creative economy : Innovation + Job News

If you're familiar with the concept of software-as-a-service, consider this lawyering-as-a-service.

The Glover Law Firm in Minneapolis has launched a new practice aimed at serving tech startups, with a billing model inspired by the flat-rate, tiered pricing associated with many web applications.

"We're trying to build a firm that feels similar to the types of businesses we hope to represent," says owner/founder Sam Glover.

Clients choose from one of four service plans that range from $150 to $1,200 per month and include document preparation, annual reviews, and weekly, monthly or quarterly check-ins.

It sounds simple, and that's what makes it such a departure for the legal industry. Since the 1960s, law firms have almost universally charged clients based on "billable hours." Attorneys tally up every six-minute increment of work they do for a client and add it to their tab.

But that system, says Glover, rewards inefficiency and encourages clients to put off asking questions, even though a quick answer might help prevent bigger problems down the line. Glover's model allows an entrepreneur to call with a question without worrying about a new bill.

"It's great for the clients because they know how much they're going to pay next month," says Glover. "It's great for us because we know the money that's coming in next month."

Glover started his law firm in 2005 focusing on business and consumer protection law. He and business partner Aaron Street started signing up clients for the startup practice last month at startuplawyer.mn.

Source: Sam Glover, The Glover Law Firm, LLC
Writer: Dan Haugen

The Nerdery's plot for global domination is going according to plan.

The Bloomington-based web/mobile development shop opened a Chicago office on Aug. 1. Now it's taking notes on what works and what doesn't in preparation to open another remote office next year.

"As it stands right now, the Chicago office is working really well," says owner Luke Bucklin.

"We're not running into as many challenges as we expected, so I think we're well on our way to global domination through opening new offices," Bucklin deadpans.

He's joking about that global domination thing, right? The Nerdery's numbers suggest maybe not: The 7-year-old company started the year with 101 employees. Today it has 147 (including seven in Chicago.) This year's revenue is on track to hit about $14 million compared to $8.6 million in 2009.

The company's primary clients are advertising and marketing agencies, which are having a harder time keeping up with the increasingly specialized programming demands of their customers.

Just five years ago, an agency could more easily get by with a handful of in-house developers. A team of generalists could stay up to speed with all the programming disciplines necessary.

Today, though, advertising and marketing clients are demanding more interactive work, while at the same time the technology has splintered into more and more specialties. Agencies now need to offer development for iPhones, iPads, BlackBerry, Android, mobile web, social media.

"The list is significantly longer now than it used to be," says Bucklin. "We've solved that problem in a way the agencies aren't able to," by hiring teams of specialists in each area. "Today we have specialists in technologies that didn't even exist three years ago."

The Nerdery is looking into Dallas, New York and San Francisco as possible expansion locations in 2011.

Source: Luke Bucklin, The Nerdery
Writer: Dan Haugen

A few years ago, a group of Twin Cities advertising leaders realized they were missing an opportunity by not better marketing their industry to students with diverse backgrounds.

Their concerns led to the creation of The BrandLab, a school outreach and scholarship program, which is expanding to a dozen metro-area classrooms this school year.

Twin Cities agencies routinely create campaigns for diverse populations around the world, says BrandLab executive director Jim Cousins. Yet if you look around at the makeup of the staffs creating them, they don't always match the target audience.

BrandLab was started by OLSON in 2007 and expanded to include other agencies the following year. Its goal is to create opportunities in the marketing industry for students with diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Since the pilot at South High School, the program has expanded to two, then six, and now twelve classrooms at schools in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington.

"You can't really ask for a job in an industry that you don't know exists," says Cousins.

That's why the program starts with exposure, explaining to students what kind of careers exist in marketing. The hands-on curriculum is often integrated with an existing media arts or mass communication class. The most promising and energetic students then have a chance to apply for internships and scholarships, with two of each awarded per class.

Schools participating this year include South, North, and Patrick Henry high schools in Minneapolis, Arlington High School and Community of Peace Academy in St. Paul, Kennedy High School in Bloomington, and Minnesota Transitions Charter High School.

Source: Jim Cousins, BrandLab
Writer: Dan Haugen

An interactive marketing agency that counts Hulk and Spider Man as clients has developed a superpower of its own: growing in a downturn.

