
Some of our friends are judges for the final round of "digital apartments" in "Comcast Town" - a contest where creative minds can design a digital apartment (yes, the kind that you live in). Final round judges are Jill Ferehbacher from Inhabitat, Boy Genius from Boy Genius Report, Jean Aw from NotCot, & David Pescovitz from Boing Boing.
The top 4 finalists were narrowed down from thousands of submissions by the 4 judges. And now, the final winner will now be determined through voting...by all of us. If you have a few minutes (and a fascination with what a "digital apartment" actually entails), check it out here
To Behance Network Members:
Getting too many messages in your Behance inbox?
Frustrated by too many communications about people posting new projects?
The Good News: The Behance Network is serving as a valuable platform for creative professionals to showcase their work, exchange feedback, and build their careers. The feedback has been extraordinary, and many of the largest agencies and companies now use Behance as their primary recruiting source.
The Bad News: People are getting connection-finger (like trigger finger, but for network building) by joining too many inner circles. As a consequence, members start receiving too many messages...it can get overwhelming!
But communications is completely in your control. You decide who to connect to and how to communicate. Here are the common mistakes made by Behance Network members - and some possible solutions...
Mistake #1: You Made Your Inner Circle Too Big
New members to the Behance Network invite many people to join their inner circles. By doing this, you are signing yourself up to get messages from every member that you connect with. If you have 500 people in your inner circle, you will start getting LOTS of messages (and it will start to feel like spam!).
Solution: Keep your inner circle SMALL. Reduce it to JUST people you know or REALLY respect. People that you WANT to receive messages from. If you like someone's work, just add them to your watchlist INSTEAD of inviting them to your inner circle.
Mistake #2: Sending A Message Every Time You Post A New Project
When you post a project, everyone that is in your inner circle (and those that are watching you) ALREADY SEE your new project. They are notified based on their notification preferences and their activity feed.
Solution: Don't send messages about new projects. Use your communications wisely!
AND...If you start receiving too many messages from someone in your inner circle, just click "remove" at the bottom of the message. Just as you would on Twitter or elsewhere...
The Future of Communications in the Behance Network
We are developing new ways for users to manage communications. Stay tuned...
Needless to say, it is critical that the messaging features support the careers and productivity of members. We welcome your suggestions and feedback as we work to improve the Network.
Behance Team

Michelle Halmoff recently interviewed Behance founder Scott Belsky on the Behance team's outlook on creative industries and the current economy. You can find the podcast here.

For more information, watch the youtube video or check out the action at ComcastTown.com
Ok; you said you wanted to help vote for Behance Network in the People's Choice Webby (Portfolio / Self-Promotion Category). Here's how to do it in 5 quick steps (in under two minutes!).
(1) Sign up to vote here.

(2) To ensure you're a real person, they will send you an activation code. But don't fret...once you get it, all you need to do is click!
(3) Go to the "Websites" section.

(4) Scroll down to "Marketplace" section and then select "Self-promotion / Portfolio" category.
(5) And then you can cast your vote...
Gracias.

Behance executive Chris Henry was recently featured in Rackspace's introductory video for Cloud Computing. Chris has now gained the nickname "Cloud Chris" along with a strong following of fans (mostly young women) that stand in front of the office door every morning - hoping for just a glimpse of the man, the legend, the Cloud.

The Behance team was thrilled to make a big (and bold) idea happen: hold a conference for creative leaders that focused NOT on ideas or innovation, BUT INSTEAD ON execution and HOW to make ideas happen.
With Cool Hunting as our official partner and a series of other sponsors, we held the sold-out conference in New York on April 16-17 at the Times Center.
There were some thorough reviews and articles posted by journalists at the conference including a few from Fast Company, VentureBeat, and TechnoTheory.
And then there was a very active twitter stream from participants - some of which is captured below (along with a picture from the after party at the Thompson Hotel Penthouse (thanks@nikku). You can see a summary of the 99% Take-aways as summarized by Alex Krupp on Squidoo.







A subset of the Behance Team made the trek to Austin, Texas this year to attend the SXSW Interactive Festival. Our beloved TheServed.com project was up for an interactive award, and Scott Belsky presented some of Behance's research at a morning keynote (which received some coverage on some blogs like NewCityMedia, BionicTeaching, and DuckSXSW).
Other highlights included legos, the Behance gathering, and an ever growing fascination with Twitter. All in all, a good trip.

And we noticed the Twitter streams during the Behance keynote:



As we launched the first version of Action Method for the iPhone, we were pleased to track initial responses via Twitter.


The only lingering frustration is the group of people posting reviews in the App Store that claim "there is no way to delete an Action Step." So we would like to explain: All you need to do is open the Action Step and then touch the "Trash" icon. And, of course, if you are just completing the Action Step, touch the checkbox. Sorry for the confusion between "Trash" and "Delete" - it will be addressed in future versions.

We're excited to announce the launch of Action Method for the iPhone. You can use Action Method Online to create a whole connected world of productivity. It offers advanced features like Discussion, File Sharing, and Events (deadline coordination). And Action Method for iPhone lets you take your Action Steps with you. It all works together to ensure nothing falls through the cracks again!
For more information, please visit http://www.actionmethod.com/iPhone_Tour