Rebel With a Cause

A rebel… every business needs one, from tech to finance, automotive to entertainment. Someone compelled to swim against the tide, or in reality, ahead of it.

To many, the idea of a disruptive influence in the midst of a well-oiled machine is the last thing they’d want to encourage. After all, there’s no ‘I’ in team, right? There is a big one in Impact and Instinct and two whoppers in Innovation.

Consider for a second some of the great disruptors, from Galileo and Socrates to Darwin and Jobs, we remember the plaudits and success but they faced their fair share of obstruction, ridicule and uncertainty. They stood their ground (often to their own detriment) but achieved greatness – not for themselves, but the advancement of mankind.

Their contribution to the world we live in was only given meaning through a willingness, a compulsion, to run before they could walk. They faced failure but learnt from this and channeled their energy into ever greater statements of intent.

The Apple ad from 1997 perfectly summed up this sentiment – “The ones who think they are crazy enough to change the world… are the ones who do”.

This spot was released to initiate the Think Different campaign in 1997. Here's to the reasons we stick with Apple through the ups and downs.

Now, I’m not claiming for a second that I have any right to share a platform with the greats mentioned above but I am a rebel and proud of it. 

My wife used to say the words to the Garth Brooks song ‘Standing Outside the Fire’ could have been written for me… “life is not tried, it is merely survived when you’re standing outside the fire”. It’s true, it’s hot in here, at times frickin’ uncomfortable and rarely involves sleep. It’s more rewarding than simply keeping your head down and merely getting on with it.

There is a careful balance to be achieved here. A business formed entirely of rebels is doomed to failure. My ‘Ultimate Agency’ post from 2010 is an example of a fantasy creative agency but imagine a top table featuring the likes of the late Steve Jobs and Wally Olins, to Stephen Fry, Mitch Joel, Marc Newson and Thomas Heatherwick. The Ultimate Agency would descend into anarchy without an army of ‘responsible adults’

My talk at TEDx Athens last weekend focused on the importance of balance. I spoke about the need for ‘seamless narrative’ and how without a clear understanding of this, you were unable to create ‘meaningful disruption’.

I gave the capacity audience their first taste of my rebellious disruption by equipping every delegate at the stunning Onassis Cultural Centre with our Brandwidth Innovation Lab app (iOS and Android) the audio-watermarked musical opening to my presentation triggered the digital performance, with each phone or tablet screen turning into an individual pixel to deliver a stunning light show – a 4D experience culminating with each handset vibrating as one for the final crescendo.

In the grand scheme of things, this was the equivalent to a digital firework display or waving lighters in the air at a concert. I still had a serious point to make. Communication on every level, on every device, no matter what kind of brand, business or individual needs to master the basic art of seamless narrative. Conversation and a clear personality needs a manageable change of pace. Merely shouting at an audience doesn’t work when everyone adopts the same volume or this just becomes white noise. Maintaining consistency is essential when adding impact to the meaningful messages.

My presentation is now available on Slideshare (although I had to convert this from Keynote to Power frickin’ point to upload) but please download for the full experience containing the embedded audio and video.

Disrupting Seamless Narrative from Dean Johnson

Here's the full TEDx video of my talk, complete with app-controlled 4D light show.

TEDx Athens was a wonderful experience, run by a passionate team lead by Dimitrios Kalavros-Gousiou and I was fortunate to catch some of the city sights thanks to Big Olive City Walks.

I wish I could have stayed longer but I’ve already flown from Athens to London, to San Francisco to Cupertino to LA in the past 48 hours, leaving disruption in my wake.

What a rebel.

May The Force, Maleficent, Bernhoft... and Moondog be with you!

In the past ten days, the English have demonstrated both extremes of the effort and achievement scale. At one end (the bottom) we have the English football squad. unceremoniously dumping themselves out of the World Cup. At the other, we have our award-winning team at Brandwidth.

