D.O.G. decided to sit down and spend some quality time with his amazing sister and see if  she had any words of wisdom to share with The readers of Robot Salmon.

D.O.G : Can you briefly describe your work and what you do?

Jessica Stockholder: I explore the relationship between picture making and three dimensional material. Towards this end I explore the phenomenal experience of color next to its evocative potential. In relation to the materials I use I am interested in the myriad of ways they can be understood – in the gap between the words we hang on them and how they fill up space. I create sites for me and my audience’s to reify internal experience.

D.O.G : The one thing all creatives have in common is that in order to become successful you have to become an expert at self marketing. Do you have any tips for getting yourself out there and seen?

Jessica Stockholder: Know what you care about and take advantage of opportunity. Be aware that in some cases you have the power to alter situations to suit you – to let the world know what you have to offer.

D.O.G : Unlike many contemporary artists,  you seem less interested in creating an elaborate story with your work. Designers are also always trying to achieve visual coolness over whatever conceptual problem the are charged with solving. Can you shed some light on your process? Where do you start? How do decide when you are finished? What is the goal of your art?

Jessica Stockholder: I am not interested in story telling in my work – though I do love stories! I’m more interested in how form is meaningful in relationship to how and why we live than I am in coolness. Though on those rare occasions that I manage to be cool it’s not so bad!

My process – I start with ideas and things lying around the studio, or spaces I’ve been offered to work in. I try to have some bit of fantasy idea I have laced together with things in the world. I’m finished when the work oscillates between stasis and motion – in terms of the eye and the brain.

The goal is to make sense of life.

D.O.G: Any advice for up and coming social media people? How do you separate  yourself from the hacks?

Kris Krug: I think the one thing that is missed in the whole popularity of it all is that it really comes down to producing rad content all the time. Whether it is myself or Rebecca Bollwitt or Dave Olson, you look at these guys and the stuff they publish is awesome, it provides a service to the community, it’s deep, it’s not superficial, there’s solid leadership represented there. It’s great stuff. And then they go back and do it again tomorrow and they do it again the next day.

D.O.G: So it is all about content?

Kris Krug: Well I think that is huge part of it. And from there you can start to layer stuff on top of it. So, I am a big fan of identifying heroes and then reaching out to the them by following them. I can say hey Gillian Shaw, digital life reporter for the vancouver sun, I love your work, here is my work, check me out. I mean that is the cool part of the social media revolution, the dis-inter-mediation of the communications realm.

You can just talk to people. You can just look up the New york times digital life reporter guy and pitch him on your stuff. You can pitch him right there. He is going to see it and you know it. Before you might have had to work to get that foot in the door. If you are publishing awesome stuff and you reach out to these people, you are going to find that you are met with quick success.

D.O.G: So it is really about being social and being out there more than anything else?

Kris Krug: yeah yeah, but you have to do it on top of this platform. This platform of awesomeness. whether it be awesome photos, cool Canadian stories like Rebecca Bollwitt, or old timey wanderings that Dave Olson does. These are deep, unique, and awesome perspectives. If you have that, you are set.

Where it falls down and you look like an ass is when you are the guy tweeting about twitter, or the guy blogging about blogging. Those are the nightmare scenarios. Don’t be that guy. If your talking about differentiation, about how to separate yourself. Don’t be that guy. It sounds cheesy, but you should write about stuff you are passionate about.

For example, I am out at New York Fashion week, I am following the Olympic games and I am shooting photos every day. Give yourself some fuel for the engine that is Social Media.

D.O.G: So how can we turn all of this awesomeness into profits?

Kris Krug: So, the social media approach to things acknowledges that markets are conversations. People my age and your age can smell advertising and marketing coming a mile away. So if you start using these channels to throw marketing and advertising up on them you will fail. You will actually lose credibility instead of gaining it and it will backfire. The whole popularity of this stuff is a response to people not wanting to be marketed too and working around marketing.

The whole point of it is that it is authentic. It’s people to people communication. So ways that it can be used effectively are when you see people using it effectively for customer service and support. Like last week a buddy of mine was bitching about the service he got at fido mobile and so he tweeted about it and someone responded from the fido twitter account and helped him on twitter.
I think that is great example managing public relations using social media and also strengthening the fido brand by creating stories like that.
I think the way to monetize this social media stuff is not through talking marketing speak; it is using it as tool to actually talk to, and engage with customers. You obviously can’t use social media to engage with every customer one to one but you can pick out customers with good questions to answer. They say that if one person in a room asks a question there is a good chance that other people in that room are wondering the same thing. It is the same with social media. If Gregor Robinson, the mayor of Vancouver, is using twitter to respond to his constituents, he can’t respond to all of his constituents. But if he can notice some trends, or some issues bubbling up, people talking about the same stuff and then respond one person about one of those issues, that is a real deep engagement, that’s priceless

D.O.G: What tips do you have for “making it” as a successful freelancer?

Kris Krug: I think it’s really, really important to just get out there. That means going to networking events, keeping you ear to the ground and showing up with enthusiasm. I say yes to a lot of stuff. I am always keen to take on new things, and try new stuff. I’ll say yes to jobs that maybe don’t pay the best rate or whatever. I am also, constantly scanning for those great jobs. But, you are never going to get those great jobs unless you are constantly out there doing it. Unless you are out there getting stuff published and getting people to talk about your work.

Get your work out there into the wild. I use a creative commons license to publish my work, which allows artists and other non profits to use my work for free with credit. And it gets my work out there and seen all the time. For instance, my photo is the front page of the Dalai lama’s website. My photo is the front page Eckart Tolle’s Website. Both of those people are using my photos for free with credit. But it gives me huge notoriety. and their linking back to me.

