The Inspiration Game

No one wants to own anything, or drive anything, or change anything. The great Innovators have stopped innovating. The great storytellers aren’t making as much noise as the bad ones. And everyone is happy to follow the crowd – or so the crowd has been told…

In January 2019, Apple reported their first decline in revenues and profits in over a decade. They blamed weak iPhone sales and a downturn in China. True, the Chinese market has become a tougher nut to crack, but the underlying reason for the downturn is we’ve stopped wanting AND needing some of their products.

I used to queue outside Apple Stores to get my hands on new model iPhones. I even waited in line for over twelve hours outside the New York 5th Avenue glass cube in 2010 to be the first to buy an iPad. But that was then, I now struggle to justify the cold nose, sore feet and dented bank balance.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no interest in owning a PC or using Android as my primary mobile OS – because I still love Apple. My long line of MacBooks have never let me down and have been worth every penny and my iMacs have always been there when I needed them, delivering day in, day out for years. My iPhones have worked brilliantly inside and out, looked beautiful and felt like the quality products they are.

So why are Apple’s profits down? Because their flagship physical products are too good and too straight. Too good might seem a great selling point – but it’s clearly becoming an issue. My iPhone 7 Plus is into its third year of ownership and I haven’t upgraded my iPad mini for seven! They both work perfectly and I simply can’t justify upwards of £1,000 for the iPhone I’d want (or need) or an iPad Pro upgrade.

So let’s turn to ‘too straight’. Apple used to excite me. I’d eagerly await each live-streamed keynote with a sense of anticipation akin to the Oscars – living in hope for Steve’s ‘one more thing’. And he’d always deliver. Deliver something we didn’t need or know we wanted, but we just had to have it because it was the future. Our future.

The world we know and love has been built on elation, not iteration – but that’s what Apple now delivers. It makes $Billions from smoothly blending one model into the next. One service and software update into another. The world needs a defibrillator moment where we kickstart the kickstarts and make our hearts beat that little bit faster as we rediscover the joy of the unexpected.

Apple didn’t become the most valuable company on the planet by making poor business decisions so it’s not about dropping the things that work and veering off at a tangent. Tech rivals all too often over-promise and under-deliver, or feel they need to fill a market gap only to find no one wants what they have to offer. But the key to consumer engagement is telling a great story and making it relevant to a brand’s audience.

I’m not going to apologise for disagreeing with the statement “make things people want, don’t make people want things”. Screw that, most people don’t know what they want until they see it. A brand’s role is to tell them why it exists, how it can improve their lives and steer them to ownership, membership or sponsorship via the point of least resistance.

Advertising and marketing opportunities still bring us stories for the products we consume, but these stories need to be told by the people with the passion behind the brands. How they’re made is one thing, but the reasons why they exist are far more powerful.

I spoke with Roborace CEO, Lucas di Grassi in Berlin in December and he told me about the race series startup’s change of direction away from the Daniel Simon-designed Robocar as the audience didn’t understand its capabilities and true Artificial Intelligence. The focus has instead been turned to their DevBot car, with a combination of AI and driver interaction.

The inability of the audience to grasp Robocar’s relevance is not a failing of the motorsport fans – but a missed opportunity to tell a story of excitement, interaction and inspirational possibilities for the future, rather than one of the technology beneath the surface. Don’t give up Lucas, we need Robocar in our near future, weaponised and ready to roll.

It’s more important than ever to get this story right when introducing the next generation of self-driving vehicles. Industry experts speak of the irrelevance of dealerships and a pure digital future but they’re missing the point. Entirely.

Motorists won’t simply hop from their current vehicles into an autonomous network. They don’t trust the technology, it’s as simple as that. The way to convince is not through a VR simulation. Not an online video. It’s by physical experience, sat in the very car they will be instilling ALL their trust. This won’t be about telling an audience how safe a range of robot vehicles is – it’s through the vehicle occupant not being involved in an accident.

The next level of trust will be via word of mouth and the testimonials of ‘real people’ – not actors or brand ambassadors. Selling the autonomous future through trust not tricks.

But there’s still a world of inspiration for us all to discover. The iterators may be shouting louder, but sift through the white noise and you’ll find thought leaders not simply leading by telling great stories – they’re also leading by example.

Richard Browning of Gravity (or ‘Rocket Man’ as he’s more commonly known) is pushing the boundaries of personal mobility by offering us a superhuman vision of the future. He has built a successful business from his own personal invention, innovation and ability to sell a dream. One jetpack is evolving into a scaleable race series on the road (or lack thereof) to tomorrow.

Claire Lomas, an athlete paralysed in 2007 in an equestrian accident epitomises courage and encouragement. She has never faltered in her battle against her physical condition, unwilling to accept the boundaries seemingly imposed upon her. Claire has worn a robotic exoskeleton to complete marathons and her determination to excel has resulted in a new skill – motorcycle racing!