Antidote X, based in Minneapolis, has been working on interactive campaigns for some major entertainment companies, including comic book giant Marvel. The company recently hired six new employees, more than doubling its size since the start of the year from five people to an 11-person team today.

The company has been around for more than a decade, formed in 1998 by a pair of former developers from Campbell Mithun and Carmichael Lynch. It specializes in designing and developing integrated multi-platform strategies-- campaigns that look and feel the same whether a person is accessing them through a mobile app, their Facebook page, or a micro-website.

"The experience is only different in regards to the platform that it's being delivered on," says co-founder Paul Nealy.

Other clients include DreamWorks, video-game publisher THQ, and bath and kitchen product manufacturer American Standard, whose Antidote X-designed website was recently reviewed as one of the best corporate-designed websites.

While some companies have cut their marketing budgets in recent years, Nealy says in general they're observing an increase in spending on online and interactive--a good thing for a city that's a hub of interactive marketing.

Source: Paul Nealy, Antidote X
Writer: Dan Haugen

A former Medtronic manager has found a second career giving greeting cards a second life.

Last fall Christy Eichers started selling kits to help consumers reuse old greeting cards. Regreet kits come with fresh envelopes and recycled-paper labels to affix over the original signatures.

They also come with tracking labels that let users go online and see how many times the cards have been reused and where they wind up (as with the Where's George? dollar bill tracker.)

Eichers describes the inspiration as "a bit of necessity and a bit of red wine."

She was back home visiting family and friends in Mankato two winters ago when the idea struck. She couldn't motivate herself to go out into the cold to buy a birthday card for a friend, so her her mother suggested reusing one of the cards her father had just received for his birthday.

Her first thought: Where's the White Out? But later she started to wonder whether her crafty solution might contain a business idea. She took that thought to a WomenVenture class, developed a business plan, and started her company in October 2009.

Along the way she decided to take a voluntary severance package from her former employer, Medtronic, where she worked as part of the community affairs team. "A little bit of craziness," she says," but sometimes you just have to take the leap."

Regreet's card reuse kits are now for sale online and in 14 retail stores in seven states. And cards with the labels affixed have logged more than 138,000 miles around the globe.

Eichers doesn't have any employees, but she has a regular circle of consultants and creative professionals who work on contract, and she recently started signing up sales reps, too. Much of her energy is going toward building awareness and educating consumers about the product.

The $11.99 kits come with supplies to repurpose eight greeting cards, which works out to about $1.50 per card. In September, $2 from every purchase will support breast cancer research and awareness through the the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation.

Source: Christy Eichers, Regreet
Writer: Dan Haugen

 

A Minneapolis marketing and branding firm is growing into its arty new digs in the Lyn-Lake neighborhood.

Zeus Jones is a few months into its fourth year, and it appears to be its best on a record so far, according to founding partner Adrian Ho. It's grown in the past few years from four partners to about 20 employees, and it's still hiring.

Zeus Jones was founded in March 2007 around the idea that actions speak louder than words. Traditional advertising was, and still is, becoming less and less effective, the four co-founders thought, and there had to be a better way.

"Our whole thing was like, look, let's stop annoying customers and take some of that money and start doing things that actually enhance the product or experience," says Ho. "If you do that, people will do a lot of the talking for you." An example: a recent Zeus Jones project for Nordstroms involved putting photo booths next to the junior department dressing rooms so teen girls could share photos with friends or parents before deciding whether to buy.

Over the past few years the firm has outgrown its 1,100-square-foot Uptown space, and so when its lease ran out it made the move to more spacious digs in the Soo Visual Arts Center building near 27th and Lyndale. The gallery's director, Suzy Greenberg, had been looking for a tenant to help share costs, and "it seemed like a great match," says Ho. " She wanted a creative company and we like the idea of helping to support the arts through our rent."

The reasons for the company's growth, says Ho, likely have to do with the fact that businesses know they're getting less and less for their money via traditional advertising, and that Zeus Jones' small size and flexibility make it easy for companies to experiment. The company's clients include General Mills, Nestle Purina, and Haagen-Dazs.

Source: Adrian Ho, Zeus Jones
Writer: Dan Haugen

The Adholics have taken a step toward proving their business model.

