Today I took a look at the GE Ecomagination site that allows you to see a digital hologram of Smart Grid technology come to life in your hands. You start by printing a solar panel marker and then launching the application in conjunction with a web cam. You then hold the paper up to the webpage and watch the hologram unfold before your eyes.... you can also blow on the wind mills and they will speed up - its truly amazing!
It got me thinking about all of the potential uses for technology like this - imagine being able to visualize in 3D form images like homes, cars - pretty much any consumer product. It would be especially useful for anything that needed customization or configuration. The concept of using augmented reality in advertising has been used previously in this ad for the Cabrio Mini.
Microsoft just launched a new campaign called Talking About Windows focused on IT Pro's where they are opening up the conversation about Windows 7. It includes interviews with Microsoft's top Windows 7 Engineers including Jon DeVaan, Mark Russinovich, Gabe Aul and others as well as some great Windows 7 early adoption companies.
TalkingaboutWindows.com offers IT professionals genuine insight on Windows 7 from the Microsoft engineers who helped build the product. Featured are video's and discussions about why product decisions and feature trade-offs were made. Also, IT Pro's can get real-world commentary from IT professionals as they share their Windows deployment and adoption experiences. If you are an IT Pro, check out this forum to express your opinions, discuss Windows and share adoption stories.
As a marketer, I am very interested to see the conversation around Windows 7 and the IT Pro customer is a great place to start.
What happens when you combine technology, online story telling, mystery, clues and collaborative missions? You’ve got a fun way to engage developers around solving a mystery while learning how to use JavaFX. Crimson recently launched an ARG with Sun Microsystemsfor the launch of JavaFX.
Baron Rude and Hector Macchiato are Paranormal Investigation Experts or the “PIE guys” and they have a theory they call “the JUMP”. According to Baron and Hector’s research, strange events have preceded some of the most significant leaps in science, technology, and agriculture. They track and record these strange phenomenon through their website www.pietheory.com Recent sightings suggest that another advancement is about to occur and the PIE guys need your help in following the jump and ensuring its arrival. When you registeryou get a recruitment kit that includes free downloads of Netbeans 6.5 and the JavaFX Production Suite 1.1. Through following the story you are given clues and challenges to solve that involves using JavaFX and learning to create your own assets – such as screensavers, text decoders, audio and video.
How do ARG’s help to promote products? Rather than getting people to talk about a product directly, it engages players in the creation of something fun, allows them to share it and then take credit for it. In this case we are betting that Java developers will take the story clues, work with them in JavaFX and create their own assets as a result of what they learn through game play. Shortly after launch there are already fan sites being established and a group of players in Brazil have created their own Orkut PIE network group in Portuguese. The site was reviewed by ARGNet and is being promoted through social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Myspace.
Stay tuned – the story is starting to unfold and Baron and Hector are up to some crazy stuff!
In the spirit of "if you get it, share it" we’ve decided to start publishing some of the approaches, methodologies and marketing strategies that we are doing in the Crimson ConsultingInteractive Services group, for which I am the lead Partner. We’ve worked hard over the past few years at creating and refining some approaches we have used across both F500 clients and some startups - particularly around Social Media Marketing.
In many ways this goes against the traditional management consulting and agency practice of treating everything as proprietary, but if there is one thing I have learned in the new modern marketing environment, its that sharing your approaches has a lot of advantages. The feedback, recognition and collaboration we have received when we have done this is invaluable and I am hoping that as I publish some of our approaches that other people will share theirs also. As a result we can all learn from each other, what is working, what isn’t and what is still experimental.
Here is the first framework - its the basic approach that we use for planning Social Media Marketing initiatives:
