Event12: been there, done that...

Since we are finalizing our current research on festivals and working towards a publication in September, we are coming out of our research closet! Last week a ‘snippet’ of our research was presented at the international ASCA meeting in Amsterdam by Jelke de Boer en Michiel Rovers. This concerned the somewhat surprising result of social media users having lower scores on motivation question, before as well as during the festival. Could it be that social media users are less intrinsically motivated and more ‘instrumental’, scanning what leisure opportunities are available and choosing which one fits most conveniently? And are social media users during a festival more pre-occupied with showing they are ‘there’ at the festival (‘look at me!’) instead of being in the moment of experiencing the festival? Putting a mobile phone between you and the performing artist is a physical act of distancing yourself from what is happening around you by literally putting media between you and your surroundings. Adformatie also picked up these surprising results, and although being wrongly quoted on it, was further evidence for us that people are interested in our research.

Tagged with: media strategy game, festivals, experience,

Online versus real life experiences

It is a well known fact that the internet has brought with it many changes to the world economy, society and the daily lives of people. As people use the media and applications to define their identities (as I argued in my last blog), these developments and opportunities that accompany them might even be important for people’s perceptions and values. The popularity of internet applications results in their being used regularly to provide services for the general public. Besides that, the interactivity also creates opportunities for consumers to be proactive in gaining new experiences. As a result, the ways people choose to attend, prepare and experience events have changed.

Tagged with: museumkompas, festivals, experience,

DeBeschaving

Today, at the festival DeBeschaving members of the Crossmedialab were present to promote their concepts (among them BandSpot). Also a survey was held among the festival visitors, a survey (the 'eventmonitor') that is being developed by researchers of the Crossmedialab. A publication on the experience of festivals, with data from this survey will be published shortly. Furthermore, we also had fun watching DazzledKid, Kensington and so many other acts (a snail race, and of course Elvis lives....)

Tagged with: festivals, debeschaving, experience,

The Archives in the age of cool

The city of Utrecht has, as many Dutch cities and regions, a rich and well-documented history. There is a huge mountain of data of all sorts of events taking place in or around the city. And by mountain of data you can take that quite literal. If you would make a stack of all the documents it would form a pile higher then the Mont Blanc, with its 4811 meters the highest mountain of Europe. The preservation of these huge collections is a complex task, and making it easily accessible is even harder. Making it all something that a non-professional audience can experience in a fun way seems like an almost impossible task.

Tagged with: vrede van utrecht, experience, mobile, cultural heritage,

Tagging stuffed birds

As augmented reality is coming up (as Jelke explained earlier), so is RFID. For those not familiar with this term, RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. A RFID chip can be read by a RFID reader which evokes a two way exchange of information from a distance of 50 to 100 meters. By using RFID tags all kinds of units can be identified without physical contact. The best known example in the Netherlands nowadays is the OV-chipkaart, used for public transport. Another very practical example is the RFID business card (Poken). RFID tags can increase the efficiency of the distribution of consumer products too. Not only can a tray of diapers be recognized immediately by a RFID reader, it shows which supermarket this tray is heading to.

Tagged with: tagging, interactive tour, museum, rfid, experience,

Attack of the cyborg zombies from augmented space

With the continues improvements on mobile devices and the growing acceptance of information technology there's a lot of exiting things to expect in our nearby future. Last weekend I attended the AR Dev Camp hosted by Mediamatic in Amsterdam and i got quite excited about some new applications currently in development. But it's not all hallelujah, there are also some major concerns that should not be swept away to lightly. Does this picture represent a bright new future or a techno-nightmare?

Tagged with: open access, augmented reality, experience, mobile,

How big is your idea, and does size matter?

To be able to survive in a global market we need innovation. We need a creative industry, and most of all we need ideas. Preferably good ideas but just a whole bunch of ideas would do for now. Let’s start by having a look at the word "idea”. What is an idea? And what makes one idea a good one and another one bad? It's mostly circumstantial so there is no easy way to sepa-rate the good from the bad and the ugly. What we can do is look at the scale of an idea. I think we can divide the world of ideas and concepts into three different domains; there’s great inventions, big innovations and small improvements.

Tagged with: creative industries, innovation, ideas, experience,

Audio branding: sensory or sensual branding?

Last weekend i attended the first international audio-branding conference held in Hamburg. It was exiting to meet the pioneers in this relatively new market. At the HU I have developed a new course in audio branding as a part of our minor digital audio design. It's one of the first courses fully focusing on this specific topic and I'm very pleased our program reflects the points of view I met there. As an eye opener (or ear opener) for all those who are unfamiliar with audio branding I'd like to point you to the TED talk by Julian Treasure:

Tagged with: audio branding, branding, experience,

Communities and Events

Nearly two months ago I posted a blog on my research and that research now is finished! It was on the subject of experiencing events and the influence an online community can have on that experience. At that time I was busy building an online community for the Highlands blues festival, which is now a fact; blueslife.nl. We wanted to have a solid theory to give structure to the online community. So we based that online community on the theory that experience consists of four vital aspects; socialisation, fun, education and signification. We tried to represent those assets in the form of a wiki page, a forum and the possibility to make a profile and to communicate with each other throughout the whole community. We launched this community a month for the festival took place, and that may have been a bit too late for a community to fully flourish. On May 16th, the date of the actual festival, blueslife.nl had a member count of 60.

Tagged with: communities, events, experience,

Experience? Yes, with milk and sugar please

Product experience is hot. Experience is what makes the difference; nobody wants just another piece of soap when we can have an experience of a fresh sensation every morning instead. We’re moving from a product economy towards an experience economy. Take a look at this statement from Nivea when introducing new (European) products on the American market:

Tagged with: starbucks, nivea, experience,