The freelance advertising collaborative last week signed up its first client, a local web startup company, which they don't plan to name for at least a couple more months.

The Adholics is the brainchild of Josh Fedie, a new business and account manager for various small and mid-sized agencies over the past decade.

The advertising industry is increasingly relying on freelancers. What's bothered Fedie in recent years is the lack of transparency around that trend. Clients are paying top dollar for an agency's work and often don't realize the work is being farmed out to the least expensive freelancers on the market, he says.

"That's not what's being sold to the client," Fedie says.

About six months ago, Fedie started scouting for freelance professionals to join a virtual agency. The result is a 17-member, full-service advertising and marketing shop. Its members' expertise covers most of the major disciplines, from web and graphic design to copywriting and social media strategy.

What separates The Adholics from other collaboratives, Fedie says, is its transparency. All of its partners are listed on its website. It has a photography studio and one partner has donated office space, but the model eliminates most of the overhead associated with running a conventional agency.

Fedie believes the model will allow The Adholics to compete with any agency in town. He says the goal is to win business that would be out of reach for a solo freelancer:

"That's the number-one goal: to go after dream accounts," says Fedie. "We want to work for enthusiast brands. We want to go after those accounts that all of us have always wanted to work for and it's been hard to get to on our own, but I think with a group like this it's definitely in reach, and definitely within our capabilities."

Source: Josh Fedie, The Adholics
Writer: Dan Haugen

"Little" might be in the company's name, but a Twin Cities design shop is thinking big with its web video series.

Little & Company, a strategic design firm that employs about 40 people in downtown Minneapolis, is preparing another batch of videos for its Thirty Conversations on Design project, and they feature some high-profile names, says creative director Joe Cecere.

The series started last year as a celebration of the agency's 30th anniversary. It reached out to 30 creative professionals around the world and asked them to answer, via video, two questions: "What single example of design inspires you most?" and "What problem should design solve next?"

The results were posted on a website where designers, authors, architects, marketers and others could go to find inspiration, as well as participate in a conversation around the videos. In the spirit of TED talks, Little & Company now plans to build on the archive, adding more videos each year.

Little & Company cast a wider net with this year's interviews. Cecere says they wanted to expand beyond graphic design and marketing and include creative fields such as architecture, fashion, and filmmaking. The selection process was the same as last year.

"We get a group of us here. We get together in a room and we put our dream list together," says Cecere.

They draw ideas from pop culture, magazines, and design annuals. Cecere then starts reaching out to people on the list, and if they agree, they box up a digital video camera with instructions and drop it in the mail. This year's confirmed participants include design editor Allan Chochinov, author Daniel Pink, and skateboard entrepreneur Tony Hawk.

"The nice thing about the questions is they're universal enough and they're kind of timeless," says Cecere. "What's going to be interesting every year is to have a new perspective based on what's happening in the world and how those answers change."

Cecere says this year's website, which is scheduled to launch next month, will be more robust, with better tools for interacting with other viewers and sorting and searching the videos. The company is also considering staging a speaking event or series involving some of the participants.

Source: Joe Cecere, Little & Company
Writer: Dan Haugen

Call it organic growth. A south Minneapolis design shop is finding success in a downturn by focusing on food co-ops and other "mission-oriented" clients.

In fact, the past few years have been the best on record for Spunk Design Machine, a 14-year-old creative boutique in the Nokomis neighborhood.

Founder Jeff Johnson says the shop's work is up at least 30 percent from a year ago, and much of it is in a niche he's coined "mission-oriented branding."

"I feel incredibly excited and bullish about this trend," says Johnson. "All of the clients that are doing mission-oriented branding seem to be succeeding."

They're organizations like the Seward Co-op, Peace Coffee and Galactic Pizza, which, like Spunk, pay attention to a triple bottom line that looks at financial, environmental and community factors. From Johnson's vantage point, it seems that companies selling good products with a clear message are "rocking it" despite, or perhaps because of, the recession.

"We've been just really fortunate that we've been attracting a lot of those clients in the past couple of years," says Johnson. Its current roster includes about 30 clients.

Among the projects he's most proud of: a compostable pizza box he designed with Galactic Pizza. Standard pizza boxes can't be recycled because of the grease content. The solution they came up with was to collect and compost the used boxes. The entire box is a $1-off coupon. After they're turned in, they're composted in a bin behind the store, and then the finished compost is sold for roadside planting projects.

