Interactions Blog

Working as part of a team is a reality in the digital industry. Much of our school term has been spent working with the same team on a variety of different projects. Like most team based projects in the working world we have had our ups and downs. While some teams will often let themselves be torn apart by disagreements, a big emphasis this term has been placed on trying to learn from our experience. In particular, we have been trying to learn what works well and what creates problems so that we can try to approach team based projects in our professional careers in a smarter way.   While I did learn a lot about my teammates and their specific strengths and weaknesses, I will now spend a little time elaborating on some general lessons I learned that might be applicable to anyone reading this who may be about to dive into a team based project.

     Looking back at all our projects, I think something I would stress going forward is that everyone be present when really important decisions are being made.  As Susan Heathfield describes in her article about teamwork (which can be found here: http://humanresources.about.com/od/teambuilding/f/

team_work.htm), in order to ensure that you are getting the most efficiency out of your team, you need to be sure that everyone is on the same page. From experience, I would say that the best bet is to make sure everyone is around when all the key decisions are being made with regard to a project’s direction.  We faced a few times when there was a lot of confusion because one or two people were not around when a decision was made. The amount of time spent trying to bring everyone up to speed only adds to this frustration so I would probably recommend that even if someone cannot physically be at a group meeting, they make sure they phone in or are present on Skype or via a Google + hangout.

       Another key point that is vital to making sure that a team functions properly is trust. It is hard to build a really strong trust relationship over the span of only a few months, but trust is the foundation for good teamwork. As pointed out by Keith Yamashita (the man who changed the way Starbucks does business), trust is what helps you play to strengths and weaknesses because you know who to trust with what tasks (you can find this article here: https://www.openforum.com/articles/tips-on-teamwork-from-the-man-who-reinvented-starbucks/). Yamashita also emphasized the importance of being able to focus on the incremental goals and not getting lost in the big picture. I feel that this happened to our group on a few occasions when talking about specific things. We would get lost in our discussion and lose focus about what we were trying to decide. The way I would recommend to fix that would be to designate someone as the “moderator” whenever a discussion is taking place. This person is always keeping track of the conversation and if digressions are occurring then the moderator needs to step in. By properly using this moderator, you are helping your team to stay on track with the objectives they need to take care of and take solace in the fact that you are not wasting time.

The TTC is a service that riders have known and loved to hate for as far back as most of us can remember. With no signs of usage declining and the number of metropass users rising on an annual basis, efficiencies need to be found. On top of this, there are several other issues that TTC riders need to worry about when it comes to using the service. There have been many reports through various media outlets of the customer service experience being below what some would expect from a paid service.There have also been many issues with security aboard trains and buses. The TTC themselves have also been a victim to fraud as some dishonest users continue to find ways to produce fake metropasses. What if there was an app that could make life easier for the riders of the TTC while also helping to create a safer and more efficient system? Well I sit before you today with a proposal for an app that intends to accomplish these very goals: Project One Stop. 

   The goal of Project One Stop would be to create an App that would work on most mobile devices (iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry). Once users have downloaded the app, they would create an account and then be able to begin downloading a digital metropass every month. This app would see users automatically downloading a digital QR code that would be their metropass for the month. They would no longer need to worry about losing the small piece of plastic as their pass would be tied to an ID. This is great for the user because they would no longer need to go to the subway station to purchase a pass. They would no longer have to interact with TTC booth workers, who as previously mentioned leave a lot to be desired from a customer service point of view. From the TTC's point of view, they could potentially reduce the number of fake metropasses in circulation as a QR code would be much harder to fake. They could also reduce their operating costs, as they would not need to pay as many people to work the booths.

The other key component to this app would be its security features. There are often cases when passengers are in a dangerous situation but cannot pull the Passenger Assist Alarm because the source of the danger would see them calling for help. With the app, the passenger would be able to discreetly alert transit control of the problem so that steps could be taken to send help. The precision of the distress call would also mean that the TTC would be wasting less time trying to figure out who pulled the alarm. Also, since the user ID would be tied to the call, there is no risk of users abusing this function. 

