account Executive
Do you have to-do lists for your to-do lists? Have others referred to you as their lifesaver, the one that helps keep everything together and running? Carrot needs support from a note-taking, calendar-scheduling person like you. Think you can help a brother/sister out?
Check out the full description here (PDF).

If Carrot sounds like a place you’d fit in, we want to hear from you.
Go ahead, fill out an application!

I may be one of the younger Carrots on the team, but I’ve had a lot of jobs at a lot of different companies. In my experience, Carrot Creative is the single most amazing company I have ever had the honor of being a part of. It’s not just that I feel like a part of a team when I come into the office, but I feel like I’m part of a family when I leave the office. We look forward to hearing from candidates to help our family grow!

This article is copyright © 2012 

To demonstrate, we are using an example with Stephen Colbert running for Presidency of the United States. While we lament that this scenario is completely fictional, we are going to use this as a means of understanding what capabilities are available to users with the Timeline.

Here we can see Stephen taking advantage
of his cover to advertise his campaign.

Events are now grouped together by month and display in
a concise fashion making it easier for friends to join.
The advent of the Timeline also makes it very easy to go back
and look at previous events that others have attended.

Photos take center stage on the Timeline, offering a gallery view
and the ability to activate a lightbox with one click.

Facebook users will have the ability to feature any story they wish.
Above, you can see how a post looks before and after it has been featured.
The Featured view expands the content to a full column width view.

Another addition to Facebook is the ability to post Milestones and Experiences.
A Milestone comes with the ability of uploading a photo to commemorate
the event. These milestones also have the ability to be featured and will
display very similarly to the featured photo we looked at earlier.

Work and Educational information received a major revamp as well,
being implemented right into your stream of stories. Now there is
no need to toggle a user’s information tab to view this data.

The experience of using a Timeline is very unique to other social networks. Having the ability to go back to a specific period in time is refreshing and yields new ways of consuming information. This change makes information seem more historical and we thought this would be a great way to showcase that. Also, for those of you wondering, you can sign up for the Facebook Timeline right here.

To view Stephen’s full timeline, click here.

This article is copyright © 2012 

Platlas.com: A love letter to our favorite social networks.

Earlier this summer, we took on the somewhat daunting task of exhaustively mapping out the ecosystem of Facebook. Even though Carrot is a Preferred Development Consultant and we consider ourselves severely versed in the Platform, we still learned A LOT by delving into Facebook so expansively. However, our ultimate goal was to narrow down a story within this vast array of features, into something compelling and widely relevant to us: our clients and our industry. Platform education is an integral part of our relationships with our brand clients, so we decided to focus on what is most relevant to them: content creation and interactions.

We began with a flat infographic (PDF) to share with our current and prospective clients, mapping the features available to both a Facebook User and to a Facebook Page. For each feature, there are a number of response actions available to Facebook users; we are calling these “edges.” Essentially, Facebook features – anything from Profile fields to Status/Wall updates – allow users to create and share content. From that content, users have actions such as “Like” and “Comment,” a variety of tagging options, and so on. These edge actions are what make Facebook truly a powerful experience for users and a valuable tool for brands. They are what populate newsfeeds and enable the spread of content from Page to Profile, Application to inbox. Taking a step back to get a bird’s-eye perspective of the spread and availability of these edges, across all features, has helped us garner a better understanding of content-share relationships. We also realized that experiencing a flat version of this map is limiting. So, a new Carrot Labs project was launched, to bring this infographic to life as an interactive experience.

Just as the visual experience we have built has been an exciting experiment, so has been the development on the backend. Jeff, who handled the bulk of development, will be detailing this in the near future… but it’s worth noting that this experience does not use any flash. It is a mix of SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), Javascript, and whole-lotta math.

As with any ecosystem, the Facebook platform is constantly evolving and growing. This is exciting for us as we’ve built this “Social Platform Atlas,” because it means we will be continually releasing new versions (while archiving previous ones for reference). The beta launched Platlas (accurate to Sept 1, 2011) is already slightly out of date with Facebook rolling out changes in the last 2 weeks as they lead up to F8. Not to fear – we are already tracking these updates on the Platlas News page, and will implement new releases of the infographic as often as we can. Additionally, we are excited to have a Pages interactive view in the works (for now, you can view the flat version). If all goes well and we see the social community enjoying our Facebook-centric Platlas, we will be taking a look at other social platforms to help tell their stories of content and sharing as well.

You can follow Platlas updates on Twitter and of course, on Facebook. Be sure to visit Platas News to keep on top of the latest in Facebook updates and our continued development of the project!

This article is copyright © 2012 

Before this, I had been watching Carrot for some time, always amazed and inspired by everything I saw them do, make, blog, tweet, tumble, or touch. I had toyed with the idea of applying to work with them and by “toyed” I mean I had thought about it day and night for months. I knew Carrot was no ordinary company and that my approach to join them couldn’t be ordinary either. I also knew that there was no other place I wanted to work at as badly as Carrot and should I fail, I would be hard up to find a comparable alternative. I bided my time. I plotted. I planned. I cackled to myself as lightening struck my laboratory on a dark, stormy night. Finally, on June 5, I implemented my elaborate scheme; stop wasting time looking for and applying to jobs I didn’t want and start putting all of my time and energy into getting the one that I did. This began the phase I deemed “go Carrot or go home.” Aside from abandoning job opening searches and applications, once a day, every day, I began to tweet at Carrot a reason to hire me. Most of these reasons were valid. Some were silly. One was a promise to react exactly like this should I be hired.

This article is copyright © 2012