lowleveljetstream - Filed under 'engagement'

Dare to dive in

I've always been a fan of Collette http://www.colette.fr/ - where the focus has been on product and a soundscape that supports it.

Opening Ceremony started to inspire a sense of space that Collette's store did on Rue St. Honore but took it a step further - not requiring the sound to create a sense of space.

Now in London, there's a new space created by John Skelton and Dan Mitchell - As quoted by Wallpaper "Skelton has considerable pedigree as a premium level buyer for oki-ni and Harrods. Mitchell is equally recognised for his discerning musical taste through his Bad Passion club nights."

They started a website http://www.ln-cc.com/ but then commissioned Gary Card to create a physical space for them in London. The end result takes one in to a space that can be best described by the objective the guys set:

"LN-CC isn't so much a retail site (space) but more an evolving platform of curated ideas encompassing clothing, music and art."

The site and the space are alive and appear to suck you in to a world away from everyday. You fully experience LN-CC by being removed from known experiences.

Here's a good piece on Gary Card's approach to the space http://bit.ly/gGScSk

Filed under // design engagement fashion

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Chuckit

Dolly and I have found fantastic games to play on the beach with the Chuckit ball launcher.

There's the one bounce and catch challenge.

There's the two bounces and catch challenge.

There's the speed to pick up and return the ball challenge.

There's the climbing challenge, where the ball's launched into the steep hills and it has to be found and then brought back to the owner.

Then there are challenges directed to the launcher...

The accuracy challenge, which comprises three elements:

First, the ability to hit a wooden post that's 100ft away

Second, the ball coming to a stop within a circle drawn in the sand

Third, is distance accuracy - 50ft, 100ft and 150ft.

Finally, there's the choreography of the launch - style assessed through launch for both launcher and dog

We feel confident we can take on any other partnership. There maybe areas where we come second but our combined total will easily beat the rest.

While this is mostly made up, I feel like Canine Hardware - the makers of the fantastic Chuckit, should consider creating a national challenge to become bigger than just the manufacturer of the product itself.

Wouldn't you think that a company who have games at their core would approach user engagement from a gaming perspective? Apparently not and their website is actually decidedly dull.

So I'm sending a version of this email to the marketing team at Canine Hardware to see whether we can get some gaming spirit in to their brand and start challenges across the country.

Filed under // engagement

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San Francisco, CA

google goooeeeeeeenesss

Really nice idea from google for the holidays.

This is one of a number of videos you can select to help explain some of the advances a septuagenerian can make with tech. You go mom.

http://www.teachparentstech.org/

Filed under // Technology engagement

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Gaming Brands

It's a beautiful thing that when you are digging deep in to a subject, a great piece on that very subject arrives from the ether.

This time it is thanks to Tim Jones from BBH, who's written a great dissertation on applying the principles of gaming to brand building.

So good is his dissertation that the IPA awarded him Distinction and the President's Prize DDS Award for Innovation in the Digital World.

The dissertation appeared in Campaign at the end of October and that's your only source to read the four papers featured but luckily for us, with his desire for openness his paper is available as a pdf download if you search - Gaming Brands by Tim Jones.

I have attached the file here as well.

Click here to download:

gaming-brands-printer-friendly-tim-jones-bbh.pdf (502 KB)

(download)

Filed under // engagement gaming

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Basketball Teachings

I'm currently studying gaming and game design based on a belief that this will be a driving force in consumer engagement moving forward and I came across this gem that for me (with the added perspective of Dave Hickey's Air Guitar essay) captures the whole spirit of collaboration and really provides a basis for a new approach to work.

Call me ignorant but I had no idea how relevant basketball could me to the conversations going on today.

1. There must be a ball: it should be large

(This is a prescient expectation of Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving, whose hands would reinvent basketball as profoundly as Jimi Hendrix's bands reinvented rock-and-roll)

2. There will be no running with the ball

(Thus mitigating the privileges of owning portable property. Extended ownership of the ball is a virtue in football. Possession of the ball in basketball is never ownership; it is always temporary and contingent upon doing something else with it.)

