MediaPost Raw

It's Like Vu Deja, All Over Again

Joe Mandese — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Walked in late (see Virtues of Virtuosity post re. shuttle buses) to IDEO’s Tom Kelley’s “Design for the Future” presentation opening the Friday morning session of iDMAa 09, and it felt like déjà vu all over again. And it’s not because it reminded me about all the times I arrived late to a campus classroom in my college-going days.

It’s because that’s what Kelley was speaking about. Actually, he was speaking about pretty much the opposite of that. He calls it “vu deja,”which is, “when you see the same thing you’ve always seen, but you see it with new eyes.”

It’s a concept Kelley was advocating of all the media designers gathered in the room. It’s a concept, he says, he’s learned from anthropologists, and he suggested you remain constantly in “anthropologist mode.”

I see.

IDEO's Kelley in anthropologist mode.

The Virtues Of Virtuosity

Joe Mandese — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:18:55 +0000

Sometimes the most analog of things can prove so vexing, even in the digital world. That proved the case this morning, when some of the academic world’s top digital media gurus were stymied in their effort to get to this morning’s session of iDMAa 09’s conference on the campus of Ball State University. The analog devil in this case, proved to be the campus shuttle bus that was supposed to convey the delegates from their hotels to the David Letterman Building on the BSU campus.

“It’s unbelievable, that with all the media technology that we have at our disposal, we still can’t connect with the rest of the conference,” one agitated professor said to me in the lobby of the Lees Inn in Muncie.”

“Yeah, unfortunately, we still have to live in the real world,” I replied.

“I hate that,” he retorted.

When some BSU campus vans showed up to shuttle us, There was plenty of talk among the tardy professors about the virtues of virtual reality, and the Matrix. One suggested that the shuttle bus incident was due to a “glitch in the program.” Another suggested that at any moment, we’d see an identical van with alternate universe versions of ourselves coming at us from the other direction.”

“Yeah, but they’ll have smiles on their faces,” I noted.

What would Neo do?

Now If Apple Can Only Figure Out How To Get Keynote To Run On The iPhone

Joe Mandese — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:00:19 +0000

Dale Herigstad may be a digital media guru and design visionary, but he’s – surprisingly – not a techie. At least that’s what he says, though I have my own suspicions about his technological prowess, he claims that he’s really not a gearhead, and doesn’t know how most of the systems he designs actually works.

His preferred tool for designing futuristic media interfaces, he says, is actually Apple’s Keynote software, which is the Mac equivalent of Microsoft’s PowerPoint, albeit with some niftier animation and graphics capabilities.

“I’ve built entire TV navigation systems in that,” Herigstad confided. “Is it designed for that? No.”

The Best Education To Get If You Want To Be A Digital Media Guru (Hint: It’s Not Digital Media)

Joe Mandese — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:36:11 +0000

It’s everything. That’s right, a panel of digital arts gurus and practitioners speaking during a panel at the iDMAa 09 conference Thursday afternoon said their own backgrounds emphasized general studies and liberal arts that all fused together in a greater whole.

Despite the art school appearances of Dale Herigstad’s shocking white hair and all-black attire, the Schematic chief creative officer said he actually got a Bachelor of Science degree, and studies a variety of liberal arts courses while his peers were going to art schools.

Same thing for former Schematic Chief Strategy Officer Kurt Kratchman, who is now running online air show community site ASB.TV, and is about to launch a revolutionary new IPTV platform. He studied liberal arts and Jewish studies. And before he jumped on the interactive media front, got his first job helping the city of New York manage traffic (the automobile kind, not the media-buying kind).

Same thing for Michael Adamson, vice president of sports new products and services at Turner Sports, who is actually an alum of Ball State, where the iDMAa conference is taking place. He studied liberal arts too, and earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in journalism.

Herigstad may look like he's from art school, but he's not.

Red Ball: Minority Report’s Hand Gesturing Interface Is Actually Here

Joe Mandese — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:24:24 +0000

That’s what Dale Herigstad just told a roomful of digital media gurus and artists during his opening keynote at the iDMAa 09 conference in Muncie, Indiana. Hergistad, who’s day job is chief creative officer of WPP’s Schematic, always pushes the digital media envelope when he presents, but this morning he said he’s actually close to introducing a simple hand gesturing interface for controlling content on television screens. Herigstad, you may know, was one of the consultants on Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “Minority Report,” and he’s the guy who came up with the hand gesturing interface used by Tom Cruise’s character in the film.

“We’re already building for some cable companies something that does this,” Hertistad told the iDMAa attendees during a part of his presentation dealing with various next generation remote control interfaces, including “touch,” “touch gesture” and pure “gesture.”

Herigstad said he’s not a big fan of touch as an interface, because it requires users to come in contact with a screen.

“I’m a big fan of the gesture, where you cannot touch the screen,” he said, alluding to his “Minority Report” concept breakthrough, which “comes out of the future where you can navigate with your hands.”

Herigstad even showed a bit of a prototype of the new hand gesture interface, using CGI of a hand remotely controlling a TV screen by simply waving up, down sideways, etc. It was very cool, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Tom Cruise gesturing from the future in "Minority Report"

Higher Learning: The Internet Is Not A Huge ATM (Straight From The Dean's Mouth)

Joe Mandese — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:01:23 +0000

That’s how Ball State University President Jo Ann Gora kicked off the International Digital Media Arts Association’s “@ The Digital Edge” conference here today on the BSU campus. Actually, it was former Democratic National Committee Chairman and one-time U.S. presidential candidate Howard Dean who said that when Gora introduced him at another function taking place on the campus last night.

“At one point in introducing him, I talked about how he was an architect of 50-state strategy and one of the fist candidates to use the Internet effectively,” Gora shared with the attendees. “They thought it was a “large ATM,” as he put it. They all thought it was all about community.”

Gora said that she thought that was a “pretty good insight” for “an old guy.” And she said Dean concurred.

Gora said that helped explain the university’s commitment to emerging media, investing some $17.5 million in a variety of initiatives over a five-year period, to help facilitate it.

Some of those efforts culminate each spring in a conference on the BSU campus that, in the past, has been mainly for the university’s faculty and friends. Now she says, Ball State will open it up to the greater community. More on that later.

Howard Dean