Here at Willow, we enjoy awarding individuals for their hard work and creativity…our own Dundie Awards, if you will. One such award is the Collaboration Crock. This award is given to an individual or group of individuals who are caught in the act of collaborating.

And the award goes to…

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Those of you who have been regular readers of my blog posts know that my approach to creative is simple. Know who you are talking to and clearly define the benefits of your product or service in an effective, decisive manner. It’s the old KISS principle: keep it simple, stupid.

I want to share with you another tactic that may, at first glance appear to go against this KISS principle. It’s the idea of force-fitting creative. A kind of massing together two unrelated topics or ideas. The best example that I can give you to illustrate this concept is from the television show “Glee”. They take a rock ’n roll song and put in a totally different context.

Recently my 14-year old daughter was watching a reality show called “The Glee Project” where contestants compete to win a role on the parent show “Glee”. In this episode, the contestants performed that 70’s glitter-rock anthem ,“Were Not Going Take It (anymore)” set in the context of social outcast (losers) trying to fit into the defined hierarchy of a school cafeteria. The underlining and uplifting theme was that you don’t have to try to “fit in” you just need to be yourself.

Now take that basic concept and apply it to your design. It’s the idea of selling a high-tech device using a retro look or the parents acting like kids. It’s somewhat unexpected to mesh opposite ideas together, but it will help develop additional or alternative concepts and reshape the way you think about image selection for print or web designs. One key element to remember is that you don’t always have to show your product or service as the main element—unless it’s some brand new item, people will get it. Focus on the benefit and then twist it so the answer to the problem will be the product or services. Try it. I think you’ll find that it will expand your creative arsenal.

These days, higher education is expensive and people are resorting to a myriad of methods to fund the pursuit of that coveted diploma. Prospective students can now receive scholarships for anything ranging from athletics to academics, to down right obscureness (I’m talking to you 7 foot tall, left handed tuba players). Part time jobs, work-study programs, loans and even military service are all up for consideration. And, of course, viral marketing.

Enter, Alex Tew. In 2005, Alex was like many other prospective college freshmen; excited about attending his university of choice but overwhelmed with the cost. That’s when he had the crazy idea to launch what has become known as the Million Dollar Homepage. The web page contains 10,000 squares, each 10 pixels by 10 pixels. Alex sold ad space on the website at $1 per pixel, hoping that a web page with one million pixels would earn him one million dollars.

If you’re not familiar, there are 72 pixels in one inch, or one pixel is equal to .007 of an inch. Clearly not a lot of real estate up for grabs here. But advertisers took the bait, hard. The website went viral and just a few months later this soon-to-be big man on campus was a cool million richer.

If you’re sitting there dumbfounded wondering how this 20-year-old kid (who hasn’t even stepped foot in a university classroom yet!) managed to earn more than your college degree, polished resume and diverse portfolio has, then you’re not the only one.

Tew’s plan worked because he managed to master the enigma that is viral marketing, a tactic in which something essentially advertises itself through social media and word of mouth creating a nearly virus-like spread of information. But not all viral marketing is that successful. Many attempters – including marketing professionals – work hard on carefully crafted plans that fail while others, like Tew, end up with essentially happy accidents.

So what’s the viral marketing recipe for success? According to one blogger whose interest in Tew aided in the website’s fame, viral marketing requires novelty, boldness, and simplicity. Others insist it’s about humor and appealing to a younger audience. The one point everyone agrees on – it’s not an exact science, yet.

Therefore, in an attempt to make us all a little richer, what do you think a viral marketing campaign needs to be successful? What separates the ridiculous and impossible ideas from those that are just wild enough to work? Is it better to be spontaneous and silly, or does strategy and careful calculation still have a role? Don’t hold back, Alex isn’t the only one with bills to pay.

The World Wide Web seems to have an overabundance of “Buzz Words” associated with it. Cloud Computing, CSS3 and HTML5, Microblogging and Social Media Marketing are some of the big ones you hear often here at Willow, but there is one specific new “buzz word” that has caught my attention recently.

Web 3.0, which is also known as “Semantic Web”.

“So, Marizka, what is the difference between Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0?” I am so glad you asked!

Web 1.0 was primarily information driven.

Web 2.0 we have seen a rise in web interactivity. With sites like Facebook, wiki and the rise in blogs, it has been the users that produce most of the content.

From what I understand, Web 3.0 is not going to be completely different from the web we currently know.  It is a continuation of existing techniques. The easiest way to explain it is to take a look at Amazon.com and Pandora.com

Amazon makes use of the so-called “Recommender” system. When you browse their site, it offers products that other users with the same interests have bought before you. Same concept on Pandora.com, by using the thumbs up, thumbs down system, you can listen to music that caters to your personal wishes. By using smart systems, these sites are continuously learning to anticipate what their users like or dislike, and it does this by relying heavily on extra information added by you, the user. Recently, Bing.com started implementing the ideas of Web 3.0 with their “Social Search” function.

The biggest benefit of Web 3.0 will be the move towards being able to access data from anywhere, which is already taking place in the form of smart phones.

This video featuring LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman explains it really well.

Even though the thought of a smart machine “understanding” my search requests sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, I personally think it is going to be a dramatic improvement on the functionality and usability of search engines. As for when it will happen, well considering that the shift from Web 1.0 to 2.0 took about 10 years, experts are predicting that this transition will not be complete til around the end of 2015.

With the launch of Facebook’s Non-Profit Resource Center, I’ve been thinking more and more about how social media like Twitter and Facebook are becoming more than just arenas where John can share what he had for lunch and Jane can change her relationship status. Think about it? How did you find out how you could donate to the Haiti Earthquake relief? Where did you turn when you heard rumors of a major earthquake and tsunami in Japan? I know for me, when I first heard about the devastation in Japan, I went to Twitter to search trending hashtags on the event, which then led me to news sources who had shared the latest headlines in the Twitterverse. And just a few weeks ago while reading through my Twitter stream, I saw an article posted by Mashable about the Logo for Human Rights, “a non-profit organization that paired up with jovoto, an online platform for the creative community, to help crowdsource designs” in order “to create an internationally recognized logo to act as a symbol and beacon for human rights issues across the globe” (http://mashable.com/2011/05/17/human-rights-logo-contest/).

Some would argue that this new direction of serving social needs is lazy; that just sending a text is a passive way of helping. I disagree. If anything, social media has made serving a cause easier and more impactful. With so many avenues available to help a greater cause, it’s exciting to see that those who can’t literally get their hands dirty to help with relief, can still make a difference by providing the necessary resources for those that can. And that in our digital age, people can join together from all over the world with just the click of a link in a Tweet or make a donation via text.