Back in November, I chaired the 2010 IET John Logie Baird lecture - a yearly celebration of multimedia innovation. This year's lecture was called: 'a day in the life of a multimedia communicator'. The IET web-site is now up, and contains an archive of material from previous lectures in the series, plus videos from this year.
The speakers and topics were:
Brian Levy (former CTO of RedBee (BBC Technology) - The Multimedia Future
Mike Short (VP Technology, O2 Group) - ADITLOAMC
Marian Ursu (Deputy head of Department of Computing, Goldsmiths) - Shapeshifting Media: Interactive Moving Picture Storytelling
Alistair Crane (CEO, Grapple Mobile) was unfortunately unable to attend.
There is also a video of the panel session that I chaired.
The Crystal Maze has long been one of my favourite TV programmes, and I have watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) quite a few of the ongoing repeats on the 'Challenge' TV channel in the UK. Sometimes the puzzle catches your imagination, and this happened to me with a recent episode.
The puzzle seemed straight-forward: just arrange the six lowest-value dominoes into a square where each of the sides add up to the same value. A quick bit of brow-furrowing got me to the value - it has to be four, but actually solving the puzzle was rather trickier. I began to feel rather like the unfortunate contestant, who has also failed to solve the problem - and I had the considerable advantage of not having any time limit (plus I didn't have the other contestants shouting 'often less-than useful' advice at me all the time.
Eventually I found the solution, but it wasn't a very satisfying answer. The reason has to do with the way that I think about dominoes. I spent many of my formative Saturday nights at 'Domino Drives', mainly because my Dad was a seasoned card player who was pretty successful at the accompanying 'Whist Drives', and so transport wasn't a problem. As a result, I think of dominoes as being arranged with ends matching, and doubles rotated through ninety degrees. Now there were some local variations: Up North, where I lived at the time, they played with dominoes that went all the way up to Double Nines, and the One spots were not red, nor were they a different size. White dots all the way from none to nine was what I was brought up with, and it wasn't until many years later that I discover the many variations of domino that existed elsewhere...
Subconsciously, I was applying the 'match the ends' rule as a constraint to this problem. Not rotating the doubles so that they were across the flow wasn't a problem, because I had grown up with players who didn't cross doubles, and there were always people around the table who would 'tut-tut' and rotate any uncrossed double during play. But matching those ends was totally automatic, and so I quickly came up against the problem that wherever you placed the Double Two domino, the two dominoes either side immediately made those two sides add up to more than four!
Eventually it dawned on me that the only way to solve the problem was to ignore my self-imposed constraint and not to match the ends of dominoes. Once you do this, then the solution drops out quite quickly.
But, as frequent readers of this blog will tell you, my head doesn't let me stop there. My mind continuously looks beyond the obvious, and I now realised that actually, not all of the junctions between dominoes broke the rule/constraint - just some of them. Now I already knew that the 'no junctions break the rule/constraint' was not possible, so was it possible to break the rule/constraint at all the junctions?
It seems that you can't do this either. This was my best result, and here all but one of the junctions breaks the rule/constraint.
So, today's observation is that: 'Sometimes you unconsciously impose rules where there aren't any rules at all.' - plus the corollary that: 'breaking constraints sometimes produces interesting results', which gives s revised, and more difficult puzzle:
Can you arrange the six lowest-value dominoes in a square so that the sides all add up to the same number, and with the highest possible number of junctions between dominoes where they have different numbers of dots?
I've always been fascinated by the mixture of mechanics and electronics that you find in toys, and so Pixelh8's first solo exhibition needed little introduction. Titled 'Childhood Remixed', it is all about making sounds with children's toys, and the complete project also includes workshops and talks too.
I attended one of the excellent monthly 'Entrepreneurs On the Move' (EOTM) networking meetings organised by Connected Cambridge this week, and was approached by an MBA student who was intrigued by my description in the attendee notes: I'm one of those unusual individuals who works best at the intersection of technology, creative, and sales/marketing - coming up with innovation, persuasion, strategies, and new combinations / products / solutions for clients, marketing, creatives and developers. I have experience in all of these areas, but most of all, I have experience at utilising them in combination.
Now I would be one of the first to admit that this isn't a normal job description, and so I explained my mental model of entrepreneurship and what I did... As I did so, I was reminded of something that EOTM event organiser Peter Hewkin (the founder of the Centre for Business Innovation ) had said earlier in the evening, which boils down to something like: "Do it once manually, but after that make it happen automatically!" and so I'm publishing my reply so that others can find my explanation. (This is the first of a series of articles covering what I said...)
