BBH Labs

Interview with Mr John V Willshire, founder of Smithery

27th January 12

Posted by Mel Exon

Posted in People, transformational change

Every now and again, we like to interview someone doing something interesting. It’s a pleasure to say that this time we’re featuring a good friend of Labs, John V Willshire, (or @willsh, as he’s known to the Twitterverse). John broke free from agency life last year to set up his own business. In this, the first of a two-part interview, we asked John to tell us a bit about it – along the way sharing his thoughts on a bunch of things from The Smiths, social connectivity, the economic viability of social production today and, er, rocks vs water..

Social Winter, Oslo, 2011

BBH Labs: Tell us a bit about why you founded Smithery.

JW: The idea powering Smithery is Make Things People Want beats Make People Want Things. The former doesn’t replace the latter, as companies still do both, but what’s interesting is the switch in emphasis.

Over time, the advertising industry became very, very good at making people want things. It didn’t matter if those things weren’t all that good, because nobody could tell each other with any meaningful scale at a meaningful volume. Advertising was louder than bombs, to inappropriately hijack The Smiths (hey, if it’s good enough for John Lewis…).

Obviously we don’t need to go into the details here of how the internet has changed how companies can connect with people, but the advertising instinct is to use social connectivity to make people want things. That’s why I think the majority of social activity we see is poor.

As time passes, companies and agencies will work harder and think better about how to use social connectivity to make things people want, whether that’s changing established goods and services, or creating new ones.

So I founded Smithery to help do that; whether it’s working together in better ways, making better things, or helping telling better stories about those things. Read full post

No Comments

Tags:
John V Willshire, Smithery

Print
Majority report: looking through the digital hype

24th January 12

Posted by Mel Exon

Posted in transformational change

This post originally appeared as an article in Viewpoint at the end of 2011. Briefed to one of BBH London’s smartest strategists, Ed Booty, as a deliberate polemic, it’s a provocative argument designed to question our assumptions about the constant pace of change. We like being challenged (we enjoyed Matt Edgar’s post last year along similar lines) – please let us know what you think in the comments.

Author: Ed Booty, Strategy Director, BBH London

Image: Seattle Space Needle, by Patricia Kranenberg (via Flickr under a Creative Commons licence)

It is commonly accepted that a digital revolution is afoot. We have entered a brave new networked world. Individuals are empowered, social movements cannot remain contained and knowledge is free to all. Data is making our world more intuitive, bespoke and rewarding. We are mobile, always on, always entertained and hyper-social.

Things appear to be going swimmingly and never has the future been so clearly mapped out for us. It’s sexy, creative, inclusive and exciting. It’s one big SXSW festival.

Nothing new so far, and it does all sound rather good.

Maybe it’s too good to be true?

Unfortunately it is.

Advance apologies to neophytes, digital evangelists and west coast entrepreneurs. It’s time for a reality check. The speed, scale and depth of the so-called digital revolution has been wildly exaggerated.

What has caused this mirage of revolution?

Behind the hype, what might a more realistic vision of a digital world be? Read full post

21 Comments

Tags:
Ed Booty, exponential, logarithmic, pace of change, polemic

Print
CES 2012: Why marketers should be relieved

20th January 12

Posted by Saneel Radia

Posted in technology

Image source: http://www.rickycadden.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cessign.jpg

Authors: Saneel Radia, Head of BBH Labs NYC & Tim Harris, EVP/Managing Director of Innovation at McCann Erickson*

Last week was the Consumer Electronics Show, an event more widely attended by brand marketers than ever before. Although the show resembled last year’s a bit too closely for our liking, we’ve resisted simply republishing our 2011 recap. What was unique however, is the sense of relief we feel upon our return. Instead of feeling intimidated by the speed of innovation, or anxious from the ever-fragmenting tech landscape, we’ve come home with our industry angst alleviated. Let us elaborate on the trends keeping us relaxed.

