BIG Ideas for the week of 8/24

Creative inspiration for the new normal

Greetings and salutations to all. Here are your BIG Ideas for the last full week of August — only four months until this stupid @#%!% year is over!

• This Week in “What The Young People Like” (PDF version here) Good piece on the growth and importance of alternative visual communications (Emojis, Bitmojis, Mimojis, Avatars, etc etc etc). IMHO, we should be looking for opportunities to incorporate them into meetings and events in ways that will engage younger attendees and add value to their overall experience. Give me a shout if you’d like to hear a few ideas I have ;-)
• Every Problem Is A Design Problem A great take on tackling design assignments that actually can be used to define, frame, and tackle any type of challenge you may face. Be sure to download his template, too!
• Yet Another Video Chat Offering Like YoTribe? Here’s another one.

Onto this week’s BIG (but rather short) List of Creativity:

• Scan for Beer Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve been bullish on QR codes from way back–even when everybody hated them? Well, I was, even if you don’t believe me. This is a nice example of how they can be used to create a small, memorable, and most importantly, engaging experience. Imagine: Using QR codes (or Snapcodes or Messenger codes, etc.) to deliver serendipitous fun, and value, at a live event.

• The Body Beautiful Very cool sampling of cutting edge illustration being done in the medical realm. Imagine: Applying a taste of this fresh, beautiful aesthetic to one of our medical association’s events.
• Worlds of Possibilities Two things here: 1) The beautiful design and clever interactivity of the website itself, and 2) The interactive globe product the site is promoting. Imagine: Creating engaging and unique websites for large events, and using interactive technology to give attendees fresh ways to explore a space, a subject, or an agenda.

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I thought I’d try something new this week: A longer take on something that caught my eye and made me think, which I think I’ll call…

My Two Cents: One Interface to Rule Them All (when you hit the page, scroll to The Big Story) These days our lives, for better or worse, are full of digital connections. We connect to work via Teams, Slack, Basecamp, or something else. We connect socially via Facebook, Twitter, Reddit… We connect to entertainment via an OTT device or maybe a gaming console. Even our cars are now connected. And since COVIDTimesTM began, we’ve even replaced face-to-face connections with virtual ones via Zoom, Skype, or one of a seemingly endless list of videotelephony options. The more we need to make software connections to run both our professional and personal lives, the question of hardware becomes more important. Where and how do we access them?

If you’re an Apple fanboy or girl, you might prefer that ecosystem: iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and/or Apple TV. Googlers go the Android route. While the majority of people, I’d bet, mix and match their connection points, that doesn’t mean there aren’t battles to become the interface that rules them all. Case and point, Apple’s electric car project, because at the end of the day, a car is an interface, one that many of us use every day. Another example is Facebook’s Portal, which might have been a sputtering dud pre-COVID, but has since taken off to the point it’s difficult to find one. Thanks to the unique circumstances, Portal is building a beachhead that may someday match Amazon’s Echos, once the clear cut winner in the smart-screen/speaker realm.

Even Zoom is getting into the mix, launching Zoom for Home in July, something which was probably unthinkable back in February. As this piece points out, though, it isn’t completely crazy: Having a separate screen for your video chats frees up space on your workspace (laptop/desktop) and hey, it has a much better camera. When you consider how ubiquitous Zoom has become, and how WFH will remain a big thing post-COVID, it’s not a stretch to see why they’re doing it.

And while this might be interesting–at least if you find this sort of tech stuff interesting as I do–for the Events and Meetings industry, which interface(s) actually win isn’t really important. What is important is that we:

1. Understand the connections attendees will need/want to make;
2. Ensure attendees have everything they need to easily and quickly make those connections; and,
3. Proactively provide added value when they do.

This means not just providing multiple, easily accessed rooms with video telephony equipment and service, but also using that equipment (ie screens) when not in use to show branded content, provide event information, and/or engage attendees through gamification.

When we’re able to do all three, there are fewer “jagged edges,” and an attendee is able to move smoothly through his/her day, seamlessly transitioning between the event, their work, and their personal life, while also giving them something unique and different. In short, we create an experience that they’ll want to have again.

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There you have it for August 24th. Until next week, onward, upward, and thank you for your continued patronage. Please remember to tip your servers.