Here's a Venn diagram that shows the way that I think things work:
So there are the three areas of entrepeneurial/business endeavour that I mentioned: Technology, Creative, and Sales/Marketing, and there's me, in the intersection right at the centre. Technology-wise, I've worked on mechanical and electronic hardware, embedded firmware and a variety of software ranging from medical and industrial applications through telecoms coding, metadata and multimedia to music synthesis and installation art, both by myself and managing programming teams. Creative-wise, I've done photography, photoshopography, vector art, logos, videos, 3D animation and interactive narrative collaborations, again individually and as part of a team. Marketing-wise I've done everything from being a shop-floor salesperson to planning products to convincing clients that a technology was right for their application, once again as an individual and as part of a team.
I've always thought that the interesting parts of any subject are where it meets other disciplines, and so the next diagram looks at what happens in those intersections:
In my mind, the intersection of Technology and Marketing is where Products and Services happen. The mixing of Marketing and Creative is exploited in Advertising. And forcing Creative and Technology together is where Design occurs. Like all models, it isn't perfect, but it helps me to give structure to a complex world.
As part of the process of working in each of the big circles, then I've also worked in those intersections too, and so the diagram makes it very clear why Design is so different from Products - one is primarily a Creative/Technology result, whilst the other is primarily a Marketing/Technology result. But what is really interesting is that the dark intersection at the centre of the diagram is where the hardest and most challenging stuff happens, because here all three disciplines make contributions, and it is here where there are lots of forces pulling me in all directions.
The next diagram tries to show just three of those forces:
Actually, it is good to think of these three arrows as pieces of elastic, because then you can see the importance of the intersection that is opposite to the arrow. So for 'Persuasion', whilst Advertising and the Product or Service is important, it is often the Design that will make the marketing succeed. Apple is a good example of this happening in practice. Equally, Creativity in Design and Advertising is good, but the other end of the 'Inspiration' elastic is the Product or Service, and that really matters! Looking at the way that 'Innovation' is connected to Advertising is a reminder that technology innovations like Flash or HTML may start out as pure technology, but they can rapidly become incorporated as a key part of the Creative and Marketing story.
If we go into the centre of the diagram, then we can start to apply more buzz-words to those vectored forces:
With the diagram acting as a key to strategic thinking, then we've already thought about where Flash and HTML 5 sit - on the Innovation arrow where it meets Advertising. You can also now see that CRM is a way of Designing to Persuade people, and so on. Suddenly 'Zero Touch' is revealed not as just a neat way of using Technology to do the Marketing, but also a topic that requires careful Creative thinking as well as Design and Advertising consideration too!
I use the type of thinking shown in this diagram a lot to help me understand the way that the various parties involved in entrepreneurship and business need to work together. Working from the centre of the diagram, as I do, you need to be able to appreciate the different intersections and the vectored forces that connect them together. By using this model, I've been able to successfully innovate and strategise across the three circles in many ways. To learn more visit my LinkedIn profile, or contact me.
Time is subjective - the apparent rate is related to the density of events. So when there is lots happening, time rushes by, whilst when you are waiting for something to happen, then time can seem to creep by...
This subjectiveness also applies to groupings of time like The Past and The Future. I've deliberately avoided trying to apply any measure of how long 'Now' is because I think that it is normally so fleeting that it is almost just the membrane that separates Past from Future. Of course, if you don't have any significant events, then Now can be used to show the current 'state of the art', but as soon as you get any event, then it immediately becomes The Past.
The other aspect to subjectivity is knowledge and viewpoint. This particularly affects The Future. If you are living on the leading edge of technology, then your Now might be viewed as being The Future by many people who are slightly behind the leading edge. This was highlighted very strongly for me when I read the final report on 'Future Digital Content' that has just been published by the 'Beacons For Innovation' project in the UK's 'Knowledge Transfer Network for the Creative Industries', from the UK Government-funded 'Technology Strategy Board'. If you hadn't heard of the Technology Strategy Board, then their web-site provides this explanation:
The activities of the Technology Strategy Board are jointly supported and funded by BIS and other government departments, the devolved administrations, regional development agencies and research councils.
The 'Future Digital Content' report is very much from the viewpoint of the Creative Industry, and makes interesting reading when you have 'subjectivity' in mind. Much of what it covers as Future seems like Now to me, but then I've spent the last ten years or more looking at the future of content, and so my viewpoint is very skewed. But it is fascinating to see how you can have different views of Now and The Future.
I've always innovated - there's something in the way my brain works that means that I just can't accept something that could be done better. But turning that impatience into entrepreneurial success is hard. I've made hardware add-ons for synthesizers, produced a model-based editor for FM synthesizers, figured out my own way to get 2/3rds of the way towards solving Rubik's cube, suggested some interesting corporate uses for metadata that I can't talk about, and founded a startup company from one of my ideas. But I'm still learning, and there's lots more to do.
One way to see how much there is to do, but also learn ways to get there, is to study people who have gone further. So when I found this article from one of my heroes, I was more than happy to blog it, because it has strong self-analysis, good recommendations, and it tells a fascinating story.