I hate for my writing to turn into the agency equivalent of a party political broadcast, but sod it – we’re passionate, we’re dedicated and we’re brilliant. Not a particularly British attitude (we’re supposed to be all politeness and deference) but when most of the conversation on our own fair shores revolves around a failed football team and a shortlist of the same old agencies and developers, someone has to fly the flag. We're responsible for the current US number one Entertainment app and Multi-Touch book – I'm pretty sure we're the first developer in the world to achieve this.

So, what have I got to shout about? In a nutshell, having returned from speaking at the Mobile Show in Dubai, I spent a week in the US covering WWDC in San Francisco, visits to Apple in Cupertino and meetings in LA, I touched down briefly in the UK, only to head off to Poland.

“Why Poland?” I hear you cry... I spoke at the brilliant ‘Bitspiration’ Conference in Krakow, an amazing gathering of the great and the good from the worlds of music, digital innovation and start-ups. I couldn’t have been more pleased to be attending when our latest multi-touch book for Disney Studios ‘Maleficent’ was the number one Entertainment title in the US iBooks Store! I was also happy to reveal the incredible ‘Bernhoft Islander’ app and announce our forthcoming ‘Star Wars Scene Maker’ app. More on those later...

As if that wasn’t enough, we had just updated our classic ‘Top 100 Albums’ app for Amber Books in stunning Retina detail and a new FREE cover price. I challenge anyone with an interest in any genre of music to find a reason not to download!

Despite the superstitious overtones, I returned home safely from Poland late on Friday 13th and caught up with the wonderful Nikki Bedi on her BBC London 94.9 show on Saturday evening. My role as ‘Inspector Gadget’ allows me the freedom to talk about the latest tech from around the world, discuss Harrison Ford’s injured foot and further tease the Star Wars and Bernhoft projects.

A big digital product launch usually delivers a mix of extraordinary highs and monumental lows. I’m glad to say, the arrival of ‘Star Wars Scene Maker’ last Thursday offered many more highs than lows. The Brandwidth team has been working closely with Lucasfilm and Disney for nearly a year, with the mission to bring storytelling bang up to date – and take it kicking and screaming into the future.

Who wouldn’t want to step into George Lucas' or JJ Abrams' shoes and direct the iconic scenes from all six movies, then take the reins from Episode VII and beyond? I have worked in publishing, design and technology for nearly thirty years (I started young!) and this project delivers in all areas. Don’t tell me publishing is dead when this is the result – storytelling and interactive narrative taken to digital extremes.

I’m happy to say we’re not stopping here. This is a living, breathing product with a healthy future of enhancements and updates, platform and content opportunities. Oh, and a lot of fun!

Speaking of living and breathing products, another Brandwidth blockbuster is now available – ‘Bernhoft Islander’. We had an incredible opportunity to collaborate with HD360 and Jarle Bernhoft and bring his hypnotic blend of contemporary soul music to life in an encapsulated album app. We’ve worked with a number of digital formats for artists such as The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Demi Lovato, Michael Bublé and the aforementioned Top 100 Albums app but Islander is the first app to launch globally alongside the main album, providing a genuine HD experience, with all music embedded at the quality it originally left the recording studio.

360º video, the Loop Station, an interactive Studio, all create a unique approach for a unique artist and a genuine premium product. Don’t take my word for it, here’s the man himself...

As I’m still on a music theme, the clock is ticking on a superb Kickstarter campaign, ‘The Viking of 6th Avenue’ Documentary. In their own words:

"The inspirational true story of Moondog, the legendary musician and New York icon whose life was an unexpected, outrageous adventure. 

Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman hung out with him. Philip Glass lived with him, Janis Joplin covered his music, Allen Ginsberg stuck it on his fridge, Diane Arbus took his picture and Andy Warhol’s mother designed one of his album covers. Merv Griffin interviewed him, Lenny Bruce shared the bill, Phillippe Starck named a building after him, Elvis Costello brought him to London and fashion designers have created entire collections around his look."

