A Tale of Two Brains

Never has Louis Armstrong’s song ‘We Have All The Time in The World’ been more poignant. I’m sorry, we simply don’t. The sad death of Robin Williams brings this into stark focus and highlights exactly how every second counts.

I have never held any religious beliefs and never will with my focus on achieving as much as possible in this life as we never know when the whole ride is going to end. We’re still in control (I’m sorry, I don’t believe in fate either) but it’s difficult to line everything up to fall perfectly into place.

Robin Williams battled with his own personal demons and his fight with depression ultimately lead to his decision to close the book on his life as he’d completed his final chapter. We feel cheated and we wanted another book, more of his comic and creative genius and feel sad about the personal tragedy and loss to us all.

I never met Robin Williams so I’m not lining up to add a personal story – just that he was always on my fantasy dinner party list and now I’ll have to leave that place empty. It was a big seat to fill.

He brought an extraordinary energy to all he pursued but those incredible highs were matched by shattering lows. As with many of the world's greatest entertainers, visionaries and creative individuals, depression and often a compulsive personality go hand in hand with the visible public results. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alexander McQueen, Ernest Hemmingway and many more have fought to maintain control. Thankfully the genius of Stephen Fry is still with us.

It’s a criminally unfair balance but one that exists for many nonetheless – but we only hear about the topflight personalities. All the more reason to be aware of those around us and take enough interest in loved ones and colleagues to notice changes in attitude and behaviour.

I’m writing this whilst sat in the gardens of the Kremlin in the centre of Moscow, having given a lecture in a stunning open air auditorium at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design last night. I spoke about incredible future opportunities for creative technology to change our lives (both good and bad) and some of the stunning projects we’re working on at Brandwidth to shape this.

Am I lucky? I’ve engineered that luck and I’ve pushed well beyond my comfort zone. There have been a few happy coincidences but they wouldn’t have happened without years of groundwork.

I used to be petrified of public speaking but I created situations where I’d have to ‘perform’ in front of an audience. As a fourteen year old, I attended a business seminar with my Dad (I was running the business – you all know I’m not normal) where I had to stand up, Introduce myself and explain why we were there. It may seem a small thing to do, but it was a massive step for me. Even though I’d been on TV the previous year, the live audience was an entirely new experience!

As if my regular radio, podcast, TV and conference appearances weren’t enough, I’m smashing more personal barriers at Silicon Beach in September by co-presenting with Apptain America (one of my many alter-egos), including a musical number and Oculus Rift light saber battle. What could possibly go wrong?

Speaking of comfort zones, I’m a pretty hopeless traveller as I’m geographically challenged, to the point of struggling with route-planning on UK roads and trains – even with satnav! But here I am, in Moscow, following speaking engagements and business trips to Poland, America and Dubai.

My active (with an e) right brain fights with my left on a daily basis but the right side’s always going to win. If I let the rational, sensible and ultimately safe side take control, I’d never push beyond my boundaries, take chances or leave my comfort zone.

Lisa Edwards wrote a great blog post last week on pushing boundaries, so it’s good to see more personal barriers being breached – although I’m not attempting Tough Mudder any time soon.

I'm raising a last vodka to Robin. Goodbye you wonderful man.

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.

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.

The future may not be pretty, but the tech’s pretty awesome

The news that Facebook snapped up the VR startup Oculus Rift this week brought the tech into the limelight and kicked off a heated debate over the social giant’s plans.

Thanks to the media frenzy, a brand everyone had heard of brought one very few knew existed into mainstream conversation. I didn’t need to Google ‘Oculus’ or ‘Rift’, I had one on my desk.

When I say Oculus Rift isn’t new to me, I’m not being dismissive. Far from it – it’s my job to know about this stuff, assess the relevance of future platforms and create stunning content for it.

Rift has been on our radar (and our heads) at Brandwidth since its original Kickstarter campaign and we’ve had plenty of time to consider incredible possibilities for the future. The concept and rudimentary equipment has been around for decades but the whole platform fell out of favour until recently when Oculus reignited the flame of innovation in this area, along with Sony’s intention to compete with their Project Morpheus.

Virtual Reality (VR) is back, helped in no small measure by Google’s own efforts to tempt consumers to strap technology to their faces and massive advancements in CGI and screen resolution.

OK, it’s not back just yet but the technology is. Oculus Rift content and the delivery platform it requires haven’t launched yet but 2014 is the year it finally hits homes as well as developers’ desks.

So what is it? Well, it’s a black box with a screen over each eye to simulate an immersive 3D environment and motion sensors to track head movements. It’s this experience of looking around the digital landscape that truly transports you to another world. Add a set of stereo headphones and the effect is complete... or is it?

The moment you dip into this virtual world, you’ll be hooked. From rollercoaster rides to epic space battles to eerie haunted houses, the virtual feels real. But what’s missing? You are.

The next big steps will come from the ability to place yourself within these incredible environments. Using Leap gestural units, MYO armbands or bluetooth-connected smartphones, you’ll be able to see your virtual body parts in front of you. At Brandwidth we’re already using iPhones as light sabres – who wouldn’t want to get their hands on one of those inside Rift?

Surely there isn’t another step? Actually, there is. We now have the opportunity to add other people to your virtual world to share the ultimate storytelling experience, explore epic worlds like Disney’s Infinity, or meet in virtual shopping malls, showrooms or conference facilities. Social plug-ins are an obvious move.

Yes, I can see why Mark Zuckerburg wanted to add Oculus Rift to his growing portfolio. but also, if you’ve got the billions to invest and you love technology, why wouldn’t you?

There’s a business case here but there’s also a chance for Facebook to add scale and creative potential through investment dollars that may never have been achieved had they not come on board. The development units (even the new MkII) aren’t yet truly mobile. Freedom from cables and a computer will really move the game on, but we may need to wait for the second generation consumer model for this.

Instantly visit the four corners of the earth, relive history as you walk in the footsteps of astronauts, Presidents or dinosaurs or allow surgeons to operate from within a body. That’s progress.

No, the future’s not all white and shiny if many will sit in a darkened room in their underwear with a pizza on their laps, immersing themselves in virtual worlds... but the technology is undeniably awe inspiring.