The article is by Nova Spivack, one of the creative thinkers behind Twine (now joined up with Evri) and gives a good insight into how challenging startups can be, but also how rewarding, and maybe it also hints at how addictive they can be...
If you haven't explored Twine, then I encourage you to do so. I'm resisting the temptation the say what it is all about, because I always think that part of the thrill of discovery is not to get a simple soundbite, but to have to try and figure it out yourself. I'm one of those people who has to have a mental model of what something is, how it works, and how it fits into the world. Until I have that, then my mind is feverishly learning, trying to figure it out. Once I've got it sussed, then I use the model to predict, to categorise, to cross-analyse and compare, and more. So I might take slightly longer to get to the 'Aha!' moment, but when I'm there, I'm thinking around the subject and figuring out how it relates to other things.
As you've probably guessed, this isn't very far removed from what Twine, Evri, and Nova are all about too...
Whilst the acrylic CD 'jewel case' has a few design flaws (the easily broken hinge support brackets, and the post-unsurvivable hub grips being just the two major ones), I do like its glossy look, and it feels right. It is so long now since I first tried to open one that I (and I suspect everyone else) have forgotten just how tricky it was to figure out how to open it was at first... But time has a habit of making things familiar, and I'm now thoroughly familiar and very happy with the CD case.
So it's a great pity that in these iTunes/MP3 times, the CD has been largely replaced by the MP3/FLAC/WAV download, although I'm one of those dinosaurs who prefers linear PCM and so whenever possible I buy the CD and then face the storage problems...
DVDs have a similarly ubiquitous, but less glamorous case. The flexible black vinyl ABS case may be tough in the face of abuse (if only the DVD inside was as robust!) but it does look rather utilitarian, and some of the ways that the hub retains the DVD are less than perfect in terms of usability. But again, regular use is a great way to ease acceptance.
However, in my DVD collection I do have something different, and it gives a glimpse of a very different possible future, but sadly, not one that we enjoy on this timeline - a DVD 'jewel case', or more specifically, a 'Super Jewel Box'as it proudly says inside. Yes, it's an overgrown CD jewel case done for DVDs, and I have just the one: for 'Gattaca', an equally individual film/movie. You can see the influence of the CD jewel case - the thickness is just the same, and the tray has the same folded printed sheet, with the cover having a similar folded booklet that kind of slides into place. But the hinge is hugely improved - gone are the thin and all too easily broken brackets, and in their place are much more substantial brackets.
All in all, this is the 'jewel' in the crown of my DVD collection in terms of packaging. The film isn't bad either!
We have all grown up in a world where the unit of TV currency is 'The Programme' and where TV time inexorably moves to the right. You can see it on any EPG: blocks of half an hour or an hour where the future can be seen on the right, and the past is gone forever - unless you recorded it.
It is very easy to assume that this is the natural state of video, and that moving from broadcast TV to online video (on computers or smartphones) is just a case of adapting to a different user interface (mouse or touch screen) and a less casual 'lean forward instead of back' way of viewing.
And the first phase/generation of online players reflects exactly this: YouTube, Hulu, the MSN Video Player, and the BBC's iPlayer all do the obvious by moving TV onto computers or smartphones, adapting the familiar metaphors to the new environment and making catch-up TV something that you can do away from the main TV's large screen and surround sound setup. This works very nicely, and lots of people now watch increasing amounts of video content on computers, laptops, portable mp3/media players, smartphones, etc.
So what happens in the next phase/generation? What is the end-game? I've been thinking about this for more than 10 years, and I've been through research, invention, development, and founded a startup to exploit the ideas and commercialise them. I think that the next phase throws away those two fundamental characteristics of TV: programmes and time. Let's start with an analogy:
Suppose a door-to-door salesperson turns up at your door and instead of trying to talk to you, they hold up a portable DVD player and press the 'Play' button when you open the door. The screen flickers into life and a recorded sales pitch starts up. After about five seconds you know you aren't interested, but the DVD player plays on regardless. On and on. Killing any chance of a sale, and possibly endangering the well-being of the salesperson holding the player too...
It just isn't going to work, is it? The human being is going to be a much better salesperson than the DVD player because they can do two things which the DVD player can't: they can alter the pitch to suit the person who answers the door, and they can add or remove details and emphasis to make the best pitch to that person, based on the conversation, body language and any other feedback. There's no point pushing the virtues of the product to a child's uncomprehending gaze, nor is continuing to speak English when the recipient is talking to you in a different language...
