Revising crossmedia

The time of looking back and looking forward has begun again. One starts looking back over the year and the developments. In the coming days I will revisit some of the events I have been in over the last year and reflect on it, but also look forward. The first reflection will be on conference on Crossmedia and Interaction Design (CMID07) in Hemavan (Sweden).

The conference was held in a winter sports village up north. And there was snow (which I hate), but it was not even freezing cold. The timing of the conference was interesting. I had been discussing crossmedia without giving it a name with amongst others Damien Marchi (who is in 2008 starting to work for FremantleMedia), when he presented the lessons from the French Big Brother/Loft Story crossmedia production. In the Spring of 2004 I was wrestling with the definition of crossmedia, which eventually resulted in an ACTeN e-content report. The report was later on one of the contributions to the reader on e-content published by Springer Verlag. So three years later I was up North to discuss crossmedia.

And the conference did deliver some primers, valuable contacts and new insights. First of all Hemavan was the closest I had come to the North Pole. It still was no reason for me to start skiing or snowboarding. I met a group of new people. The organisers from Hemavan and Umea and a group of Nordic delegates from other institutions than I am used to. Two people made a deep impression on me as persons and my thinking about crossmedia: Christy Dena and Monique de Haas.

Christy showed the depth of the ‘discipline’ crossmedia and I am glad to see that she has stopped her blog and devotes her time to finishing her thesis in 2008; for we need a standard work on this ‘discipline’ and not the superficial articles, workshops and MBA courses touting the term crossmedia. So in 2008 I will be following Christy closely.

Monique de Haas, a compatriot, I knew only by name, as I had never met her in The Netherlands or abroad. These days she has a captive motto: Crossmedia is one big flirt. But besides using catchy phrases, she made me think about crossmedia from the user perspective. In the e-content report, I approached crossmedia from the forward production chain, not taking in consideration that in the online age interactivity had become the leading principle. So the theoretical part of sending a message to the user through various media is an element in crossmedia, but not the only one. The user is also challenged to respond through various media, using the various opportunities of the media such as a max. 196 character SMS message or a more elaborate reaction in text or by image to a blog posting.

In January 2008 I have been asked to write a new article on crossmedia for a book, which will be published by mid-2008. I have been asked to take the e-content report for departure and to integrate this with the Hemavan lecture and the conference results. This will be a nice challenge to bring three themes together: crossmedia, production chain, various media response from users and crossmedia as an instrument for regional planning.

Yet I am still convinced that crossmedia is a multi-functional, fashionable term to replace the misconceived term of multimedia, which never got any depth. I also believe that it will disappear as it is now only used for a lack of a better term. And I keep wondering why it is that the term is in use mainly in Europe (and only in some countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands and Belgium and Italy. There is enough material to think about in the first month of 2008, besides other assignments.

Blog Posting Number: 961

Tags: crossmedia

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