Agentic works with social change organizations to develop creative digital solutions.

Digital Engagement and why you should care

The digital world has impacted every area of our lives, and design is no different. Imagining design today without digital tools seems impossible to consider. From computers to the software running on them, much of our work is tied to the computer. While we work on illustration and life drawing...

Creative BC Spotlight Story

Creative BC Spotlight Story

“Creative courage for me is about having the right partnerships—it’s a powerful way to inspire creativity so that we can be courageous together.” Article excerpted from 2015/2016 Impact Report from Creative BC. Phillip Djwa has always had an issue with fairness. From a very young age, he noticed things happening in...

Optimizing Your Campaigns

Optimizing Your Campaigns

There is an exciting change happening in the world of web design and it’s impacting the relationships people have with their websites. Clients no longer think about their websites as an online space to “design and dump” information. It used to be the case that organizations would launch a website...

Track Your Digital Media Projects Like A Pro

Track Your Digital Media Projects Like A Pro

In our last blog post about our process for optimizing websites, I mentioned some of the tools we use to measure metrics. In this post, I will go into more detail about these tools. (Note: This won’t cover all of the testing tools we use in a full cycle of...

Planning Stakeholder Engagement, Part 3: Interpreting Your Results

Planning Stakeholder Engagement, Part 3: Interpreting Your Results

Considering the results from your stakeholder engagement sessions is perhaps the most tricky part of this process for my clients. We can cover a lot of ground in a short time during facilitation sessions, which are key to the Deep Listening phase of our methodology. People can give a lot of feedback...

Planning Stakeholder Engagement Part 2: How to Run your Facilitation

Planning Stakeholder Engagement Part 2: How to Run your Facilitation

n my previous blog posting, I talked about the high level things to consider when planning stakeholder engagement as part of our Deep Listening. Deep Listening is crucial to understanding behaviour and motivation. Planning these facilitations leads up to actually running them. In this posting, I’ll talk about the things...

Making Creative Digital Media Campaigns

Making Creative Digital Media Campaigns

It is increasingly clear that non-profits struggle to attract attention to their causes. Despite the web having unparalleled reach and efficiency, it has actually become harder at times to get your message heard by constituents and followers. Why has the cost of acquisition for new members and supporters increased (sometimes...

Planning Stakeholder Engagement, Part 1: Getting Started

Planning Stakeholder Engagement, Part 1: Getting Started

I love facilitating gatherings for stakeholder engagement. It’s a key part of the Deep Listening phase in our methodology. When we talk about Deep Listening, it really means understanding what internal and external stakeholders are thinking about. Stakeholder engagement is a very necessary part of our methodology of Deep Listening....

The Mysterious World of Developers: Version Control

The Mysterious World of Developers: Version Control

Have you ever heard developers using terms like “Git,” “SVN,” “revision control,” “version control,” or “repo,” and wondered what they were talking about? If you’re hearing these words, it’s usually a good thing. The processes they’re talking about in those mysterious terms save time and money by allowing developers to...

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How to Kiss Your Competitive Edge Goodbye

How to Kiss Your Competitive Edge Goodbye

No matter what business you’re in, there will always be someone who comes along claiming to do the same thing, but better. We posted an article a while back, called Using Customer Personas to Develop a Competitive Edge, looking at how to build websites based on the nuanced goals of...

The Age of Engagement: Youth Online

The Age of Engagement: Youth Online

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend time with my teenage children and some of their friends. We were watching TV, but of course everyone had their phone and there was a constant conversation back and forth about various facts gleaned from movie database IMDb and the general playing of...

Getting Recognized for Passion and Creativity

Getting Recognized for Passion and Creativity

At Agentic, we’re privileged to continually work with truly talented and creative people. With these people, we work hard and strive to continue to push the innovative envelope. Well, we’re proud to announce that some of our collaborative hard work has been recognized and that we’ve won some awards! Most...

Planning Your Project: Thinking About What Can Go Wrong

Planning Your Project: Thinking About What Can Go Wrong

Premortems Are Vital to Our Process Talking about risk with new clients isn’t always glamorous – but neither is collecting the broken pieces of a failed project. When taking on a project of any scale, failure is always a possibility, but it’s one that we work hard to avoid. Risk...

How to Rock Your First Year as a Web Designer

How to Rock Your First Year as a Web Designer

With the constant growth in the New Media and Web development industry, it seems that many post secondary institutions are in a race to offer the quickest digital skills training programs that they can. “One year to gain certification in web design” sounds fantastic, and nine months sounds even better...

The Age of Engagement: The Tech Divide

The Age of Engagement: The Tech Divide

Jenna* has been in foster care since she was 9 years old. She’ll be turning 18 next month, and as she sits cross-legged, listening to her boyfriend talk about his experience aging out of care, her eyes are glued below the edge of the meeting table. She’s texting. She has...

Stay Relevant in Your Career: Sharpen Skills to Maximize Potential

Stay Relevant in Your Career: Sharpen Skills to Maximize Potential

Your career is important to you, but are you working toward staying relevant in your industry? The key to staying ahead of the curve is accessing the resources available at your fingertips. Technology is king and if you want to thrive, direct your focus toward honing essential skills to gain...

Drupal vs. WordPress – What’s Best for Me?

Drupal vs. WordPress – What’s Best for Me?

What is a CMS anyhow? Both WordPress and Drupal are Content Management Systems (or CMS for short). A CMS is online software that allows non-technical people to manage a website and edit its content (this means text, images, graphics, calendars). Ease of Installation:WordPress is easier to install. WordPress is effective...

2015 in Review

2015 in Review

It’s been another great year for the team at Agentic. We launched many projects, won a number of awards, spoke at several conferences and Phillip even managed to sneak in a month-long sabbatical. One project we launched that we are most proud of is AgedOut.com. This was one of the...

2014 Visual Trends

2014 Visual Trends

Here’s a great image that makes sense of the Top Visual Design Trends for 2014, courtesy of iStock. I think it’s bang on. I’m even interested to note the multiracial faces emerging more as well as creative collaboration. Author: Phillip Djwa

Using Customer Personas to Develop a Competitive Edge

Using Customer Personas to Develop a Competitive Edge

Looking to understand how human beings impact website design? It’s something we do every day. Make sure to leave us a comment if you like this article. Here’s a quote from Dorie Clark’s article on “Using Customer Personas to Develop a Competitive Edge”: It’s human nature: When we design products,...

Making Digital Sexy Part 2

Making Digital Sexy Part 2

(This is a continuation of my previous blog post if you want to read the first part, Making Digital Sexy Part 1) Well, OK, you say, but how else can you get buy-in? One way to think about it is to realize that you have to take a longer run...

Transmedia Reflections

As the transmedia experience is overtaking the entertainment, advertising and non-for-profit world, educators are re-thinking how to guide students in the skills of storytelling. Recently, I’ve been asked to present my take on the latest media buzzword at several conferences and university panels. I start by asking my audience, often...

Impact Producing

Impact Producing

Agentic sponsored the VIFF Impact Award with Story Money Impact. This year’s winner was “Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story” from filmmakers Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustemeyer. If it’s not apparent, we believe that storytelling can be a powerful agent of change. Despite being hit every day with provocative...

Katherine Dodds on Mobilizing Audiences