No one actually knows how to design for “laplets”
As the world of consumer electronics bounces between convergence and divergence, we were a bit surprised to walk through booths full of laptop + tablet hybrids that seem to be a unique device offering in and of themselves. Then there were phone + tablet hybrids like the Samsung Note. There was even a t ablet + gaming rig hybrid. On top of those converging devices, we were struck by the number of input peripherals accompanying them. Peripherals are nothing new, but this onslaught of converged devices with inputs beyond touchscreens is really interesting. It seems touch interface isn’t the panacea we all wanted it to be. When the iPhone and iPad changed the way we did stuff, we figured that was it.

However, one look at how game developers and electronics manufacturers are interacting demonstrates just how difficult it is for content creators to stick immersive content into a touch environment. Ever played a mobile game with dual-virtual-stick control? It sucks. But game developers are still designing games that require it. As anyone that works at an agency has seen, designing irrespective of context happens daily. Sure, we all have our different remedies for this (see BBH’s media design practice), but almost no marketers truly craft ideas from environments. The best simply craft to them, closing the gap as best they can, but not truly letting the context or medium play as fundamental a role as it deserves.

Seeing some of the world’s best content creators struggle with familiar issues, we couldn’t help but let guilty smiles cross our faces. We can take solace it isn’t just us marketers.

TVs being “smart” means we may not have to be
Last year, virtually every booth had the word “smart” displayed on it, obliquely referencing the fact that their TVs were internet-enabled. Although the idea of apps on TVs isn’t going away (especially with gesture-based engagement on the horizon), we saw a more conservative- dare we say even practical- approach to TV apps this year. Instead of highlighting obscure developers they had worked with to make apps, this year the manufacturers were presenting the familiar logos of Netflix, Hulu and Fios. We’d argue such familiarity is welcome to both consumers and marketers. It means less subscriptions for people, and a less fragmented media landscape for marketers.

As TV manufacturers came to the welcome realization that the revenue from app sales simply wasn’t going to change the face of their business, content providers with app-driven models like Netflix have been emboldened (it’s no coincidence Hulu announced its first unique scripted series on the heels of CES). This media-agency-friendly revenue model will make it easier for brands to get onto TV screens without having to partner with developers. Instead, they’ll work through content and distribution companies they already know how to engage. If we had to guess, that means subscription-services like HBO and FiOS will experiment with ad presence of varying levels, depending on the platform (e.g., Xbox 360 vs Panasonic Viera Connect). It’s certainly a lot easier as a brand to think about how to work with Hulu than it is to sort out unique offerings across Sony and LG devices. No one should be more relieved about this consolidation than marketers, a group notoriously bad at partnering with developers and quantifying value in new ways.

Perhaps most importantly, media deal-making lunches have been preserved. Phew.

We put a big bet on Apple and we seem to be winning
Apple is famously absent from every CES, yet it’s clear to any attendee that they are present, if not formally as an exhibitor. Last year was a show of iPad alternatives. The year before was an exhibition of iPhone derivatives. This year was the “hey we have a MacBook Air too” show. Apple certainly didn’t invent the ultra-thin laptop, but any analysis of the design and feature-set selected across various manufacturer’s devices (see Samsung’s new Series 9, Dell’s XPS 13 or any device featured by Intel as an Ultrabook) reveals a very Apple-like device.

Once again, a comforting thought donned on us as we walked the Convention Center floor. Few industries have adopted Apple products as early and as deeply than the ad industry. As creative teams relentlessly pitch tech ideas born from an Apple-centric view of the universe, they may just start to see more nodding heads and fewer rolling eyes. Agencies are notorious for their dogmatic approach to ideas. In this case, Apple’s vast grip on consumer electronics may justify our utterly biased view of tech experiences.

It seems creatives have yet another thing to thank Steve for.

