Bright Ideas From Push Pin Graphics
In like Clark Kent, Out like Superman
Media Watch: Call for Proposals
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Kathleen McGinn Spring and Bart Jackson were prepared for the June 25, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Interactive TV: Is It Finally Coming?
On December 1, 1977, Warner’s QUBE, opened for business
in Columbus, Ohio, as the world’s first commercial interactive television
service. It worked well and subscribers seemed to like it. But it
was too expensive to operate and was discontinued. In December of
1994, Warner tried again — this time digitally — with the
“Full Service Network” in Orlando, Florida. Though once again
popular with many subscribers, it was closed three years later due
to high costs. Yet Europe seems to have made versions of interactive
television work.
This information comes from Andy Kienzle, director of content
solutions for Newton Gravity Shift, a media company at 2425 Pennington
Road. He has rounded up interactive TV experts to talk about the future
of new television on Wednesday, June 25, at 6:30 p.m. at a meeting
of the Princeton Media Communications Association at Newton’s offices.
Cost: $24. Call 609-818-0025, ext. 146.
So, with all the advances in technology, is this country finally going
to get to experience interactive television? George Breen, president
of Digital Video Arts (www.dval.com), a subsidiary of SeaChange International,
and Patrick Sheehan, vice president of client software for the
digital ADCO subsidiary of ACTV, answer the question at the PMCA meeting.
Both work on developing the software for cable settop boxes and cable
headends that enable aspects of interactive television.
With over 25 years of product development and management experience,
Breen now heads the television industry’s only development firm exclusively
dedicated to digital settop box software. Under his direction Fort
Washington, Pennsylvania-based Digital Video Arts has been commissioned
to develop software applications for six of the companies listed in
Kagan Research’s “Big Seven” of interactive manufacturers,
equipment providers, middleware vendors, and programmers.
Breen was one of the inventors of DVI technology at Sarnoff. This
technology was the first commercially viable digital video technology.
Breen also worked for early computer companies, including Commodore
Computer, before starting his own consulting firm.
Sheehan has over 20 years of experience in the design and development
of real time multitasking software and hardware systems. For the past
eight years, he has concentrated on the field of digital television
settop boxes. Sheehan has worked with several real time multi-tasking
embedded kernels including OS-9, PSOS, VxWorks, and several proprietary
specialty operating systems. Most recently he served as the director
of settop box software for ACTV (www.actv.com), where he managed
the engineering group that developed the ACTV interactive television
application currently being certified by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta.
Sheehan’s current work involves the targeting of specific advertisements
to specific demographic groups.
Top Of PageBright Ideas From Push Pin Graphics
All art is designed, at least in part, to persuade.
The message may be overt, as is generally the case with an anti-war
poster or a perfume ad. It may be more subtle, as is the case with
a still life that entices you to view fruit in a new way. The artist’s
mission is to take a message and wrap it up into an eye-catching presentation.
Few artists do as well at blending message with intriguing depiction
as does Seymour Chwast, one of this century’s most innovative
illustrators (See examples on his company’s website, www.Pushpininc.com)
Anyone who has an interest in graphic art, advertising, or the art
business will want to attend Chwast’s talk, “Power to the Art
Director,” on Thursday, June 26, at 10:30 a.m. at Sarnoff. Cost:
$85. Register at www.NJCAMA.org. The New Jersey chapter of the Communications
Advertising and Marketing Association (CAMA) hosts Chwast — and
many other speakers — as part of its fourth annual conference.
Chwast, who grew up in the Bronx and Coney Island, took a great interest
in the art of the street. He received his first formal training at
the age of seven in a Depression-era WPA writing project. Then, in
1948, he entered Cooper Union, but chaffed under that institution’s
rigid instruction.
In l954, after several less-than- fulfilling stints with the New York
Times, Esquire, and Conde Nast, Chwast was ready to put his own ideas
into play. Joining with Edward Sorel and Milton Glaser, with whom
he had studied at Cooper Union, Chwast founded Push Pin Studios.