I’m not directly involved but Holly Elson is a brilliant documentary film maker and the Moondog story deserves to be told. At the time of writing, there are 3 days remaining and around $40,000 still to raise. It’s all or nothing – Kickstarter and the Viking of 6th Avenue are only a click away!

So that’s it then? Nope, we’re on a roll. Apart from the rest of the Brandwidth business, providing digital infrastructure and mobile solutions to the automotive sector, enterprise level websites, amazing experiential environments and all the data analytics you can eat, we have a stunning title ready to launch for Taschen later this month followed by many many more. It’s going to be a long hot summer where you’ll hear all about our amazing products, even if you don’t hear about Brandwidth.

The Battle for the Dashboard

As the pace of technological innovation within the automotive sector continues to  increase, more and more of the analogue interior is becoming the new digital frontier. Apple hopes CarPlay will provide a common visual language to streamline the process.

Last week, the focus was all on Apple's WWDC keynote announcements in San Francisco. They delivered a wide range of software solutions, arming iOS developers with the next generation of digital tools and laying the groundwork for a raft of exciting hardware products in the run up to the holiday season.

Headlines were grabbed by enhanced Photos, audio Messages, smart Keyboards, Family Sharing, iCloud Drive, HealthKit, HomeKit and an entirely new programming language – Swift.

At WWDC 2013, Apple announced its intention to bring iOS to the car, on more than just your phone screen and earlier this year the first serious brand partners were revealed...

I have worked with the automotive industry for nearly 15 years and had much more than a passing interest in cars my whole life. However, I’ve never been a big fan of motoring classics unless influencing contemporary curves, so technological developments inside the car offer a fascinating design and development challenge. How do we bring the screen experience from our pockets to the the dashboard?

On the surface, this would seem a relatively simple step for Apple. iOS7 and iOS8 offer a flat graphic simplicity that lends itself to quick actions accessed at a glance, or effective voice commands for key features. Just the kind of interaction you want when 99% of your attention should be on the road ahead.

Apple’s hardware always follows a beautiful, streamlined aesthetic, free from unnecessary adornments and flourishes. Thanks to last year’s iOS7 overhaul, the software now compliments this perfectly.

The automotive market is a very different animal. Whilst brands may retain a level of consistency and share common components (ie VW Group or GM), they all assume different characters.

Consistency of digital brand: BMW UI from key to smartphone to smartwatch.

The BMW family screen UI is probably the best example of a diverse range, all reaching for the best on-screen graphics whilst adopting wildly different personalities. The MINI colour palette, iconography and graphics take on a cheeky, playful persona. Rolls Royce provides the polar opposite with layered glass-like panels to match the physical buttons surrounding the main screen. BMW’s conventional range uses a subtle colour palette to identify key functions (Audio, Sat Nav, Phone, etc) and gentle layering of content, with occasional light flares and reflective buttons. The new ‘i’ EV range range takes this a step further with a more adventurous palette and deeper layering for something that wouldn’t look out of place on the bridge of the USS Enterprise... but in a good way.

Graphic vs skeuomorphic, flat vs layered, corporate fonts, colour palettes and screen ratios. These are all graphic elements to take into consideration and there is undoubtedly a fine creative balancing act involved to combine existing branding and features with Apple’s CarPlay interface.

I’ve dwelt on the potential pitfalls but many automotive manufacturers are still offering drivers a pretty poor on-screen experience. Although the latest Land Rover Discovery Vision concept has a full set of screens displaying content that looks as if it could have emerged from Apple’s own creative studio, Tesla offers a comparatively poor graphic interface within the largest digital real estate on the market. The Model S UI is the perfect candidate for a full CarPlay-compatible makeover – especially as Tesla is a shoe-in for Apple acquisition and Elon Musk being Steve Jobs’ true successor-in-waiting.

I digress. Currently, CarPlay is only supporting 3rd party audio apps such as Beats (naturally) and Spotify music streaming services. Future app integration will build on this, with huge potential for voice commands and audio interaction. The focus will always remain on products that don’t distract the driver and offer the continuation of relevant services from phone to car. There’s little point offering everything in the car, in much the same way the compass app is pretty pointless on a smart TV.

