Never a dull moment at PCM

PCM is many illusions poorer as well as a lot money. Yet it improves its revenue flow due to a financial reconstruction and despite the hefty bonuses for the top management (of course the results could have been better if the bonuses had been added to the final results).

It is unbelievable that after so much mismanagement and turmoil there is still a reasonable financial result. The newspaper and book publishing company had a turn-over in 2006 of plus 3,4 percent from 653 to 675 million euro. The netto loss went down from 51 million euro in 2005 to 31 million euro in 2006.

The positive results were mainly made in the newspaper sector and the educational division. In the newspaper sector the job advertisements brought in more money as the Dutch economy is in full swing. And extra revenues at 50 million euro came from the sale of the book publisher Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum to Springer.

But what is the real status. The newspaper companies keep on working and still have to realise heavy cuts in their budgets. This while the managers of Apax leave with a fat profit and the top management cashes, while it is still possible. Two top managers have left in the meantime, each taking 2 million euro for less than two years of work. The CFO, who stays on, has returned his bonus of 1 million euro. Also two members of the shareholders’ board have left (of course without a bonus). So there is a CFO and a chairman of the shareholders’ board left.

In order to pimp up the picture of the company, PCM expects for the future:
• It has a fine starting position to profit from the economic upswing and new developments in newspaper and book publishing;
• The advertisement sector is picking up again, but the newspaper will have to look to get into the competitive game of television and internet (in The Netherlands newspaper publishers are not allowed yet to possess television stations);
• The company will invest in new products such as the free paper DAG; it aims to develop a cross-media news platform to reach younger target groups and invest in a multimedia strategy for the present quality titles (read established audience; mind you: cross-media for youngsters and multimedia for the elderly!)
• The newspaper and book divisions need to work on improving the results (of course after handing out bonuses so generously);
• The book publishing division will remain part of PCM and no longer be put up for sale.

So what is happening today?
- PCM is still negotiating in silence with the newspaper an book publishing company NDC/VBK. Mr Jan de Roos of NDC/VBK is rumoured to be the new CEO of the merger.
- Mr Marcel Boekhoorn, proprietor of the free paper De Pers has put a claim on the desk of PCM for 10 million euro. This claim represents the damage caused by PCM when the company was talking to Mr Boekhoorn about collaborating in De Pers project, but broke off talks and left promises unfulfilled..

Tomorrow there will be more on the 10 million euro claim and the project De Pers.

Blog Posting Number: 723

Tags: newspapers, cross-media, multimedia

Cross country for cross-media (14)

While the CMID07 was going on on Hemavan (Sweden), my Italian friend Max Giovagnoli organised the cross-media conference Cross-Media #2 in Rome. Max is professor cross-media at the Link campus of the University of Malta in Rome; in fact he will manage there the new Cross-media Communication and Management Master of Arts next academic year!. In his former life Max was involved in entertainment and especially in crossmedia and broadcasting, amongst other as a director of the Italian version of Big Brother. He is the author of a book about cross-media; however the book is in the Italian language (see cover). He has organised the cross-media conference for the second time as you can see from the announcement. Having returned from Hemavan, I asked him how the conference went.

How succesful was the conference and how many people were present)?
Between the 100 and 120 people attended the conference. Cross-media # 2 had a great result on Italian media. No less than 5 dailies, 2 weekly newspaper, 2 television stations and 3 radio carried items about the conference.

What was the most talke about question. Was there a discussion on the term cross-media?
I openend the conference with a speech and focused on new trends in the cross-media communication and management market. I stressed the importance of videogames, virtual worlds online, mobile contents and new media narratives as the most powerful battlefields of the present and future.

What was the most convincing cross-media case brought forward in the conference?
It was not just one. In fact we had three cases:
- Second Life;
- Spiderman;
- Final Fantasy.

I also asked him a question about the Italian broadcast company Mediaset of the former prime minister Berlusconi. Mediaset and John de Mol team up in a consortium to acquire Endemol. John de Mol wants to get back Endemol, while Mediaset wants to learn how to make international deals. Being a big player or even bigger soon, it is important to see whether Mediaset would become a driving force.