The home is connecting to retail (and we had nothing to do with it)
We’ve all been hearing about the refrigerator that tells you when you’re low on milk since before there were computers (fine, not quite that long, but still). This year’s CES brought all of the “smart” into context for the truly connected home. An LG refrigerator not only speaks to your phone or tablet to tell you all about its contents or encourage you to fill it up again– it also helps you manage a diet via personal profiles and nutritional information. Smart vacuums and ovens do their duties when you’re not even home, and some appliances talk to each other to save on power usage. We’re used to hearing about appliances that talk to retail (or an online grocer), but this year, the retail environment talks back. Walking through the stores of the near future, we’ll get notifications about relevant offers, loyalty plus-ups and even recipe analysis based on what’s at home in your fridge. We’ll no longer have 58 heads of garlic at home or 9 jars of cayenne pepper. What a pleasant surprise– we’ve been trying to solve for the gap between home/planning and shopping/buying forever in marketing. Promotions, brand extensions and partnerships will have much more clarity, because they’ll be based on consumer need rather than marketing guesswork. LG, Alcatel-Lucent and others have given us a palette from which to create truly integrated designs for the makers, sellers and buyers of everyday products. In other words, marketers’ inability to close the gap between retail and brand experiences may soon be a non-issue. The tech industry is sorting it out for us.

Now maybe we can help them figure out how to make their biggest event fresh again.

*Saneel & Tim were two of the co-founders of Denuo, and this was the 10th CES they’ve attended together. They’ve come home broke, and in a fight, after each.

1 Comment

Tags:
CES, Event, guest, tim harris, trends

Print
The Barn Returns: BBH NY’s 2012 Winter Term Internship Applications Are Open

15th January 12

Posted by Saneel Radia

Posted in awesomeness

The Barn is BBH's global internship program

Author: Eric Fernandez, Strategist, BBH New York

The Barn is back in New York, and we’re looking for a special new team of genius interns to fill our ranks. This isn’t your run of the mill ad internship, so we’re not looking for typical marketing resumes. We’re looking for resourceful MacGyver types who are curious about everything, comfortable doing stuff every day that they haven’t done before, and are natural wizards at technology. We want the kind of folks that can grasp a program like Final Cut Pro after watching a few how-to videos and a couple of hours of trial and error. Or, faced with the task of creating a web site, will google PHP programming, find some open source scripts and at least try to hack something together. When we say resourceful, we mean it. We’re looking for people that really geek out over their projects.

The Barn is designed to empower people like this. We aren’t going to stick you under a rug doing nothing but grunt work. We are going to put you on teams and give you the chance to do your own projects. Last year, Barn Interns won two Cannes Lions with a project that was featured on major news outlets across the country– and even made Twitter’s ten most remarkable tweets of the year. That type of success continues to be our ambition in this now global internship program.

Our brief is three words: “Do Good, Famously” and we’ll give you the funding and support you need to create a kick ass project that will change lives. We’ll also make sure you get the credit for it. We want our program to be a spring board for your career.

If selected, you will be one of six interns, split into two teams of three people. These teams will be set off against their 3-word brief with full access to BBH talent along the way. They’ll also be working on client business throughout, so it will be a very busy 10 weeks. Our goal is to make this an internship like no other in marketing. It’s more about you than about us. We just like having your energy and passion around the agency. And if it’s anything like previous sessions, we’ll probably learn a thing or two ourselves.

If you’d like to apply or know some who would, check out the application site at http://www.bbhbarn.com/, or follow @bbhbarn. The application deadline ends January 20th, 2012.

No Comments

Tags:
BBH Barn, hiring, internship, Recruitment, talent

Print
I Feel For You

13th January 12

Posted by Mel Exon

Posted in culture, strategy

Jules et Jim (1962, Francois Truffaut)

Author: Jim Carroll, Chairman, BBH London

I was watching the splendid Truffault film, Jules et Jim. There’s a scene in which Jules, courting the mercurial Catherine, endeavours to impress her.

