Rapid prototyping is like Speed dating for business. You gotta sell a huge idea quickly, help the other party buy into it and then if you’re both aroused, hope for some hugs and sexy time afterwards.

Anyway, we were invited to UWE to take part in a Rapid Prototyping 2day workshop (much like our week long version) to help brush up on skills and solve a question plaguing the music industry. “How do we re-erect flacid music industry sales with a ubiquitous sexy product? Something physical to aid the declining CD and LP record sales.”

Not an easy question, but all the groups worked tirelessly to try and fathom a solution. The event was an ace mix of people; artists, engineers, script writers, technologists, students and research scientists.

I was lucky enough to be involved with an orgy of very clever minds from HP R&D, The Pervasive Media studio and UWE.

Our idea was to create a new market and intentionally stimulate interest in an album before it was even completed. Using some expensive Remote Studio Headphones which tune into the band’s recording studio sporadically. Super fans would to listen to new riffs, bouncing jams, banter and sparky live sets. It was called Gold Jack, see our mascot below.

Gold Jack mascot

To visualise that for a pitch, it was in all a proper dirty experience. With 3D printers burning through litres of plaster, post-its being slammed un-ceremonisasly to most surfaces and all interspersed with a lot of heated USP chats!

Post its

The workshop finished with all groups pitching to Seth from PIAS music and showcased some very beautiful ideas, like the “Music Vault”, engineered to capture memories and “dieTunes”, music only released when the artist had popped their clogs.

dieTunes

Thought Den value these training workshops very highly, it keeps the directors on their toes, tickles their digital gray cells and allows blind exploration into new business opportunities for all our clients.

Thanks UWE and Pervasive Media Studio for a very well organised 2 days.

Sex. (just felt like I needed to write the word after that post)

Multimedia huh? Almost as vague as ‘pervasive media’ given it can describe anything from animated gifs to stereoscopic projections. Definitions aside, Thought Den were honoured to be invited to help the region’s A-level and GCSE media teachers swot up on how businesses are exploiting the power of digital.

Bristol already has a thriving media scene and educational institutions in the area are constantly innovating in the way they nurture upcoming talent – something we’re happy to support. A new Multimedia Diploma is being launched in the region and we aimed to get the creative juices flowing, mixing exercises, group brainstorms, front-line experience and observations of the market at large.

The good people at Learning Partnership South West and Vital, part of the Open University, commissioned a 3 hour workshop, part of which involved an in-depth look at some of our own multimedia solutions in three key areas – Government, Consumer and SMEs. Thought Den have worked closely with eDemocracy and online consultation specialists Delib for almost 5 years now and projects such as Fire Kills and Delib’s very own Your Freedom site for our new coalition Government were useful case studies.

Voucher Cloud was given as an example in the Consumer category, and Thought Den’s jewel in the crown Parashoot (risk assessment tool for the TV industry, like Base Camp but with animations) exemplified the highs and lows of developing unique intellectual property for small businesses.

Following a busy Friday and Sunday in preparation, the session kicked off at the Pervasive Media Studiowrapping for lunch at 1:00. It was a great session and we’re putting a video edit together as we focus on landing more work in this area. Please get in touch if you’d like us to run a similar workshop for you. Brows these videos for examples of what we’ve already done.

Bournemouth Industry Day (50 students, 8 hours, bridging the gap between industry and education)

BBC design recruits training (Creative thinking in Pervasive Media)

This is us looking gormless