3. No man on either team shall be restricted from getting the ball at any time that it is in play

(Thus eliminating the job specialization that exists in football, by whose rules only those players in "skilled positions" may touch the ball. The rest just help. In basketball there are skills peculiar to each position, but everyone must run, jump, catch, shoot, pass and defend.)

4. Both teams are to occupy the same area, yet there is to be no personal contact

(thus no rigorous territoriality, nor any rewards for violently invading your opponent's territory unless you score. The model for football is the drama of adjacent nations at war. The model for basketball is the polyglot choreography of uran sidewalks.)

5. The goal shall be horizontal and elevated

(The most Jeffersonian principle of all: Labor must be matched by aspiration. To score, you must work your way down court, but you must also elevate! Ad astra.)

James Naismith's Guiding Principles of Basketball, 1891 (With commentary by Dave Hickey - Air Guitar - "The Heresy of Zone Defense"

Filed under // Thought leadership engagement gaming

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Fanfare Needs Fans

There will no doubt be much talk on the 4D projection for Ralph Lauren
last night both in NY and London and the accompanying video is
interesting in how they put this altogether. There's one problem
according to comments I'm reading, while the fanfare of this
technology is tremendous, the technology behind RLs site is lacking to
the point of frustration.

I have strong opinions on how a brand can stretch its aspirations
through traditional media because within certain slow moving
categories it acts as a north star for the company as much as it
persuades consumers. However, 'traditional' is the operative word
here. Today, a fanfare sparks engagement and if the tools for
engagement are lacking then all you have done is frustrated people and
potentially created rejectors rather than potential brand evangelists.

The repercussions of every action have to be examined through a wider
lens and if there's a weak point, patience has to be the most powerful
force to ensure that the value of engagement is higher than the
punctuality of delivery.

Here's a good review of RLs project by the Business of Fashion
http://bit.ly/dbrlJs

Filed under // digital engagement

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Boxed In

I noticed this idea in twelvesouth's packaging for the iPad compass.

12 ways to re-use this box

...do our planet a favor and give your compass gift box a new lease on life instead of throwing it away. Here are some ideas.

1. Use it as a pen and pencil case

2. Stash all your receipts in the box

3. Let your kids use the box to store their trading cards

4. Use as a personal "suggestion box"

5. Drop a gift in it and surprise a friend

6. Use it as an arts and crafts project for kids

7. Set in a drawer as a clutter organiser

8. Use it to store extra camera/computer cables

9. Turn it into kindling to start a romantic fire

10. Flatten and use it as bracker board in a frame

11. Store stationary for hand-written love notes

12. Turn it in to a garage for Hot Wheels cars

I wish I had looked at this list before throwing the box away. I could have had a ceremonial fire for all the sickly sweetness of the suggestions.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to make these suggestions and on top of that, it's great to start sweating over some initial ideas.

What gets my goat is that it seems like 'arts and crafts' has been taken over by sickly sweet individuals almost as if this is the new religion.

Why is it not possible today for grown man to go knitting with the ladies and enjoy a few corny jokes? What's this world coming to?

Filed under // design engagement

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Games are Listening

To continue the project of inviting other contributors, I asked Candice Chen to write a piece on gaming. What she illustrates here for me is that if you are working in the digital arena, you need to get close to gaming as it's getting closer to intuitive behavior. Candice is currently studying at UCLA and was an intern with us this year. She's one to watch in 2011.

New era of gaming:

The best games understand new technology

Seth Priebatsch, who runs a mobile-start up, says we are transitioning from the “Decade of Social” to the “Decade of Games.” Giving this decade a grand and exclusive title is somewhat misleading because it implies a collective burgeoning interest in games. Gaming has always satisfied a natural urge to make life more interesting. What differentiates this decade is that new gaming is enhanced, enabled, and dependent on new technological platforms.

