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creativity + assignment + crowds + prizes = published work (37.76589748519095 , -122.44998693466187) Pixish is a new site from the mind of Derek Powazek that's all about helping creative people get their work published.

The role of the site is to help "clients" connect to a creative community and source the precise images they are looking for.



It's an alternative to the time consuming and expensive process of working with artists and the challenge of using a micro-stock agency.

Pixish also incorporates a voting feature that gets the community to vote on the images that best fit the assignment. The reward for artists is the opportunity to get their work published and there are also some prizes up for grabs.

Clearly this idea flies in the face of the established creative process and its unlikely that professionals are going to want any part of this.

The idea here is to level the playing field and let amateurs and young artists have a shot at the big time and build their portfolios. There are thousands of people out there willing to do this and its likely that the quality of their work is pretty good.

It's another example of the combination of the internet and the crowd weakening the power of the expert. We are just going to see more and more of this in the coming months and years.


Posted by Ed Cotton tokyo: design week and beyond (35.737595151747826 , 138.548583984375) One of our designers at BSSP, Vince Montelongo, just got back from Tokyo. He attended Design Week and took shots of other interesting stuff.

Here are his photos.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Posted by Ed Cotton A few years ago, the creative career path was characterized by a rigorous process that defined the creative journey; years spent at art school and toiling in a low paying job that could only be gained through access to the right people. Although its become something of a clich�, but the internet has leveled the playing field and spread creative talent far and wide with many of the protagonists being discovered through the well honed process of meritocracy that now rules the web.

What’s interesting is that the same people now want to take the battle onto a different stage, they aren’t content with the satisfaction of YouTube hits of winning Threadless designs, instead they seek the adulation of the crowd. No matter how many YouTube hits you get or t-shirts you sell, you might never here the ripple of applause that comes from your peers recognizing you.

The new movement is all about creativity as a spectator sport; events designed for creatives to battle each other and for legitimate winners to emerge from the process. It’s living proof that you can’t be anonymous and those real life peer connections are all important.

There are probably dozens of examples of these new contests, but I have a couple for starters.

Cut and Paste is a digital design tournament with DJs spinning sounds and graphic designer battles. It started in NYC in 2005 and this year it will host 17 different tournaments around the world.

Sketch 120 a live architectural sketch competition set up by the Architectual League of NYC. This event will take place this Saturday, July 28th at the Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn.

For photographers and other artists, there’s the Slideluckpotshow, an event that’s been running since 2004. It’s not a contest and more of a get together with food, five minute slide shows and conversation.

This is a manifestation of the desire for “real” in a world where you have thousands of virtual friends that you may have never met, there’s nothing can replace the potency of real human interaction and competition.

If anyone is doing anything like this with advertising or has plans to do so, please let Influx know. The live spectacle of teams wrestling real time over a tricky Tide brief would be something to behold.



Posted by Ed Cotton
Bill Tancer of Hitwise recently presented some interesting stats on participation levels on Web 2.0 sites, his research found that only .16% of all YouTube visits were to upload video and only 0.2% of Flickr visits were to upload photographs.

As we are in the “Participation Age” there seems to be a need to expand the number of participants. It’s questionable if brands are doing enough and by brands, we mean these Web 2 brands and creative brands in general; video cameras, computer brands, digital camera brands, printer brands, etc….

Obviously, the 1% rule is being played out, but think of the market potential if that 1% could be increased to 2%.

Brands in this space need to think about how they can encourage participation, this is part incentive and partly education. The education part is important and can obviously there need to be different streams for different segments; from the non-user, to the user who isn’t interested in sharing.

Clearly all brands that want to move into the Web 2 space and create community and conversation need to listen up, this stuff doesn’t just magically happen, it needs encouragement and education.

One interesting example is the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK, yesterday it launched a blogging service for its readers. For many, this could sound foolish, given the abundance of free blogging platforms, but this is smart as it’s going to attract their readers who trust DT more than the small blogging brands. In addition, in a challenging time for newspapers, there is a lot to gain by doing this and is reaching out and providing education and utility for a new group of participants.



Participation is the tangible offshoot of engagement, which has become the fashionable thing to try and measure these days.

It’s clear, if brands want thriving communities and strong brand relationships, they need do more than pay lip service to the notion of participation.

Is participation a new metric for engagement?

Joerg Colberg's Conscientious blog has a series of links to photographers who take portrait shots of video gamers in action. It's a fascinating look at the power of gaming and how it can drag mind, body and spirit into an immersive experience. These people look like they are being controlled by a powerful force.

The shot we've included is by Shauna Frischkorn and is titled Todd- (playing test drive 2001).

Todd Deutsch is another photographer who has brilliantly captured the same subject.

As is Philip Toledano

As planners, there's a huge opportunity to use photography and photographers more. Obviously there's the work of Jan Chipchase at Nokia and IDEO who use photography to make observations about how people use technology and stuff, but how about working with a serious photographer to capture the spirit of a sub-culture or a target segment?

Anyone done this?