In September 2006, after a few months deciding if and how i should start blogging, ASourceOfInspiration was born.
Here we are, 500 posts later and a lot has happened. Back then, Twitter was still in stealth mode, Facebook was graduating, Yahoo and MySpace were giants, and the iPhone was yet to be announced. I was still working as Senior Interactive Developer at Draftfcb, with lots of code on my screen and definitely less bald, still deciding what “stuff that matters” i would be working in the years ahead.
The blog started as a small experience on sharing interesting content, with a default theme on the first few months, and then had 2 redesigns, with the “Fresh Grid” theme being the current.

During 3 years, ASourceOfInspiration.com evolved from being just a link blog, to presenting useful digital marketing resources and i’ve started writing long form content, sharing my experience as Head Of Interactive at Draftfcb, where a great team kept delivering great advertising. From a few friends to over 1600 RSS subscribers, more than 10k monthly readers and mentions of some of my favorite blogs, it has been one of my most rewarding personal experiences.

Of course, it wouldn’t be possible without you, dear readers. And might i say, friends. Or followers. Your interest and feedback kept me focused on posting at least twice a week, despite all the buzz around microblogging. Bringing fresh content also helped me keep a critical spirit, learning a great deal about user experience and communities.

Speaking of communities, a big thanks to all Prt.sc members, the best geek bloggers in Portugal. Even if we blog a lot less nowadays, doesn’t mean it’s less relevant, so keep those posts coming. Oh, and @vd and @nloureiro, thanks for the great ride recording Alt.Prt.Sc videocast.
It has been also an honor to be a guest blogger at Osocio.org, with Marc and the rest of the team doing a great job on changing behaviors by showcasing the best social advertising in the world.

Communities were really the big change on digital marketing the past 3 years, being at the core of the Web 2.0 revolution and what is commonly called Social Media. The web is about the people, it has always been, so forget about the latest tech hype and focus on providing a great service to your clients. Treat them as if they were your friends. Be nice and notable.

500 posts later, I’ve changed jobs, being now a Web Strategist at Fullsix, working with an impressive team that produces the best interactive work in Portugal, so expect me to do a lot more of shameless promotions :). I only wished more Portuguese companies would send their work, as it deserves to be recognized, so if you’re heading a digital agency in Portugal my email is armandoalves at asourceofinspiration dot com. We have great work in our country and it deserves to be shared.

Last, but not the least, a treat for readers.
The first 2 comments guessing the most famous post at ASourceOfInspiration.com win the book “Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity” by Hugh McLeod.

Hugh is one of my favorite bloggers, so it fits perfectly to reward those who follow closely this blog with a book about creativity. Thanks all, and let’s hope we all make it until the 1000th source of inspiration.

UPDATE 2: It’s now [June, 30] live at beta.cpbgroup.com
UPDATE: CP+B has kindly let me know that they’ve temporarily cloaked the site, as it’s not quite ready for prime time. Stay tuned the next few hours.

When @bogusky announced CP+B was about to release their new site, the curious Armando had to sneak at the rather obvious url beta.cpbgroup.com, thus finding the new version of the agency’s Internet presence.

Crispin, Porter + Bogusky is now aggregating all the content related to the agency, from employees tweets to references on blogs (let’s see if they pick this post), from Flickr accounts to their Wikipedia entry, and huge doses of Youtube commercials by the agency.

The agency applies the same principle to their client work. Here’s the page screenshot for Microsoft (shame for not having a permalink):

For now they released only 8 client pages, but i got curious again and peeked at the source code and a few more are planned :). Props for massive jQuery usage.

Nothing really groundbreaking, kind like PopUrls, but a reminder that the days of “immersive” Flash experiences are almost ending, at least in digital agencies land (see also Barbarian, Juxt Interactive, EVB and Big Spaceship). It’s all about multiple digital touchpoints and real time, these days.

Just for reference, here’s the current version:

Welcome to the long now, CP+B.

Better than a Kindle. A PR GOLD Lion in Cannes by LiveAd São Paulo.

