Dear Clients, Friends and Business Partners,
I am writing you today to deliver some sad and unfortunate news. After 15 years in business, my wife Gretchen and I have made a decision to close our firm, Renaissance Creative.
As most of you are aware, prior to 2007, our business was primarily residential and resort real-estate focused with 27 employees doing about $5 million / yr. annually. Indeed, during this time period, we were named one of the city’s “50 Fastest Growing Companies” five times by the Jacksonville Business Journal in 2002; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007, as well as one of Jacksonville’s “Best Places to Work” in 2007.
The sudden collapse of the real estate market was a significant shock to our system that required painful downsizing coupled with a complete, capital-intensive diversification of our client base. And while we had made substantial progress and continued to grow on these fronts, unfortunately, after giving it our most sincere best efforts, the fixed overhead associated with our now-8 member team, combined with the continuing challenges of the larger economy, left us with little alternative.
We have been blessed to have had an extremely talented group of creative professionals here for all of these past 15 years and you should be aware that our still highly capable core team, led by partner, Ed Bondi, will be continuing to service accounts, operating as a consortium. Call it Renaissance 2.0. It is our expectation that they will be able to continue successfully in a new and more efficient operating structure, and I would encourage you to please continue to support them with your business, and referring them to your friends and associates. During the months to come, you will continue to be able to contact them (and me) via their current RC emails, as well as via their personal contact numbers.
Together, with the help of all of you- our valued clients, friends and business partners, we have produced an extraordinary volume of memorable work that we will forever be proud of. It is disheartening to see businesses like ours everywhere struggle in this difficult, stubborn economy, but I am certain that “American Exceptionalism” will continue to prevail, and that things will eventually improve for all of us.
Just as our team is doing, Gretchen and I move forward not only with sadness, but also with an inherent optimism, drive and excitement that cannot be extinguished to meet all challenges in front of us, and seek new opportunities as well. We have long put 100% of our faith in Jesus Christ, operated by His will and on His timeline. Choosing to do so has never failed us; just the opposite. We have always been, are and will continue to be richly blessed! We are grateful for these blessings, to which all of you have for so long, contributed. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Sincerely,
Tim Hamby
President / Co-Creative Director
On Wednesday this week Steve Jobs and Apple announced a number of new products and concepts at an Apple event in California. Among them was the launch of Apple’s first foray into social media, called iTunes Ping.
I was listening to the event on my iPhone and following the commentary online via Twitter. There were lots of interesting instant-reaction Tweets by industry types. I found this one, by Kara Swisher, columnist for AllThingsD.com, to be quite interesting:
Apple Ping is “vertical Twitter” says Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, sitting next to me at launch event in SF
At the time of reading, I hadn’t used Ping yet. My first thought was, Oh, I’m Not Sure This Is A Good Idea. Apple is an utterly closed company, making its living off of closed platforms. There is no sense of openness, of encouraging sharing, that is required in today’s social media landscape.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduces Facebook Places
Last week Facebook debuted their latest product, a geolocation feature called Facebook Places. In the months leading up to the formal announcement, there was a lot of talk that Facebook was developing it, just no-one from the company would say so in any official capacity.
At the moment it is only available to Facebook users who have the iPhone application. Users had to download the latest update in order to get the new Places feature, which now appears directly in the middle of the menu screen on the application.
I had the opportunity to begin using the new feature on Thursday last week, while out with friends. We visited a few different locations, so I was able to try a few things out.
Earlier this week Forrester released new projections for the tablet computing market. While many expected the projection to be high, it is doubtful that anyone expected what Forrester has in mind.
Over at mobile marketing blog Mobile Marketing Watch, they have a breakdown of what Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester laid out at the Untethered conference:
She expects 3.5 million tablets — including the iPad and other tablets — to be sold this year, growing to 20.4 million in 2015. In addition, she expects desktop sales to drop from 18.7 million units in 2010 to 15.7 million units in 2015.
Take into account that Apple is selling about 1.2 million iPads per month, according to Apple Insider, and you soon realize that tablet computing is here to stay and its impact on web and digital marketing will be significant.
Because of the hype surrounding both the iPad and tablet computing in general, it is likely that digital agencies are being approached by their clients about whether they should take the plunge and develop their own iPad application.
If a client asks about developing an iPad app for their product or brand, first ask them these three questions:
- The most basic iPad costs $500, and the 3G-enabled iPad costs $650. Are your core customers buying them?
- The most successful applications on iPhone and iPad are games, so if your app is not a game, are you OK with not ranking highly in the app store?
- Do you have an iPhone app, and if so, how successful was it? What would be different on the iPad app?
Having an iPad application means offering content all of the time. It is a media consumption device more than a media creation device. You can send e-mails and do most everything that you can do on a laptop or desktop computer, but with the iPad, the experience is different. The screen is large, so design and user experience is much more important.
The iPad offers brands a way to interact with its customers in a new way. But it also requires brands to be more open to these changes, as they are happening rapidly.
The 2010 Winter Olympics are behind us and I for one am sad to see them go. There were so many compelling moments that defined the Vancouver Games for me, from snowboarder Shaun White’s incredible Double McTwist 1260 in the half-pipe (a trick only he can perform); to Apolo Ohno passing the Chinese team in the anchor lap of the 5000 meter short track relay to become the most decorated American in Winter Olympic history; to the final frantic seconds of regulation and overtime in the US–Canada gold medal hockey game. But nothing brought me to edge of my seat like Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller’s exhilarating performances in the men’s and women’s downhill.