“We had no capital and fortunately very low rent,” recalls
Chwast. When times were good, the partners might take home $25 a week.
“I think a turning point came with our promotional magazine `Push
Pin Graphics.’ People saw it and liked our style,” he says.
It is difficult to envision a collection of graphic design and illustration
that would not contain Chwast’s work. He has created more than 100
posters, many of which have been shown in the Metropolitan Museum
of Modern Art and the Library of Congress. He has illustrated more
than 30 children’s books and several animated films, and has launched
scores of buying frenzies with his clever ad campaigns though he is
the first to admit that it was Glaser who came up with the famed I
Love New York campaign.) He has been elected to the Art Directors
Hall of Fame and awarded an honorary Ph.D. by Parsons School of Design.
Chwast still runs his firm, now called Pushpin Group, and says he
devotes most of his creative time to “illustrating several children’s
books.”
Before advertised messages of the type that Chwast’s shop creates
breaks, it must pass back and forth between a client, an account executive,
and an art director. If the entire advertising process stays in-house,
the CEO, the ad manager, and the creative person fill the same triangular
roles. While artist-patron resentment is ancient and cliche, Chwast
says the ad development process can, if well managed, be a cooperative
team effort.
Know the flow. The client has a product and the germ ofa message. The ad agency fleshes out the message, and then turns itover to the art director and his staff. The art director must envisionthe best way to take the message to the public. His delivery can beclever or artistic, but neither cleverness nor fine art can be hisgoal. Once the prototype advertisement is completed it requires review.Like scientific theories, advertisements demand substantial inputfrom many sides before they gain acceptance.While this flow chart of roles and duties is scarcely new or complex,there is a tendency to try to short circuit it. Clients often holdup a vision and want to use art directors as mere sketch artists.Ad agencies often allow themselves to be bound by rules of currentad-fashion. The art director can help the process, Chwast says, bykeeping a constant flow of sketches and ideas circulating.Establish a style. Chwast’s style was a known commodityfrom the beginning of his career. Steven Heller of the American GraphicsArts Institute noted that Chwast’s “strength is not in the rendering,like so many sentimentalists before him, but in the concept and design.He always expresses a beguiling sense of humor.”Whether you are the actual artist or the art director uniting severalefforts, if you have established your style, the client and agencyare less likely to be surprised by the final product. But this doesnot mean that the art director can be inflexible. The message, andnot his creative style, must hold sway.Use technology to keep communication flowing. “Theart director should act as liaison between his artistic staff andthe clients,” says Chwast. The more constant he keeps the flowof communication between the two groups, the less likely it is thatresentment will occur. The technology is currently so advanced thatthe creative staff can do two or three retouchings on call, rightin house, along with the total typesetting. In former days, Chwastremembers, all such changes used to have to be ferried back and forthby messengers, which took a lot more time and allowed positions tobecome a lot more entrenched.Technology allows all parties to view the developing ad as an ongoingprocess, rather than as a flat item to be rejected or approved. Theresult is a smoother process through to final approval.”Some things are just not illustrateable,” says Chwast. “Forexample, how do you portray the security provided by fire insurance?All too typically, we turn to the negative side — a huge pictureof a burning house.” But for those art directors who can portrayan abstract concept in a novel way, a host of clients awaits.— Bart JacksonTop Of PageA New Route To the ClassroomProspective teachers now have an alternate route tocertification. Mercer County Community College (MCCC), in partnershipwith the New Jersey City University (NJCU), is one of the New Jerseycommunity colleges that will offer an intensive program to preparealternate route teachers for the classroom. The training begins onMonday, July 7, through a program called “New Pathways to Teachingin New Jersey.”MCCC hosts a free information session on Thursday, June 26, at 6 p.m.at its West Windsor campus. Call 609-586-4800, ext. 3281, to register.Program participants will be able to earn 15 graduate credits awardedby NJCU, or they can register as noncredit, certification-only students.There are three program components; this