Claytorial is the latest release from our little hotbed of discovery and innovation, Invoke Labs. Its mission? To make complicated things simple.

A “Claytorial” is an animated video which uses colourful clay shapes to tell a story. They are designed to be friendly and accessible to all—they can explain an idea, promote a product, debunk a myth… pretty much whatever you need them to do.

As a project manager, I think it’s inherent that we are constantly distracted by the desire to create efficiencies in our development processes. Any extra time we can buy will add value to
project and gives us more time to focus on other important details. I
want to share the most important tool, um… weapon… OK, I started
this post with the idea to discuss the most important aspect of
development process, but now I’m thinking I should have written a post
about the most useful metaphors for project managers. We love em. I
sometimes wonder if we appreciate the well-crafted metaphor more than
the desire to bring clarity to the complex situation we’re trying to
describe. Well I know I do. OK next post is about useful metaphors
for project managers. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah,
constant distractions for PM’s.

In the past ten years or so, I have worked on, or been presented with, dozens of online business ideas. From real estate to horses, hot sauce to social networking, they all share one thing in common: they started with an idea. What differs, however, is where the inspiration came from. One common formula I tend to see is the “me too - but different” syndrome. I’ll make facebook but for: fish, cats, seniors, small people, big people, beautiful people.

This list could go on forever. We’ve all done it, sat in a
brainstorming or concept meeting and had someone bust a line
you’ve never heard and in your heard you’re thinking, did he really
just say that? Either to create a metaphor that abstracts the true
meaning of the point or to draw a parallel that make people think
you’re clever. You know what? I’ve probably used one or two.

It was the little camera that got the footage of a road trip, birthday, baseball game, cat fight….60 minutes of footage, 2 double A’s and I am set to press record. The FlipCam came out with a small product, and a whole lot of heart. Offering to partner up with NPO’s garnered them great exposure and generated not only sales but a positive ripple effect within new business models. And its genius.