‘Catherine, I understand you’, he says.

Catherine replies,’ But I don’t want to be understood.’

I paused for thought. Don’t we spend our lives trying to understand consumers? What if, like Catherine, they don’t want to be understood? Understanding implies explanation, logic, rationality. And, critically, it suggests control. Which is precisely, I suspect, why Catherine didn’t want to be understood.

As a young Planner I’m not sure I completely understood the behaviour, ethics and attitudes of British consumers. But I did feel a strong sense of empathy with them. I felt for them in a way. I wonder now whether I’ve lost some of that natural, instinctive judgement. I wonder whether, in a data fuelled world, we have a diminished regard for feelings in our engagement with consumers.

A friend of mine occasionally dismisses films she did not enjoy with the simple assertion that she ‘did not feel it’. As an Anglo Saxon I was originally somewhat nonplussed. Surely a fuller explanation would help? Similarly we were always taught to grill Clients on their responses to work, to demand that they account for their instinctive immediate reactions. Now I wonder whether I have been wrong on both counts: in the way I expect my friends to assess movies and my Clients to judge work.

Shouldn’t feelings always trump understanding? Shouldn’t feelings suffice?

Do you ever find it a little sinister when modern marketers promise to translate data into knowledge, and knowledge into sales? I do. I confess ‘hidden persuasion’ has never been my bag. I don’t aspire to that level of control.Of course we all want the web to be all-knowing, but should I want it to know all about me? Personally I don’t want the web to know me; I want it to feel me. And I find the prospect of an empathetic, all-feeling web increasingly attractive.

Who am I to talk? I’m generally uncomfortable with unfiltered emotional expression. I shudder at the prospect of corporate hugs. Nonetheless, I return to work with a modest resolution: in 2012 I want to base more of my judgements on empathy and feeling, rather than on logic and understanding. And I’d like the web to do the same please.

Chaka was, as ever, right all along. ‘I feel for you’…

16 Comments

Tags:
empathy, Jim Carroll, Jules et Jim

Print
Marching Backwards into 2012

21st December 11

Posted by Jeremy Ettinghausen

Posted in BBH Labs

“The past went that-a-way … We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” – Marshall McLuhan
http://www.vimeo.com/32001208
Predictions are a mug’s game. In these uncertain times you won’t find us sticking our heads above the futurology parapet and making some rash pronouncements on the coming this or the tomorrow of that. Instead, at this time of the year, we like to approach the future with a longing gaze in the rear view mirror and a look back at the last 12 months of postings on this blog – 81 of them in all from 35 contributors.

As in previous years, below you’ll find ten of our favourite posts from 2011 – the ones that have provoked us in the learning and writing and our generous readers in the comments. But our self-analysis has also uncovered buried themes, some revisited, others newer, which marked our 2011 and perhaps set a tone for the year to come.

Storytelling and new forms of narrative have always been of interest to us in Labs, but this year we’ve added the growing attention paid to, er, attention to the mix with a couple of guest posts on connected TV and further exploration into storytelling with our Fray Cafe-esque TaleTorrent event for Internet Week. For many, all around the world, 2011 has been a year of grassroot activism and whilst occupying Kingly Street and 32 Avenue of the Americas is our day job, sustainable marketing and creativity for good have also bubbled up as pervasive themes in a number of posts this year. And given the tumultus changes happening within our industry, you won’t be surprised to see industry innovation and reinvention well represented as another theme below. Perhaps more than any other year since Labs was founded in 2008, this has been a year of rolling up sleeves and putting theory into practice.

It might seem that 2011 has not been a stellar year in terms of innovation in the broader technology industry. While our Facebook experience has been timelined, our Googling plussed and our questions quora-ed, the space shuttle programme has come to a close, the Higgs Boson remains elusive and so perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that this year also saw a number of more reflective rather than reactive posts. BBH London Chairman Jim Carroll set the tone for a theme we’re calling ‘Think While you Make’, with a lovely series of elegiac posts on sleep, ennui and nocturnally abnormal wildlife.