Both Richard and Claire aren’t playing the Inspiration Game – they’re living it. Roborace will also inspire and innovate in equal measures when their story is told in the right way to the right audience, and it will be epic.

Apple has stopped playing the game. It’s not too late for the company I still love to let the iteration take care of itself and get back to thrilling us with one more thing.

And if they’re struggling to find inspiration themselves – or any of us for that matter – the words from Apple’s own 1997 TV ad celebrate the existence of The Crazy Ones. The very people I love and will always aspire to be.

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Lost in The Void

Virtual Reality 2.0 has come a long long way in the last two years. Each time we discover a VR experience to amaze and engage, the industry finds a new way to raise the bar. This week I was at The Void in Utah, where the bar has been raised to the stratosphere.

VR can be measured in incremental experience. What that really means is we start with Google cardboard, progress to quality phone units like the Zeiss VR One, add substance with the Samsung/Oculus GearVR then hit the big time with Sony’s Morpheus, HTC’s Vive and the biggest player – Oculus Rift.

The last three have yet to hit high streets but when they do, these headsets will offer something the others don’t – real-world movement. The original Rift allowed us to look around 360º from a fixed point. The second generation added the ability to lean in and this brought a new awareness of presence.

Although Sony’s Morpheus sticks with the lean-in approach, both the Vive and Rift allow the wearer to stand up and walk around, and the difference is breathtaking. Once you realise you can move naturally within a virtual environment, your brain stops playing by the rules and you believe you’re actually where the visuals say you are.

So that’s the ultimate VR experience then? For now, it’s the best you can expect in a home or office. But there’s more, oh so much more. It’s time to enter The Void.

I’ve just spent a day in a small town called Linden, less than an hour from Salt Lake City. This is home to The Void – the world’s first Virtual Reality theme park.

Brainchild of CEO Ken Bretschneider, James Jensen and Curtis Hickman, The Void demonstrates the advantage of mixing virtual and physical environments. Not in the way Augmented Reality headsets or the hybrid Sulon Cortex do, this is full VR with enhanced tactile environments.

These environments are given substance by walled corridors, alien pods, blasts of air and heat and motorised monoliths.

This 4D experience has an incredible effect but when combined with The Void’s wireless headsets, physical weapons and props, the results are nothing short of transformational, especially when you're sharing the same space with multiple players. I felt as if I’d been beamed onto the Holodeck of the Enterprise or the far reaches of Mordor.

Bretschneider and his talented team of designers, developers and engineers have big plans (including continuous development of their own hardware) but the first public opening of The Void is scheduled for late 2016 in Utah, with additional ‘Virtual Entertainment Centres’ rolling out to other locations over the following 12 months.

Content for these environments will invariably lean towards gaming but the scenarios are limitless. From fast and frantic shoot-em-ups to creepy spine-tingling horror, the opportunity exists to commandeer the senses like never before. Storytelling has never had it so good!

I can’t eulogise enough about how incredible The Void is. The simple act of touching a wall or sitting down on a rock in a virtual world is mind-blowing. I fought off hoards of giant spiders with a gun I could not only see in hi-res detail but feel and fire as if I were at the heart of a fire-fight. The next generation guns also feature recoil and pump action reload. I had high expectations before visiting Utah, but The Void delivered so much more.

Virtual Reality offers a creative platform like no other and we’re now seeing clear distinctions between the levels of experience on offer. The Void is the VR Premier League, but its halo effect helps to support development for the ‘lesser divisions’. The takeaway from a 4D adventure is a hunger for the next best thing in-home. Audiences will still love the VR on their phones, PCs and games consoles, but they’ll flock to the Virtual Entertainment Centres when they open. And they won’t be disappointed.

E3: The Blockbuster Generation

Hollywood is rejoicing as cinema-goers flock back to the big screen this summer. In recent years the movie theatre experience looked as if it was going the way of the music business, but now the 2015 summer of excess is serving up the blockbusters.

The current box office takings merely provide the warm up act to this winter’s releases where we’ll see the long-awaited extension to the Star Wars franchise following on from James Bond’s November action in SPECTRE.

I have a point to make here, relating to the millennials amongst us (the kids born this millennium) and my time spent at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in LA this week. Having sat through Avengers: Age of Ultron last month, I came away feeling a little despondent and wondering which came first… the story-less all action ADHD blockbuster or the constantly distracted audience?

I had an interesting conversation in the back of a cab last year. I was heading to the airport having just delivered my TEDx talk in Athens, before jetting off to LA for the next big adventure.

I say the talk was interesting, but I mean ‘challenging’. My esteemed car-sharer was a seasoned TED speaker, with years of experience in the field of human behaviour. He held the view that kids today are bombarded with too much information, especially of the digital variety. He believed that mobile devices should be strictly rationed as they cause more problems for kids than they solve.