What direction will cross-media in Italy take? Will broadcast be the main drive or film? And what would be the influence of Mediaset, if it acquires Endemol together with John de Mol; will that give a special drive?
It depends on what Mediaset will bring to the partnership, and on what it wants to achieve from Endemol. In general, I never had partnership or contact with Mediaset for cross-media initiatives and projects, and I believe it could be a significant happening, since there's still a terrible confusion in Italian television concerning convergence, multiplatform distribution and cross-media. But I could be wrong (I hope)...

Blog Posting Number: 719

Tags: cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (13)

After two weeks of chewing on the presentations at CMID07, I am about to close the mini-series. I might to some of some of the presenters and their subjects later, but that depends on some of the e-mail correspondence going on. In this posting I look back at the conference Cross-media Interaction Design 2007, CMID07 for short.

The conference was being held in Hemavan, in the North of Sweden. It is a ski resort for Swedes. As far as I could see, it was not exactly a mundane tourist spot. But the nature is beautiful; I will not say anything about the snow. Still it is not exactly a venue where delegates flock to like the Milia or MIPTV in the Mediterranean city of Cannes in France.

Besides it was the first time that CMID07 was held. With the assistance of the EU regional fund, the organisation Akademi Norr in co-operation with the University of Umea, a programme was set up and experts invited. There were 40 people during the conference with the majority from Sweden. It was an intimate atmosphere and offered a lot of room for discussion. The conference itself was rather academic and focussed on interaction design in cross-media.

Will there be a second edition and would it be worthwhile to go there? The first edition was well organised. Yet, the continuation will partly be depended on the financial support, that the conference organisation will able to get. Not many paying delegates will head up North on their own accord and cost, I presume. Besides one would have to decide whether this conference will remain an academic exercise or an exchange between academia and business. In the latter case, people from the broadcast industry, gaming and advertising industry should be invited to spice up the conference with business cases of e.g. the Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman or Second Life.

Personally I liked the conference. I met new people, I had good discussions and I learned some new perspectives. My definition of cross-media is practical, but does not take the full value chain of cross-media in mind. Especially the role of the cross-media consumer has been underexposed. Still I believe that term cross-media will not be sustainable as cross-media is an integral part of the communication process. I also think that the discipline of interaction design should have a close look at the term in relation to cross-media. By using cross-media in the communication process the designer should not only put the action in the cross-media, but also activate the cross-media consumer. And I am still chewing on the liquid media.

Blog Posting Number: 618

Tags: cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (12)

In one the last presentations at CMID07, I felt uneasy. Mikael Wiberg, associate professor at the CMID research Group of the Department of Informatics at University of Umea, sprang a surprise at me. He started to comment on the axiom of media as separated form and content and work towards integrated media.

Mikael writes in his lecture Midgets: Exploring the Design Space for Truly Liquid Media: In the early 90’s the slogan Information wants to be free” was a popular, and important phrase that described and guided much of the development of the Internet infrastructure. Similarly the phrase “The medium is the message” has made a great impact on how we think about media as a design material, i.e. we have had a tradition of looking at media as content separated from its form and we have thus made a distinction between media objects as content and media players as form. Thus an alternative interpretation of the famous slogan “The media is the message” might be that media is only about content, whereas it s form is left out to a dedicated media player which typically only supports a limited number of formats, or forms. Today, we can see this problem growing fast due to the development of new media formats and adoption of new media standards, and as a result of this people end up with media converters of various kinds for dealing with the current gap between media objects and media containers, e.g. media players.

He proposes to look towards integrated media. He compares the concept of integrated media to the sign in the language theory: a sign is composed of 1) a signifier (significant) – the form which the sign takes; and 2) the signified (signifié) – the concept which its represent. Analogue to this concept he presents a similar two-part model of integrated media. In this two-part model of a media object no separation exists between form and content; instead form and content are fully integrated in the same container, i.e. the media object. The interface, or “the bar” is thus between a certain media content and its corresponding media form.