So while we recover over the holidays we look forward to much more thinking and making, talking and doing in 2012. As always we are are astonished by the generosity of everyone who writes for, reads, shares or comments on the blog. It’s been an amazing year. Thanks for taking part, thanks for letting us in and thank you for everything you’ve taught us this year.

We’re already looking forward to the start of the Spring term – see you back at school in the new year.

Mel, Jeremy & Saneel

*****************

So, finally, Labs top 10 for ‘11, in mostly chronological order.

1. Think While You Make, Make While You Think

Some setting out of the stall in this post which encouraged us to find a balance between action and reflection, to not have too many tabs open at once, and occassionally to leave things alone for a while to let them ripen at their own pace.

2. Collaborative Consumption & Customer Co-creation

It might be a small cheat to bundle these two great posts together in a top ten, but as a pair they make a strong argument for more evolved thinking when it comes to creativity, collaboration and consumption. When audiences are willing to participate in branded activities and business see the benefit of a more transparent and collaborative model, co-creation and collaborative consumption are surely pivotal to the ongoing success of any forward facing brand.

3. The Human OS

A fascinating guest post from Google’s David Bryant on the convergence of computer and human operating systems and the increasing adoption of intuitive physical interactions that provoke a more instinctive than reasoned response.

4. Exploring the Edges

Provoked by a couple of posts on the need (or not) for agencies to employ Chief Innovation Officers this post looks at how to be an innovation unit and what the wider agency can and should demand of those it employs to push the envelope and live on the edge.

5. Creative Direction Vs Creative Selection

‘No one works for a Creative Director. Everyone works for the idea. The idea hires us and we go to work.’ The most popular post of the year from BBH LA’s ECD Pelle Sjoenell on the role of the Creative Director as politician, farmer and assassin.

6. No Tangible Limits

For Labs, meeting Amber Case and learning about Geoloqi, the location sharing startup she is developing with Aaron Parecki, was one of the highlights of SXSW. We’re already looking forward to seeing her keynote in 2012 and catching up with the great concentration of smart people that SXSW attracts. Come and say hello if you’re there.

7. Turning Intelligence into Magic

To mark the launch of Sir John Hegarty’s book, we asked him a series of questions which he answered with a series of sketches, an appropriately witty, incisive and ‘different’ interview celebrating an iconic advertising career.

8. Don’t Forget the I in T

At Labs we celebrate the hybrid, but in this post recognize that a team of hybrids might lack the depth in specific disciplines, might spend too much time agreeing with each other and might only be appropriate to crack certain tasks. As Ben points out in the comments, it’s important for a jack of all trades to be a master of some!

9. Building a New Agency OS

A consideration for a new thinking about what an agency can be, should be and could do as we approach ‘marketing singularity’, the moment the message becomes indistinguishable from the product or service it promotes. Instead of codifying an agency operating system around functions and outputs, we suggest that an agency of the future needs an OS rooted in a culture of collaboration, experimentation and transparency.

10. Keep Aaron Cutting

Lastly, in a year when social media has been both blamed for fuelling the London riots and praised for fuelling the Arab Spring, we can’t have a top ten list without acknowledging the Keep Aaron Cutting project. Thanks to the generosity (there’s that word again) of all the BBH blog and twitter stream readers who used social media to spread the word about an 89-year-old barber from North London who might have lost everything, Aaron’s shop is well on the way to being rebuilt and a nice old guy has had his faith in young people and in technology restored.

More of this next year, please.

3 Comments

Tags:
annual, BBH Labs, blogging, top ten

Print
Supplying Monsters, Telling Stories

15th December 11

Posted by Mel Exon

Posted in business models, storytelling

Hoxton Street Monster Supply Store interior (photo: www.monstersupplies.org)

At Labs we like nothing more that creativity put to good use (reference our love for ichainsaws, gloves, design-led activism and fightwear with a social mission). Chuck in some Mortal Terror and we’re yours.

