While in New York this week, Brian and I paid a visit to Avenue A/Razorfish.  A few things were notable:

– The space.  AA/RF consolidated three separate offices into three floors at 1440 Broadway, formerly occupied by Google.  We spent time in the Living Lab, a space currently set up for media clients to spark ideas like Flip.  Brings the idea of understanding your customer to life.
– The work.  We walked through a couple of sites that have been developed to make a couple of TED wishes reality:  Pangea and the Encyclopedia Of Life.  Very neat concepts that could turn into great commercial sites for some clients who are willing to be forward thinkers.  Quick litmus test: if your site navigation mirrors your org chart, you need a redesign (exception: if you are a customer-centric marketing organization.  few of these truly exist.).
– The social computing.  Great to see an agency using the emerging technology that it’s advising clients to implement.  Knowledge management happens via a MediaWiki implementation.  Employees blog about personal and professional matters, including the CEO.  Individual’s profiles live on user pages that present a personal story to the rest of the company.  Easy to see the benefits beyond static intranets and all-hands email inquiries.

Ironically, we did run into some issues with Windows technology while trying to demo some sites. I thought that maybe a bat-phone had been installed with a direct connection to Redmond…maybe once the acquisition officially closes?