He continues to argue that we now have technology to move away from traditionally separated media towards new digital and integrated media. By doing so a next step in the development can be taken: the fluid or liquid character of new media can be explored. He envisions that in the nearby future we can assume that media will move freely across different technological platforms, across different media formats and across different networks. Media will appear more as liquids than as solids. So liquid media are a next point of departure for exploring the design space of media.

Based on the conceptual exploration of integrated media objects and the liquid concept and based on research in focus groups, he has formulated a vision of “midget” design, i.e. a design of small, lightweight, interactive and integrated media objects that can live across heterogeneous media platforms. A midget is similar to the small widgets that integrate information (content) and form (executable application), that offer small programs. Likewise midgets could be thought of as small self-contained, remixable and executable media object, that can move freely across heterogeneous interaction landscapes.

Mikael can imagine several activities arising around midgets such as social sharing of midgets, co-viewing of midgets, midget mixing, and midget post-productions. Following this idea he sees a new media ecology arising that adopts a new life cycle model of media. While the traditional media cycle has consisted of a flow from media production, editing, and distribution to media consumption, with free moving midgets we can start to imagine a cycle of media creation, sharing, re-production, re-mixing, re-distribution, together with new forms of social interaction arising around these activities. As such these midgets would incorporate the liquid or elastic aspects of digital media.

This presentation is worthwhile to chew on, at least for me. I thought in the eighties that the separation of content and form was the best thing possible to move in digital media. In this way we could move texts and photographic images from print to CD-ROMs and online. But it is worthwhile to start thinking about the consequences of liquid media.

Blog Posting Number: 717

Tags: cross-media, liquid media, widgets, midgetscross-media, liquid media, widgets, midgets

Cross country for cross-media (11)

At CMID07 there were some four presentations about games. I will only treat one, the one about the game developed for the Swedish Parliament, the Riksdag, presented by Karin Danielsson Department of Informatics of Umea University in the North of Sweden. Besides its official duties maintaining laws, taxes and budget, this government body has taken on the task to inform people about the way democracy and the parliament works. Swedish schools visit the parliament and can learn about the parliament in books, comics, slideshows as well as other information materials, prepared by the parliament, such as the website. Also the sessions of the Riksdag are broadcasted now and again on television. There is now a range of media about the parliament available. But to catch the interest of teenagers the parliament had a game developed Rixdax (only in the Swedish language).

The game educates teenagers about the work carried out by the Swedish government. It is laid out as a brick game, whereby the player advances five levels. Random generated questions in each level are connected to a specific theme. Each correct answer yields a point, while for each wrong answer points are deducted from the score. After each question the player not only sees his/her score, but also how many of the online players have scored the correct answer. After a level is completed, an illustration of one of the parliament buildings emerges on the virtual game board.

The game was developed during the winter of 2004 and 2005. The assignment had been awarded to the media design company Alpha. In the design process 24 teenagers between the ages of 16-18 years old were included on different levels of the design. The decision had already been made that it would be a virtual brick game; besides the parliament had delivered the game questions. In the first session with the teenagers a Power Point presentation of the game was made; they could also play the first module individually on the computer. Afterwards remarks of the teenagers were collected, discussed and there was an agreement on the changes to be made. In the second session the teenagers were divided in pairs and could play the game, which took about 25 minutes.; again the remarks were collected and agreement on the most crucial changes was reached. It was interesting to hear, the researcher told, that the teenagers told her that they would play the regardless whether they were told by the teacher to play it or not , because the experience of the game itself and its content was considered motivating enough for them.

The game is up now on the internet and can be played by anyone (... who speaks Swedish). As you can see I tried the introduction, but did not get more than 100 points to start with (at least some instant gratification).

Blog Posting Number: 716

Tags: cross-media, games

Cross country for cross-media (10)

I had not expected anyone busy with print in cross-media. Coming from print publishing, I was eager to hear what could be said about print and digital media. At CMID07 Mikael Malanin of the Helsinki University of Technology presented a paper named New paradigms of print.