With the recent launch of their online shop, www.monstersupplies.org, our friends at Hoxton Street Monster Supplies have extended what is essentially an imaginative, immaculately designed fund-raising platform. It’s all in aid of Ministry of Stories, a creative writing non-profit which is supported by all proceeds from the shop.

If you need to stock up on Zombie Fresh Mints or my personal favourite, a tin of “A Vague Sense of Unease”, Hoxton Street Monster Supplies is the site for you.

A Vague Sense Of Unease, available at http://www.ministryofstories.org/

And, hey, the holidays are upon us, so satisfy the buying-spree beast within with a little monster-based goodness – just make sure you get your order in by this Friday 1pm (GMT), if you want to make last orders before Christmas.

Behind the shop at 159 Hoxton Street, through a hidden door, the Ministry of Stories exists to help young people in East London learn how to be storytellers. Which, as @jeremyet always likes to say, is where the magic happens.

Ministry of Stories Writer (photo: http://www.ministryofstories.org/)

You can shop online here or volunteer to help at the Ministry of Stories here.

Credits:

The website was created “by a small group of unpaid humans in their spare time”: design by Gavin and Jason Fox, build by Simon Pearson, project management by Chris Meachin, user experience by Mike Towber; and art direction by We Made This.

monstersupplies.org

No Comments

Tags:
Chris Meachin, creativity, Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, Ministry of Stories

Print
We Told Tales (at Internet Week)

2nd December 11

Posted by Jeremy Ettinghausen

Posted in awesomeness

Author: James Mitchell, Strategist, BBH Labs

Back in November, Internet Week Europe happened – many of you might better know it as #iwe11. Last year, we challenged London’s digital elite to get their hands dirty and code up a storm in an afternoon. This year, we did something altogether more warm and fuzzy.

This November, we asked people to step forward and bare their souls for TaleTorrent – a night of true stories about the internet. And step forward they did! We had a truly fantastic lineup of speakers telling stories from the funny to the sad, the professional to the personal, but all extremely entertaining. Thank you guys, again.

It was very much a night run on volunteer goodwill – not least from the guys at Kinura, who approached us a full three days before the event and said “hey, d’you want us to stream it online?”

We said an emphatic yes. And so, for anybody that missed it, grab some port and enjoy after dinner.

TALETORRENT – PART ONE

Featuring @BetaRish and @mndtrythnkng‘s ultimate answer to Facebook’s “What’s on your mind?”,@katylindemann‘s True Confessions Of A Teenage Weblogger, @documentally‘s 999-style car crash reenactment, and @claireburge‘s paean to the gods of Serendipity.

TALETORRENT – PART TWO

Featuring @jnicholasgeist‘s Zombie apocalypse night-on-the-tiles (a transatlantic special!), @simonsanders‘ pen-pal to PM saga, @mananatomorrow‘s cyberphilic daughter, and my experiences of chartroom romance, of a sort.

…and if you enjoyed that, know now that there are plans for TaleTorrentTwo, to land sometime in March. A little less rushed this time around. Details will come when they exist, but if you’re inspired by what you’ve seen and you want to have a go, drop me an email at james.mitchell@bbh-labs.com. We’d love to have you.

No Comments

Tags:
Internet Week, taletorrent

Print
#WaterRun: For The Win-Win

28th November 11

Posted by Mel Exon

Posted in People, collaboration

Author: Mareka Carter, @marekacarter, Creative, BBH London

What’s #WaterRun?

Many people living in villages in Sub-Saharan Africa have to walk c. 5 km every day just to collect clean water.

#WaterRun is about running (or walking, if that’s more your thing) the same distance, our aim to raise enough money to build 30 new wells in the region.

