A Wider Net

Check out HP’s Twitter Feed to see how they’re handling a scavenger hunt at the “BlogHer” event.

Thanks Pistachio for the tip (also through Twitter - check out how she has designed her Twitter page - very nice lesson in personal branding)

“Tentnology”

“Very Intents”

“The Ultimate Strip T’s”

Ok, Tentnology, you get a mention just for three clever puns in one banner ad (maybe one was a sniglet.)

Not since Vari-Lite introduced moving lights to rock concerts back in the 80’s with bands like Genesis has there been a major shift in the way we light big events. Not until the recently, that is, with the introduction of super-bright LED lighting instruments that produce rapidly changing brilliant colors and cool low energy consumption operation. Going away fast are the tungsten halogen, xenon, and metal-halide fixtures that each generate enough heat to cook a steak and consume more power than an industrial air conditioner (unfortunate, considering the heat thing).

Now there’s a whole slew of LED-based lighting fixtures for large events in all different shapes, sizes, and functions. The new High End Systems Showpix is one new entry that, had it entered on April 1st, I would have dismissed as a joke for fools. This moving head lighting instrument is rather large at 3 feet by 2 feet, and hernia-heavy at 108lbs. It contains 127 of the big 3 Watt LED elements on it’s face, allowing it to produce dazzling color washes and blinding strobe effects. This is the biggest, and most expensive, moving head washlight fixture you can buy (I think).

That’s because it is way more than a washlight. Some maniac at High End Systems decided to enable those 127 LED’s spread across the face of the fixture to produce moving images like a low resolution video wall or a super-expensive robotic lite-brite. It’s kind of like a lighting “sprite”, if you remember your early computer graphics terms. So you have this moving light that can face the stage and wash it with lovely color, then turn towards the audience and produce a smile, or a peace sign, or a logo, or a letter - whatever you want. The fixture has it’s own media server on board, which partially explains the $16,500 pricetag. Scissor lifts and burly union crews are extra.

Why do you need an array of light fixtures hung over your stage that can spell “George Bush is an Idiot?” Well, obviously, you don’t, because that’s quite clear, but when WOULD you need this ability?

To tell you the truth, I’m not completely sure. I see it as a very cool fixture to place in a grand hallway or foyer at a conference center, painting the ceilings and walls with light then suddenly turning to the audience and displaying a message or logo. This fixture can appear to have a personality and a playful one at that. I would put it front-and-center and give it the chance to be a character all by itself. From there, if you do have a stage show that needs something more than moving lights and video screens, this might be a twofer solution that gives you a versatile light palette AND a versatile effects palette all in one. Hang a dozen of these instead of a dozen plain washes and a dozen LED display specials.

I also like the idea of putting two of them in a foyer on a remote control, using them as ceiling washlights, then turning them both towards the crowd, displaying big eyeballs on them, and following people as they walk by. Creepiness has legs.

Wednesday night, the American Idol winner was announced. But the show ran long causing what had to be hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to miss the winner announcement due to their PVR failing to record past the scheduled time. My PVR, for example, recorded up to “The winner is… David….. Coo-”

I got the winner’s name, which was a delightful surprise by the way, but I missed the big emotional payoff immediately following. What did I miss? Tears? Freakouts? Screaming? Did little David get all Grand Theft Idol postal and take bigger, badder David out with a shiv? What? What did I miss?!?!?!?!

So I ran to the computer and went to the only place one can go at a time like this: YouTube. Already, dozens of clips had been uploaded from fans across America, bringing that exciting ending to me in crappy YouTube-shot-with-my-phonecorder quality. Despite the fact that the video quality was poor enough to make it difficult to tell David Cook from Randy Jackson, I got a sense of how it played out and was somewhat satisfied. (The video quality improved over time as people took more time to transfer the video from their Slingboxes and stuff)

So where was Fox? Asleep at the wheel again. I thought the wrist-slapping that the networks received at NAB this year was enough to teach them that timing is everything. Get your video up immediately after the event is over. If you’re a major TV network, your stuff should hit the online channels about fifteen seconds after the start of your on-air broadcast. If you have a live show that would be tricky, since the show hasn’t happened yet, so you have until about a minute after the show ends. Less if it’s a clip from earlier in the show.

