UPDATES FROM THE MILSON ISLAND LAB

SUNDAY

The participants were welcomed to the LAMP lab and process by Gary Hayes and Peter Giles and following introductions from all the teams, click here for participants,the lab continued on Sunday with a two hour part Alternate Reality Game, part treasure hunt. This introduced participants to the wonderful setting of the residential workshop on the beautiful Milson Island north of Sydney on the Hawksbury River via a search for story - "Voices from the Past". They were initially given parts of a jigsaw puzzle, from which they found their four teams of six. On the back of the then completed puzzle was a cryptic, written clue to one of four areas of the island each team were designated. Once there they had a range of physical and quest based challenges that lead to the uncovering of short story threads - narrative vignettes that gave back story to the many facets of Milsons island. Also they were given a clue to a URL and an image they had to incorporate into a presented, narrative creation finale.

This was followed by Peter Giles to some of the key terminologies of cross media including web 2.0, user journeys, blogs, wikis, IPTV, web TV and user generated content. Finally, the ten mentors showed a selection of what they think are the 'coolest' new experiences around at the moment including:

• interactive podcasts from ZeFrank: http://www.zefrank.com/theshow
• communicating via smart rabbit power - http://www.nabaztag.com
• guaging global moods of the blogosphere - http://www.wefeelfine.com
• searching flickr by a drawing interface with http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr
• conversing with a quirky web bot at http://www.jabberwacky.com
• user generated virtual content and online networking at http://www.secondlife.com

The opening game as conceived and written by Jackie Turnure and Gary Hayes with assistance from Catherine Gleeson and Peter Giles.

MONDAY

The day opened with a big picture presentation by Gary Hayes on how to design experiences to reach immersion. He talked about the key methods of structuring interactive projects and the importance of considering your property and service as a tool, that the audience can play with and do things that you can not really envisage but allows them to become immersed because of ownership. Gary also mentioned that web 2.0 is not about push (creating content only) or pull (asking for content) but about a conversation, an organic dialogue with the audience - services nowadays are iterative and not only dictated by the service creator.

He spoke about 'designing experiences' and the role of immersion as the ultimate aim of interactivity and showed examples of this operating in the free form virtual world of Second Life: http://secondlife.com/. The eight areas of experience design he discussed were 1. SCALE 2. ESCAPISM OR PLAY 3. SENSES 4. PERSPECTIVE 5. SERENDIPITY 6. TEMPORALITY 7. PERSONALIZATION 8. RESONANCE AND CHOICE and also referred to the user journey across platforms extending the scale of the story world (such as Da Vinci code and Myst) as well as getting inside the protagonists head (perspective) in services such as Indigo Prophecy.

He spoke about methods to get viewers involved in the creative process drawing from real life examples used by the the BBC's Top of the Pops, audience script input into the US drama series 'The L Word' and French TV show interactive Emmy winner 'The Cult'.

The teams then went into guardian mentor sessions and further talks follow this pattern by having applied mentor sessions that take into account the previous presentation - over the next two days...

Jim Shomos spoke next about his project 'Forget the rules (FTR)' a cross media mobile, broadcast and web drama driven by audience participation. Jim identified that this is a new area with many opportunities that remain largely unexplored. Interactivity is a 2 way conversation with each viewer and the aim of FTR was structured so that level of interactivity was ‘scalable’. Viewers could choose the level of interactivity that they want from just watching, watching and voting or more intensive involvement in contributing to storylines.

Jim talked about the process of funding Forget the Rules and spoke about the key role of 3 and Channel V as key distribution partners and the revenue share and advertising business typical working with subscription TV and mobile carriers. The series also attracted additional investment which came on board on the strength of the project, the business plan and the distribution partners.

The FTR audience were given a choice on the future storylines with decision points with three possible outcomes presented for choice. There were some sex scenes in the show but overall it was limited to an M rating as beyond this level PIN access is required for adult content.

Viewers were included in the drama in ways that were integrated in the story. For example, the audience were asked to submit photos to the show of themselves and their friends. A selection were used on the show, either as an MMS showed by characters in the show, poster art within the scene or through mentioning viewer’s names. Another competition was run for audience members to write song lyrics which were performed by a well known act Joel Turner. Original music from emerging artists was used in episodes in co-promotion with MP3.com

Jim referred to an upcoming innovative project called Girl Friday by Kylie Robertson: http://www.girlfriday.tv. Audiences can connect directly with girl Friday through reading her emails, sending her emails and SMS’s or exploring her picture libraries and mobile address book. This is a different style of interactivity to FTR but there are many options to be explored and all approaches are valid.