5 km takes about an hour’s walk a day; for many of us it’s the equivalent of walking or running into work, instead of taking public transport – see what we did there?

Log your runs and donate here: waterrunproject.com. If you’re a Water Runner, you could donate the money you’ve saved not using public transport, if you’re a Supporter you can donate, well, as much as you feel able.

It’s something for everyone, not just the creative and tech community: we’d love everyone’s Mum and Dad, Mom and Pop, Mama and Papa to get involved too.

Think of it as a win-win, ‘pre-tox’ cleanse before the debauchery of the holiday season kicks in - or, if you’re in the States, a quick post-Thanksgiving fitness drive – a chance to do some good towards others and yourself in the process.

Why are we doing this?

You will have seen news coverage of the widespread famine in East Africa and very possibly heard about the 50/50 project launched in response by our friends at Made by Many, hatched with Good for Nothing. If you haven’t: each project on the collaborative platform combines fund-raising with digital goodness, aiming to engage a network of supporters to help spread the word and generate as much money for as possible for UNICEF famine aid. Like our brothers and sisters at BBH NY, we knew we wanted in the moment we heard about it.

Those links again:

Log your runs and make a donation here: www.waterrunproject.com.

Follow us on Twitter: @Water_Run, #WaterRun

Find us on Facebook here.

And check out the raft of other amazing initiatives for 50/50 here: 5050.gd

#WaterRun starts now, but you can join in whenever you want. Do it once, or you can do it every day for the next few weeks – it’s up to you. The main thing is to keep logging your distances on the super simple website and telling the world about it, so together we can send the total raised sky high.

Thank you. Happy Water Running!

No Comments

Tags:
50/50 Project, Good For Nothing, Made by Many, UNICEF, Water Run

Print
Missing Texture

23rd November 11

Posted by Jeremy Ettinghausen

Posted in culture

Wouldn’t it be nice to smell the internet? Well, thanks to the clever chaps at Mint Foundry this might soon be possible.Their concept product, the punningly named Olly (details at ollyfactory.com!) will convert tweets, checkins, likes or other digital notifications and blast out an arduino-powered whiff across your keyboard. So now every William Gibson tweet can smell like a long-chain monomer and every checkin at a Starbucks like fresh roasted coffee. Sadly you will need two Olly’s to experience the double hit of Testosterone and Smug released whenever Piers Morgan tweets @Simon Cowell.

The interesting thing about the Olly is that it is an attempt to add texture to wholly digital experiences. A decent proportion of my last job was spent arguing with people about page-turning animations in ebooks – I felt that they were a legacy metaphor and had no place in a purely digital experience. There are definitely things about the physicality of a book that would be great to transfer to an ebook. For example, knowing when you are nearing the end of a book by the distribution of weight in your hands feels different from the knowledge that you are on page 1324 of 1346. Such additions would add both context and texture to the ereading experience, wheras the page-turning animation is texture without context.

Brett Victor’s much-discussed rant (his word) on the ubiquity of the finger-swipe in visions of future interfaces suggests a disquiet with what is being sacrificed in the quest for frictionless interaction. As touchscreens increasingly become our interface to the web it is healthy that there are those out there documenting what we are losing whilst everyone else, including us at BBH Labs of course, celebrates the gains. Will the sound of an optical drive go the way of the rotary phone dial or an analogue tape rewinding or these other disappearing noises?

So, are we adding textures such as smells and page-turning animations because digital is less sensuous than the physical world? When we create new digital experiences should we think about adding textured UX as well as intelligent UI? And as brands transition more and more to digital marketing initiatives, should we worry about what sensory experiences they and we are losing, out here in meatspace?

Update 9 jan 2012: If you want your workstation to smell like teen spirit every time @justinbieber presses ‘send’ then you should head over to kickstarter where there’s a month left to back the project to make the dream reality!

5 Comments

Tags:
interaction design, interfaces, simoncowell, texture

Print