summer’s Pre-Service program(Phase I), the Core program (Phase II), which runs from Septemberthrough May, 2004, and a Capstone Summer Institute in June, 2004.The summer Phase I program requires a bachelor’s degree with a minimumGPA of 2.75. It introduces students to the realities of teaching asa career and focuses on needed skills and classroom management. Atthe end of the summer, participants may continue in Phase II if theyare employed as an alternate route teacher, or if they are continuingwith the program for graduate credit and have obtained a certificateof eligibility from their county superintendent and have access toa hands-on teaching experience with children.All aspects of the curriculum will build upon the Master of Arts inTeaching (MAT) degree available through NJCU.Top Of PageCutting Sprawl Down to SizeSprawl is big — literally as well as figuratively.It presses on aspects of New Jersey life as diverse as epic traffictangles in Home Depot parking lots, families of dislocated deer tryingunsuccessfully to cross freeways, economic and racial segregationin public schools, and rising tax rates. Governor McGreevey has declaredwar on sprawl at a time when few state residents are able to escapeits effects.On Friday, June 27, a People’s Summit for Regional Equity takes themeasure of sprawl in New Jersey and offers solutions for reining itin. Myron Orfield, author of Metropolitics, presents his newstudy, New Jersey Metropatterns, at the event. Other speakers areDavid Rusk, a former mayor of Albuquerque and author of Citieswithout Suburbs, and John Powell, director of the Race and EthnicityInstitute at Ohio State University. The event takes place at 10 a.m.,at the Douglass Student Center. For more information and to register,call Dianne Brake of the Regional Planning Partnership at 609-452-1717.Cost: $50.The summit is sponsored by the New Jersey Regional Coalition (www.regionequity.org).Members of the coalition include Isles, New Jersey Future, the Coalitionfor Affordable Housing and Environment, and the New Jersey PublicPolicy Research Institute (NJPPRI). Co-chairs are Marty Johnsonof Isles and Roland Anglin of NJPPRI.New Jersey Metropatterns, which examines the state’s demographics,concludes that a tendency toward low density development pushing everfarther into the state’s remaining undeveloped land is hurting communitiesin every economic strata. Here are some excerpts:The most suburban state is badly stressed. New Jerseyis an extraordinary state. It is by most measures both the most denselypopulated and the most suburban in the nation. It is the only statein the nation to be considered entirely “metropolitan” bythe U.S. Census Bureau. Its development patterns are shaped not onlyby its own cities, but also by proximity to two of the nation’s largestcities. Although slow growing compared to the rapidly growing Sunbeltstates, it is among the fastest-growing states in the Northeast. Thestate has the highest median income, the highest school spending perstudent, and among the highest housing prices in the country.Despite its overall wealth, New Jersey is not immune from patternsof social separation and sprawl that strain all states. Its communitiesare profoundly divided by income and race. Geographic stratificationis threatening every New Jersey community — from the most impoverishedto the most affluent. It has already had devastating consequencesfor the poor, leaving many of them trapped in segregated neighborhoodswith limited economic and educational opportunities. Now it has begunto diminish the quality of life and opportunities of working and middle-classresidents. The rising waves of protest against congestion and theloss of open space suggest that no group — not even the wealthiestsuburbs — is fully satisfied with the status quo.The old labels no longer apply. As the state grows, simpleclassifications that divide the state into cities, suburbs, and countrysideare increasingly out of date. As the heart of this report is a morecomplex typology of New Jersey’s 566 municipalities. This classificationsystems takes into account a variety of social, fiscal, and physicalcharacteristics of each place.The classification system shows that a growing number of New Jerseysuburbs are struggling with stresses typically associated with largecities. There is a group of suburbs with significant and growing povertyin their schools and weak tax bases. There is another group of slow-growingplaces with few social needs, but whose property tax bases are belowthe state average and falling further behind. And a large group offast-growing, middle-class suburbs is struggling to provide the schoolsand infrastructure it needs with just average resources.Over-reliance on property taxes creates inequity. Localgovernments in New Jersey are highly dependent on property tax revenuesto pay for public