  There are two underlying technologies that will help push this initiative forward. The first is the use of mobile applications. The mobile application will need to be developed with strong security settings so that it could not be hacked. It must be a mobile application because ideally this would be something that users have on them at all times. The other underlying technology would be the use of QR codes. Scanners would need to be installed on buses and at stations in order to make this all work. QR codes are currently used for plane tickets quite effectively so there is no reason that they could not work in this context. 

  This project does currently face a few challenges.  The first is that in order for the safety features to work on subways, cellular reception will need to be added. The TTC has said previously that plans are in place to do this very thing so hopefully this does happen. The second challenge is that the QR scanners required would need to work very quickly in order to make sure that service levels could be improved. QR scanners can be a little finicky and this would not be acceptable in this case. In an ideal world, QR scanners would not even be required as it would be more efficient to just have users scan their phones, but the technology is not yet at this stage. In an ideal world, the TTC could also use the digital platform to sell ads and create another source of revenue for themselves.

   As the term comes to an end, it is now probably a good time to take a step back and look at what we’ve learned so far. In our production tools class we have spent the past few months learning how to use HTML, CSS, PHP and Javascript (among other things).  I could try to pretend like all of these different coding languages work exactly like I expect them to, but that would be a complete lie. One thing in particular that has completely changed the way that I look at the web and development is the importance of responsive design.

   Responsive design is the idea of creating a web page that changes depending on what type of device you are using to view the content. Before our class, I never really thought too much about how bad some things tend to look when experienced on a phone’s browser. It was just one of those things you deal with. In the back of my mind I was under the impression that it would require hundreds of programmers and a ridiculous budget to make a website responsive. For this reason I never really got mad or upset when dealing with a terrible user experience on a mobile browser. After walking through the steps required to make a page work responsive, however, I now understand that if a site is not responsive it is due to a huge oversight or laziness. If I was able to make a barebones website into something responsive, then surely a large company with huge resources should have no excuse for not making sure their resources are responsive. I will certainly acknowledge that a large website can be a ridiculous complicated and intricate beast (another thing we have learned all too well in this class). That being said, when we consider the amount of users who are currently using mobile browsers to access online content, to keep up this trend for much longer would surely be a fools errand.

A trend that I have noticed while looking into the various ways companies approach social media is that alcohol companies in particular are doing a great job at utilizing these platforms to their benefit. There are a host of reasons as to why this industry has proven to be especially creative with regard to these initiatives. It could be anything from the demographics they are targeting to the agencies involved with the campaigns.  Regardless, it is worth taking a moment to look at some of the better campaigns to learn how social media may be used to extend a brand. 

 The first social media campaign that really caught my eye was the Heineken Brazil Facebook campaign centered around turning “likes” into balloons (here is a link: http://eddyandkako.com/portfolio/heineken-1-like-1-balloon/ ) . The idea behind this campaign was that for every “like” the company received on its Facebook page, they would blow up a green Balloon and fill their office space with these balloons. The effort starts with an empty office space but soon becomes unrecognizable. Over 12,000 people liked the page within the first six hours and this fact was accurately depicted in the office space (images came out that show a sea of balloons in this tiny office). The project ended with the page receiving over a million likes. The stunt was undeniably funny and generated a lot of positive buzz for the brand. The team also did frequent video check-ins and took the time to respond directly to questions from Facebook users. What this helped accomplish was something every brand struggles with and very few achieve; it made Heineken seem much more personable and real. The campaign was a great example how a novel idea paired up with brilliant execution can produce staggering results.

 Another alcohol brand that has been successful with social media campaigns is Dos Equis. The beer company was able to leverage its popular “most interesting man in the world” television spots into a more integrated campaign. On their Facebook page they created a contest called “the league of the most interesting” (if you would like to see more you can find it here: http://www.imediaconnection.com/iMedia25/2011/brands-redefining-social-media/Dos-Equis/) . The general idea behind the promotion was that users would compete against their friends in competitions that were in the spirit of the company's previously mentioned mascot. Users were then able to submit the results of these competitions to the Facebook page and receive medals and recognition. The reasons that this campaign was successful could all be traced back to the content. Users had previously responded well to the “most interesting man in the world” idea and the brand was able to produce a series of great content on their Facebook page that fit extremely well with this character. The various contests on the Facebook page are all quite funny and the page itself has almost 3 million likes.

