Woah, wait a minute – it is upon us!!

Yes, the Fall Tour of Interactive Studios is hitting our town this week. Time to pull ourselves out of turkey-coma (or tofurkey as your choice may be) and get geared up for what is shaping up to be a very fun and informative event.

This event could not happen without a lot of cooperation by some really great people, so I’d like to do a little roll-count here in case anyone is wondering how many folks get involved with something like this.

Firstly, there are the shops themselves;

Blast Radius: Angela Chow

Henderson Bas: Norma Penner

Sapient: Sonia Janovjak

Teehan + Lax: Dave Stubbs

Organic: Diane Pelligrino, Layla Jazrawy

Critical Mass: Tyler Lockyer

Grip: Jon Finkelstein

Fjord/Cossette: Jason Nussbaum

Oddly Studios: Camas Winsor

Echo Mobile: James Eberhardt

Liquid: Byron Bignell

LifeCapture: Geoff Whitlock

RMI/Pixel Gallery: Dave Giromlami, Jackie Brown

SociMedia: Sean Ramsey

….and then there are the awesome volunteers, without whom we are lost!

Emmanuel, Sheharzad, Ev, Raia, Sean, Macy, Allan, Will, Briar, Maurz, Aizick, Sabrina, Pete, Simon, Andrew, Joe, Gillian, Andy

….and lest we forget;

Big Spaceship! : Josh Hirsch, Michael Lebowitz

Aquent: Lillian Mendoza

So that’s a good 40 names or so, and frankly there are quite a few more. If I were to mention them all, I’d be at it here for quite a while. So perhaps instead I could just ask everyone who is coming to enjoy the tour to say a quick word of thanks to all these people as you meet them. They’ll really appreciate it, and they all deserve a big hand for their tireless support.

Wow, I’m getting pretty excited. Look forward to seeing everyone on Friday.

-tim.

Blast Radius is a shop I’ve known for a while, and they make a great addition to the tour.

I first came in contact with folks from Blast Radius in 2004, when they had a strong representation at FITC where they were looking to hire talent. Seems like the plan worked, because today Blast Radius is one of the most vibrant shops in Canada, and have serviced clients such as Nike, EA, Nintendo, Phillips, and many more. Blast Radius shook things up in the interactive space.

In the last year, Blast Radius was acquired by the WPP group of companies, adding international clout to their offering. In light of this, and a fresh site redesign, it looks like Blast Radius is positioned to keep shaking things up for some time to come.

Asked how they do what they do, they reply;

“We have our own brand of magic here at Blast Radius. It consists of 400 people from 25 nations and 5 religions collaborating to turn ideas into reality that sells. Our brand is a beautiful mesh of business strategy, experience, design and technology. It is an open culture that we’ve spent a lot of time to create and we invest a lot of time to nurture.”

I’m really looking forward to this particular stop on the tour.

I want to give a big shout to the good people at OneDegree.ca, particularly Rosemary, who was good enough to put a post up regarding the Fall Tour of Interactive Studios.  I’m thrilled about this because I’m a fan of the site, I find the commentary is well-written, and highly relevant to those that work the interactive industry.

Today’s article on comparison-writing should be noted by anyone with an interest in writing good copy either for sites or DM.

In other news, things are moving ahead very well for the tour, with everyone already having a good time.  Last night was the meetup for all the awesome tour volunteers, and the various studio contacts.  With the fall weather setting in, we opted to do it indoors, and over platters and pitchers at Tortilla Flats (an Oddly Studios favorite) we hammered out all the remaining details of the schedule.

A finer group of people I could not expect to work with.  Attentive to detail, and good-humoured one and all, I expect this year’s event is going to be a great success.  Each of them comes from interesting and unique backgrounds and have a particular skill related to interactive media.  For anyone enrolled on the tour, feel free to pick their brains during travel between studios – it’s one of the most fun things about the event.

Taxi is one of the new additions to the Fall Tour this year, and I could not be happier about it.

(UPDATE: Taxi is unable to participate this year, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control.  Look for them next year!)

As an independant shop, Taxi is not a member of the six major multi-nationals with offices in Toronto. In fact quite the opposite – they’re Toronto-based, with offices in New York. This makes them quite unique, and it shows in the amount of hardware they pick up at awards shows, along with the press they recieve in Strategy, Ad-news, and Marketing magazine.

Perhaps the most interesting recent event at Taxi was the bringing home of a Gold cyber-lion from Cannes for their work on Mini’s “Mini-malism” campaign, a collaborative effort with Pixel Pusher (another great Toronto based shop).

So what’s with the name?? Well, the philosophy is simple – the best teams can fit inside of one cab. Small, agile, modular describes the approach at Taxi. That’s why you’ll find both “Taxi” and “Taxi2″ in Toronto.

-t.