The United States Soccer Federation has unveiled a new sponsorship deal with AT&T to back their bid for the 2018 Fifa World Cup.

The deal will see AT&T promote the US bid chiefly through its online petition, which has obtained more than 980,000 signatures from supporters.  
 
Sunil Gulati, chairman of the US bid committee and president of the United States Soccer Federation said: "As a major supporter of professional soccer in this country, AT&T is the perfect communications sponsor for the USA Bid Committee's mission to show the world that the United States would be honoured to host the Fifa World Cup in 2018 or 2022. Their global presence as an innovator in communications technology will be a significant asset to our bid and we’re proud to welcome them to our team."

Jason Simpson, the executive director of AT&T corporate sponsorships, added: "At AT&T, our goal is to connect people to their passions, as an official sponsor of the USA Bid Committee, AT&T is proud to help support millions of soccer fans in the quest to bring the Fifa World Cup back to the U.S."

The fixed telephony provider also sponsors the Mexican national team, serves as communications services sponsor of US Soccer and Major League Soccer and is also the title sponsor of the annual Major League Soccer All-Star Game.

The US bid committee announced on 28 January 2009, that it would submit bids for both the 2018 and 2022 Cups with 18 official cities as hosts for the bid.
 

Best of Behance's 99% Conference: 13 Tried and True Practices For Making Ideas Happen

The Behance "99%" conference wound up on a high note with Pentagram designer Michael Bierut offering five sane and simple principles for maximum productivity. Given his track record--hundreds of design awards, work at MOMA, a faculty appointment at Yale, a hugely popular blog, and a book or two, (I'm exhausted just listing all his accomplishments!)--his was advice with instant cred.

In typical modest fashion, however, he denied having any particular genius: "I'm not creative. I don't have ideas I want to express. I can't think of any personal projects. I became a designer because I wanted people to come to me with problems to solve. I'm like a doctor who needs patients--the sicker the better--because I can't practice on myself."

A sweet thought, but really, Michael. Would that we were all so un-gifted!

So, if you're only a fraction as 'uncreative' as Bierut, you, too, can profit from his tips:

1. Keep a notebook. Bierut started this practice in 1992, and now has 86 of the things. But they're not some fancy Moleskins full of lush watercolor sketches. They're plain vanilla notebooks, filled with, well, notes and the occasional sketch. They seem to work as well as the high-priced spread.

2. Listen first, then design. Actually, you don't have to be a designer to take this advice. If you're selling office paper at Dunder Mifflin, or pitching an account at Sterling Cooper, listening is still a good way to get a project off on the right foot.

3. Don't avoid the obvious. The obvious can be your best friend. There are few new ideas, folks. Mostly just better iterations of the old ones. Trying to reinvent the wheel too often just results in a lot of wheel spinning.

4. The problem contains the solution. Read the brief or the specs, or actually pay attention to your notes from the client meeting (see #1, above.) Often, the solution is right there.

5. Indulge your obsessions. They're passion made tangible.

6. Love is the answer. There are worse things than leading with your heart. As Bierut has proven, you'll often be successful, do great work, and probably make money. And you'll likely be happy.

Here's a final round-up of other big ideas from the conference that may help you get from inspiration to action:

7. Don't let the urgent demands of today always subvert your plans for tomorrow. In other words, don't let the often trivial demands of an overflowing inbox consistently distract you from the more important items on your to-do list. Along those lines, keep two lists: one of daily tasks, the other of longer term projects with specific action items attached. - Scott Belsky, CEO, Behance

8. Don't underestimate the importance of staying organized. Chaos subverts progress. Creativity x organization = impact - Belsky

9. Hang around people who are passionate about things. Their enthusiasm will rub off on you. Whom you hang out with really matters. - Jason Randal, theorist on developing expertise

10. Hire the best lawyers. "I've met many people who run billion-dollar companies. They aren't that smart. They hire good lawyers. It's one of the things that made this project happen." Robert Hammond, Co-founder, Friends of the High Line.

11. Share ideas liberally. If you share quickly, you'll be more accountable. - Belsky

12. Surround yourself with people who motivate you, and write things down. Something as large as a presidential campaign was done simply by checking items off a to-do list. - Scott Thomas, design director, Obama for America

13. Nothing trumps hard work. "Many successful people don't want to talk about how hard they work. Even when you've made it, you've got to keep working." - Jill Greenberg, photographer

Comment

Just minutes ago, Apple announced a slew of new products, including: an updated Apple TV that will make a play

for cable and Netflix; an entire new line of iPods; and a refreshed version of iTunes.

All of these are geared toward a singular vision of a new Apple, which produces the world's most beautiful boxes

and interfaces for bringing you every type of media content you like, anywhere you want it.

So it's fitting that the products all share a coherent design language: Subtle cues link the devices,

making each one feel like it's part of something greater -- namely, the Apple brand.