If you were to ask me to talk about an Interactive Digital Media project that really excites me, I would have to talk about the way 3D printing is specifically impacting the future of surgery. The development of these technologies is still a work in progress but the potential that has already been demonstrated promises to change modern medicine in a very profound way.

3D printing is currently helping surgeons by allowing for the creation of very precise replicas of organs or body parts so that surgeons can practice and/or evaluate their options when it comes to the actual live surgery with the real organ. The way the technology works is that you have a 3D printer that is able to use data provided from medical computers and recreate with startling precision something that has been modelled by the computers. These models are typically made out of plastic but they are not being implanted into humans. If the surgeon is forutnate enough to have direct access to a lab with a 3D printer, then they can control the whole process involved with creating the replica (from collecting the data to producing the final product). Why this is key to the user experience of the surgeon is that it saves time, which is usually a valuable commodity when it comes to important surgical procedures.  Technology has gotten to the point that these models can be flawless recreations of an individual's internal organs. The doctors can recreate incredibly precise scenarios so that come the day of the operation they know exactly what they are doing and how they are going to do it. What this means right now is less trial and error and a greater sense of certainty during actual operations. What we can conclude from this is that more lives will be saved because surgeons are able to perform their duties at a higher level.

 If I had to use an emerging technology to build something entirely new, I would probably focus my efforts on building an app that would let riders use a QR code that they could pull up on their phone as opposed to a metropass or a day pass for the TTC. They would no longer need to buy the physical pass at a station and all charges would be done electronically. As an added bonus, the app would also allow riders to discreetly report security concerns so that they would not have to actually pull the emergency assistance alarm strip (there is often a fear of being seen doing this when someone is unstable on the subway). Since the user would be tied to the app, there would be complete accountability and the TTC would not have to fear being flooded with pointless alarms. 

Here are 5 Links that support market’s need for this new product/user experience: 

Subway expansion - The subway will continue to grow, increasing the number of metropasses sold 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/rob-ford-is-right-subways-are-best-for-toronto/article14394647/

Problems with Toll Collectors - The use of QR codes could create an automated system that might eventually eliminate the need for toll collectors. 

http://www.blogto.com/city/2010/01/ttc_union_chief_blames_riders_for_not_waking_sleeping_staffer/

TTC ridership continues to increase - There will be more and more riders buying more and more metropasses. 

http://www.ttc.ca/News/2012/October/News_Release_TTC_sets_new_ridership_record.jsp

Presto Cards and how they help the GO train in Ontario - An example of an electronically paid system that is working in Ontario

https://www.prestocard.ca/en-US/Pages/ContentPages/FaresTravel.aspx

Current State of TTC apps and the purposes they serve - People already use TTC apps and they only serve a few purposes right now. 

http://www.blogto.com/tech/2013/08/the_top_5_ttc_android_apps/

Here are 5 links that support choosing Mobile, QR and application driven technologies to power this user experience: 

People are demanding Wifi in the Subway because they are using their phones

http://www.blogto.com/city/2013/09/ttc_confirms_wifi_coming_to_two_stations_for_december/

The TTC have been exploring adding Cell Reception/Data reception

http://www.thestar.com/news/ttc/2012/10/22/ttc_ready_to_let_subway_riders_talk_and_text.html

It could be a way of dealing with Fake Metropasses, which is a big issue for the TTC and costing tax payers

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/02/17/fake_metropasses_and_tokens_cost_ttc_close_to_2m_last_year.html

Similar technology being tested in Edmonton

http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/36034/digital-bus-pass-tested/

Similar Technology in London Ontario for Student Passes

http://www.westerngazette.ca/2012/02/08/news_electronic-buss-pass/

GO goes electronic

  Today we spent some time looking at 3D printing. The most innovative uses for this technology were definitely all applications relating to surgery. The amount of precision required for this application is the most impressive I have seen so far. Also the implications of being able to provide perfect parts to the human body seems like it could revolutionize medicine. 