In his paper Mikael observes that traditionally digital media have been associated with print media. A new reverse paradigm is to associate print media to digital. Another paradigm in media products is the community generated content.

The paradigms are not really new. In the nineties we have particularly seen the publishers coming up with extensions of their existing print products such newspapers and magazines. It was basically for marketing purposes that publishers went into internet. Usually they saw internet as a potential cannibalism mechanism for their print title. By now publishers have changed this narrow view and exploring editorial concepts as well as marketing concepts. Not all concepts are successful; for example, internet is not becoming the newspaper boy who delivers the pdf newspaper file in great numbers. But most newspapers and magazine publishers have digital extensions to their print product.

So far one cannot speak either of a replacement of the print product by a digital product. Only in a few cases magazine publishers had to change from print into digital edition; the Dutch publisher of Elle magazine changed over from a print to a digital product. So far the great revolution from print to digital has not come around. And given cross-media, analogue products like newspapers and magazines might stay in place until digital paper can compete with analogue paper.

Print products in association with digital products or services have been around since the end of the nineties. I saw as a Europrix2001 jury member one of the Finnish entries of 2001, www.sooda.com, which was definitely a cross-media product. Sooda is a dynamic and innovative online community for young people about 12 to 19 years old. Sooda is full of interactive services, new visual experiences and unconventional content. In summer 2000 Sooda grew into a cross-media product, when a printed school diary was published and turned out to be a hit. The other Finnish hit Habbo Hotel publishes in Finland a diary. In the meantime is it not uncommon that internet sites get printed products. Books are produced from blogs. Magazines are created around a website like recently the magazine RTL GP was created for the fans of Formula 1 in The Netherlands, who follow closely the race website of the broadcasting station RTL.

While the digital counterparts of printed products can usually be categorised as extensions, the printed products yielded from digital sites are often serving a community. This can be Grand Prix Formula 1 lovers (like me), but also a community of bird watchers. Internet, Mikael remarks, has proved to be an effective medium for creating and maintaining of online communities, which operate in the virtual space and are not dependent on geographical boundaries.

These virtual communities are often the proper environment to start new services with community generated content. In an enthusiastic community there are always community members to generate content, given that they have proper online facilities. The mechanics of such a community are most likely that there are 100 percent unique visitors of which 10 percent regular lurkers and 1 percent participating members, who will be part of a community generating content such as blog contributions and video and articles for the printed edition.

The conclusion can be that print is not yet dead.

Blog Posting Number: 715

Tags: cross-media, print, digital paper, community generated content

Cross-country for cross-media (9)

Mattias Arvola of Södertörns University College made explorations with his students into interaction design for nature experience. The basic question was: how can interaction design be used to advance information design, interactive services, and in the end increase the tourist attraction at nature reserves and national park? Some 60 interaction design and media technology students they developed initial concepts and early prototypes of interactive services. These areas studied were guides, routes, events, games, installations and websites.

Guides are of course the most likely candidates for interactive services. They can range from stationary versions such as installations, points of information, billboards and websites to interactive versions on mobile phones, PDAs or even dedicated mobile devices with the possibility to of GPS positioning. Some of the guides were community based, e.g. bird watchers. Most curious but interesting was a design concept whereby people would walk around with a small log of wood. The log had a hole through which you could listen, but also talk or blow into it. The main input was given by blowing.

Routes were another area of investigation. Also here mobile devices could be used. But also games can be used to make a route interesting. One of the students developed a route whereby kids could create an animal, learn about what it was doing and then track the animal on a PDA.

And why not use an online dating service to bring people together for a visit to the woods and even have a dinner there?

Installations were one of the favourites for explorations. One novel idea was to have a screen projection of a woman who lived in the lake and showed shots of other places and times. Another idea was to develop a living tree by which a face would be projected on the tree and kids could hug the computer augmented face on the tree (see illustration; design by Johan Blomkvist, Ruken Cetiner, Oskar Jeremias and Sara Schill Saran). Another interesting idea was the use of stationary mixed-reality binoculars. When people look through them and turn them in different directions, additional information would be given.

