Media Surfaces... a couple of interesting videos from Dentsu

Media surfaces: Incidental Media from Dentsu London on Vimeo.


Media surfaces: The Journey from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

I found these videos really interesting and wanted to share them... I particularly liked Dentsu London's communication principles...

We used some principles in the brief to act as constraints to help our thinking. These come from a belief that the growing ubiquity of media surfaces is something that could be dreadful, but could also be brilliant – and perhaps magical. They were that communications should: 

• Allow for agency – the ability to control and affect your own and your shared environment in the face of communications. Magic, play and information is a choice, never an infliction. 
• Be polite – earning or winning attention (as opposed to interruptive media). 
• Be sensible to their environment and human context – i.e. the antithesis of spam. 
• Contribute culturally – considering and enhancing their context, seeking to be creative and magical (not merely efficient, efficacious, expedient).

Dentsu London - Making Future Magic: Media Surfaces

I am intentionally trying to engage less with Twitter & Facebook during the day... taking "fag breaks" every-so-often to catch up but not jumping every time I hear a buzz or a chirp. In fact, I lock my iPhone away in a hacked floppy disc holder (it has a proper lock with key) and use my first generation iPhone during work-hours. Only my work and my immediate family have that number... and it doesn't have any money on it so I can't dial out or connect to media.

That said... I like the "Trickle" apps on my iPhone and iPad... Trickle for Twitter... and Trickle for Facebook. I use them regularly when I am on my MBP. I glance at them the way I glance at a clock.  I like the idea of ambient news sources that provide short bursts of information... and the integration with personal media sources seems like the next thing. Dentsu London's principles are essential for these sources to work... I don't want spammed at... I want to choose when to interact and will only interact with media that has not only earned my attention but will enhance my life in some way. I hope Apple take this into account if (or more likely when) they bring their TV to the market.

Anyway... I liked these videos... they got me thinking... and I hope they make you think too.

Tx

(with thanks to Russell Davies for posting the videos)