· Q&A with Digital Eskimo ·
This is a series of fortnightly interviews with Australian-based companies and consultants who are experienced in working with not-for-profit organisations to improve their online presence. If you know of a potential interviewee, let me know.
Grant Young, Senior Producer at Digital Eskimo in Sydney is featured this time around.
What are Digital Eskimo's strengths or specialist areas?
Digital Eskimo is a strategic design agency that practices what we call "Considered Design". This is a deeper level of design than is usually performed that looks at much more than just the aesthetics of things and encompasses a review of organisational objectives, audience requirements, information architecture, User Experience design and more.
Fundamentally this is a design philosophy that encompasses the term "design" in the broadest sense: we look deeply into the context in which we are designing and consider how our designs will effect the wider world in which it exists.
We are ethics and values driven - the act of doing design is meaningful to us, over and above the profit motive. Our practice is grounded in, and informed by the principles of sustainability. We think that positive change is a collective thing, achieved through action, experience and the sharing of knowledge. And we think design can make a difference. Our greatest influence on the world as an agency is through the messages we amplify and communicate for our clients.
Our designs, and the strategies they are based upon, emerge from innovative and collaborative design methods. Our design is intentional, and its intention is to contribute to a happier and healthier planet. This is a common goal across our team, company, our special clients and their stakeholders.
For example, with some clients we carry out up-front research using a variety of techniques we affectionately term "guerilla research" - including what we call "mobile diaries" - using tools such as inexpensive video cameras, mobile phones (for text, audio and pictures) so that we can get a deeper look into our target audience's life.
This process can uncover rich contexts that informs how we approach the various products or services we might create for our clients - be it in print, for web, or something else entirely. Anyone that was at Stephen Cox's presentation at Web Directions will have some idea of the sort of ethnographic-style research we do.
Which non-profits has Digital Eskimo worked with in Australia, and what did you do for them?
We are an agency that specialises in working with non-profit and progressive organisations. We've worked with a number of larger NGOs like Amnesty International Australia (AIA), WWF-Australia/International, the ACTU, Complicite (UK), Guide Dogs NSW and the Asia Pacific Forum [Ed. note: those links are to the organisations, not necessarily the projects Digital Eskimo have worked on].
The most prominent projects we've completed are probably AIA's 'Message in a Bottle' and 'Close Guantanamo' campaigns (neither of which are online anymore), as well as WWF-Australia's 'The Future is man made' site.
We also created the multi-award winning 'Your Rights at Work' campaign site for the ACTU as well as supporting campaign materials such as screensavers, newspaper advertisements and a sell-out sticker campaigns. (Not to mention the over $100,000 in donations received through the website.)
Give us your best piece of advice ... how can non-profits utilise online technologies better?
This is a tough question because it completely depends on the organisation, their audience, and the particular campaign/project. Using social/participant media can be one way to reduce up-front cost, but does require a lot of effort to maintain and build relationships (as we've discussed before on our blogs).
I think if I was to give one piece of advice it would be to focus on your audience/participant's wants and desires - look at how you can support them to spread the word about your organisation's work or campaigns. This means giving up some control over "the message" - but empowers your fans to do a lot of the heavy lifting. With this in mind I'd thoroughly recommend Seth Godin's "Flipping the Funnel" ebook - look for the one specifically for non- profits.
Which non-profit is doing good stuff online at the moment?
GetUp are doing some interesting work - their approach to "Politics 2.0" online is thought provoking (more on that later).
The team at Inspire are doing some great stuff with both ActNow and Reach Out - but ActNow in particular is a fantastic example of participant media (I hate the term "user-generated content") giving young people a voice. Their process for developing the site by involving young people at every step and level of the organisation is fantastic.
Not wanting to blow our own trumpet, but Amnesty International Australia have been doing some of the most innovative stuff in Australia - we're quite proud of how effective the 'Message in a Bottle' was, and of the integrated nature of the Close Guantanamo campaign (the site leveraged the container cell that was travelling the country with automated uploading of videos to YouTube).
And the work you're doing with ANTaR using social media is also really interesting as well - learning a lot from your experiences :)
Which website or online app has turned you on recently?
There are so many apps and sites out there now ... The recently launched Radiohead store is interesting, more for their ignoring the "rules" for bands and record labels and trying something completely different.
And there's lots of cool stuff happening on Facebook too - not just the apps, but communities that are building there. It's not usually the technology that impresses us - more what people are doing with it that's interesting.
If you were to stand as an Independent at the next federal election but you could only run a single-issue election campaign, which issue would you choose?
Given we've just launched the Raise the Bar campaign, perhaps liquor licensing? Nah - just kidding. Based on the success of ACTU's Rights at Work campaign and dissatisfaction with IR laws probably stand the strongest chance of ousting the Howard government we'd probably back that one ;)
Which non-profit organisation would you like to shamelessly promote?
Speaking on my own behalf, not for the company, I'd shamelessly promote Kiva.org - they're a startup out of the States that have created an online application that connects everyday people in the developed world with business-folk in the developing world to provide micro-credit. You can loan as little as $25 - but collectively that adds up providing much needed support to the loan recipients.
Like most microcredit schemes they have an excellent payback rate, and work with existing organisations in the developing countries to keep their overheads low. The money you give is not a donation - the recipients aren't looking for charity or handouts - it's a no- interest loan - so once the money has been repaid you can re-invest.
The site went from 2 dozen loan recipients to thousands in the space of about 12-18 months, and has provided millions of dollars of loans (if my memory serves me correctly). A great success story of harnessing the power of the network to tremendous social effect.
Please give us a random question to ask the next organisation that takes part in this Q&A...
Can design agencies who predominantly work for clients who push a consumption-based way of life claim to be "eco-friendly" by offsetting their direct carbon emissions?
- Yes
- No
- It's better than nothing
- It's greenwashing pure and simple
Discuss.
The random question that Huge Object wants an answer to is ...
Getup.org.au is:
- Revolutionary
- An effective agent for change
- Becoming a little staid
- A constant spammer
- All of the above
Discuss.
-----
I'd say 2. At a technical level GetUp aren't doing anything particularly revolutionary - mostly just petitions and letter writing - but they've been tremendously effective at engaging a lot of people who didn't feel they had a voice - people that felt lost by the political parties and not turned on by "traditional" NGOs; people that are more interested in specific issues, not necessarily an entire party or organisation policy platform.
The participant media work they do is fun as well - getting people to submit ads and then raising funds to have them played. And their current TV campaign - a spoof of the Government's sickening "I can do that" campaign - is great. I think that they are doing a reasonably good job of evolving their asks to keep it interesting - time will tell if they can maintain their momentum.
I suppose it's a little disappointing that a lot of activity (and the money they raise) has been plowed back into traditional media in the form of expensive TV, print and billboard advertising. But it's hard to fault them in this day and age - it seems that mainstream media remains the most powerful way to get traction in a mainstream audience.
Of course most of this has been done in the States already however they brought the broad multi-issue campaigning model to Australia and put lie to the accepted wisdom that Australians are lazy about their democracy and don't want to participate.
Wednesday October 10, 2007
Categories: QA
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