Douglas Clement did a nice job of capturing my history in this interview – and thanks to Laurie Gaboardi for a nice photo as well.

Posted via email from Kevin Sprague

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Just wrapped up shooting Othello at Shakespeare & Company and I have to say, this is Shakespeare done right. Everything was so clear – I was never lost. Watching Michael Hammond as Iago slowly and cunningly playing John Thompson as Othello into his trap was stunning, subtle and true. No frills, no distractions. Just language, action, meaning in words. Terrific. Tony Simotes as director is kicking it in.

Go. Get your tickets here. Do not make excuses.

Overview
The client is a leading provider of hardware and software encryption and data security systems – primarily focused on high-end corporate clients and national government agencies. Their software architecture team (lead by Kevin’s brother, Michael) developed an ancillary product that allows for high-level encryption and data management to occur on public social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Challenge
The team approached Kevin and Studio Two to provide accelerated naming, branding and overall message and marketing strategy to this lean start-up. There were multiple players in the room with overlapping understandings of the market and reach of this new and untested concept. The time to launch was relatively short – a solution had to be found that would hold up against a trademark search, domain name availability, and captured the core concepts.

Solution
Kevin lead two naming and messaging sessions with the client – the first session revealed the core mission statement, the second resulted in an ideal candidate for the product and corporate name. The process was successful in part because Kevin broke down the semantic structure of the desired product – resulting in a word that manages to hit the right note between being an entity, as well as an action and a value. Scrambls has launched in Beta and hopefully will find traction with the market in the year to come.

Overview

On the cusp of their 50th Anniversary, Hancock Shaker Village, a National Historic Landmark and a leading museum of Shaker history and thinking, set out to transform their mission and role for the 21st century by dedicating themselves to making the community a vital organization. They asked Kevin and his team at Studio Two to work with them to bring the brand into alignment with their values and vision, and collaborate on that expression across all their media and internet presence.

Challenge

The village comprises a significant community of stakeholders and a broad, diverse constituency. Layered on that is a long, stable history and an appropriate conservatism among staff, administration and board of trustees. An inclusive, sensitive approach to shaping a design that honored these values but pushed the envelope was pursued.

Solution

Kevin engaged the stakeholders in multiple vision and values workshops. He listened, queried, and engaged the community in a dialogue about the institution – its history and its future. He embraced the controversies, the conflicting points of view, and recorded what he saw. His solution emerged during the design process as an expression of the graphic and typographic heritage of the Shakers balanced with an emboldened yin/yang element that highlights their most significant icon – the round barn, while lending it new meaning as a place of learning and sustainability.

Here’s a note I just sent to an new project inquiry – a potential customer seeking to create a national-class ad-revenue content website around a particular niche topic. I applaud his entrepreneurial spirit, but I really need people to do their homework – this is 2012 – you don’t create a money-making website today by hiring a designer or developer and spending a lot of capital on an intricately-designed customized site. You do it by having something to say, being willing to get your hands dirty by learning the available, free and public tools of contemporary publishing, and by DOING. We love designing websites and brands – good design is the foundation for good product. But just as in manufacturing or media enterprise, no amount of design, marketing and branding will make up for the absence of a legitimate, quality product. Shutting myself out of a great opportunity? Maybe – but you can’t do business in China without at least getting a little fluency in the language, manners, and culture. You can’t do business on the web without also putting yourself into the environment and learning the language. It’s a fundamental truth and I wouldn’t be an honest person if I didn’t point that out….. read on. >>>>>>

Dear Fred

Thanks for the note. I have reviewed your comprehensive document.

Here’s the skinny. Fundamentally what you seek to do (technically) is pretty simple – it’s a blog – there are many examples of very successful, monetized blogs out there (boingboing.net, huffington post, salon.com, etc) – All of these entities have found a voice and an audience within their sphere of interest that is substantial enough to generate revenue from an advertising-driven model. All of them also got traction in the earliest blush of the internet. Today’s web is a different story.

We don’t currently manage a lot of ad-driven sites – our focus is primarily on the role that the web has to drive our client’s brands and the overall strategic approach to integrating evolving social media and public tools towards generating traffic and creating customers. The sites we build measure success in hundreds or thousands of visitors. In order to begin to monetize a site like you describe requires 100′s of thousands to millions of visitors monthly. In this day and age of the web, aggregating those kinds of eyeballs requires intense technical and creative engagement, as well as significant capital investment. I often tell people to imagine what it would cost to open a national chain of retail stores and use that $$ financial model to understand that the web is little different. It’s a pay-to-play environment now to a large degree.

