Bob George, a partner in the Minneapolis studio Drive Thru and an accomplished editor and Flame artist, has been elected treasurer of AICE. Currently serving as a member of AICE’s International Board, George was elected to succeed Ken Skaggs, former president and partner of the Dallas postproduction company 3008, who was also president of the Texas Chapter.
As treasurer, George will keep tabs on the association’s finances and serve as a member of its Executive Committee, joining International Board president Craig Duncan of Cutters in Chicago, VP LaRue Anderson of Apache Digital in Los Angeles and secretary Kristin Redman of Hudson Edit in Detroit.
Skaggs, who was elected treasurer at the Board’s semi-annual meeting in November of 2015, resigned his post after selling his interest in 3008 to his partners. He’s leaving the post industry and is moving into new fields such as real estate investment.
“While we’ll miss Ken and his many contributions to AICE, for which we’re deeply grateful, we’re simultaneously delighted to have someone with Bob George’s background taking on a leadership role,” said Duncan. “He not only brings a company owner’s perspective to the Board, but also that of an editor, a director and a visual effects artist. When you combine this with his knowledge of the Minneapolis market, which has long been a beacon of great creative work in our industry, we feel he’s going to make a great contribution not only to our Executive Committee, but to the Association as a whole.”
The Board’s Executive Committee is involved in all of the association’s ongoing initiatives in the areas of refining business practices and helping establish industry standards. AICE has advocated strongly over the past several years for fairness and transparency for independent postproduction companies across the advertising content creation process.
“I think bringing the artists’ point of view to the Board and the Executive Committee will be an important role for me,” said George. “We’re always trying to find the right balance between the business side views and those of the editor, the colorist, the effects artist and the mixer–they’re the people who are in the rooms, doing the work with clients. So having that background is a big plus, since they have a unique understanding of how new technology and changes in workflow impact what we can deliver.”
“Coming from a smaller market like Minneapolis will help as well,” George continued. “Since we often have to compete with bigger companies in larger markets, we tend to be more innovative in finding solutions, and that kind of thinking benefits everyone in our industry. I can share our experiences with my peers on the board, and they can in turn bring them back to the members in their respective chapters. That’s one of the great benefits of AICE membership, being able to tap into that collective knowledge.”
A native Californian, George attended Arizona State University, where he studied film and video production. After graduation he got a job at a television station, initially as a cameraman. He began shooting station promos, which expanded into a role as a director/cameraman working on film. From there he launched a full-time directing career and joined Drive Thru, which at the time was strictly a production company.
As Drive Thru expanded its services to include full postproduction, George began to edit his own work, then widened that role to include Flame. As the company grew he joined as a full time partner, leading the post side of the business after separate full-up production and postproduction divisions were created. All told, Drive Thru Productions and Drive Thru Editorial have 20 full-time staffers who work out of a spacious set of offices in downtown Minneapolis. With his partner Mark Setterholm, who runs the production arm, the pair have positioned Drive Thru as a leader in providing agencies and clients in Minneapolis and around the country with one-stop, single-source solutions for creating and distributing advertising content while also maintaining standalone production and postproduction relationships.
Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky
Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.
The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.
But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.
The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.
Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.
"They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More