Millions of people watched YouTube clips through the night and into the next day. Fox and Apple were nowhere. If kids can shoot, encode, and upload this stuff why can’t you?

Event Marketers - as you look to deliver your onsite event content online, which I hope you’re all doing now, consider the timing relevance of your content. Three or four weeks after the event is too long to be bringing archives online. The event has lost it’s mojo by then.

EMS 2008 ended last Wednesday, but there is still much to share. The exhibit floor contained more than 60 exhibits covering a wide range of event technology and services. As you might expect at a marketing summit, there was pretty much every type of audience acquisition tactic deployed there - SMS text message contests, the ol’ bring-the-thing-in-the-swag-bag-to-our-booth-and-enter-to-win-a-thing…. thing, great big steaming heaps of swag, big lead-gen contest giveaways, bikini’s and “brand ambassadors” (the linguistically neutered version of “booth-babes”), a guy projecting logos on the wall using a video-projector-on-a-stick, digital versions of “spin the wheel to win a prize”, oxygen bars, massages, video games, and the old standby - chocolate. I did not, however, see any sweaty Buddha’s on unicycles. Someone was asleep on the job.

Here are three of my favorites:

KAON Interactive featured a unique kiosk solution, called the v-OSK (see example screen below), that allows exhibitors to showcase products that cannot be on the show floor due to size or other constraints. An entire library of products can be featured on the interactive touch screens and operators can easily get a feel for the product by rotating and zooming around a photo-accurate 3D model. Having produced many kiosks of this type of over the years, I think this is the slickest virtual product demo solution I have seen. It isn’t 3D stereo, but I imagine that is the next step in this product’s evolution. I was particularly impressed that the assets and most of the interactive experience can be replicated online as well as on the kiosk, making the solution immensely more valuable. KAON can produce these as a turnkey service but they also work with production and design agencies for content creation, including model building.

Pixman, the army of ambassadors-for-hire schlepping 30-pound knapsacks connected to LCD-monitors-on-sticks that hover over the wearer’s head like a freakish square digital halo, were the ones with the video-projector-on-a-stick. They obviously like to stick stuff on sticks. But they also like being the center of attention, which is good because they usually are. They have upgraded the LCD monitor knapsack rig to include a qwerty keyboard built into the arm band of the wearer for data entry - sort of what Wonder Woman’s amazon bracelets would look like if Microsoft made them. The projector-on-a-stick was very clever as a way to sneak a video onto a surface and then turn and run when the fuzz get the call. All of their technology supports their “nomadic media” tagline - media that can wander and deliver a message to a large event from within the crowd.

Last, but not least, I liked the Immersa-Dome from Aardvark Applications - a rentable sensory thrill ride that bombards you with immersive video, programmable scents, wind, seat vibration, and wrap-around sound. They can even add interactivity and high definition video. Since throughput is an issue with this one-seater device, I think the price is a little steep, but if you have the space and budget, and if you need to get someone immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of a brand - then this is the coolest way to wrap that all in one. They also make multi-sensory theaters for larger crowds, but they aren’t quite as immersive. Considering how dorky you look sitting in the chair with your head inside a dome that makes you look more than a little like the Martian from Bugs Bunny, the theater may be the way to go. Use your own judgement to gauge the dork-tolerance of the crowd.

