The Blog of Simon Burgess
New Media Manitoba chose Elemental as one of the Province’s “superstar” new media companies. To sweeten the deal, they had this fantastic profile video produced, where Adam, Lori and myself talk about Elemental, Skycandy, and all the great things that come with doing business in Manitoba. Thanks to BlinkWorks for making us look so good.
Elemental Motion Media – New Media Manitoba Business Showcase from BlinkWorks -James Swirsky on Vimeo.
It’s been awhile since I made a post, but this time I have a good excuse. On November 29th, my amazing wife Liisa gave birth to our little William. Hard to believe that was over two months ago, so much has happened since then.
Having William in our lives has been an amazing experience, and I’m sure he’ll inspire me and my work. Perhaps some commercials for Huggies or Babies ‘R Us are in my future?
This week we cut a new reel showing off the best of Elemental’s work over the past four years. Hope you like.
We were really pumped to hear the website we designed for the University of Winnipeg was voted one of Canada’s top 50 websites.
“web50.ca judges the best 50 designed websites for a Canadian company, made by a Canadian company. Some criteria they look for is whether the site is organized and easy to navigate, has a good balance of colours, delivers content in a quick and effective manner and features a good selection of photos and unique written content.”
The new uwinnipeg.ca site launched in April 2009. The team responsible for the redevelopment included Marnie Loewen (University webmaster), Simian Systems (programmers), Elemental Motion Media (designers) and Daemon Defense (hosting solutions).
If you’re interested in the power of image, publicity and hype, Timothy L. O’Brien’s “TrumpNation, The Art of Being The Donald” is a great read.
I read Trump’s 1987 autobiography “The Art of the Deal” way back in Grade 9 (nerdy, I know) and was fascinated by his determination, confidence and business savvy. And I wasn’t the only person that bought into the Trump image.
In fact, according to O’Brien, it was this image, and pretty much only this image, that got Trump where he is today, as banks, politicians, the business world and the general public all bought into the Trump image even as he was drowning in debt and making incredibly bad business decisions.
Despite having very few profitable ventures, and a growing list of failures, Trump used his image and name to get more loans, get more hotels, get more casinos, and just get more. And that seems to be what people love about him. As he says himself, “I am the American Dream, supersized version.”
O’Brien portrays Trump as a wizard of hype, a man far more talented as a promoter than as a real estate developer. Even this month, as his casino business files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the third time, the press quotes him as saying his casinos represent “substantially less than 1%” of his net worth and he has nothing to do with them, despite having his name on them.
And Trump keeps on spinning.