Party like it's 1999 We took a tour of IBM's e-Business innovation center in Boston the other day. Its aeron chairs, hipster accessories, and breathless gushes of "creatives" and "technicals" reminded me of Razorfish et al in the bad old days of the Internet boom. I didn't know any of the old-style digital agencies were still around, I thought their senseless tolerance for self-indulgent drivel, lack of business understanding, and plain ole silliness had driven them all to bankrupcy, but it looks like this one managed to find refuge in Big Blue's shaggy hide.

After tolerating a particularly asanine talk on why Chubb Insurance's site should "feel" like Ferrari's, I left. In retrospect, I think part of the reason digital agency's did as well as they did was because they made clients feel "happening" and these pecuniary benefits outweighed any corporate responsibility to customers or shareholders.