I told him that I agreed in principal but ‘all things in moderation’ is a better approach than insisting on a non-digital solution. You don’t filter the noise out by turning it all off, you learn to live with it, categorise it and make use of it.

I’d be the first to admit that my kids don’t lead a normal life. The very nature of my job exposes them to a new piece of tech hardware or delivery platform on a regular basis. They are a fabulous sounding board for the reactions of the next generation of consumers as they’re quick to dismiss and not afraid to speak their minds. They have none of the social or business diplomacy to worry about – it just works or it doesn’t.

They’ve been fascinated by and indifferent to various smart watches and VR headsets over the past couple of years and it’s easy to see that a constant supply of digital watch faces will appeal more than garage door openers and short-form film and games are perfect for VR.

At E3, the audience is hungry for new games, but still prefers the familiarity of a sequel and will happily immerse themselves in a single game for hours on end if the content offers enough variety and a continual challenge.

Minecraft is already huge but Microsoft demonstrated a whole new level of immersion at E3 – on HoloLens. If you’re not familiar with this new platform, it’s Microsoft’s foray into the augmented reality market. projecting seemingly real content into the wearer’s field of vision. I’ll be getting hands-on today and will update this article in a few hours.

So where does this leave our kids? Lost in a digital world of shock and awe, content and distraction? Yes, all of the above and it’s brilliant.

I saw the Disney movie Tomorrowland a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. It touched a creative and technological nerve and moved me to write this article. It’s not an explosion-a-second blockbuster like Age of Ultron as it manages to combine an all-action adventure with something subtly cerebral.

It’s a film with a message. Don’t lose your sense of wonder, investigate new technology and be creative with it. Use it to push boundaries, not live within them. We wouldn’t have reached the moon or built electric cars without a commitment to improve the world in which we live. We can also have fun whilst doing it!

It’s our responsibility to encourage kids to live with and use technology to their advantage, rather than distance themselves from it, and a brighter future.

Oculus: Leading the VR Gold Rush

There’s virtual gold in them there hills and it’s time to think seriously about where you stand. Are you in or out?

The road to VR nirvana is paved with poor quality content, low res visuals and people claiming they’re the world’s greatest storytellers because they’ve ‘been at this for years’. Well, I’ve got news for you, the future for VR and AR belongs to those with both technical know-how AND creative vision.

If you’re thinking about “seeing how it goes” or if “this VR thing will take off”, think again. We have been gifted an invaluable assessment period in the development of VR and for the past 18 months, this exciting new platform has been in a very public beta.

Designers, developers and ‘tech explorers’ have had access to a number of head mounted displays (HMDs), including the original Oculus Rift (funded by a $2,437,430 Kickstarter campaign) and subsequent DK2 (118,930 global shipments), the Samsung/Oculus Gear VR and numerous Google Cardboard budget headsets for a while.

A few visionaries are starting to put their money in the right places. Recent funding rounds have hit the headlines for JauntVR, NextVR, Reload Studios and self-funded ‘The Void’, a VR theme park. The most notable move came last year when Facebook bought Oculus, the company credited with starting the current resurrection of the Virtual Reality market. 

The Oculus PR machine has been busy again today, revealing the final consumer-friendly Rift headset, input controllers and some of the launch titles. I tested the latest developer edition, Crescent Bay, at CES in January and that was a big step forward. Oculus have upped the game yet again with the consumer Rift but it’s not available to test until next week. More to follow…

It’s a stunning piece of kit with accurate head-tracking, a wireless X-Box controller, freestanding desktop motion sensor, built-in 3D stereo headphones and it’s light, very light compared to rivals. 

Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey also previewed ‘Oculus Touch, a pair of hand controllers used for more accurate input for digital interaction. They won’t be available when the main headset launches in Q1 2016, but should follow before 2017. Rift Pre-orders begin later this year.

But that’s not all as you’ll still need a PC to run the VR content. Officially, the Rift isn’t for Mac at launch but there have been VR titles in development for Mac since the original DK1 headset arrived in 2013 so they’ll still work, just not through the official Oculus store.

Next week, I’m at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) where the tone will be set with a heavy focus on Virtual Reality as Oculus, Sony, HTC, Samsung, Sulon and Microsoft will all push VR headsets to the frontline in preparation for a very busy 12 months for consumer releases.

It’s these next 12 months that are so important for creative thought, innovative development and targeted investment. If you really want to make an impact, start planning, designing and building now. If you want an unprecedented investment opportunity in a guaranteed platform before it hits the market, it’s time to make your move.

There will always be room for software production houses but in these early days of VR, the spoils will go to those willing and able to push boundaries and do so with quality in mind. I can’t stress strongly enough how exciting this new dawn of VR is.