Today’s best games capitalize on the nature of online technology. Let’s take Farmville—which I personally still do not find any appeal in, but will acknowledge its unusual popularity. Farmville’s beauty is that it functions as a Facebook game. People habitually check their Facebook consistently throughout the day, at the same pace that they could keep up their farm. The pace of the game corresponds with the already-established routine of Facebook. Had this game been on a CD-Rom 10 years ago, I reckon it would not have attracted the same audience in such great numbers. The game’s success is dependent on how well its rules fit into the already established nature of its platform.

Games can also capitalize on the benefits that drive us to social platforms. The result is a game that combines the benefits of games with the benefits of social networking. Foursquare plays into the powerful urge we have to share and project information about ourselves online. Creating a digital representation of yourself is an obvious key to the success of online social platforms. Foursquare offers two incentives that interact with each other: the incentive to compete and the incentive to share what you’re doing (without annoyingly posting statuses or Tweeting about each place you go to, which oddly people still do). The game is a co-mingling of the benefits of gaming with the benefits of technology (i.e. location-based technology) and of social networking (the lovechild of online technology).

For decades, games have offered an altered state of reality where we concentrate on a short-term goal and are motivated by competition. This altered state has offered us enjoyable ways to learn, socialize, and relax. With new technology and social platforms, we have new ways to game. This can only lead to better ways of gaming to learn, socialize, and relax. However, saturation is inevitable and only the best games will survive—those that understand and take advantage of the nature and benefits of new technology.

Candice Chen can be reached at cchen8971@gmail.com

Filed under // engagement gaming

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Effort Based Design

I was just thinking how I went from a 12th floor bedroom to seat 1C on a Virgin America flight heading back to SF without exerting myself at all. Not one minute of physical activity - opening the door of my room, pressing for the elevator, walking a few paces to a waiting car, exiting the car and heading to the flight. Nothing but a few walking steps.

I then considered the challenge with world health - especially the fact that there are more obese people in the world than starving - and started to question, are we designing our world to the point where it's killing us?

When you look at the design of things, there appears to be two driving forces: make stuff that's aesthetically appealing and stuff that makes our life easier. I'm sure I'm over simplifying the principles of design here and Sam or Brian - you can put me straight here - but look around you. Escalators replace stairs, touch screens replace pressing keys, wheelie bags replace carrying the weight of your clothes and probably one of the coolest but most extreme in physical inactivity is the button press trunk closer - no more reaching up, which is a good stretch, and pulling the trunk door down with some force. Oh no, that's asking too much of us. Let's make it electric.

I'm not suggesting that all this design is bad but maybe we should start a new design theory around forcing physical activity, so that through our actions in any given day, we achieve a good level of physical assertion and maybe even some calorie burning.

So let's consider my trip from 1201 to 1C and see whether we can create physical activity in this journey. Of course it would be ridiculous to add inconvenience to this challenge, so the idea of forcing the elevator to go one floor below my desired destination to force me to take the steps up one floor can't count. There are some architects who are designing to this theory already, which is a good sign. Okay, so I'm ready to leave my room and there's a significant resistance on the door opener that forces me to assert a downward pressure to open the door. The elevator button has been replaced with a bell ringing type rope, which you pull down to call the elevator. The elevator floor isn't flat - it's at a 30 degree angle forcing you to stand with some pressure and balance control. I get out of the elevator and head to the reception desk, which is very low forcing me to perform a good bend as I sign my bill. I then head to the car and jump in after putting my bag in the back and pulling the trunk door down - old school. Trip to the airport is straight forward - no peddling required. I get to the airport and all cabs are forced to drop off at the arrivals level and escalators have been replaced with stairs to get you to departures...

I'm no designer as you can tell from my example but I bet good designers could create a workout approach to daily routines that would result in a healthier world. I'm not suggesting that design should focus on making our flow through life harder, I'm just saying that a design theory around physical assertion could be an interesting way to go.

To conclude, you might argue that people wouldn't react well to this idea but in researching my theory, I found this interesting example of the power of simply telling people that taking stairs can help them get fit.