[The new iPod Touch]

Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive have been hinting at this for years. Ever since the release of the iMac in the late 1990s,

Apple has been in turns coherent and incoherent. Somewhere around the mid-2000s, which featured the PowerBook, MacBook,

iMacs, and three iPod lines that looked wildly dissimilar, it sort of fell apart.

But since then, the discipline is back (though it's a process that's gone on quietly). The central point of reference, you'll recall,

was the MacBook Air, a brilliant design that introduced the shiny black accents and matte aluminum that you see all over Apple

today, and it recently culminated in the iPhone 4, which is probably Apple's biggest homage yet to the design cues of Dieter Rams.

The new line-up almost fully incorporates that DNA. Take, for instance, the packaging -- a feature of Apple's products that

has always been the brand's first impression on new customers:

The new line-up is simple, and the low-end products don't feel like afterthoughts. Again, they feel like part of the family

-- and even something as tiny as the new iPod nano shares buttons, curves, finishes, and proportions with the mighty iPhone 4:

I don't think it's a stretch to say that feeling you have a foot in the door as a consumer predisposes you to go back for new products (as opposed to say, feeling like you have just a busted little entry-level device).

You'll even notice that the new UI for Apple TV -- a product that Apple always seemed to hold at arm's length -- appears redesigned. It looks unique but of a piece with the layouts and organizing logic of the iPod UI and iTunes:

We've heard from sources close to Apple that in the past couple years, designers there have been moving to a longer and 

longer-term view of product design. So instead of one concept per product, each new concept involves designing an entire range

and showing how it might evolve and extend to other devices.

Yet again, Apple raises their game. This time, it's in thinking of their products as paper boats in a steadily flowing river that's

the Apple brand, rather than weighty nuggets of brilliance that just sink to the bottom. The new line proves how successful

they've been at hewing to that vision.

Behance Best Practices--The 7 Principles of Success

After surveying a large number of successful people, Behance found that those who have made things happen share several common principles. 

1. We should know our tendencies--are we dreamers, doers or and know what gets in our way.
2. Share ideas liberally--if it's a really good idea, can it be replicated? If you share quickly, you'll be more accountable. Chris Anderson--every time he has an idea, he puts it on his blog. GE--have a policy, if you have a best practice--and you don't share, they call it stealing from the company.
3. Share ownership of ideas--don't be wedded to doing it one way. How to share ownership, but know when to interject. Co-owning an idea may increase likelihood of its happening.
4. Seek Competition.
5. Fight your way to breakthroughs. When apathy happens, somebody drops the rope.
6. Don't become burdened by consensus. Find the sacred extremes, and realize you have to compromise in the middle of the spectrum.
7. Present yourself (overcome the stigma of self-marketing.

Behance Network is an online network for designers and creatives to showcase their projects and others contribute feedback. It has large archive of past creative work to filter through. Try using the search function to narrow down your results.

Twitter is growing exponentially, and it's showing no signs of slowing up. Just last week, it passed the 20-billion tweet mark. For researchers, that means another 2.8 trillion characters of data to analyze.

It feels like almost every day we read yet another report aimed at charting the next big trend on Twitter. Today, for instance, HP released a study claiming to have analyzed enough tweets to discover the most influential Twitter users on the Web. In a realm of 20 billion tweets, how many does it take to draw such conclusions?

The Most Influential Tweeters...HP Labs (August 2010)...22 million tweets analyzed
Business: Avoid Twitter...360i (August 2010)...1,800 tweets analyzed
Twitter's Oncology Community...JuvoLab (July 2010)...4,450 tweets
The World's Mood on Twitter...Northwestern University (July 2010)...300 million tweets
Twitter Celebrities are Happy...Edinburgh University (April 2010)...13 Twitter accounts
International Twitter Use...Semiocast (March 2010)...13.5 million tweets
Twitter Users are Inactive...RJMetrics (January 2010)...2 million tweets
40% of Twitter is "Pointless Babble"...Pear Analytics (August 2009)...2,000 tweets
Twitter Users Don't Tweet...HubSpot (June 2009)...4.5 million Twitter accounts
Twitter Lexicography...Oxford University Press (June 2009)...1.5 million tweets
Few Twitter Users Generate Content...Harvard (June 2009)...300,000 Twitter accounts
The Science of ReTweets...Dan Zarrella (October 2009)...5 million tweets

These somewhat grandiose conclusions are drawn ("analyzed") from a data sampling anywhere from 13 Twitter accounts to 300 million tweets. Should we believe such conclusions? How much "analysis" can even be done on 140 characters?

With Twitter receiving well over 50 million tweets per day, perhaps the network has grown too big to study.

Keep it simple and focus on:

1. Hold yourself accountable

2. Treat customers like gold

3. Stay close to the product

4. Guard your margins very carefully

5. Identify and cultivate talent

6. Be nimble and willing to fail