Over the weekend, we were very excited to launch the redesigned website for Swanke Hayden Connell Architects (www.shca.com). We've been working closely with SHCA since January to design and develop an exciting and innovative new website, one which looks sleek and modern while still embracing the firm's long and rich history. We're extremely happy with the results - check it out here!

No need to fret - turns out all that time spent trawling the search engines for the latest and greatest gossip...er...important news items is in no way detrimental to your brain functionality. On the contrary, a recent study shows that this activity among seasoned internet users actually promotes brain activity. Check out the full article at USA Today.

Jacqui Cheng over at Ars Technica writes...

"How many times have you stumbled home after a long night out with
friends, only to plop down in front of the computer and start sending
e-mails that you would wake up regretting the next day? ..."

"Called "Mail Goggles," the Gmail add-on makes sending e-mail from Gmail
more difficult during certain times that you can set manually (while
sober, that is). How does it do this? If you have Mail Goggles
installed—which you can do by going to the "Labs" tab under your Gmail
settings and turning them on—it will force you to answer a series of
math questions before sending out any new messages..."

Read the full article here.

Filip Noterdaeme, founder of the subversive Homeless Museum recently distributed hundreds of fliers for a discounted "sale" at the Louis Vuitton Store, a fully-functional handbag store inside the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Noterdaeme's mission statement explains "Juggling irreverence and sincerity, HoMu seeks to subvert the increasingly impersonal, market-driven art world and expose the sellout of cultural institutions to commerce, cronyism, real estate, and star architects."

"I am only suggesting visitors ask for a special discount... My goal with this action is to confer to museum visitors the absurdity of a bluntly commercial enterprise infiltrating an art museum." – Filip Noterdaeme

Too bad he didn't do this sooner, when the exhibit first opened (it closes on July 13th) – amidst throngs of museum goers, as the project probably would have had a bit more significance.

However, in some ways I think Noterdaeme is rather missing the entire point of Murakami's art which is addressing some of the same issues as he is, by playing upon the notion that distinct lines between art and consumerism cannot be drawn in the sand anymore. In today's society, popular culture and the commercial world already have their hands deep into the pockets of the modern art world. By partnering with Louis Vuitton and actually placing a store within his exhibition, he is already actively commenting on that inseparable consumerism by placing it directly in front of everyone's face.

What remains to be argued however, is that they are really two sides of the same coin – Noterdaeme is actively trying to fight consumerism in the art world (at face value), while Murakami instead tries a more subtle approach by embracing the consumer juggernaut and manipulating it for his own means.

After the news leaked over the weekend, Walmart confirmed that it will roll out a new de-hyphenated logo.

While most companies flog their make-overs, Walmart's overly restrained release seems intended to tamp down any speculation that the company is struggling to find a new sweet spot, as competitors get increasingly efficient and Target's model continues to pick up steam.

Here's the parse.

Walmart: Walmart U.S. Refreshes Stores' Logo

Translation: We're not changing our logo. We're refreshing it.

Walmart: For the past two years, a customer focused transformation has been taking place in Walmart's U.S. business.

Translation: We've pushed the price-as-the-only-differentiator model as far as it can go.

Read more

Last week the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint released a study that analyzed the 100 most valuable brands (according to BusinessWeek/Interbrand) and how they engage across 11 different online social-media venues. The result of the study was published as  "engagement database" that critiqued the brands on not only their breadth of engagement across these channels, but also their depth, such as whether they reply to comments made on blog posts. Each brand was given a numerical score. The top 10 ENGAGEMENTdb brands with their scores are:

1. Starbucks (127)
2. Dell (123)
3. eBay (115)
4. Google (105)
5. Microsoft (103)
6. Thomson Reuters (101)
7. Nike (100)
8. Amazon (88)
9. SAP (86)
10. Tie - Yahoo!/Intel (85)

The full report is available at http://bit.ly/KRGNt. Personally, it's questionable to assume that  a company's social engagement can be correlated with its financial performance.   But, in Steve Rubel's words "good use of social media could be seen as a proxy for an innovative culture, eagerness to engage with consumers and take risks, a net positive for any business." Much more interesting then this is however to take a look at what the social media strategy of those brands have in common: All top brands weren't afraid of innovation, did so early, often (also after set-backs) and incrementally:

• Starbucks and Dell were early to leverage their fans for corporate crowd-sourcing.
• With Nikeplus.com, Nike was early in the game to use an innovative technology in order to connect its worldwide fan base in early 2006.
• Quite a few of the top 10 brands embraced Twitter early and in innovative ways. Amazon started offering deals on Twitter back in 2007 and EBay started to live-tweet earnings in 2008.
• Microsoft encouraged their employees to blog as early as in the late 1990. Yahoo and Google started and actively promoted their corporate and product blogs in 2004
• Other top brands were building out communities to connect customers and employees early on. Microsoft, for example, launched its inventive Channel 9 platform for developers back in 2004

A wise man once said, "Wherever you go, there you are," and now with Geode, announced today from Mozilla Labs, your web browser will know where you are as well. Geode will be available in the upcoming beta releases of Firefox 3.1, and will allow users to fire up their computers from any location, direct their browser to their favorite review site (like Yelp, Citysearch, etc.), and have customized location-specific information surfaced. But the potential expands beyond just fun - imagine an RSS reader that knows the difference between Home and Work, or a news website that is truly local. Read more at the Mozilla Labs blog.

The Cannes International Advertising Festival has announced its Grand Prix winners, and interactive and viral campaigns have, for the first time, presented as a force to be reckoned with. Japanese retailer Uniqlo and an infectiously viral (and sort of weird) video of a Gorilla playing drums for Cadbury both won Grand Prix awards, among others. Check out the run down on Wired.

Seeing as how the Obama campaign embraced technology so much on the trail, it only makes sense the the team would do the same for his Presidency. Enter the White House blog, along with a fresh redesign of the White House website. The redesign launched almost at the exact time as the President's swearing in - and the blog posts are already rolling in. Check out the blog here.

OMG I love robots. Seriously. (About as much as I love David Bowie.)

That's why I have to go check out Wakamuru who is "interning" at the NYC Uniqlo flagship store. I found this all out through his blog. Man, even robots have blogs these days. Check it out here. Apparently he also has a Facebook page. And a twitter page is in the works. So social-networky those robots are. So cute!

Wakamaru is "The robot designed to live with humans." "(the) design concept was to create "an object that can approach its user." "Wakamaru" is designed in the shape of a human being so that it is not considered simply a "machine" or a "terminal," but rather an "independent personality." Its cute expression and form make it appear friendly to everyone from children to elderly people, and suggest a possibility of human growth and development. "

Among his technological accomplishments, he can recognize faces (up to 100 people), respond when spoken to, meet a person's gaze, and offer up subjects of conversation. As "wakamaru" freely moves about an area he can decide for himself when to recharge – requiring no human assistance. He can also check your email, read you the news (from various feeds), schedule things for you, and take pictures and video for you that you can check remotely.

Read more about Wakamuru here.