If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, consider yourself lucky. Twitter can be an incredible time sink and it’s not clear that the signal to noise ratio can be managed to the point where it’s anything but a life-logging digression. In fact, studies will one day show that reading too many posts about menial situational updates like “I’m eating a peach” will actually make you dumber. But if you’re a marketing professional (given the nature of this blog, you probably are), you probably need to stay in tune with the “tweets” of Twitter because there is a fair amount of interesting things you can do with 140 characters or less. If you need a primer on Twitter, check out their FAQ.

I started using Twitter again recently after some previously tweet-resistant coworkers fell victim to the Twitter gravitational forces. So far, I am not hooked, nor am I leaning that way, but as I occasionally skim the posts from the various people I follow, I have found a few ideas that have inspired me among the many that have completely wasted my time. Earlier today, I received one that inspired me to write this post.

An exhibition, the New Media Expo, had started “following” me (subscribing to my twitter updates). Why? Because they want me to attend their expo. By “following” me, they expect a “follow-back” where I return the favor by following their updates (Jonathan Coulton has to write a “follow-back” song to the tune of “Hollaback Girl”.) Even if the user isn’t prone to automatically following everyone who follows them, most people will check out the new follower to see who they are. The “open rate” for twitter follow announcements has got to be worthy of the marketing hall of fame. But what I really like is the fact that the response mechanism is a subscription - they tune into you by following you, automatically, on twitter.

The New Media Expo, and many other events, are targeting influencers within the twitter community, and “following” all of their followers and followees. That’s not a word… I’m pretty sure. Example - they figure Robert Scoble is a good person to connect with for a tech event. They follow him. Then they look at his list of people that he follows, and they systematically follow all of them. Of those people some will opt to follow the expo’s twitter feed. And their friends will find out. And viro-exponentially it goes. That’s also not a word, but you get my gist. Gist is a word - a strange and miserably overused word, but a word nonetheless. GIST also stands for Girls Into Science and Technology, which is really really cool, and Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor, which is really, really not cool. My Scrabulous skills just leveled up.

Back to Twitter: So you can market your event through twitter using this viral, WOM, tap-the-sap-of-the-influencers method, and you can also do one or more of the following:

- Tweet news from the show, like Forrester.
- Automatically Tweet the RSS feed from your event blog. Don’t have an event blog? Start one now - your attendees want in on the process.
- Enlist twitterers in the same fashion that many events enlist bloggers. Give them access and privileges and ask only that they enjoy the show and post what they want.
- Incorporate mobile device features into your event offering such as mobile agendas, alerts, handle questions from text messages or tweets, and SMS polling. Using Twitter as a Q&A vehicle will naturally inspire people to tweet about the show.
- Offer free passes to influencers with many followers that align with your target demographics.

Did I miss anything?

Yup - my twitter feed

I just read the PLSN e-newsletter about this pyro accident at a WWE event on March 30, 2008. From what I have read there and here and a few other places, there were several pyro devices attached to guide wires above the stadium. At least one wire appears to have broken, possibly due to other detonations, dropping it’s pyro load on the crowd. The reports differ, but around 45 people were injured from burns as well as welts (presumably from the falling cable assembly).

The pyro company was reported to be Zenith Pyrotechnology of NY. I have worked with these guys several times in the past and found them to be very good, although I seem to recall they are not strangers to accidents. Pyro is a very dangerous business.

This may go down as a freak accident. Event marketers know that bad stuff happens even to good vendors. Make sure they follow every federal, state, local, and venue requirement, and that they have the appropriate safety measures in place. Double-check your insurance. Pyro can be a safe and cost-effective wow for your event, so I hate to see accidents like this curtail its use.

There’s video, but I didn’t want to embed it. It is not pleasant.

For as long as I have been involved with events, there have been requests to emulate an effect seen in a movie, TV show, or advertisement in front of a real live audience. In almost all cases, the original effect was carefully crafted using all sorts of technological slight-of-hand. Computer animation, compositing, modeling, airbrushing, retouching, motion tracking, and many other techniques were used to create an otherwise impossible or wildly impractical scenario (note the use of the words “impossible” and “impractical”.) The creators of these visual effects could also rely on limited screen size, two-dimensionality, and a limited viewing angle within which to fool their audiences. It’s a lot easier to make a plane disappear on a 27″ color TV than in front of 15,000 people.