 In 20 years I see these printers being in every home. I also see them essentially destroying manufacturing as they should be able to produce just about anything. 

We also spent some time talking about the internet of things. The 3 biggest challenges that this technology presents to IDM professionals are the following: 

1. The range of devices/objects that IDM professionals will have to account for will be much wider then it has ever been. 

2. Privacy concerns will need to be accounted when designing these devices because the environment is very sensitive right now to these concerns. 

3. We will need to begin building more sophisticated support regimes because all of our products will suddenly become much more complicated. 

    Digital content strategists are currently being forced to adapt to an evolving landscape. They can no longer rely on the old assumptions they made on how their content was being consumed online. As such, it has become the job of any professional in the digital content arena to get a grasp of the latest digital trends that will dictate how they shape their future content. The most relevant upcoming trends can be looked at under three over-arching banners: the rise of mobile, the move towards connectivity and the importance of engagement. Let us take a moment now to look at each of these over-arching trends.

    Previous assumptions would have stated that most online content used to be consumed via computers. We are now starting to a new trend where most online consumption will be done via mobile devices. Edelman Digital explored some of the latest social trends (full presentation can be found here: http://www.slideshare.net/EdelmanDigital/edelman-digital-2013-social-media-trends) and found that users were increasingly using their Smartphones as a “kickoff point”. They were then, in much lower percentages, following up on these activities by using computers or tablets to complete the activity. This trend will signal a move towards an increasing reliance on mobile commerce as users start to use their computers less and less and look to be able to do things entirely on their phone. In order to adapt to this trend, content strategists are going to have to ensure that the design steps are being taken to ensure that the experience users get on a phone is on par, if not superior, to what they would get if they were at their laptop.

  What we are also seeing along with this reliance on mobile devices is a rise in the use of social networking tools. The most interesting part of this overall trend is the fact that we are seeing a greater emphasis being placed on visual storytelling as part of a content strategy plan. More visual content such as photos shared on Facebook or Instagram are some of the big factors driving increased usage of social media sites. As the technology progresses and market penetration continues of more sophisticated Smartphones, we will eventually see this trend move more and more towards video sharing. The huge rise in popularity of sites like YouTube and Vine proves that people are ready to start sharing self made home videos.

 As social media continues to play an increasingly important role in our lives, the focus of digital advertising will have to continue to adapt in order to properly disperse branded content to the right audiences. An increased emphasis on user engagement is what will be the driving force behind this phenomenon going forward. Savvy marketers and content creators are already well aware that users will pay more attention to content coming from a source that they feel engaged with. Brand strategies that are seeking to build communities around a certain brand and promoting content developed from within these communities helps to give a brand a sense of legitimacy that simply cannot be bought.

 When looking at User Experience (UX) design in the digital arena, we often see that there are several pieces that go into building an effective content strategy. Two of the most crucial elements required to build a good strategy are tone and voice. The use of tone and voice can help to create a cohesive strategy for any digital brand looking to connect on a deeper level with its customers. In her article about Voice and Tone, Kate Kiefer Lee explores and elaborates on the differences between voice and tone. She helps to define these concepts and then goes on to highlight the ways in which the two concepts can inform good UX design. The article itself can be found here (http://uxmag.com/articles/tone-and-voice-showing-your-users-that-you-care), but I will now launch into a discussion of some of the key points that it features.

   What is the difference between voice and tone? Voice is your message or a reflection of your core values (what do you have to say?). Tone, on the other hand, is the way you choose to express this message to others (how do you choose to say it?). Being able to combine these two concepts is important if you hope to speak to your audience in a way that will set you apart from your competitors. In order for users to feel like they can become engaged with a brand, they have to be able to look at it in the same way that they would look at something that is more human. If your users look at your brand and see something this is cold, static and unresponsive to their needs, then the likelihood of building any kind of brand engagement is very low. If you are able to speak to your audience in a way that is more human and responsive, you are planting the seeds for a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.

