Mr.
Matt
Spangler

Catching up on the RSS over the holidays and saw this Berg Mag+ presentation commissioned by Bonnier Punlications at Gareth Kay’s site that shows a concept video exploring the future of digital magazine interfaces.

There is some great thinking here and I especially like the idea of completion being innate to how we prefer to experience content. I think many developments in recent products run counter to this but much of the successful entertainment and publishing products still provide a package with a beginning and end. After all, movies had one of their best year’s ever. This team is not the only ones thinking about this interface challenge. There are some others that are applying their thinking to practical application with the iPhone and websites.

I met today with an talented entrepreneur, the founder of Panelfly, who has been exploring this for the past year with his team and has launched his company in the hopes to be one of the leaders in this emerging space. Starting initially with a focus on comics, they have a patent pending technology that helps users easily navigate through large format story-driven print content (panels) that enhance the experience and play to the device strengths. They are well positioned to take advantage of this emerging area and I look forward to possibly working with their team to explore things further.

On the web, there are some forward thinking publishers looking at the future and applying it to their current interfaces in preparation for the pending device advancement.  My friend Harry and his team at moco loco have taken a similar approach to the interface described in this video with a site redesign that allows the user to choose either a horizontal or vertical scrolling view.  I see it as a site poised to leverage the newly Apple Tablet device that could likely be similar to the one shown in this video experiment.

I’m sure the Apple design team watched this video with interest in relation to the pending i(e.o.u.)Tablet launch and this is the first video I’ve seen that shows the clear opportunity for a tablet as a reading device for content that goes beyond the first gen eReader (kindle etc)

I was curious that there was no discussion or display of the use of video with this device and it seemed like a very static focused viewpoint that doesn’t seem to take full advantage of the medium and device opportunity. That ability to build a story with rich visuals and indeed, sound, will clearly be a place that “traditional” editorial groups such as magazines will be moving more towards and it seems through some of the early rumored meetings regarding the tablet that this is where Apple plans to put much of its focus.

On the other hand, you could argue, and I actually agree with, that the simplicity of this presentation and its lack of and in-depth analysis of video is a benefit for making the solution more clear and more applicable to the publishing company that hired them to create it. It says what is needs to say in a complete “package”…homage to the its own thesis.

Have heard about the Spur video series that talks with planners in the industry but haven’t had a chance to watch the videos until the break. I enjoyed the first three episodes and would encourage anyone interested in the fields of strategy, planning, management consulting or the agency environment in general to check them out.

This particular one about the planning “identity crisis” seems to offer the the most diverse sound bites that I connected with from my experiences of 2009 so I thought I’d pass it along with a few personal thoughts about the coming year.

1. Hank Leber (McKinney), Heidi Hackemer (BBH) and Robin Hafitz (KBSP) talk about the antiquated idea that most advertising/marketing agencies still hold onto regarding who owns the creativity, the titles that come along with it and thus the credit and accolades tied to it.  This is an issue that I think is still pervasive at agencies of all size and especially among creative directors (something Russell Davies and David Armano spoke about a bit last year). The most intelligent and forward thinking agencies I have been talking to the past 6 months are starting to tear this down and I think 2010 will mark a significant shift in this thinking. Good ideas come from many different places, but the structure of the top down pyramid creative direction can often stifle the best collaborative thinking.


2. John Gerzama stresses the importance of hybrid talent and compares it with hollywood writer/director/actor.  I think this year marks the continued consolidation between this entertainment driven hybrid thinker and the kind of talent that agencies have to recruit.  As everything becomes a form of “entertainment”, experience and storytelling has increased value, and the ability to reach the right audience becomes more confusing (not necessarily harder), the blending of the talent between these two worlds will become more necessary and for those in the strategist and planner position, this wider perspective will make them more critical to the success of the organization and its ideas.


3. One thing that I didn’t hear touched on in any of the videos that I think is critical is the idea of problem identification before starting to work on the solution. Robin briefly whispers about being a good listener which I think is a true art for the best planners and strategists. In a world where everyone is looking to provide the next great “idea”, there is less and less time spent on identifying the real problems. Often times, there are bigger communications issues that go beyond the next marketing campaign. This analysis and the ability and process of identifying the problems will become more critical then ever for the success of clients in the coming year.


4. Paul Woolmington from Naked talks about the fact that good planners worth their salt want to get upstream to solve more critical business issues.  From my experience and discussions this is incredibly challenging from inside many agencies but will be more important then ever in the coming year. For the past 3 months I’ve been consulting with Naked Communications on the extension of this thought. As a consultancy they have already had many successful engagements using communications to solve problems that go well beyond the traditional marketing challenges. We are working to develop updated processes that emphasize identification of the problems and communication plans that may not fit within the traditional “marketing” buckets but help solve core business issues. While keeping an eye on the changing way that organizations are using digital communications channels daily (with consumers, partners, employees…whatever label you want to give them) this becomes more important then ever and thus more critical for marketers to extend their thinking beyond the next campaign.
   
   Would love to hear your thoughts…

On Sunday, with a nod to the ever-increasing power of branded content, I saw a VIZIO ad on tv with a song that I had heard and liked but couldn’t remember the artist name. I googled “who sings the song in Vizio television commercial” and bought Empire of the Sun’s latest album off Amazon 5 minutes later.

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Incredible laugh and great marketing for Worth100.com which I’d never heard of.

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Ricky Gervais reacts to the Worth1000.com Contest If Movie Posters Told The Truth.

His laugh is infectious