services — everything from parks to police andfire services. In fact, New Jersey municipalities receive 52 percentof their total revenues from property taxes, compared with just 27percent nationally.This reliance on property taxes is pitting local government againstone another in a fierce competition for tax-generating developmentsor “ratables.” Under intense pressure to both maximize revenuesand minimize costs, communities seek out developments that producemore in taxes than they cost in services. Over time, this processhas concentrated households with the greatest need for public servicesin communities that are the least able to generate sufficient revenueto provide them.Bedroom communities are pinched. Home to 20 percent ofNew Jersey’s residents, bedroom communities, including West Windsor,are defined by rapid growth. With their higher-achieving, middle-classschools, newer, spacious homes, less congestion, and — at leastinitially — lower tax rates, these places appear to offer an alternativeto declining communities at the core.But the speed and scale of growth brings its own stresses — requiringhuge investments in roads, sewers, and schools that often strain eventhe hardiest tax base. As communities grow, valued open space is lostto development and traffic congestion makes getting around more andmore difficult. The way the state is growing, the same problems drivingpeople from at-risk developed municipalities may gradually reappearin many bedroom-developing places.Although this group does include several employment centers, as awhole these places have relatively few jobs, and their workers havethe longest commutes of those in any community type.Affluent communities are out of reach of most residents.Home to just 9 percent of the state’s population, these prosperoussuburbs, including Cranbury, have a large share of the state’s expensivehomes, plentiful commercial and industrial development, few socialstrains, and relatively low tax rates.In fact, with the highest concentration of jobs per resident worker,and the lowest free-lunch rates of any community type, affluent placesappear to reap all the benefits of regional competition with few ofthe costs. Their already low share of poor students fell slightlyin the 1990s. Their tax bases, on average, are over twice the regionalaverage, and growing considerably faster. Their moderate rate of populationgrowth assures that they can keep up with needed infrastructure withoutovertaxing local resources.But the opportunities of these places are limited to only a luckyfew. Only 14 percent of their housing units are affordable to householdsmaking 80 percent of the regional median household income or less.Although they are attracting a deep and growing pool of jobs, highhousing costs mean local employers may have problems attracting low-wageworkers.Wealth tilts toward the shore. Supported by their supplyof extremely expensive second homes, resort communities, includingSea Girt, Cape May, and most of Long Beach Island, have extraordinaryproperty wealth. Home to just one percent of the state’s residents,resort communities have tax resources that are eight times the statewideaverage and have been growing three times faster than those of thestate as a whole. With tourism-based economies, resort communitieshave a relatively high and fast-growing ratio of jobs to residents.Top Of PageIn like Clark Kent, Out like SupermanKeep the cape in the closet. At least for the firstthree months on the job. Coming on like Superman can be a mistakefor the newly-hired, says career counselor Don Sutaria. “Youhave two eyes and one mouth,” he says, tongue only a little incheek. “Use your eyes twice as much as your mouth.”On Tuesday, July 1, at 7:30 p.m. Sutaria speaks on “How to Survivethe First Weeks on a New Job” to Jobseekers, a free informationaland networking group for the unemployed, organized by Niels Nielsen,author of the Princeton Management Consultants Guide to Your New Job.Call 609-924-2277.Sutaria, founder and president of Union-based CareerQuest (www.careerquestcentral.com 908-686-8400),specializes in working with Gen Xers looking for career satisfaction,middle-aged executives and professionals hitting a wall, and over-50strying for a place in a youth-oriented workplace. He also does outplacementwork.Sutaria himself is a career changer. His undergraduate degrees, fromthe University of Bombay and the University of Poona, were in electricaland mechanical engineering. His graduate work, however, tilted towardthe management side of engineering. Still vaguely dissatisfied withhis work, he signed up for extensive career counseling at StevensInstitute. There he discovered that he was cut out to be a teacheror a psychologist or maybe a rabbi.Already volunteering as a counselor at Marble Collegiate Church inManhattan, he figured that career counseling was