Capture the Imagination

I took my kids to the Science of Aliens exhibition at the Science Museum in London the other day, and I was reminded of the power, and importance of capturing your audience's imagination.  One of the exhibits, Zone 3 - Almost beyond imagination, had a distinct WOW factor with all of the people around me.  This is where the museum, with the help of Channel 4 and Big Wave Productions challenged some of the brightest and best scientific minds to imagine life on alien worlds.  But their way of getting the message across was what made the difference, with a creative use of the same technology as interactive whiteboards or interactive projectors.

This zone has a series of tables, with the alien world projected on them from above.  Strange creatures stalk about amongst the planet's landscape.  You touch one, and a tabbed window opens up with pictures and information.  As you page through learning about the alien's habits, there is still a link back to your alien, prowling around, exhibiting the behaviour or adaptation that you are just reading about on the tab - say hunting other people's aliens!  Now the interesting thing here is that, from a technology point of view, this is nothing special.  The interactive projector technology exists in many schools and colleges.  The graphics programming must be pretty rudimentary when compared to the stuff my son buys for his Playstation 2.  But the application of the technology in this environment made the subject matter seductive.  The combination of novelty, fun and simplicity of the approach meant that the audience was reading and learning about the subject, in a way that wasn't happening with the static display cards elsewhere in the exhibition. 

I think you'll begin to see more of this type of presentation, particularly for exhibitions, or at point of sale.  I found this company, arcstreamav, who has applied the idea to projecting on the floor for advertising.  Take a look at this page on their site, as it has a nice video showing the principle rather nicely.  However, the key lesson for me is not the technology, but the message itself.  Wherever you are trying to get your message across, there will be standard technology that you can apply that might cost a little more in time and effort, but will help you capture your audience's imagination much more effectively than just the words on the page (screen or display card).  The trick is to take a step back and think differently.

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