Websites were used for preparing a visit, but they were also used after a visit. They were also used for community building, using geo-tagged photographs. In one project, a family at home could track their father on a fishing expedition and see the photographs he took immediately after he had taken them (I guess of the whale he caught).

Several ideas were based on embodied multimodal experiences such as interaction techniques like blowing and hugging, touch, movement, sound and light, but also instrumental and social issues. (social web, sharing photographs, ranking them). Of course location based technologies such as WiFi triangulation, GSM triangulation, GPS, RFID, Bluetooth and barcode readers were explored.

In the ideas presented the students made use of features like cross-platform applications, multiple platform applications, embodied multi-modal experiences, user generated content and location-based information. This is a mouthful. Yet Mattias Arvola was realistic about the explorations as he considered them a mirror of our zeitgeist. He would love to see what students had made of these projects ten years ago and ten years from now.

(BTW An example of nature experience can also be found in The Netherlands. In a wetland area near our offices a sea eagle pair has made its nest and is brooding. Like last year the nature organisation has put up a webcam)

Blog Posting Number: 714

Tags: nature, environment, cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (8)

At CMID07 two instructors of the Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden (NHL) in The Netherlands, Eric Voigt (left) and Mikel Hanekamp (right), were present and offered a presentation on the minor cross-media at their college.

The Communication & Multimedia Design (CMD) Degree program is a 4-year professional education program leading to a Bachelor’s diploma (Bachelor of Multimedia). It is characterized by competence-based learning and flexible learning routes. There are 2 phases:
- The propaedeutic phase (1 year, 60 European Credits)
- The post-propaedeutic phase (3 years, 180 European Credits)

The first year consists of three mandatory projects each incorporating a number of competencies totalling 18 EC each. The remaining 6 EC will be awarded in individual assessments. In the post-propaedeutic phase (years 2, 3, and 4) students may collaborate in 4 ready-made projects, as a way to master the required competencies; alternatively they may plan their own learning route, as long as it leads to the same above-mentioned result. There are no formal majors (as yet), but students may opt for a tailor-made profile (totalling 60 EC) that fits his/her abilities and interests by:
- Working in route-independent training projects; these projects are either commissioned by external clients or set up by the students themselves
- Following an individual learning route through e.g. ‘shopping’ at other disciplines
- Doing an industrial placement (mandatory)
The 5-month industrial placement (max. 35 EC) in year 3 is intended to give students a better understanding of Multimedia professional practice, to promote their awareness of the organizational context, and to enhance their ability to relate theory to practice. The final project (30 EC) during the second semester of year 4, serves as proof of competence.

The course prepares students for jobs as:
- interface designer of multimedia products
- multimedia developer
- multimedia consultant
- content manager (administrator of multimedia applications)

At CMD the educational approach is through projects and based on the gaining of competencies, rather than swotting for exams. Students will not have to sit tests: instead they will be assessed, either individually or in a small group After the first year, projects mostly fall within the sphere of one of eight minors: Education and Multimedia, 3D-visualization, Games Design, Entrepreneurship, Rich Internet Applications, Concepting, Cross-Media, and a Free minor.

The minor Cross-media offers students multidirectional routes on different levels. Whether they are interested in camera work, editing, audio, programming, streaming media, database programming, or prefer marketing, public relations and management; they can either join the platform as a rooky and gain experience that way, or they can enrol in a Learning Centre Course and enter on a more experienced level expanding and deepening their expertise. The objective of the minor is to work as a team for 6 months on the Cross-media platform. The students will produce television broadcasts/ internet television to be aired on television, Internet and UMTS (mobile phone). Occasionally they will be producing programs for third parties. They will pass through all the stages necessary for bringing about a television broadcast, managing the website, and maintaining the broadcast corporation. The students will have to show their competencies in analysis, end products, working in projects and domains. They can specialise in audio production, moving image production, image production, programming, project management, marketing and communication and graphic design. The students will get guest-lectures, workshops, consults, practical assignments and participate in collaborations with third parties.