Where CarPlay comes into its own is the familiarity through shared interfaces and content. The continuation of basic actions is essential, such as track syncing if started outside the car, then continued once driving. Also, the ability to share mapping data is genuinely useful (this wouldn't have been an option with Apple Maps 1.0). Navigate to a location in your car, then park and seamlessly continue on foot – that’s useful.

So what does the future hold for CarPlay? Apps are dead, right? No, this isn’t about using the internet in your car to replace apps.

Consider the following...

• Mapping data to provide info regarding payment services for parking, admission or valeting
• PassBook electronic tickets issued upon payment to display in-dash and on phone
• Biometric integration – Apple's Health app linked to wearable tech to monitor heart rate and consciousness levels for safety at the wheel
• HUD and gesture recognition – there’s a thought for future generations of iPhone interaction.

CarPlay offers automotive manufacturers the opportunity to streamline their UI and make consumers‘ lives simpler through familiarity. Apple has a chance to lock down another sector into the world of iOS. It’s not a bad place to be.

A version of this article originally appeared in iCreate issue 134

And the winner is... oh.

I’ve written enough about being a finalist in the Shorty Awards to make it quite clear how excited I’ve been about heading to the Social Media Oscars. It’s not until you find yourself sat in the audience at the New York Times building that you realise the social part of this isn’t all virtual.

I hadn’t been practicing my ‘honourable in defeat face’. Perhaps I should have, but sod it, I’ve worked damn hard to campaign on behalf of all great apps and I was genuinely disappointed not to lift the award on stage.

I was beaten by Digg. This isn’t sour grapes, but I lost to an app that hadn’t made any effort to win, had no campaign video and the Shorty community didn’t even vote for (it was added by the Academy). There’s something seriously wrong here – and not just in my category as this was a view shared by of many of my fellow ‘losers’.

To make matters worse, not only had I flown from London, queued for 40 minutes in the rain to get in, but had I actually won my category I wouldn’t have had my chance on stage as they were all read out, then the proceedings moved on. Anyway, here’s the 140 character acceptance speech I had planned:

“4 years ago, I queued up outside the 5th Ave Apple Store to buy the 1st iPad, to check our 1st iPad app worked. It did! The rest is history”

It may sound corny but this genuinely is a team effort. I’m the one hijacking the social channels and the airwaves and prancing around on stage for a living but without the incredible talents of Brandwidth’s design, development and client services teams, I wouldn’t have much to talk about.

If it looks as if April has been a big month for headlines (”Dean’s a Shorty Loser”) wait until you see May – major app launches in Music and Entertainment and interactive books for global blockbusters. This couldn’t be more exciting.

To add to April's news, we've just reached the final of the Webby Awards with our multi-touch book 'Saving Mr Banks' and our app 'The Doors'. It's too late to vote for the Shorty Awards this year, but we'd love a few votes in the Webbys.

The apps may be fun but this isn’t always the case for Social media.

We often hear of breaking news events through social channels, in many cases ahead of the traditional broadcast networks. I wrote about this last year after the tragic murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby outside the Woolwich barracks.

This week was no exception. We heard the tragic news of the death of Peaches Geldof, someone that had broadcast openly on social networks and attracted controversy, open criticism and abuse in the process. She wore her heart on her sleeve right up to her final Tweet.

This stuff is a window into our lives. We choose the shape of that window, and how frosted the glass is. Ultimately, we can retain control and shape the conversation, but it’s all too easy to broadcast one word out of place and suffer the consequences. The internet is an unforgiving beast – made up of both those who use it and the amplifying ripple-effect of digital content itself.

‘Social media’ is here to stay, even if the phrase and the Shorty Awards soon become irrelevant. Treat it with respect and it’s a fabulous doorway to your audience or a willing plaything. Step out of line and you’ll soon find playground politics are alive and well in the digital age.