Last year at this time, I wrote a post entitled If you want a Job at Odopod, go to RIT.

A year later, I’m just back from my third trip to the Rochester Institute of Technology for Creativity: Careers in Motion and everything I wrote in that post still stands.

I was attending and speaking at the event. It’s a forum for students in RIT’s new media program to meet prospective employers and get feedback on their portfolios. Although it’s not billed as such, for almost everyone attending it’s a recruiting event.

The reality is that it’s a feeding frenzy.

From my perspective, it’s fascinating. Imagine a gymnasium full of representatives from the best new media companies in the world, as well as some big ad agencies and PR firms — all sitting at identical folding tables, all feverish to recruit RIT’s latest group of new media graduates. Many of these companies were making offers on the spot. Some even arrived a day early to meet with, and try to scoop the top students.

That’s because RIT is producing the best new media talent in the world.

As I described in last year’s post, the students graduate with a focus either on design or development. The program is designed to have them work both independently as well as in teams, very much as they will when they come to Odopod.

As a result, almost all the students are remarkably well rounded — many of them with abilities in both design and development. I can also tell you from past hires that the rigor and intensity of the program teaches them the value of hard work and independent initiative.

They emerge from RIT with the skills to do exceptionally well in a challenging and fast-paced company like Odopod.

My only lament is that there aren’t more of them graduating, either from RIT or other schools in the US. We need more RIT graduates and more schools producing graduates of their caliber.

Thanks to a recent AdAge survey on the origins of the more unique agency names, we're finally revealing the untold story of how we came to be called, Odopod.

"When we started Odopod we wanted to create a company with the ideas and resources to execute big and the metabolism and culture to behave small," said Founder and Creative Director Tim Barber. So when it came to naming the company we combined two pieces that got at this big/small idea.

And Pod [because] at the same time we liked that we were a compact team that grew ideas, like a pod -- the compact, protective enclosure of a seed. For the record, Steve Jobs stole our thunder a year later when the iPod launched."

So there you have it.

The SF Business Times recently paid a visit to our offices for an in-depth look at the state of Odopod, our history and the future. Check out the excerpt below...

The San Francisco Business Times
March 11, 2011
Odopod Gets Bounce off Digital Work
By Bridget Riley

Ad firm's bigger footprint comes from new focus

Odopod Inc. couldn’t have picked a worse time to open a business in 2001’s bust, or to expand into a new specialty in 2008’s uncertainty. But the digital agency’s three founders also couldn’t have picked a better field to flourish in the worst of business climates.

That investment of several hundred thousand dollars in 2008 into digital strategy cinched Odopod’s place among competitors worldwide. Recent clients won on this new global scale include International Watch Co. in Switzerland. The company bounced back after just one down year from the recession in 2009, and grew more than 30 percent from 2008.

Read more: Odopod gets bounce off digital work | San Francisco Business Times »

Everyday at Odopod, we're challenged with a huge spectrum of client needs. We get to dive deep into their businesses and create innovative work for some amazing brands. But there are some ideas that we just don't get to make. Some skills that we just don't get to use. So we decided to turn inward, develop our own ideas and make things.

For two glorious days, Odopod shut down to work exclusively on projects of our own devising - and for those 48 hours, it was all invention...

Here's how it all went down:

A few weeks before Hack Days we put out a call for project submissions to our entire studio with only one rule: describe your idea in less than 100 words. At the end of the call, we selected eight projects to prototype.

We split up into small teams comprised of all disciplines - everyone participated, bringing a unique set of skills to the table. People soldered and sketched, filmed and photographed, coded and glued. There were acts of physical computing, drafts of architectural plans, and a ton of work we don't see everyday.

It was hard work, but well worth it. Here's a quick overview of the prototypes we created:

More after the jump »

Tonight we're celebrating 10 years of amazing work, clients, partners and friends with a semi-respectable night of debauchery. We're looking forward to kicking back with all of our favorite people who have helped shape the last 10 incredible years. Here's to another decade of fine work to come.

Lynda.com came to Odopod to get some insider information on our approach to the key business problems that many of us face in creative and design industries. They spoke with innovative thinkers from large companies like Google, Apple, and Adobe and small shops like Odopod. With these interviews, Lynda.com has developed the upcoming course, Pitching Projects and Products to Executives.

Over the next few weeks, they will be releasing short previews of the series. Today's release features our very own Founder and Creative Director Tim Barber discussing, "How do you sell yourself?" Check it out.

Find our more here »

Our friends over at The FWA recently interviewed the brilliant Jacquie Moss, Odopod Founder and Digital Strategist. Check it out.

By Rob Ford, The FWA
November 01, 2010

Please give us a brief bio of yourself.
It was in architecture school in the early 90s that I became interested in interactive design and began collaborating with fellow Odopod founders, Tim Barber and David Bliss. Similar to architecture, interactive design appeals to my predominant traits – artistic, organized, introverted (yet social) and technical.

My first job in interactive was at Human Code (Austin). It was the heyday of CD-ROM development. We were a young, enthusiastic, hard-working bunch dedicated to creating “edutainment” products for clients like the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Hasbro and Mattel. I loved the work, and I especially loved the people with whom I worked.

Meanwhile, Tim and David had started Circumstance Design (San Francisco) and were creating a massive digital production for James Cameron’s Titanic. In 1998, I headed west to join Circumstance and help lead subsequent titles for Fox Interactive, like a King of the Hill game.

Circumstance was acquired by Rare Medium. Tim, Dave and I left to start Odopod in late 2000. The bubble burst. We endured. In the last ten years, Odopod has grown slowly and carefully from us three to now 50-something.

Read More »

In the spirit of making things, we're closing up our doors this Thursday and Friday to work on Odopod Hack Day projects. These are the projects and ideas that we've always wanted to create. For two days, we'll do what we want. No clients. No messing around - and in the next few weeks we'll share the results...

We may not have been champions of the 2010 Design Dodgeball Tournament against the likes of IDEO, Frog, Method, fuseproject and others... but at least we had style. If you're good at dodgeball, consider working here. We're recruiting.

Tim Barber is a founder and the executive creative director at Odopod in San Francisco. For the past 15 years, he has practiced his craft—creating entertaining and meaningful experiences for people using new technology platforms. He draws on a unique combination of technical insight, entrepreneurial spirit and a knack for storytelling. Tim leads work for the UFC, Sony, PlayStation, Nike, MTV and Google.

You can follow him on Twitter but first, read our Egotist Briefs interview with him where he talks about creative trends, creative culture and what he looks for in the people he hires.

Creatively, how’s San Francisco doing these days?
Something weird is happening in San Francisco.

For quite a long time, it’s been home to a lot of inventive, world-changing companies — phenomenal ad agencies, graphic design studios, industrial design companies, and technology companies. And now the fences between all these creative people are being dismantled — agencies are creating apps, start-ups are inventing media properties, and big brands are learning to behave like tech startups.

When the rules change like this, it creates a huge amount of tumultuous, inventive energy.

I really enjoy it. The tumult plays to our strengths. Since we started, Odopod has had one foot in the advertising world and the other in the software world. We work comfortably on big campaigns and big applications – doing our best when they come together.

After 10 years, we’re no longer an anomaly.

Now, we’re refining the model. We want to create the equivalent of IDEO for the digital age — a company that can reveal unique insights and then martial design and technology to act on them. We want to improve the way brands and businesses operate, especially how they connect with people who use their products.

Read the full article »