In one experiment conducted by the NY Department of Health and the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, simply posting a sign at a housing project in the South Bronx (“Burn Calories, Not Electricity – Take the Stairs”) led to a 42 percent increase in stair walking over nine months.

Filed under // design engagement

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Games are our future

I just read a fascinating piece by the innovation firm Method, which challenges all marketers to focus on gaming as the way in to enhanced - meaningful - consumer engagement going forward.

The facts on gaming speak for themselves - can you ignore the fact that an average American 21 yr old has spent 10,000 hours playing video games - the equivalent of 5 working years? But it's not just those who have been brought up gaming that engage through gaming. Gaming plays to a natural response we have as humans.

It's interesting to consider the potential of gaming in the coming years. Marketing that's more engaging is just touches the surface - but it's highly welcome. We are currently working with a gaming company who are developing games that fuse popular games with real learning to create a situation of transferable skills - learn through gaming and then apply to real world actions. Taking some of the hardest things to learn and transforming them in to enjoyable experiences in front of a screen or away from the screen.

I've stolen some key paragraphs below from Method's article. The first is from the introduction and hits on a problem we are all familiar with in the ad business.

Success is contingent upon more than just engineering-driven features and functions, new product bells and whistles, or a creative campaign. Ultimately, none of these factors by themselves ensure market success because they cannot predict consumer behavior or reaction. Despite a sense of short term achievement and perhaps stimulating initial consumer interest, they fail to deliver long term brand loyalty.

Using gaming principles to change people's behavior is not limited to any one sector. Creating new products and services that enable positive behavioral change applies to all industries. However, it requires a thorough understanding of that sector's Hierarchy of Needs. In order to maximize consumer engagement and achieve brand loyalty in any industry, utilizing gaming elements to change behavior relies on four critical design attributes: entertaining, competitive, visual, and rewarding.

1. Entertaining
Make it fun and entertaining. What if your health insurance company decided to use gaming principles to create a health- care experience that was actually fun? Nintendo’s Wii console engages people in exercise through a new and entertaining game experience. Exercise is a by-product of the experience, which is perceived as play rather than work. Nintendo effectively converted “no pain, no gain” into “have fun, will exercise.” The American Heart Association and Nintendo recently announced a first-of-its-kind strategic partnership designed to help people create healthy lifestyles through physically active play.

2. Competitive
Make it competitive for users. Nike+ is a small device that re- cords the distance and pace of a walk or run. Nike+ also allows runners to meet and challenge other runners, ask questions, and give feedback. The corresponding Nike+ website includes a user-generated challenge gallery, a route naming tool, iPod compatibility, a distance-traveled club, and fastest 5K club. Imagine the impact if utilities giant PG&E used their smart meters to create neighborhood competitions that incentivized lower energy consumption, where competing households could earn discounts on their monthly bill?

3. Visual
Make it visual. When Toyota began visualizing fuel consumption for drivers in their Prius models, they created a “fuel economy game,” allowing the driver to minimize gas usage with real time information. The phenomenon is known as the Prius Effect. How might household appliance manufacturers, such as GE, tap into such insights from the auto-industry to not only sell more products but help promote environmental consciousness while doing so?

4. Rewarding
Make it rewarding. Research shows that financial rewards are not effective at encouraging sustained, long-term behavior change. Rewards that create social value tied to a meaningful cause are more effective over the long term and have a greater likelihood of encouraging others to do the same. RecycleBank is a web-based service designed to promote recycling. Families accrue points based on the weekly amount of materials recycled; these points can be redeemed for discounts at over 1500 national businesses. Freerice.com is an online trivia game that donates rice to the United Nations World Food Program for each correctly answered question, and has donated over 80 billion grains in just 3 years.

Read the rest of the article http://bit.ly/8XVGKd

Filed under // engagement gaming

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engagement

Dare to dive in

Chuckit

google goooeeeeeeenesss

Gaming Brands

Basketball Teachings

Fanfare Needs Fans

Boxed In

Games are Listening

Effort Based Design

Games are our future