The students of this minor, roughly 50 students every half year, run cross-media content on http://www.mjuks.nl/ of www.mjuks.nl/umts. Amongst others a take-off is presented on Nordic walking. They students changed the title in Nordic stalking and filmed comic scenes on the street (enlarge the photograph by clicking on it).

Blog Posting Number: 713

Tags: education, cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (7)

At the CMID07 also a presentation by a representative of the Norwegian national library was planned. This was rather surprising to me as I usually think of libraries in terms of books, although some libraries might have a collection of music discs. But Lars Gaustad changed that picture. Sure, libraries are there to preserve the memory of a country and offer access and use of the national media. And they have been busy digitising books, magazines and newspapers for some years now. But he made it clear that this mission entailed all media (print, music, movies, broadcast and digital media).

The memory of Norway is stored in a mountain. The materials are stored ad random in files with a bar code and retrieved by a robot. But since Norway has a new copyright law the library has the right to digitise for preservation, but not for access. Problematic are still the areas of AUthentication and AUthorisation. Now everything is digitised from books to movies. And every half year the internet is harvested for Norwegian sites. There are extensive metadata attached. The 87 catalogues can be searched with retrieval software of FAST Technologies (IMHO the best retrieval software there is). So the Norwegian national library is ready for cross media.

At first sight one thinks that one can perform a cross-media search. But this is not true. The system is designed to search for cross-media in a particular context. The searcher gets various hits in different contexts. For example, the library has a jazz database with biographies, photographs, jazz history and jazz links; new players can add their music, but also their biographies and discographies. Information on performers can be retrieved, but also music. Using the system of the national library one can also retrieve everything about the first Norwegian oil platform Ekovist, which is now being dismantled; but one can look up information on the platform, which was on internet, in movies and on radio.

Some of the first fledglings of cross-media products can be seen in the section Digital stories on the site of the National Library. In Tiny Traces the footprints of children in the national Library are followed. The Promise of America makes available various resources about Norwegian emigration to America and Norwegian-American culture and history. Although in the Norwegian language, one can study a beautifully illuminated book from around 1500. The strange story of a letter that Roald Amundsen wrote and left at the South Pole December 15, 1911, that eventually reached the King of Norway through the efforts of Robert Scott and his expedition. Georg Morgenstierne is a multimedia database containing source materials originating from Professor Morgenstierne's expeditions to Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iran.

The national library preserves all this for posterity such as society in general, for owners of the work in particular, but also to for later generations to sketch the history of culture and knowledge. Of course always the question will come up whether everything has to be preserved. And librarians will not start a discussion on this point. They will preserve everything in order to produce trusted repositories with data integrity and metadata. Libraries are going to be trusted cross-media repositories for the use in science and education.

Blog Posting Number: 712

Tags: library, cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (6)

The discussion about cross-media is fascinating. While we were discussing the term at CMID07 in Lapland (Sweden) and most of the particpants (see photograph of all the participants)were treating cross-media as a new phenomenon, it was during a X-Melina workshop in Tampere (Finland) in 2004 that there was a discussion whether the term cross-media was sustainable. So during the debate I made clear my stand (see photograph below).

During that workshop Mr Koopee Hiltunen of the Finnish cross-media company Haukion puts forwards the thesis that intuitively many people in the trade know what the term means. In fact, cross-media is hardly made explicit as a definition. Cross-media is part of the media universe; cross-media has become the default mode of making media. Users are so accustomed to cross-media, that they do not notice its presence; but they will notice its absence.

For professionals cross media will put some burden on their skills. They will need a wide understanding of the whole media universe. Project management skills will become highly valued. Ideas will be valued greatly. Digital story telling becomes prominent. Design (visual, structural, narrative, usability) will be one of the greatest challenges in cross-media productions. Looking at the industry, Koopee Hiltunen predicts that marketing communications and games and the combination thereof will be the driving forces behind cross-media.