Finally he talked about the general issue of audiences shifting from heritage media such as broadcast television and identified a need by audiences to get ‘more story per minute’ from new formats. In an environment where audiences are ‘story saturated’ this is seen as a key need particularly suited to multi-levelled storylines.

Jim ended his presentation with the mantra ‘noone really knows anything’ and appealed to creative teams to think differently and try new things in order to pioneer new interactive formats.

Shiralee Saul spoke in the afternoon and began her presentation with a statement about the ubiquity of interactivity as an activity that ‘we do all the time’. Technology allows us to spread these interactive experiences across a great many more access points.

Shiralee talked about strategies to entice audiences to move from one media platform to another. She referred to a blog entry signed ‘the people formerly known as the audience’ making the point that when the audiences take control they never give it back.

Audiences must first be provided with the motivation of a ‘call to action’ then primed to act in a clear way before finally being rewarded to acknowledge and recompense their action.

Shiralee then looked at the ingredients of ‘compelling interactivity’ as offering: satisfaction (both emotional and instrumental),

Stickyness – reasons to stay/reasons to return

Engagement – participation becomes multileveled/participation generates ‘new reality’

Good interactivity needs to be:

Meaningful – does something that the user wants in a way that they understand

Discernable – provides feedback that allows the user to guage their transaction within the system

Integrated – the forms of interactivity and affordances given the user arise out of a consistent logical system

Overall, good interactivity should be easy to use and clever. As a first step, producers need to think clearly about what the user is there for, what they want to do and how they do it. Interactivity is more analogous to a conversation than a one way address. Shiralee then used the analogy of slime mould which is an indeterminate substance that is neither plant nor animal. Slime mould begins its life as a sea of small spores which then change depending on the environment. It is made of many independent parts which are able to group together and act as a single entity.

Interactive media similarly can take many forms and needs to be guided not by a ‘top down’ mentality but producers need to start with a core idea and then work outwards. The exciting part of interactive media is that we can make things that can grow in ways that we can’t possibly predict now.

Jackie Turnure rounded up a busy afternoon with a presentation on pitching. She presented a series of suggestions for participants to grab the attention of the pitch panel to lead in to a brief description of the project. Good pitches should start with a condensation of ideas in few words before you expand your description to point to the boundless possibilities of what you are putting forward. It's important to engage the pitch panel with energy and enthusiasm, make it funny if the project is funny and tailor your pitch to the people you are pitching to. What do you want from them? Do your research so that you ensure you are pitching something which will appeal to them. Practice your pitch, test and refine it and make it sound spontaneous.

A good pitch must start with a narrow point of engagement, broaden out then narrow back down with a strong, concise ending that leaves people wanting to know more. When you get comments engage in dialogue, not debate and don't be put off by unanticipated interruptions. Know the weaknesses of your project and turn them into strengths by addressing them directly in the pitch. Vary the tone of your pitch, don't be afraid of quietness, include lightness and shadow. When you deliver your pitch you must be enjoying yourself and this will naturally draw others in, if you believe in your project others will too.

Keren Flavell gave a presentation based around ideas of mobile content. 'It's not just about screen size', it's about the quality of the experience that is tailored for a mobile audience. Phones are always with you and are a personal device that are always on. yourMovies, an information service about movies has been a very successful service offered by HWW, less so for yourTV because it doesn't appeal as much to an audience on the go. Social applications are becoming very popular on phones, linked to the fact that they are personal devices that you carry with you all the time. Social applications such as funkysexycool.com, RSVP and kinkcommunity are becoming very popular on phones, linked to the fact that they are personal devices that you carry with you all the time. Mobile content works best with known brands as it is difficult to find content on mobile portals. If you don't have a known brand you need to establish a presence before you can expect returns from mobile media. Marketing is currently a big challenge for mobile content because of the way telco portals and aggregators work. Telcos currently are the main link with the audience at the moment because they have an established billing system. Off portal content is beginning to become available with alternative billing systems and ways of downloading content. This bypasses the Telco portals and is more globally focused because it involves setting up a WAP enabled web site.

TUESDAY

The day started with an inspirational, overview exercise called the Jewel, looking at the teams projects by Jonathan Marshall. This was a now and future visualisation exercise that helped the teams focus and find their USP, particularly in the follow-up mentor sessions where the teams made real progress.

The first presentation called "The Chinese Curse" from David Gurney, looked across mobile and broadband platforms and the usual complexity from cross platform development. He went into some detail about the best ways to develop the mobile element of your property. Specifically looking at the importance of finding the right sort of aggregator (and not alligator) who has access to the best carriers, on an international basis. David also explored how the revenues are shared between carriers (50%), formatters (%), primary aggregator (50-90%), secondary aggregator (alligator) and then the various foreign money transfer elements, bank charges etc: An important aspect with mobile content is making sure you have good positioning on the mobile portal.