We would be happy to help you with this but I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that the best thing you can do is fire up a wordpress blog tomorrow, a facebook page and a twitter account and start doing the work of publishing and broadcasting content. Design is mostly irrelevant in this space. Choose a template that works for you and go – the doing is all. No advertiser or sponsor will touch you until you have some metrics to show them – anayltics results, facebook fans, twitter followers, etc. Working with a web developer at this point is actually likely the worst thing you can do – you will need to have native fluency in the tools – which frankly is easy to come by – a couple of days of frustration and you can master all of these. Without core fluency, a developer or agency will just be taking your money.

I am sure you will encounter many experts who tell you otherwise, and that you should focus on developing your brand, your design, and getting everything perfect before “launch”. They are wrong. The web is about you publishing today, not 6 months from now, and discovering that everything you want to do in your business plan is literally a couple of clicks away.

We’re the wrong agency to work with on this – you need to look at federated media properties – the people behind the largest independent ad-driven sites in the world: http://www.federatedmedia.net/

Take a look at their stable of publications and you will see what state of the art is – blogging like your life depends on it every hour of every day.

Thanks for the inquiry.
Kevin

Overview:

In 2006 Kevin Sprague joined other area leaders in crafting the “Report on the Creative Economy” for Berkshire County of Western MA as part of a larger “Berkshire Blueprint” on regional economic conditions and development initiatives. The Creative Economy Council grew to encompass over 60 individuals representing an economic sector in the region that employed over 6,500 workers.

Challenge

The idea of a “Creative Economy” was a good fit for the culture-rich Berkshire region, but it had no framework for existing or coalescing. Kevin worked extensively with the volunteer communications and media committee and the small staff of the newly-formed entity “Berkshire Creative” to forge an outreach strategy to allow for effective and low-cost community building to occur.

Solution

Utilizing a mix of open-source, web 2.0 friendly tools, Kevin crafted an integrated network of communications tools, including a wordpress-powered blog and CMS, facebook and twitter integration, e-blast tools and subscription management, and a cultural framework that allowed for participation, speed to market, and flexibility across all the systems.

Results

In a few short years, Berkshire Creative has grown to an organization with thousands of rich connections that it can tap quickly and inexpensively. The organization has outstripped other regional economic development movements to become a leader in how agencies communicate with their constituents in dynamic, effective and efficient ways. Presently, Berkshire Creative is being called on by other regions throughout the nation to consult on their practices and techniques as a model.

Overview:

Located in Stockbridge, MA, the Norman Rockwell Museum is a dynamic institution that not only preserves and interprets the works of Norman Rockwell for a worldwide audience through travelling and permanent exhibitions, but also seeks to become the curatorial and research center of the history of American Illustration. Kevin Sprague was hired for a 12 month consultancy focused on transforming the institution’s relationship to the internet.

Challenge

The museum was stuck in a legacy of outdated protocols, systems and perspectives. As a result, this otherwise active organization found itself unable to engage the wider world through the internet effectively. It was clearly not a case of technology but of culture and fluency. Kevin’s task was to change this culture and create a new one that was capable and enthusiastic about engaging with the broader world.

Solution

Primary to his solution was introducing and advocating a new belief system:
• Create simple, user-focused and accessible systems
• Free up access to technical advice, education and support
• Create a culture of expression
• Allow for mistakes and exploration
• Internet fluency is a core value of the organization

Results

From a point of being virtually mute on the web, the Rockwell Museum is now a leader in how museums engage the internet to promote their mission, programming and community connection.

Overview:

In 1994 Kevin began working with leading regional theatre organization Shakespeare & Company. In the ensuing years, working with multiple marketing directors, executive directors and development staff, Kevin has nurtured and developed every aspect of the Company’s brand and communications.

Challenge

Maintaining consistent, year-round communications for the Company through the vicious economic cycles of the last 2 decades has presented myriad challenges. Ambitious goals for audience development, product sales and visibility have been in stark contrast to available funds and client committment.

Solution

Consistency of message, economy of media, and solid foundation elements have been the core of Kevin’s strategy for the Company over the years. Through a rigorous process of building solid architecture and workflows from the beginning, the execution of the program has been efficient and effective. The core architecture of the MySQL database underlying the Company’s website has gone virtually unchanged in over a decade since it was built, allowing for significant redesigns of the overall site to occur annually without having to commit to a costly rebuild. Strict management of graphic standards and overall brand expression have lead to the development of quick approval process and a high level of quality control.

Results

In 1994, Shakespeare & Company was a summer-festival of 6-8 weeks, with a tiny year-round staff and no permanent home. Today, the Company performs all 12 months, reaches tens of thousand of high-school age audience members through its education programs, has established itself as a leading voice in the performance of Shakespeare’s plays, has a full-time staff of around 40, and manages a multi-million dollar budget. The Company’s productions are seen by over 40,000 audience members each year and are regularly reviewed in national media.