  One of the most important steps towards this lasting relationship is learning when to use the appropriate tone for a given circumstance. In her article, Lee does a great job of highlighting several examples of tone being altered depending on the section of a site. The example that stood out the most (for me personally) was showing how the Obama campaign website managed to really understand what a user is feeling when they are looking to unsubscribe from the mailing list. The tone used on this page is straight to the point and comes across as helpful and understanding. This is important because if the user is at that page then they are probably frustrated. By speaking to the user in a way that makes it feel like the designers actually understand what the user is feeling at that particular moment, they have actually managed to create an opportunity for themselves to maintain a subscriber to their newsletter.There will also be times when tone can be playful and light-hearted, but it will be up to the UX designer to decide when this tone is appropriate.

  Every year, a giant group of interactive digital media students from various schools descend on Loft 404 to take part what is known as Fall Tour Interactive (or FTI). These students spend a good part of two days running around downtown listening to talks, panel discussions and touring various studios. I was fortunate enough to take part in the event this year.  A few days removed from the experience, I feel like I can really sit back and process all the things that happened over the course of those two days. Tim Willison, the head of Oddly Studios and the brains behind the event, said many times over the course of the event that “it was never supposed to be a yearly thing”. Based on the success that I witnessed this year, however, I think Tim is going to have to plan for a few more students next year when he is forced to start it all over again.

  Based on the fact that I am relatively new to the industry, just listening to a few producers and directors talk about the studio culture at their various companies would have probably been enough. But what separates this event is that participants are actually granted access to a wide variety of studios located throughout the downtown Toronto core. Walking into a series of beautiful loft spaces and being greeted by dogs and beer fridges was pretty eye opening. The agencies/studios that I got to personally see included Secret Location, John St., Usability Matters, Derooted, and a host of others. From a professional point of view, the highlight for me would have to have been Usability Matters. This small agency is putting UX and information architecture in the spotlight like no other company I have seen. Considering that these are the areas I am most interested in, I could not help but be excited to meet some of the people who worked there and gain some insight on how I might be able to get into the area myself. From a more personal point of view, I would say my favorite studio was Secret Location. When you consider the types of individuals they are looking for, I really have nothing to offer this studio professionally. That being said, I would kill to grab some beers with the founders of this studio. They told us a lot of great stories and seem to have this certain “coolness” factor to what they do that simply cannot be found anywhere else.

  While the studio tours were great,  another hugely important element to FTI is the people you meet. I had the opportunity to meet people hailing from Seneca’s Digital Media Arts programs and from Sheridan College’s Interactive Media program. It was great talking to these people about their programs and their goals as a way of informing what I might be looking to do. I am really hoping to organize some kind of a gathering in the future with some of those people, as there were definitely a few who I could see working with down the line.

 Over the past decade, we have seen various approaches to corporate leadership structure within the digital sphere. One of these approaches has been the idea of splitting up the CEO position, allowing each head to focus on a different side of the business. The idea seems to have been most well received in the digital sphere because most technology oriented companies usually have two different facets: Business and Research. The problem with this approach, however, is that it creates challenges when attempting to create a clear, unified vision that is supposed to trickle down through the rest of the corporation and inform the direction of the company as a whole. A perfect example of this phenomenon can be observed by looking more closely at the recent failure of Waterloo based Blackberry. Blackberry at once seemed invincible, but after failing to adapt quickly enough to a rapidly changing market, they now stand on the verge of collapse. What role did its dual leadership structure play in this demise? While not being entirely responsible, I would argue that it certainly did nothing to help save the company. 