For one large touring show, I recreated visual effects from Star Wars - huge laser gun and light saber battles complete with high power lasers, fire, explosions, death, and destruction. The audience was on three sides and numbered about 65,000 people. This was the impossible made real before their eyes. At another event, we created an illusion that an executive was firing a laser beam from his finger, sparking a small explosion overhead and triggering a massive curtain drop to reveal a new automobile. He did this next to a robot that looked a lot like Number 5 in the movie Short Circuit, and this whole gag was based on the movie. And for a trade show exhibit our Engineering VEEP created an effect from the movie Videodrome where a face on a video screen literally extruded out from the screen in 3D. No glasses required- the screen was really stretching into the shape of a face!

One of the most common requests I have received is the “R2-D2 Princess Leia hologram” effect from Star Wars episode 4 (the first one, circa 1977). Specifically, they want a 3D animated visual, in mid-air, with no need for special glasses. People have tried everything - smoke, mirrors, mist, spinning helical things, lenticular 3D TV’s, and all sorts of variations, with moderate success.

The latest example of “I want that in my show” is the “Minority Report” effect. In the movie, Tom Cruise’s character manipulates images of the not-too-distant future on a transparent screen simply by waving his hands in mid air. Why people want to replicate this is frankly beyond me - I think it’s cool, but how many people even saw the movie? And how many people have performed tasks that require holding their arms up for any length of time? There are probably better ways to manipulate data and illustrate stories. Despite the aerobic silliness of all this arm waving, the allure of manipulating data with your bare hands makes perfects sense - even if the movie reference is a bit flawed. This is the principle behind the iPhone, iTouch, and countless copycats about the flood the mobile device market. It is also the principle behind which Microsoft has developed their Surface product. Bill Gates even used Surface to control part of his final CES keynote two months ago. Recently, CNN has been making headlines for it’s unique use of Perceptive Pixel’s multitouch display screen during their primary election coverage. And these high-profile demonstrations are why the requests for multitouch presentations and speaker support have been picking up briskly.

The good news is there are a bunch of ways to create this effect on stage at a live event. The bad news is it doesn’t come cheap. If you recall the start of this post, I mentioned the words “impossible” and “impractical”. This is a good example of an effect that made sense in the budgetary context of a blockbuster movie and the top news studio in the world, but may not make sense for a sales meeting or user conference or trade show booth. But the necessary technology exists today. On the high-end, you can buy the system CNN is using for $100,000 through Neiman-Marcus. More reasonably, Gesturetek and Reactrix offer rental systems that let you control software using mid-air gestures or multi-touch input like Microsoft Surface. You may be able to score an actual Surface device soon, too. And at the low end, some enterprising geeks have made their own gesture-based systems using Nintendo Wiimotes.

One thing to keep in mind: With the exception of the Perceptive Pixel system, which comes with some software development, all of these solutions require custom software. This is where the rubber meets the road. It’s the software that creates the experience - not the screen or the sensor. To turn a cool piece of multi-touch or gesture-based technology into a stage presentation that effectively tells a story is not as easy as it sounds. Thinking of how much work goes into simplifying the life of a typical presenter, it may not be in their best interest to have to choreograph a story with their hands in real time. It looks super-simple in a TV commercial after careful planning, 50 takes, and a lot of post production compositing (Think: UPS Whiteboard ad), but a live keynote is a whole different animal.

I would say this technology makes sense for a high tech event with a presenter dedicated to the planning and execution of a complex hands-on presentation, or a trade show exhibit stage presentation that can be carefully rehearsed and repeated frequently. For everyone else, you’re probably better off “faking it” with brief flourishes of clever stagecraft. As multi-touch starts to take hold in every day computing, this sort of presentation style may become easier to adopt.

