by Jeff Koss, VP Client Services

Schematic’s New York office recently developed an animated :30 spot for Fountain House, a professional self-help program for men and women recovering from mental illness. Fountain House, founded in 1948 and located on West 47th Street, pioneered the “clubhouse” model, which is recognized worldwide as one of the most successful models for rehabilitation.

To honor Fountain House’s 60th anniversary, Panasonic donated time on its AstroVision billboard. The video will run twice an hour throughout June at :19 and :48 minutes after the hour. For you non-New Yorkers, check it out on the Times Square Cam. . . and look for the Schematic logo in the lower left corner.

Here’s some more info on who will be speaking at the Schematic-sponsored “iDMAa at Digital Hollywood” networking/information workshop coming up May 5. Complete program info: iDMAa at Digital Hollywood program.

10.00–10.15: Introduction to the day, agenda review with Co-Chairs Dave Ferguson, Tim Langdell and Schematic’s Chief Strategy Officer–Kurt Kratchman

10.15-10.45: User Experience Design, the fastest growing segment of interactive development: Ann Supawanich, VP of User Experience, Schematic

10.50-11.30: Adaptable Interfaces: Jon Ruppel, Director of the Advanced Interaction Group, Schematic, and Mat Rappaport, Multimedia Artist and Professor of Television and Media Arts, Columbia College, Chicago

11.35-12.15: The New Entrepreneur–The back-story: Christian Lander, author of the blog StuffWhitePeopleLike.wordpress.com

1.00-1.30: “What we got here is… failure to educate” — How colleges are failing to train the next generation of media makers: Michael Niederman, Chair of Columbia Colleges School of Television

1.30-2.00: The symbiotic relationship between content and promotion: the effects of commerce on interface design for content delivery systems: Jason Brush, UCLA Film School Professor and Schematic Visionary and Researcher

2.00-2.30: Mobile media and its impact on social change: Scott Shamp, Director of University of Georgia’s Institute of New Media

2.30-3.00: Policy and innovations: mobile technology: Michael Kleeman, Senior Fellow at IGCC, Homeland Security Educator, and Wireless Expert

3.00-3.45: Where the next big game technology will come from: Tim Langdell, Game Developer and Professor of Video Games in the Department of Media at National University Architecture

3.45-4.15: Metamorphic architecture: Miles Kemp, Designer and User Experience Leader at Schematic

4.15-5.00: What makes a great consultant and how to build your career as one: Andrew Solmssen, GM and EVP, Schematic, AND Being a Consultant while Being a Student: Glenn Platt, President of iDMAa

5.00: Closing remarks, Kurt Kratchman

Get the word out–this is going to be an amazing event and we’d love to see it at capacity!

Schematic Chief Creative Officer Dale Herigstad is slated to speak April 23 at MediaPost’s Digital Out-of-Home Forum in New York City.  Held at the Yale Club, the forum will focus on digital OOH, which, according to MediaPost, is the fastest growing medium since the Internet, with an annual draw of $2-3 billion.

Dale will appear on a panel called “Going Public: How Does OOH Video Alter the Consumer Experience?”.

More info here.

Boing Boing–one of the most influential group blogs on the Web–has a nice write-up about the new South Park site, including a quick interview with South Park creator Matt Stone. Editor Xeni Jardin makes much of the site’s video streaming capabilities and kindly points out that the life-saving (well, to fans, anyhow) site was created by Schematic.

Read it all here.

South Park fans rejoice: we’ve just launched the official South Park website. Schematic worked closely with Comedy Central and the South Park team to design and develop the site, which features full episodes of every single South Park episode and a ton of other great features, including a lively community area, clip syndication and a section mysteriously called “Crap.”

The home page’s adaptive interface seamlessly promotes content and bubbles up an Episode Finder without requiring a page reload. It also does a great job of integrating advertising into the content.

Congratulations to everyone on the team for this exceptionally cool site!

As Cartman would say, “Respect our Authority,” and check it out here.