One Thousand Casmurros from Livead on Vimeo.

To pay tribute to one of Brazil’s most respected writers, Machado de Assis, the largest TV network in Brazil was launching a mini-series based on one of his books, Dom Casmurro.

Through the launch of the mini-series, we needed to build up TV Globo’s reputation with a new generation, disconnected from the television.

We created a website with the book and divided it into one thousand excerpts. In the website, people could choose and record pieces in real time with their webcam. We enabled a large scale collective reading.

At the same time, we hid one thousand DVDs with unique scenes in public places for people to find them and hide them again once they had seen it.

In less than a month, the reading was completed.

Influential admirers talked about it in public. 33 million viewers watched the series’ first episode. The media called it the best tribute to Machado de Assis of 2008.

Almost 106 million people were exposed to press notes related to the mini-series. The subsequent media exposure was worth the equivalent of 6,7 million dollars in advertising spend.

Group94 added to their work 5 new photography portfolios. Worth checking them out, for an inspired Monday:

Unit: Photography, Illustration & Film Direction

John Scarlett: Underwater Fine Art Photography

Derek Hudson

Jasper Xwartjes

Red Square Photography

With Cannes Lions Advertising Festival starting to roll, maybe the ad people enjoying the sun and booze take a few minutes out of their time to reflect on a better way to spend their talents and convince the organization and rest of the industry on creating advertising that does make a difference, instead of using it as an excuse to get a piece of metal.

Last year, on a short Twitter exchange with Marc from Osocio on the subject of awards and social marketing, i replied:

We’re in the business of changing behaviours, not winning awards.

Fast forward to Cannes 2009, and on a great collaboration with the duo from StealOurIdeas.com, Osocio presents their draft concepts on how your brand should be used for the right reasons,

Every year hundreds of PSAs are done for the wrong reasons.
Help us to create social advertising that actually makes a difference.

The next time you catch a creative doing spoof work just to win awards, forward these concepts so he or she could get a few really noble ideas.

Since Cannes doesn’t matter anymore, we’d better start thinking about a new kind of awards, that are somehow different from the usual creative masturbation, more in tune with the future of advertising.

Lisbon Ad School and Torke are announcing the first Guerrilla Advertising Awards, showcasing works in categories as diverse as ambush marketing, urban intervention, PR Stunt, ambient media or viral and interactive. And just to make sure guerrilla is for everyone, there’s an Old Croquette Awards, for senior creatives.

You can submit your work for FREE, as a team or on behalf of your agency, with winners announced the next July, 24th.

Disclaimer: I’ll be one of the online categories jurors

If yes, you’re a digital immigrant. If not, you’re a digital native. This is probably one of the simplest explanations of the digital divide, as explained by Sir Ken Robinson at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), on his Commencement address. Enjoy this and other pearls of wisdom regarding creativity.

Nurturing the needs of geek advancement, 2 great projects have shown up recently in Portugal where technology and creativity meet, with huge doses of experimentation.

AltLab

Taking the work of AudienciaZero and bringing it to Lisbon, the collective explores alternative media and physical computing every Tuesday, from 19h to 24h, at Geraldine.

Diodo

A new organization promoting the learning, research and experimentation of digital technologies, bringing together a diverse community on a open environment, exploring connections between art, technology and society.

Both projects take a local approach of the community work by MakeMagazine or CreateDigitalMusic, by Peter Kirn. So don’t be shy and join the Portuguese hackers.

OFFF is on. Rui Vieira, Hector Ayuso and Oeiras Mayor, Isaltino Morais introduced the event this morning, with Neville Brody giving the initial talk on the theme of “Make Trouble”.
About 3000 people arrived in the first day, an audience record amongst other records for the 2009 edition. Huge venue, big crowd, decent wifi but (there’s always a but) a bit of echo delay at Rooms.

Along with blog network Prt.sc, i’m video blogging the event, so if you speak portuguese, you can check the coverage at Alt.Prt.Sc.

We’ll be interviewing James Paterson and Amit Pitaru this afternoon. Even if we fail gracefully.