BIG Ideas for the week of 8/10
Creative inspiration for a new (virtual) reality
Wow, I have been remiss when it comes to this blog. I plead pandemic, but whatevs, I’m back! And while I may not have been posting, I have continued to curate ideas, work, and, thinking that intrigue me and now have quite a backlog of cool stuff to share. Large enough, in fact, that I’m going to try and clear it by perhaps posting more than once a week. Famous last words, I know. Let’s get to it:
Social Distancing, Standardized Hot off the presses, The COVID-19 Design Toolkit from a team of international wayfinding experts, is “a comprehensive set of guidelines, icons, and templates” for standardizing the design of safe-distanced high-traffic public and private spaces.
People Miss the Hang If it’s TL;DR, this is the money quote: “If this season’s virtual tech events have offered a kind of blueprint for what may come — a beta test if you will — they’ve proven there’s still blank space for the communal elements humans crave.” Emphasis mine, because it’s a drum I’ve been banging on a lot over the past three, four, five months, and the good news is, nobody has really figured it out yet, although some are getting close.
Psst, Fortnite’s already doing it Yep, most of the stuff a lot of us think isn’t being done, well, it’s being done on Fortnite. You want communal, hey let’s all watch Inception inside of a video game, is that communal enough for you? Most of our clients aren’t even close to ready to do anything inside a video game, but you don’t have to think too hard about it to see where this is all going.
Psst 2, Unreal’s already doing it, too If you want to see the future of Virtual Studios, check out this story on how the Weather Channel is utilizing the Unreal engine to power its real-time Virtual Studio. “The new studio extends the physical space so that half the studio is physical and the other half virtual, with presenters able to move seamlessly between the two halves.” Yeah, we’re all living in a virtual simulation (or will be shortly…)
What Comes AZ? The always insightful Ben Evans with another thoughtful piece, this time on what he thinks will come after Zoom, Skype, Webex, or any other video telephony program you care to toss in the mix. As usual, the good Mr. Evans is stingy with actual answers but generous with thoughtful framing.
Please, don’t do this If it was up to me, this short tweet thread from Christine Sunu, a developer at Twilio, would be required reading for anyone involved in planning a virtual meeting.
Starting this week, it’s The BIG List, a quick round-up of great work I’ve found around the web with thoughts on how they could be applied to the world of experiences.
Clearing the Air The Guggenheim Bilbao combines outdoor advertising and public good. Imagine: Sponsorships + Social Good (a winning combination).
I See Dinosaurs Impress the little kids in your life with this neat AR trick from Google. Imagine: Adding AR experiences to a virtual presentation. Don’t just show a slide of your new product, let the audience explore it.
BK at Mickey D’s Burger King makes the impossible possible: Getting a Whopper at the Golden Arches. Imagine: Adding geolocated special offers to a live event space that attendees are challenged to discover.
Stay cool, stay socially distanced With this clever giveaway from Dos Equis, the only thing that comes between two friends and a beer is their cooler. Imagine: There are many creative ways we can have fun while still promoting safe meeting practices.
Big Ideas come in Little Pubs A Kiwi brewer perfectly illustrates the power of a beer between friends. Imagine: How this could bring a fun twist to networking at a live event.
And there are our BIG Ideas for today. I’ll try to be back soon with more because that’s just scratching the surface of everything I’ve found over the past month. But don’t let that stop you from sending me any that you find, I’ll never say no to great work and thinking. Until next time, thanks for reading :)
