February 11th, 2010 by Brian Maddox

So what is NewCity Labs?

About this post:

NewCity Labs is about seeing good ideas come to light and learning through exploration.

Filed under Experience Design, Creativity, Development, Productivity

Our bread and butter are following through on ideas; making "What if we could...?" into something real. We do it for our clients every day. Most good ideas happen through bad ideas or the need to make our lives a little easier. NewCity Labs is about seeing good ideas come to light and learning through exploration. Everyone has ideas, they come to us usually when we aren't trying to have them – in the shower, in line at Starbucks, pumping gas. What we seldom do is push them to the next step (which is sometimes the garbage) – or follow a tangent concept that comes from that initial thought.

The challenge is time and talent. Talent we have – but with a full roster of clients and client projects we rarely had the time to make something for ourselves. We decided to see if we could work a little more efficiently and carve out one day each week when our entire team – user experience, design, development, project management, marketing – could convene to plan and follow through on the ideas that we had. The only criteria was that it had to be something we had a passion for, that could help generate long-term revenue for the company. Many of these ideas are to make "stuff for people like us"; simplify repetitive tasks that take up too much time with little result so more time can be focused on being creative with concept or execution for clients.

We also had ideas like Nomad. The Nomad Mobile Guides app is an e-reader for travel guides. It takes advantage of the iPhone's location-aware functionality, letting you find the info you want based on what you want to do, see or know. You can use all your guidebooks together like one guide.

We made it easy for publishers to get existing content into the app at little or no cost, gaining new revenue and new customers. We made it easy for travelers to build their own guidebooks and use them the way they want. We're starting out with guides for some of the more popular national parks, and it will be available on the App Store this spring. Versions for other smartphones will follow later this year.

This initial project is the first of many to come. If you'd like stay in the loop, sign up for our newsletter or contact us to be considered for a beta testing spot as they open.