So the next phase/generation does just two things to video: throws away programmes and time. Actually, the two are closely inter-related anyway. Suppose you wanted to catch-up on what has been happening in a soap opera? Would you watch the last few episodes, or would you ask someone who is a fan to tell you what has been happening? What you actually want is probably a few minutes of overview about the major events, mixed with something about your favourite characters or story-lines. A fan can give you exactly that, and the nearest current online, VOD or DVD substitute would be to fast-forward through those programmes, hoping that you can figure out what is happening. You don't need the complete programmes, and you definitely don't need them to play as they were originally made. You need the video to do what the fan does: tell a shortened version of just the highlights of the story that is relevant to your interests.
And that's what Real Time Content's technology does. It turns video content from a single recording of a fixed story, into multiple stories where the duration, the specific storyline, the amount of detail, the rating, the product placement, the references to dates, times and places, the politics, the language, and anything else that you can think of, can be adjusted, in real-time, on-demand. If you want 20 seconds of video content on a specific aspect of home insurance, then that's fine. If you want a news broadcast where science is the top story and there is no sports coverage at all, then that's fine too. If you want a brand reinforcement video where people can view themselves singing karaoke where there are trillions of different versions of the video, then that's okay too.
By taking away programmes and time, what you have is a video delivery technology that creates individual programmes from pre-prepared video clips, on-demand. Radio, DJs and stand-up comedians have been doing this type of thing with different media for years, and now the technology is appearing for video too. Just as stand-up comedians have a rough idea of what they will say in a performance, the actual jokes and stories that get used will depend on the reaction of the audience, and so each performance is different but shares a similar overall flow of story. By having an underlying set of stories that can be told using the video clips, with variations for length, for rating, for product placement, etc, the story that you see can be changed in response to your control, or feedback.
By reading this, you have been infected with an idea. From now on, whenever you watch online video you will want to know why you have to sit through the third recap and the fourth repeat of those flashy motion graphics. You will ask why you can't have just 5 minutes on what that character did in the first half of the season, or why the TV news programme always has to cover all the types of story when you always flick through some sections of a newspaper and read every word in others. You will realise that online video is not all about how many thousands of hours of video are available, but what you can do with that video to make it relevant to your needs, and to your available free time, and not the other way round.
Unfortunately, the cure for this infection is definitely not online video as we know it (or as it is often portrayed: Video On Demand, VOD), but a very different type of online video that is just starting to appear now. In ten years time, be prepared to answer questions like:
'So what was it like when all video was half an hour or an hour long, and there was only one generic un-customised non-personal version that everyone saw?'
I've always been fascinated by the way that change gradually accumulates to the point where you suddenly become aware of it. All of those incremental changes are more or less invisible - right up until the moment that you notice that things are not as you thought.
It can be quite a shock! That favourite short-cut might suddenly become a building-site, or a piece of old software no longer runs after an operating system update and you discover that the web-site no longer exists. In the first example, then the barricade across the road or path will be visible from some distance away, and so you might get some advance warning as you approach, but the software example only surfaces when you actually try to visit the web-site to see if there is a new version to suit the updated operating system.
Now if this was a physics blog, then one possible analogy at this point (and I'll avoid any Sheldon-isms) would be an event horizon - the intangible barrier between places where you can escape from the gravitation attraction of a black hole, and places where you cannot escape. So let's explore this a bit further. In the case of the building site, then you don't know about the fact that your shortcut has gone until you see that your way ahead is blocked. At which point one of those unwritten laws comes into play: "You can't unsee something."
(I tried in vain to find the source of this idea, so if anyone knows, please let me know!)
So this is like the case where one might expect spaceships full of tourists gathered just outside the event horizon of a particularly spectacular black hole... and in these times of protective legislation, I would expect warning signs and 'Police: Do Not Cross' tape all around the event horizon.
But in the case of the web-site, then you normally wouldn't get any advance warning until you actually look for it, which is rather like the distressing result of straying past an unmarked event horizon and discovering that not only can you not unsee it, you can't leave either.
One example that happened to me recently was that I was asked about my work by someone, and I suddenly realised that most of the really detailed analsysis, results, prediction and comment that I have produced over the years are not available publicly. They are owned by the companies that I have worked for, and except for exceptions like patents and conference presentations, they haven't been published in the world outside the company, and even then, the copyright or the Intellectual Property belongs to the company.
If you can find things that I've done, then you can't unsee them, of course. But if you haven't seen them, then there's so much information out there that if you don't know what to look for, then you won't find them by accident. There's a reverse event horizon, and from outside you don't know what I've done.
In fact, we all live inside our own little event horizons, some smaller than others. Some larger than others - like Barrack Obama!
My own personal event horizon is quite peculiar. If you search online for my name you get references to my book on sound synthesis, but you will also find lots of other Martin Russes - like one who wrote about the Korean War. And you will find even more references to Russ Martin! Of course, most online searches get progressively worse as you go back in time to before blogs, before html, and before the Internet, which is another event horizon effect.
I'm afraid that now you know the analogy, it is hard to unknow it!
Image via Wikipedia
Image by Tetramesh via Flickr 
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