Posts Tagged ‘HP’
What makes a great online promotional video?
December 19th, 2010
What does make a great online promotional video? Intent, expertise, emotional intelligence, knowledge, content, execution … with an essential quality that I always struggle to define. Perhaps it’s ‘nowness’, capturing our disparate neurotic thoughts and squeezing them through an intelligent sieve to find the essence of what we think.
The great promotional films transcend the terrifying limitations of the device, and somehow connect with us in deep, primal way so that we feel ‘alive and now’ through text, voice and music.
The thousand words needed to match the narrative of a still image is almost unquestioned. The antecedence of this aphorism is questionable but worth following, if you are so minded. While we accept it, apparently, does that mean we believe it?
Images enrich a story; they pose questions and offer mysteries but, I do not think they narrate the story. That is only in the gift of text and voice – and music.
The great promotional thinkers of the last century employed the services of the best psycho-analysts in an effort to understand and exploit the fragilities of the human mind for commercial benefit.
Somewhere along the way, they lost the map and, in their confusion, developed the art of “lying with style”.
This mode of telling gossamer untruths cannot find a berth in our web. Yet we still see, with every click, the impractical propaganda of agencies and brands that still believe in the efficacy of lying.
I hope that in 2011, we will see the final move away from this dissembling. Brands need to embrace the idea and benefits of communal honesty.
Give you an example, you know I’m a Slate evangelist and I believe that this device form can open a Web 4.0 market, engaging “everybody else” who has not gone online. This video tells me so little, and yet promises so much. It’s beautiful but not extraordinary – the Slates are truly innovative and should form the next generation of connected devices - globally, everywhere. It’s not lying - just not telling me the truth.
And talking of essence, beauty and intent, I’ll leave you with Marian Anderson, a black woman who transcended the prejudice and hate of her time with a rare, clear voice:
Phil McKinney and the digital future in 3D
December 10th, 2009
I’ve just been listening again to Phil McKinney’s views (Guardian Tech Weekly podcast) on the future of everything digital – just to remind myself of how much we’ve got to look forward to in the next decade.
Phil is the global CTO of Hewlett Packard as well as the presenter of the influential Killer Innovation podcast and has the knack of turning the technical mountains into the flatlands of speed and opportunity.
In the Guardian podcast, he races through the future of print media, the need for slate computers that fill the need for 4.5–10-inch screens, what’s in the way of cloud computing (the network infrastructure) and data mobility transforming third-world lives.
But for me, the most interesting focus was on the future of 3D. Phil believes that 3D is how we will be accessing a lot of rich information and the reasons, he says, are simple - 2D means that you are throwing information away.
Anyone viewing 3D makes better decisions and for business that means greater productivity because the information presented is more in tune with how people see things in the real world. The challenge is to present 3D without the funny glasses.
I think the expressions of 3D over the next few years will include the full range, from virtual reality through to 3D interactive virtual worlds, accessible anytime, anywhere. Right now, there is an explosion of 3D environments, tools and services that push the boundaries of knowledge delivery.
As Phil concludes: “3D will fundamentally change how we see, view and experience content.”
How we will find relevant information is another challenge - for the search engines.