close enough. Hebegan his business shortly thereafter, first calling it New Life CareerCounseling.People change jobs for any number of reasons. Sutaria says he wassurprised when his 27-year-old son, Norman, a graduate of SyracuseUniversity, decided to ditch a career as a photojournalist. “Hedid well,” says the young man’s father. “I thought he wouldlike it.” But, in the newspaper business, Sutaria points out,”it’s always bad news.” Tired of chasing ambulances, and ofhours that left no time for a social life, his son enrolled in a master’sprogram that he hopes will lead to a career as a teacher. Meanwhile,the ex-journalist’s younger brother, Dale, has left a job in computergraphics to try his hand as an E-commerce entrepreneur.Unfazed by these career zigs and zags, Sutaria says that the statisticallyaverage Gen Xer will have four or five careers — not just jobs,but careers — over a 40 to 45-year work life. For Boomers, itmight be just three careers. But it is clear that nearly every workercan expect a whole lot of first days on a new job.Most, says Sutaria, will not be prepared to put down the groundworkthat will lead to a good run. Worse still, a good many will set thefamily photo on a desk where they are immediately unhappy.”I tell all of my clients to do due diligence before acceptinga job,” he says. “Ninety-nine percent of people do not dothis.” Employers scope out their new hires, he points out, andthe new hires need to engage in some investigations of their own.”Arrive half an hour early for a job interview,” he suggests.Use the time to observe interactions — and to covertly gatherinformation. Is the atmosphere formal or informal? Do your futureco-workers engage in pleasant conversation as they pass one another?Do they appear to respect and like one another? Can you see yourselfdressing the way they do? Do you think you would fit in?Ask to use the rest room, and engage anyone who happens to be therein conversation. Spend a little time in the parking lot, too. If possible,collect a few phone numbers. Ask employees how they like the company.”At a Merck or a J&J, you find happy campers,” says Sutaria.The same may not be true at some other large companies and at anynumber of small and mid-size companies. Better to find out beforesigning on. Making a quick — and graceful — exit soon afterstarting a job is not easy.If the job is not what it was supposed to be or what you envisioned,or if it is clear that unethical practices are the norm, it is essentialto get out fast. Otherwise, it is important to settle in smoothly.Sutaria offers these tips:Watch for any undercurrents. “Things are not whatthey appear on the surface,” says Sutaria. Every office has apower structure, and it probably has little to do with the pyramidon the letterhead. “There are alliances you don’t know about,”he says. Sit back and observe.Absorb the culture. Even within the same industry, everycompany has its own mores. Your goal as a new employee, says Sutaria,is to “be absorbed without making waves.”Join some teams. In the early days, it is often a goodidea to put your own ideas for projects on hold and pitch in to helpothers with their work. Do so, and you will be accepted as a teamplayer.Analyze the company’s communications network. Find outto whom you should report. Does the boss welcome questions? Or doeshe prefer that queries go through his assistant? Does he prefer E-mailto voicemail, or does he like to have his underlings drop by for in-personchats? Is it okay to float ideas in other departments?Join the grapevine. There are official lines of communicationand then there are unofficial lines of communication. The latter areby far the best, says Sutaria. If you want to know what is reallygoing on, hook into the grapevine. Doing so requires an ability tobe a good listener, and to respect confidences. “Don’t back-bite,”advises Sutaria. “Don’t pass on gossip. Be non-judgmental. Benon-moralistic.” Strive to be trusted, and the grapevine shouldopen wide enough to let you in.Don’t bad mouth yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, especiallyin the first weeks on the job. Apologize to your immediate boss, andget on with your work, says Sutaria, who has observed a tendency forpublic self-flagellation. Spreading the word that you goofed up, evenin private conversations after hours, can badly damage your reputation.Leave the family’s problems at home. Should a relative’sillness mean that you have to be late for work, tell only your immediateboss about the situation, and even then, give him only the most basicinformation. Talking at length about the kids’ brushes with the lawor going into detail about a parent’s health problems are not a goodidea. Says Sutaria, “your personal life is strictly off limits.”On day one memorize names. On the first day, you are likelyto meet 20 people or more. Sutaria