So, in ze’s analogy, who are the people bobbing up and down in the surf wearing yellow or red swim trunks? My bet is on the department that all large companies have. Their roll is to take every great idea you have and erode away the coolness that you put in by adding their expert opinions. After that they tack on crap that makes it take 10-fold longer to deliver because they change the color scheme every week or so. Yes folks, I give you the marketing departments of the world. (Douglas Adams had them as the first against the wall when the revolution came for a reason.)
I may be ranting out of my arse here. I may not know what I’m talking about - okay, that’s a given - but when was the last time a marketing department really made a significant contribution to a tech product?
Think of all the cool sites out there, new and old: youTube, MySpace, IMDB, Google, wikipedia, Yahoo in the early days, I could go on and on but you get the idea. These sites were created by surfers. People playing with ideas. Immersed in the idea. Did they know from the beginning that they had caught a big wave? Probably not. It’s hard to tell how big the wave is when until it catches you.
One thing’s for sure, the people standing on the beach - the marketers - certainly can’t give you any useful advice. They can only see a wave once it gets big. By that time it’s too late to get on. Nope, you simply have to pick your wave and ride it for what it’s worth. Good or bad, it’s still fun.
My philosophy about projects: if it takes more than four wickedly talented people to get it on it’s feet then it’s probably crap.
Nike’s new website for their Nike Air shoes show us how to it’s done. This is a paragon of how video work can be done in Flash. Try doing this with any other video player - not possible.