  As Blackberry began to assert its market dominance in the 2000s, many noted its unconventional approach to the CEO role. Unlike most big corporations of the day, Blackberry had two co-CEOs. Jim Balsillie was the former Harvard MBA that would be in charge of the business side while Mike Lazaridis was the engineering genius in charge of the research and technology areas. When things were going good, it would seem foolish to question this strategy. Looking back now that the company is in ruins, one cannot help but wonder if silo-ing off the company in this way might have been to blame for Blackberry's eventual fate. With the two organizational heads, came two separate silos that had differing objectives that at times proved to be at odds with one another. What this also can create is a slow moving and administrative behemoth. In a letter to the CEO, one employee famously noted that the company was "drowning a sea of paperwork" which they felt was preventing true innovation from taking place and contributing towards the death of the company (referenced from a great article by Jesse Hicks which can be found here: http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/21/2789676/rim-blackberry-mike-lazaridis-jim-balsillie-lost-empire#section-link-title6). 

  Marketers and engineers are also not necessarily two types of people who will always agree philosophically when it comes to business. With the case of Blackberry, the division of responsibilities in the boardroom led to times when the company was at odds with itself. The most notable example of this happening at Blackberry was when Mike Lazaridis faced off against the new CEO Thonsten Heins and his marketing team (the full details of this incident werereferenced from this article by the Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-inside-story-of-why-blackberry-is-failing/article14563602/?page=all). Lazaridis felt that their product needed to focus more on what they were known for, a smartphone with a real keyboard. The new CEO and his self-appointed marketing executives, however, felt that they needed to take on Apple head-on with a keyboard-less model. Blackberry ended up choosing the latter direction and failed to steal market share from any of the other products it was attempting to mimic. It would be hard to imagine a company executing well on either direction if the leadership themselves could not come to an agreement. This proved to be the last dysfunctional straw and signaled the end of Lazaridis' tenure with the company he had helped to build. 

  Many people have never heard of the term "internet of things", but most would be familiar with its concept.The internet of things is the defined as the process by which real world objects we associate with our day to day lives are being introduced to the internet (or being"virtualized"). The technologies that are allowing this process to happen are primarily RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) codes, QR (Quick Response) codes, NFC (near field communication) chips and other types of barcodes. The way that it works is by implanting regular objects with one of these devices so that they can either able to be identified by something that is connected to a network or, increasingly, so that the object itself can communicate with a network directly. Before the advent of this technology, these types of data would need to be inputted into a traditional network device (such as a computer) before it could be aggregated, parsed and analysed. With the advent of this technology, data can now come from virtually anything and be sent anywhere. 

  So what necessitated this technological trend? There are two ways of looking at this question: the business perspective and the consumer perspective. From a business perspective, many large scale retailers discovered that they were able to get a much better grasp of their logistics because they were able to keep better track of what they had in stock and what they needed replenished. Any company with a good grasp of this technology could potentially develop a much more flexible supply chain. From a consumer perspective, the development of the internet of things has been facilitated by our cultural shift towards an "always on" society. Consumers rarely find themselves disconnected from their networks.  A modern day crisis is being unable to get cellular reception. With this in mind, this technology is about introducing regular products into that culture. Products need to be increasingly able to communicate with networks because consumers demand it. If something is not connected, it runs the risk of becoming boring and irrelevant. Many companies have turned to these technologies in an attempt to refresh things that were once perceived as stale. An example of this is the way magazines and books are increasingly including QR codes on pages so that readers may use devices to access additional online content and to share content with their social networks. What used to seem old now suddenly seems new and refreshing thanks to an increased sense of connectivity. 

The following is a list of analytics platforms and a few key points for each: 

1. Google Analytics 

- Free software with a premium version available. 

- Generate reports that track essentially everything from page views, to e-commerce to conversions. 

- Uses page tags as a means of tracking user activity. 

2. Top.Sy

- Tool used to monitor twitter activity for a user or a specific brand. 

- Helps to determine what the company calls "influencers"

- Keeps analytical data on social trends and chart data on how often people are tweeting about specific things. 

3. Hootesuite

-Allows companies to get a full view on multiple social networks of user generated activity. 

- Allows integration with other analytical tools. 

-Allows for social media team integration, allowing companies to more easily streamline how they absorb/use the date. 

4. Sprout Social

- Schedule content to be released at set times on social media platforms.

-Engagement reports similar to the other services. 