Following Mr Kopee Hiltunen’s line of thinking, I believe that the term cross-media will not survive explicitly but implicitly. The term is not really sustainable. But Mr Kopee Hiltunen made some worthwhile observations. He stated that the term is part of the media universe, in fact the default mode of making media. In other words, cross-media is an operational term for creative production networks in companies and in the economic context.

In this light it is crazy to use the term to readers of the Dutch newspaper as NRC.next. Celebrating their first anniversary (will there be a next year?), the newspaper management stated that it wants to be a cross-media information brand. Presently the newspaper has an internet site and plans to have a television channel internet. Is this really cross-media or is it multiple media or are internet and the television channel just extensions? I would be impressed if they used day-parting in this so-called cross-media strategy.

Is cross-media a discipline. No. It is a way of thinking in media and communication. I personally believe that the term cross-media will survive as a professional term for media educators, for media makers (publishers, marketers, education) internally and for city or regional planning in order to describe the interaction between various creative disciplines.

Blog Posting Number: 707

Tags: cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (5)

It was for the first time that CMID07 was held. And as observed before, the majority of the participants were involved in interaction design. They experienced cross-media as a new area of research. Given this situation it is not uncommon that there was a search for common ground. Liam Bannon had explored the terrain. I had looked from the media angle. Christy had approached the subject of cross-media with a view of a chain. Monique de Haas took the route from the audience.

Monique starts from human/interactive angle and has done so for a longer time as is clear from her paper in 2005. In the CMDI07 presentation she puts it: humans are the central starting point and driving forces for cross-media communication. If we want to design interesting cross-media formats, we need to get a better understanding of what people do and want from media in certain contexts, at specific times. So, in a specific context, what is their media usage, and what is their mode of reception or interaction (laid back, lean forward, on the move, -inter-active) and how does this differ, at which specific point in time of the day.

Monique is now actively working on touchpoint analyses to investigate and report typical everyday behaviour. This will give better insight in the context. She is of the opinion that cross-media enable and empower people to tell their stories anytime, anywhere and gain the interest/critical mass that every story deserves.

She stresses that we need to get grip on what is relevant in a certain context at a certain moment in time. Technology that supports social behaviour and enhances social strength has the best chance of being adopted. Looking at a model for getting to grips with behaviour in social networks, requires thinking about social currency in these networks. This may better enable conversion of social interaction into economic value. Cross-media projects need cross-over business modelling. Getting your audience hooked in the story is still the key to get the message across. Story will be dissected to smallest narrative units to flow over media channels inviting people to follow and interact with the story across the channels.

It is clear that media value chains are changing fast. Cross-overs are made, new levels of interaction emerge, which strengthen social behaviour. Collective intelligence or crowd sourcing is emerging as away of cooperating and co-creating in social networks. We need a better understanding of the forces that drive human behaviour on these levels of interaction.

The remarks of Monique de Haas at CMID07 have set me thinking about the communication science theory. This model basically works with a model of sender, a channel and receiver. But in the digital media the receiver is no longer passive; he/she will be able to react to the message sent. The model of channel weaving regardless of the presence of meaning can be dispended with. Another model is in the making, but does not have a clear shape yet.

Blog Posting Number: 706

Tags: cross-media, convergence, social networks

Cross country for cross-media (4)

At the conference I really started to understand that this was a conference on Cross–Media Interaction Design and not just concentrating at the phenomenon cross-media. I was surrounded by people who had an interest in the human computer interface discipline (HCI).

And this really hit home when Liam Bannon started his presentation. He is Director of the Interaction Design Centre and Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University in Limerick (Ireland). He is interested in improving the utility, usability, and desirability of the computational artefacts we design. He has been involved in examining alternative conceptual and methodological frameworks for understanding human activities, and their mediation by various technologies. This quest for more adequate explanatory frames has lead him to examine aspects of activity theory, ethno methodology, and phenomenology. Liam takes an understanding of use as being a prerequisite for design, and wishes to understand human practices. He also wishes to encourage a more participative approach towards the design field. Liam emphasizes the cooperative nature of human work and its implications for design.

