Best Practices
Brainstorming Technology First @SXSW
This year at SXSW, I’m talking about an ongoing experiment I’ve been doing here at R/GA for the past year. It’s not an experiment about software or hardware, nor does it involve social networks or mobile apps, it’s an experiment with the brainstorming process. Specifically, I wanted to see if there was a way we could improve blank canvas brainstorming to take into account the unique nature of digital products and services.
Nick Law: Innovation is Not a Big Idea
In a recent opinion piece for Australia’s B&T magazine, Nick Law, R/GA’s EVP, Global Chief Creative Officer discussed innovation. Not innovation as a big idea, but as a different way of working. A way of working that’s difficult to do if you’re set in your ways. As Nick says, “When we talk about the transition […]
Three Tips for Developers at the Start of Projects
Here in Brazil we just launched two major projects. If I had to start them over again, here are three tips I would take with me. Tip #1 Automate. People underestimate the amount of time it takes to perform routine tasks like deployment. Automation doesn’t just save time it keeps teams motivated. Automate any routines […]
Three tips to improve your XCode4 skills
Help Xcode 4 help you! Work more efficiently with these tips, focusing more on the code and less on the IDE. Tip #1 Use separate tabs for different tasks (editing source, editing nibs, debugging, building, etc). Cmd+T opens a new tab. Each tab will remember its layout, so you can configure it to fit a […]
The best hackathon teams combine technology, creativity and strategy
I spent this weekend at Hack // Meat, a hackathon focused on bringing change and innovation to the way meat is currently produced, processed, distributed, sold and consumed. The event brought together over 100 people from almost 10 states, and the 15+ teams worked on a wide range of hacks from scheduling systems to marketing […]
ABC News Realtime Election Results in Times Square
Today, ABC News special “Your Voice, Your Vote 2012” election coverage originates live from election headquarters at the Crossroads of the World. The Pomegranate API, developed in partnership with the R/GA technology group, is being utilized to synchronize and coordinate the enormous digital facade of NASDAQ and the 23 story high Thomson-Reuters sign with live ABC […]
Commons JS – Improving Client-Side JS by Improving Server-Side JS
Although CommonsJS is a set of standard APIs targeted at server-side JavaScript, it is adding value to client-side JavaScript by addressing low-level weaknesses in the language that have not yet been included in the ECMAScript standard. For example, JavaScript has no mechanism for defining modules, which has led to library developers exposing APIs through variables […]
8 Pro Tips for Effective Prototyping
We’ve talked about how prototyping plays a part in our creative and development processes. Recently we’ve seen an uptick in interest among clients and momentum building, which is very exciting for us here at R/GA. With one of our major clients we’re now hearing the rallying cry internally, “Powerpoints don’t win customers!”. The benefits of […]
LinkedIn and eHarmony Lesson: Salt or Die
Adding random bits to create a unique input to a one way function would have most certainly prevented the LinkedIn and eHarmony password fiasco last week. If this sounds complicated and expensive, it isn’t; I explained it right here on Techblog last year. It’s called “salting,” it’s been around for decades and it’s practically free […]
Quantifying Quality
A Quality Assurance professional faces one of the most burdensome questions of all specialties in digital media: Go or no-go? In theory a QA professional could be excused for saying “no-go” more than “go“. For one, it is highly unlikely that all defects are fixed or addressed (has that ever happened, really?). In addition, we […]