D.O.G: My mom would cry if  one of my photos was on the front page of Eckart Tolle’s Website.

Kris Krug: Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha ha….. and the flip side of that is that every time the Dalai Lama links to me and Eckart Tolle links to me I become easier to find using search engines.
So if you search for Vancouver Photography, Vancouver photographer, or any similar combination of those words you will find that I am the number one hit that comes up on Google. The idea there is by giving away my work to non-profits, creatives, artists, and other people to use and encouraging them to link back to me I am ensuring that I am the top hit on Google for those key words. It helps with getting my work out there and bringing notoriety, and it helps to get me great search placement on google.

Google says they will cease to support Internet Explorer 6 for all of their online applications starting March 1st.

Web Professionals are collectively shedding a single tear of joy.  IE 6 is generally excepted as the worst browser in current use.  It is the only browser to ever to have multiple Facebook groups calling for its demise. The wikipedia page for IE 6 describes it like this:

“This version of Internet Explorer is widely derided for its security issues and lack of support for modern web standards, making frequent appearances in “worst tech products of all time” lists, with some publications labeling it as the “least secure software on the planet.” Campaigns have been established in order to encourage users to upgrade to newer versions of Internet Explorer or switch to different browsers, and some websites have dropped support for IE6 entirely.”

If Google is successful in removing IE 6 from use they will have firmly established themselves as rulers of the Internet. This is huge news for two reasons:

One, It is going to cut web development time significantly and, two, it is the first time Google has used its power for evil as opposed to good.

Google is known for sharing knowledge, giving away software, and collaboration. They are not known for their ruthless ability to destroy demand for certain products with a single policy decision.

Why wouldn’t Google want to destroy IE 6?  Just last month Microsoft admitted that it was flaws in IE 6 that made the recent Chinese based security breaches possible.

Furthermore, Google has positioned themselves as a direct competitor to IE 6 ever since they launched Chrome – Google’s in house browser. Currently IE commands 63 percent of the general Internet browsing market and 73 percent of the business market. Leading a boycott against IE not only makes good sense within the world of web development, it is also a smart business move for Google.

Firebug is a software plugin that can be added onto Firefox as tool for debugging websites. Ever since I started designing websites I have been forced to use Firefox for debugging all of my work, which was not a horrible fate. Firefox is a perfectly fine browser and there are tons of great plugins available for Firefox to improve all different kinds of workflows. Firefox also keeps up to date with current web standards and encourages users to update their browser software on regular basis. Furthermore, the anarchist in me loves the fact that Firefox is open source.

However, I am a Mac user and Safari is significantly faster on my machine. PC Adviser claims that Safari is 38 percent faster than Firefox. Safari also renders websites at a much higher resolution. So, understandably, I was thrilled when I found out I could have my cake and eat it too. Firebug Lite allows users to use the Firebug plugin with any available browser.

Here is how it works:

1. Place the code below in the head of any web project that  you are working on.

<script  type=”text/javascript”src=”http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js></script>

2. Make sure your computer is connected to the Internet

3. Load your web project into the browser of your choice

4. Bam!!!! Check that out!!! Firebug!!!

That is it. Easy as pie.

The strange Part of this story is that if Apple is using Flash technology you would think that Adobe would know about it. However, judging from the public feud between Adobe and Apple one can safely assume that Adobe does not know about any future efforts to make the iPhone and the iPad Flash compatible. Is Apple using illegal Flash Technology?

Below is an exerpt from  Adobe executive Adrian Ludwig’s company web blog:

“It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple’s DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers.  And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

If I want to use the iPad to connect toDisney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab — not to mention the millions of other sites on the web — I’ll be out of luck.”

It goes some thing like this:

“YES I KNOW IT WILL BE COOL!!! AND YES I KNOW WHEN IT WILL BE RELEASED TO THE EXACT MINUTE!! THANKS TO YOU THAT DATE IS BURNED INTO MY PSYCHE FOR THE REST OF MY NATURAL LIFE!!! PLEASE JUST LET ME READ MY BOOK IN PEACE!!! YOU KNOW WHAT A BOOK IS DON’T YOU?!! THAT THING MADE OUT OF PAPER…..AND NO, CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF STEVE JOBS DID NOT INVENT IT. THAT’S RIGHT, ITS AN INVENTION THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STEVE JOBS…

The iPad ad campaign was some of the most exciting word of mouth marketing in history (By the way, seriously? iPad? who the hell at apple thought it was a good idea to name the device an iPad? Maybe Apple is trying to market a new mobile tampon app.) Leaked, “rumors”, about the device have been floating around cyber-space for a year and a half. I am not sure if Apple did any studies, but it seems like a year and a half is the perfect amount of time to get every crazed Apple fan boy ( which there are many ) into such a frenzy about the release of the iPad that today has been hailed by many as nerd Superbowl.

One person riding on the 22 MacDonald bus in Vancouver this morning lamented at great length that he was probably not going to get any work done today because of the iPad release. He cursed Apple for not publishing the details of the Pad on the weekend when he would actually have the time to spend all day fantasizing about holding one IRL ( in real life.)

More surprisingly, Classes in the Interactive Design Department at Capilano University were partially suspended today so that both teachers and students could watch the new promotional video Apple has produced describing the functionality of the Pad.

The excitement level is high. However, it is still unclear whether or not this device will be useful or be a successful product. Stay tuned for next weeks blog. D.O.G will interview fellow interactive design students about their thoughts and feelings about the new Apple product.