keeps a tiny diary in his pocketand discreetly records names of people he meets. He suggests thatnew employees do the same. Another way to get the names down is tocollect business cards. There are also memory programs that teachtechniques for memorizing dozens of names. Whatever the method, hesays that learning names quickly helps the new employee stand out.Greet co-workers by name on your second day on the job, and they willbe impressed, he says.Be the first one in. On day two, pull into the parkinglot a half hour early, and then leave a half hour after the officialwork day ends (but make sure you know the company’s alarm system first).”That makes a tremendous impression,” says Sutaria. Keep thisup for several weeks, and you will be seen as a hard worker. Firstimpressions tend to stick.Keep a file on yourself. It is oh-so-easy to forget thedetails on the contributions you make to the company. Come reviewtime, or an interview for a new job, and it will be difficult to rememberjust how much money you saved the company through which project. Sutariainsists that it is essential to keep a file of written notes for eachand every project. He has even created an acronym for this — PAR— “What was the problem, what action did you take, and whatwas the result.”Bring your PAR file along on your performance review and it will bea help not only to you, but also to your boss. If it is difficultfor you to remember all of your contributions, how much more difficultis it for your boss, who has lots of other things on his mind?Following Saturia’s advice serves two purposes. First, it helpsease the way into a new job. And second, by focusing on establishinga solid reputation, it paves the way into the inevitable next jobby upping the odds of getting stellar recommendations when the timecomes to move on. By then, you will have earned the right to wearthat cape.— Kathleen McGinn SpringTop Of PageMoonlighting RefereesHere’s a second job that pays good money and offersa change of pace — umpiring. You may need to have played the sportin high school or college, and you may need to take a course or passa test, says Cris Maloney, who knows of just such a course,the one he plans to teach at Mercer County Community College. Hisclass starts Monday, July 21, at 6 p.m. and continues for three moreclass sessions plus practice in umpiring evening camp games. Cost:$42. Call 609-586-9446.Maloney was a track and field star at Moorestown High and was attractedto field hockey as a team sport at Westchester University (Class of1978). He played men’s club hockey on the East Coast and practicedwith the women on the Westchester team, coached by a former Olympiccoach. He played on the Olympic level at the USOC Olympic Festivalin 1982 and coached in later years. A certified instructor, he hasbeen coach, sectional umpire, regional director and coach for theUnited States Field Hockey Association’s Futures program, and is thefounder of the Garden State Games Field Hockey Event.Maloney moved to Princeton so his wife could teach at Princeton DaySchool and he worked on the Dow Jones campus with Dow Jones Interactive.Now he is a real estate agent with the Princeton Real Estate Groupand sells college selection software to high school guidance departments.Field hockey is the exception to the “must have played” rule.You don’t need to have played it to be an umpire, Maloney says. Youcan substitute your knowledge of another sport, like soccer. Gamesare held in the fall in the afternoon, and the pay is $40 an hourin the first year. Says Maloney: “In your second year you couldearn over $100 in a single afternoon.”Refereeing — in field hockey or in other sports — is an excellentway to keep in shape while bringing in extra income. It can also bea fine networking tool, making it especially appealing for anyonewho is between jobs, or who just wants to keep his name — as wellas his blood — circulating.Top Of PageMedia Watch: Call for ProposalsThe New Jersey Economic Development Authorityis requesting proposals from companies in the communications and marketingindustry for a one-year, $5 million campaign to promote the stateas a home for business.The campaign will highlight assistance available to businesses fromthe Commerce Commission and from NJEDA programs to help with businessfinancing and real estate development needs. The objective is to increasethe number of businesses locating and growing in the state, with anemphasis on life sciences, logistics, and high technology.NJEDA will make the request for proposals available at its officesnext Thursday, June 26, at noon. The request for proposals can alsobe downloaded at www.njeda.com/mp.NJEDA will take questions from bidders at a pre-bid conference onTuesday, July 1 at its office. Wednesday, July 23, is the closingdate for proposals.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