David looked at a typical product life cycle via a tongue-in-cheek quadrant diagram - 1) the ? (IDEA), 2) the * star (FINANCING), 3) the cow (CASH) - you must milk it, then 4) the dog (NOT EARNING ANYMORE) - but may be part of the brand, even though it may be costing you. He showed a range of services that Blue Rocket are doing very well in the market, The Manchester United mobile content, wallpapers such as Beer O'Clock and the infamous non-animation'ish "Bang the Cat". Another revenue maker is bespoke viral videos, animated jokes that are sold globally and aimed at cultural markets.

After the more commercial elements David showed more innovative uses of the mobile phone such as augmented reality applications - a pattern on physical media, paper, walls, triggers a 3D character to appear on the the mobile that can be rotated in real time. Some mobiles that have gyro mechanisms are being used for games that are based in the physical world such as fishing on your mobile. He pointed us at an interesting mobile site called SmartMobs. He talked about the changes in the industry, the decline of TV and that we should all look at the major moves that are being made by the big players, such as Microsoft's move into robotics. David then covered MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) and how for a younger audience linear TV is more and more irrelavant - comparing The Bill and Counter Strike ;-) But the users are not just playing games they are creating their own worlds and exploits inside them - they become tool sets.

A typical tool set type application was David's own award winning Dog and Cat news - that 'kids could participate and interact in the creation of content'. Diaries, TV shows and more original art. Give them the flexibility to create original work and they will spend more and more time.

After the pitching exercise between the teams there was a brilliant pitch-off session to secure a mock million dollar deal. Monica from Get in the Car and Doug from Double the Fist battled it out to convince the audience that they had the best multiplatform project and were the most worthy of the dollars.

Jonathan Marshall, the esteemed international mentor, showed some magic tricks that demonstrated how the audiences are changing from television being dominant, to larger audiences growing for broadband and mobile. Jonathan explained the myriad of formats that are emerging that enable on-demand content and specialist interest channels. It was a technology driven talk and sure enough there were a variety of three or four letter acronyms he explained, including DVB-H (digital video broadcast handheld) and IPTV (internet protocol television). He suggested that the array of special interest magazines in newsagencies reflect the appetite for focussed programming that meets the needs of audiences, reinforcing that it is the changes in technology delivery platforms that has enabled this change to take place.

WEDNESDAY

The day began with a stimulating visual exercise led by design mentor par excellence Catherine Gleeson. LAMP participants were each given a word to interpret through visual, colour and text elements. Spontaneous creative responses were diverse and exciting when viewed together. Collage, spilled tea, paper sculpture and drawing loosened up creative juices for the demanding work about to begin on projects.

Rachel Dixon arrived on the slow boat which came over to Milson Island via a supply pick up in Brooklyn. After a long boat trip and without the benefit of caffeine, Rachel gave a compelling business presentation which comprehensively covered the topic. Her practical advice to teams ranged from set up of companies through to documentation of chain of title from day one. The value of intellectual property was an underlying theme that kept coming back particularly as it related to new media projects that often have more durability than heritage media.

What do investors look for? - ROI (return on investment) or exciting, innovative projects that can garner an audience. Building a creative business rather than serial projects was a big theme of the presentation and teams were asked to think big and think of the opportunities of the future.

The day switched quickly into build mode after a great presentation from our developers for the next fews days, Arse (Anthony Eden) followed by Matthew Smith and Matt Daniels. They demonstrated a range of basic engines, shells or templates (mostly in Flash) that could make the build process much easier if appropriate to the projects. Gary Hayes also gave a short live and practical demo on how Second Life can be used as a rapid prototyping tool. How to build, texture and add physics to objects, animate characters and rapidly create large scale sections of virtual worlds.

The teams then got into executive production mode, deciding on what exactly will be built to help communicate their service and began the short but intense road to a Friday morning prototype or proof of concept creation. We have over twenty important industry visitors so they are eager to impress. Jackie Turnure is constantly checking their pitching calibre, Catherine Gleeson making sure the design standard is high and Anthony Eden managing the developer schedule. All the mentors are chipping in also with everything from basic photoshop, to director, to filming, narration and a multitude of other tasks. A couple of late nights ahead and as I write this at 12.30am, with a full day to go all but one team are still up! Theres dedication.

THURSDAY

Build, build, build. Through to the early wee hours of Friday morning, eight projects are created and apart from a few video clips the teams brought with them, everything is created from scratch. You can get some insight into the final project outcomes when we post images and descriptions on the LAMP projects pages over the next few days.

FRIDAY

All who took part and who are LAMP regulars agreed that this was the best LAMP residential yet. A post will follow with a breakdown of the week, feedback and links to projects and podcasts.