His lecture contained several landings by references or quotes to position Cross-Media Interaction Design. He did not intend to clearly delimit the area and the content of the discipline. His thoughts were a scouting trip.

But I like the discussion around his starting point. What are we talking about:
- Cross-Media Interaction Design;
- Cross-Media Interaction Design;
- Cross-Media and Interaction Design.
For the discussion he would not allow a half-hearted point of view of juxtaposing cross-media and interaction design as if cross-media was just a new field for action on which interaction design could be applied.

Of course I come from the business side of the media and personally I felt that cross-media interaction design is not a proper term. It disregards the influence of the cross-media area. Interaction Design has existed for computer services, for videotex for CD-ROMs and it was never dubbed: CD-ROM interaction design. So why should the practitioners of interaction design claim cross-media as a special stand of the discipline.

Of course one could argue that it was for a lack of a better term. But for me the perspective has changed. Cross-media is busy with a combination of analogue and digital media. Interaction design has been active in the field of digital media only. But with cross-media designing has become a different discipline. Designers will have to activate also people who happen to consult an analogue medium. In order to activate them, a designer will have to use tricks like using a telephone number or asking people to take a photograph with their mobile camera of a particular sign on a billboard. Given this line of thought I would prefer Cross-media Interactive Design.

Continuing on the discussion Monique de Haas of Dondersteen, expanded the idea in a way I had not thought of. She put that interaction design is a closed area for designers; they deliver the actions for the desigital media and that sit. But as cross-media is basically building an experience with various media blocks, the term interactive design would also leave room for the cross-media audience to participate with actions and react to the experience.

Blog Posting Number: 705

Tags: cross-media, HCI, interaction design

Cross country for cross-media (3)

The first paper that was presented at CMID07 was by Christy Dena, an Australian consultant who works in the field of Media and Entertainment and has a blog named (surprise, surprise) Cross-media Entertainment.com. I had heard of her and I had seen links in the Dutch cross-media blogs, but I had never met her before.

She has a lot to tell about cross-media and can go from a helicopter view to details. She sports a schema about cross-media and entertainment, which covers the five angles: content, marketing, business, audiences and technology. For each angle she works out the points to be considered. At the conference she worked out the content angle with examples in a fascinating way.

There are five ways to prepare content for cross-media. By repurposing content, one can republish the same content on each platform e.g. Someone comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. A second way of preparing content for cross-media is by ttechnical Adaptation, whereby the content is edited and redesigned according to the affordances and limitations of each platform. Another way is art form adaptation by remaking a message to fit the tropes of a particular artistic genre. An example of this is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, which has been moved from radio play to book to computer game and mobile (I still have the Commodore 64 version in its original wrapping, including a book). Another form is augmenting: providing additional, complementary & contradictory information in different platforms like in MTV’s Laguna Beach, where the world depicted in the TV series is augmented with Second Life. Stretching is the last way. Transmedia series contain self-contained episodes like in Homicide: Life on the Street, a police series whereby the TV series stops with a cliff hanger, while the investigation continues and is closed on internet; in the next TV installment a new case is opened. A transmedia serial will have dependent episodes, including, discussions with other participants, webcam video sessions and telephone voicemail.

And just like she drills in the content, she also drills in the other aspects. The model is very applicable in entertainment, but could also be used for interactive marketing.

The content section did remind me of Christian Fonnesbech, CEO of the Danish company Congin, who coined the method of dramatic content engineering. He produced years ago the internet soap Anders og Henrietta as an interactive marketing tool for a bank.

But the main contribution of Christa is that she looks from five angles to a cross-media project, from content creation to audiences and is able to lay out a strategy. The way she marries content to technology, but also content to audiences and technology to audiences is done very profoundly.

It was great to meet Christy and team up with her for somne days. She will be in The Netherlands for a few days and will present a guest-lecture at the HNN in Leeuwarden on Wednesday, March 28, 2007.

Blog Posting Number: 704

Tags: cross-media, games, entertainment