Spunk Design Machine opened a New York office a couple of years ago, but Minneapolis remains its home base. Johnson says he's yet to come across a better town to build a creative business: "Minneapolis is just filled with a lot of dorky, humble, very smart people who make amazing stuff."

Source: Jeff Johnson, Spunk Design Machine
Writer: Dan Haugen

Mono, a fast-growing Minneapolis advertising and branding agency, has entered into an agency-of-record relationship with cable news network MSNBC.

According to an NBC Universal press release, mono "will be MSNBC's creative and strategic partner for marketing campaign development and advertising efforts."

"Mono has a strong track record of success and we're thrilled to have them as our strategic and creative partner." Sharon Otterman, Chief Marketing Officer of MSNBC, said in the announcement.

Mono's managing partner, James Scott, said that his firm is "thrilled" to help MSNBC continue to build momentum in the competitive news space, but neither company is saying much else about the deal.

It could be that they're just plain too busy. Mono is one of the fastest growing agencies in the country, adding more than 20 employees in the last 12 months. It expects to add at least 12 more in the coming months. A spokesman says new business is up 65 percent year-to-date compared to 2009, with new clients including Parsons The New School for Design, HGTV, Johnson & Johnson's Rolaids brand, and MSNBC.

Mono was recently named one of the best small agencies in the country by Advertising Age magazine.

The company has a track record in television, too. Mono's very first client was Sesame Street, and it also was behind USA Networks' "Characters Welcome" campaign.

Source: Jim Scott, Mono
Writer: Dan Haugen

From indie radio to indie T-shirts: A former Twin Cities radio personality is turning music-inspired clothing into an at-home small business.

Pop Frocks started last fall when Mandy Cox bought a T-shirt press and started making toddler and infant clothing inspired by her favorite rock and soul music legends. The goal was not only cool clothes for her then 1-year-old son, but also building a business that would reconnect her with her former music career.

Cox started out her radio career in the mid-'90s as an intern at the late-great Rev 105, and later took that experience to KFAI, where she hosted an overnight music program. She also worked behind the scenes at 89.3 The Current during the first year of the station's existence.

As she settled down a bit and had a kid, she found herself missing her old music lifestyle. "I really missed that, and thought: what can I do from the house that can bring this element back into my life?"

When the Electric Fetus recently invited her to participate in one of its MinnEconomy events (Pop Frocks is one of this month's featured artists), Cox decided to create a whole new series of shirts all inspired by Minnesota artists.

"It all started off by asking (89.3 The Current DJ) Mary Lucia if I could put her face on a T-shirt," says Cox. Since then she's received enthusiastic OKs from more than a dozen local bands and personalities, from punk pioneers The Suicide Commandos to current buzz-band Communist Daughter.

"I'm totally jazzed about the way it's turned out," says Cox. "It's nice to get that e-mail from [Duluth musician] Alan Sparhawk saying, yes, go ahead! Do it! Send me one for my daughter!"

The limited-edition collection (Cox is limiting each design to between 30 and 50 shirts) is for sale at The Electric Fetus and will soon also be available on the Pop Frocks website.

Source: Mandy Cox, Pop Frocks Apparel
Writer: Dan Haugen

A local boutique marketing firm is doing well by focusing on good.

Marketing That Matters is a three-year-old company started by Lori Schaefer, who has a background in corporate communications, public affairs, and progressive politics.

The emphasis is on clients Schaefer believes are making a difference in the world, including nonprofits, public sector agencies. and social entrepreneurs.

"I really wanted to see if you could take what works from the for-profit marketing world and brand/strategy world and bring some of that expertise to the nonprofit sector," says Schaefer.

The recent growth in her client list suggests you can.

Schaefer has done work for major foundations, as well as the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative (a sponsor of The Line). After working on her own or with a small group of independent contractors for the past few years, she's now preparing to hire her first one or two formal employees.

"One of the best pieces of advice I've received," she says, "is you can't be afraid to take the leap when you see the growth starting to happen."