- Allows monitoring of multiple messaging inboxes in one place. 

5.Shoutlet

- Publishing tools for social media. 

- Assistance with ad data

- Consolidate foursquare data for several different venues. 

3 Links to Big Data Visualization

1. Gooddata: http://www.gooddata.com/bi-software

2.Ayasdi: http://www.ayasdi.com/rethink-data/

  For the past few weeks, we have been exploring the ins and outs of HTML and CSS in our Production Tools Class. Both of these tools allow web developers to create websites to the specifications that they require. These are two different languages, however, and it is worth taking a moment to explore the differences between them.

  HTML is a markup language that is essentially used to create the structure of a website. Using HTML, a developer can determine the content that is present within their webpage, as well as how it is laid out. Does the website have links, images or buttons? Where are these pieces laid out on the page? These are the types of things that an HTML developer would be stressing over.

  CSS, on the other hand, is a style language that dictates the way things will look on your HTML webpage.While the HTML markup will determine what pieces are where, CSS is used to determine how those pieces look. Fonts, font colours, size of text, the width of borders and many more things can all be adjusted using CSS.  

 Why have two separate languages for the same document? The first reason that HTML and CSS are kept separate is to assist with aesthetic consistency. By centralizing all the style details within a separate style sheet, a developer can be assured that all like elements within an HTML document will look the same. If the style preferences were to be made within the HTML markup, then whenever someone wanted to change the way a certain repeating element looked, the developer would need to go through the entire document and make each change individually. With CSS, you would only need to change the properties of the selector and the changes would be applied to each element specified by the selector. Another reason that HTML and CSS are separate documents is that it prevents clutter on the HTML document. As an HTML document becomes more complex, having the style elements on a different page removes a significant amount of text from the HTML document, which makes the document much easier to analyze and edit. 

Here are some of the apps that are a big part of my day

1. Yahoo Fantasy Football: Native App (use this on both iPhone and Android Tablet) 

2. Songza: Native App (Use this on iPhone) 

3. TTCWatch: Native App (Use this on the iPhone) 

4. BeyondPod: Native App (Use this on Android Tablet) 

Growing up, I had my fair share of hobbies that would remain consistent throughout my life. I loved watching sports, I loved eating pizza and I really loved playing video games. As far back as I can remember, I have had an obsession with playing the latest video games. Every penny I saved up would usually be ear-marked for some awesome game I knew would be coming out for whatever system I had. I was told by my parents, at the time, that this was just an adolescent phase. All kids play with toys, but when they get old enough those toys are eventually put in a box and tucked away in a dark space somewhere, left to gather dust. But while this notion works for traditional toys, something happened in the interactive digital media industry that prevented them from getting boxed away in households like mine. The industry actually managed to mature alongside its audience and it is in large part because of this fact that I am currently trying to find a job in it. 

When I say that the industry has matured, what I am trying to specifically highlight is the way that content is now being produced for an older, more discerning audience. Gaming has become a much more thoughtful medium, allowing for experiences that generate debates over varied interpretations of the story or design decisions. The gaming press has come a long way over the years, and is a large part of the reason that I started to understand that you could look at games like this. The more I listened to thoughtful journalists discuss what they got out a certain game or experience, the more I myself was likely to get out of that game or experience. Once I found myself engaging with the enthusiast press, I couldn't help but stop and wonder why I hadn't looked more closely at a career in the interactive digital media space sooner.

  One of the things that I admire most about the interactive digital media industry is the way that it manages to combine art, creative vision and storytelling in increasingly compelling ways. Games like "The Walking Dead" or "The Last of Us" are experiences you definitely would not want to hand over to a younger kid (or even to a child in a man's body) but these games still have found huge markets. These markets exist because gamers grew up, and talented individuals are coming together to create content suited for their adult sensibilities. As we have already started seeing in some of the IDM courses, bringing together programmers, artists and designers is no easy feat. And while this does seem like a difficult task to execute properly, being a part of the process seems like it would be incredibly interesting and worth being a part of even if it did not always work out as intended.