I suppose I have two messages in this post: Stagecraft, like TV and film, can create the illusion of the impossible. If you really want it, we’ll make it happen. But, if something had to be “faked” in order to shoot a film because shooting the real deal would have been impossible or impractical, then reproducing that effect in front of a real live audience will be no less impossible or impractical. At least until a decade or two later when someone actually invents the thing.

An interview-style keynote at the SXSW (South by Southwest) tech conference featuring Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with Business Week journalist Sarah Lacy got rather out of hand this week. Why? For several interesting reasons. First and foremost, the content was poorly prepared - neither the guest nor the interviewer had a clear sense of what the keynote would discuss and actually ran out of stuff to talk about. Also, according to some who were there, Lacy, having written a book about this guy, seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about herself and her personal experiences with the one she calls “Zuck.”

But what’s really interesting is what happened when the crowd sensed that they weren’t going to get what they came for. They took over. Fueled by Twitter, the mobile phone networked community of people constantly twittering (text messaging meets a chat room) about what they’re doing at any given time, the crowd started to build up a hearty amount of disdain over the content on stage. Soon all of Twitter was dominated with conversations about this train wreck of an interview. Then, the worst of social media took over - the crowd simply started shouting out questions and took over the interview. It finally devolved into an unconference. Twitter and unconferences - two very south-by-southwest regional phenomena.

What made a crowd of people suddenly feel they had the right to hijack the conference? Perhaps it was mob mentality. Perhaps it was social media and user-generated content spilling over into the real time real world. Perhaps the same internal controls that prevent most people from acting out violent video games don’t apply to being rude and disruptive at a conference?

And perhaps this one of many disruptive events to come that will remind us that, increasingly, the audience wants to be part of the conversation and if don’t give them a voice they may raise their own.

Video below:

You’re busy on Sunday - we know that. There’s the small matter of legendary sports history on the line in Arizona at Super Bowl XLII. On Saturday, I suggest you seek out your nearest IMAX theater and witness the greatest virtual event ever - U2 3D.

Even if you’re not a big U2 fan, and I’ll admit - I’m only a casual fan - you will find this event, at times, simply breathtaking. They have captured the live U2 experience and delivered it to your nearby IMAX on a massive screen with masssive sound and in 3D. And it’s not just any old U2 experience - this was a massive energy ball of a concert assembled from 100 hours of footage shot in South America from their Vertigo tour. At times you are given the perspective of one of the fans on the floor, crammed in like a massive sardine mosh pit. You see the concert in the distance through a forest of waving hands clutching cell phones and cameras. You can see the shots of the stage on the viewfinders of all those cameras, and you feel you can reach out and snatch one from the sweaty palm of a screaming fan.

Other times they afford you a perspective that you simply can’t get from any concert no matter how much money you have or who you know in the band. We were hovering just above and just in front of The Edge as he ripped through a solo or filled the song with one of his signature rhythms. The neck of the guitar seemed close enough that you almost had to duck to avoid a bonk on the noggin. Sometimes we were given a bird-on-a-cymbal’s view of the drum kit, while the slightly sweetened sound of each drum hit in our faces reinforced the experience.

It wasn’t a perfect experience - some of the early edits were distracting, some of the 3D effects at the end were over the top, and the kick drum mapped to the IMAX butt-kicker subwoofers was a gimmicky replacement for the pounding chest we enjoy when standing in front of a 100,000 watt audio system. Still, this was a shining example of how we can capture a live event and deliver it, with maximum impact, to a remote audience. It shows us what we can do with 3D and a great deal of attention to production value. Start with great content, capture it well, and manipulate it to make maximum use of the capabilities and limitations of the delivery vehicle. The same approach pays dividends for webcasts, second life, and podcasts.

In our part of the marble this show only runs through mid-February. So don’t wait. Tomorrow is good.

More here and here.