Schaefer credits the growth to her team's hard work, as well as the company's clearly focused niche, which seems to be timely. More for-profits appear to be recognizing the importance of social responsibility and their role in the community , she says. Meanwhile, President Obama's campaign seems to have started to change the way nonprofits and public agencies think about branding and marketing issues.

Source: Lori Schaefer, Marketing That Matters
Writer: Dan Haugen

A Minneapolis video game developer scored second place last week in a Boing Boing Arcade contest for a game called Infiltration at Dusk.

Creating video games is actually a hobby of Zachary Johnson, whose day job is working as a user experience developer at Worrell, Inc.

The Boing Boing contest asked developers to build a game inspired by a piece of chip music, the chimey tunes used in old-school video games.

Johnson guesses he's made about a dozen video games since the mid-90s. This one took about 30 hours to create and incorporates unique controls. No memorizing buttons. Just mash your keyboard in the direction you want to shoot.

The premise: you're the last gunman protecting a village from a "horde of biomechanical abominations" trying to rid Earth of all humans.

Sound pretty dark? Well, things are looking brighter for indie video game makers.

"The indie game market is big right now," says Johnson. The cost and accessibility of computing power have given hobbyists tools that professionals could have only dreamed about two decades ago.

Meanwhile, indie video game developers have open markets to sell and distribute their creations via mobile devices or web browsers. That said, Johnson has no plans for quitting his day job.

"It's still a hobby for me. For me, it would be more exciting if I made a game that resonated with thousands of people," says Johnson. "It might earn me enough money that I could pour into another game."

Source: Zach Johnson
Writer: Dan Haugen

 

A Minneapolis digital communications firm is grabbing attention--and bystanders--with a new interactive billboard in Times Square.

Space150 recently became the agency of record for Forever21, the trendy youth fashion chain. Its first project: creating a giant high-tech display for the retailer's flagship store in New York's Times Square.

In most places, a 61-foot-tall video screen would be enough to turn heads, but not in Times Square. Over the past decade the center has been overtaken by increasingly enormous screens to the point that it now looks like a sports bar for giants. Space150 decided to go different instead of bigger.

"We looked at it and said this is almost like a giant computer screen, versus a television screen where you just have the one-way interaction," says space150 founder/CEO Billy Jurewicz.

The firm created a series of interactive "episodes" that rotate across the screen. One displays recent tweets that include the phrases "love" and "Forever21." Another is "Forever Runway," an ongoing loop of user-generated videos showing fans walking from one side of the screen to the other.
 
The real eye-catcher, though, is a bit called "getting picked up by a model." A super-high-definition camera mounted on the billboard displays a real-time stream of the people standing below. A superimposed model enters the screen, then reaches out and plucks a person's image from the live video feed. The model might kiss the person, or put them in a shopping bag, or flick them away.

"This is sensational. It's a live image of the crowd. People just start mobbing like they're watching the World Cup or something," says Jurewicz. "If you see it, you're going to say that's something you want to do as a tourist in New York, to go get picked up by a model at Times Square."

Jurewicz founded space150 in March 2000. The company recently celebrated its tenth anniversary in the midst of an expansion. The firm has grown to about 140 employees from about 90 at the start of the year. It's hired about 20 in the past three weeks alone.

Source: Billy Jurewicz, space150
Writer: Dan Haugen

The job market for web and app developers in the Twin Cities appears to be picking up, according to a major IT staffing firm.

An official with Robert Half Technology in the Twin Cities says the agency has seen a significant spike in demand for IT skills, especially in temporary contract positions.

"If you compare this quarter over the same quarter last year, our business is up substantially," says Kathy Northamer, senior regional vice president in the Twin Cities. "Specifically we're seeing a big increase in the application development or the web development space. We're just seeing such a huge increase in need."

Northamer wasn't able to provide specific numbers about the increase. She attributes the activity to a couple of factors. Some companies are feeling more confident about the economy, but others have simply put off website redesigns and other projects as long as they are able to. Also, companies are putting more of their marketing dollars into online campaigns, which require developers.

The company has also noticed growing demand for network administration and help-desk professionals, Northamer says.

Northamer's observation fits with new employment figures released last week by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Temporary hiring was 14.5 percent higher in May than it was the previous year, marking the largest rate of gain since mid 2006.

Source: Kathy Northamer, Robert Half Technology
Writer: Dan Haugen