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CONvergence: Independence Day

While most of the country spent the long weekend celebrating our nation’s birthday, there was one small pocket of Minnesota where the words “Independence Day” were spoken almost exclusively in sentences that also included the words “Jeff Goldblum.”

Inspecting the Bloomington Sheraton parking lot on Saturday there were subtle clues to the uninitiated that something was afoot. The woman in blood spattered scrubs rummaging through her trunk, the smoking porch filled with people discussing the new Captain America costume, the fact that the mud spattered Bronco had a vaguely threatening, but pleasantly sing-songy poem about car hygiene signed “Bad Horse” in lieu of the traditional “clean me.”

To those in the know, these were all omens pointing towards Minnesota’s biggest scifi nerd mecca, CONvergence.

This was my first time at CONvergence, so I’m going to leave the in-depth dissections of the panels, flame wars over costumes, and general fanboyism to the professionals (check out #cvg2010 on twitter). But I will say that it was a remarkable experience and one that had to be seen to be believed. While the full four-day experience may be too much for all but the most committed of nerds, it’s worth checking out when it rolls around again about this time next year.

My two favorite photos from the event:

Pictured from L to R: some girl, Chewbacca, Bountyhunter Leia (background), Jesus.

Wolfman curls up with a good book in the reading lounge on the 22nd floor.

Happy Thanksgiving

The Nerdery spent today celebrating Thanksgiving as it’s meant to be celebrated-with food, drink and timelapse videography.  Wanna see what it looks like when nearly 80 people descend on a 120 lbs of turkey, 60 lbs of potatoes and a literally bottomless basket of cornbread muffins?  Check it out below.

WARNING: if you’ve seen Paranormal Activity these videos might creep you out but don’t worry, there are no ghosts in The Nerdery (well, maybe a few).

Thanksgiving at The Nerdery from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

More Thanksgiving at The Nerdery from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Agency Primer Notes: Facebook Connect makes Facebook the lowest common denominator of social networking

The Nerdery opened its virtual doors to our agency friends this week to talk a bit about Facebook and what the new technology that the 800# gorilla of the social marketing world has been rolling out in 2009 and what it means for advertisers and marketers looking to make a connection with its 325M+ users.

Being a longtime Facebook user, but by no means a savant (my 150 friends are only just slightly above the site-wide average of 130) I was lucky enough to convince our own Annette Johnson to help me navigate the frenzied waters of Facebook Connect.  Below is the deck that we shared with our guests covering some of the key things that creatives and account staff need to know when it comes to building a facebook strategy for your clients or your own brand.

The examples we discussed during the live webinar (not featured in the slide deck) were:

• Social comments and social sharing on Mashable.com
• Network advertising and social graph API capabilities with Beware the Doghouse
• Full-on, to the point of creepiness, multimedia showcase of the identity API capabilities with Shark Week Frenzied Waters

If you weren’t able to make it to the Tuesday primer live there’s still time to register for this afternoon’s session or contact us to arrange a live “private screening” for your agency or company.

And here we are on video…

Facebook Connect Agency Primer from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Agency Primer Notes: Augmented Reality Bites

Well, it’s not so much that augmented reality (AR) bites, but mostly that people haven’t figured out how to use it yet. That’s the hypothesis we had in mind as we held the first of two Agency Primers on AR Tuesday morning (there’s still time to register for the other session).

Like any new technology, one of the most obvious applications of AR is to be attention-grabbing and disruptive. But as supermarket shelves fill with AR marker-clad bags of Doritos and even our awards shows jump in on the action, AR’s allure will start to wane. So we wanted to cut to the chase and talk about what AR will be good at once it retires from the spotlight of being a “hip” technology.

Here’s the deck:

In our talk, we highlighted a few areas that AR can fall back on after the novelty has worn off. In each of these areas, AR can be leveraged to bring something to the table that traditional forms of digital media can’t.  Below are some quick notes and links for each.

Promotion

This is the least functional and most prevalent form of AR out there today.  This is wow factor stuff that engages an audience largely on the novelty of the technology.  There are plenty of examples out there, but here are a few that we like:

• BMW Z4 Expression of Joy
• Coraline Button Eyes Window Display
• Adobe MAX Conference Promo

Navigation

Using augmented reality as a way of annotating the world around is one application of the technology that makes intuitive sense to a lot of users.  As such, it’s one of the first applications to see larger scale adoption:

• Yelp iPhone App
• Layar
• Robot Vision

Packaging

Integrating AR tactics into packaging design and digital out-of-home strategies can be a great way to draw attention to a product, but it also has the potential to add functionality, giving shoppers a sort of X-ray vision into the contents of a package and their usage. There are also plenty of companies looking to add interest to traditional markets (esp. toys) by adding a new dimension of play and interaction through AR.

• Camspace Demo with Coke and Pepsi (warning: obnoxious music)
• Topps Baseball Cards
• K’nex “Live Box”

Print

Augmented reality can be a way to solidify a connection between online and offline components of a campaign.  Not a lot of awesome examples of this out there, but here are a few from Total Immersion:

• Car brochure proof of concept
• Star Trek promo

Visualization

One of the most practical applications of AR is the idea of using the technology to bridge the gap between digital experiences and the real world.  Imagine shopping for furniture online and printing off a AR tag that you set on the floor and snap a picture of to see if that couch will fit in the room – and to get an idea of what it’ll look like.  Here’s a great example of pragmatic, problem-solving AR from the United States Postal Service:

• USPS Priority Mail Box Simulator

Here are links to some of the other resources and examples that we discussed:

• AR Toolkit
• FLAR Toolkit
• Papervision3D
• Google Sketchup and AR Tools
• Total Immersion
• 3DV Systems
• Boffswana
• Project Natal
• AR Tutorial from Adobe

Testing Obama’s Nerd Cred

John Hodgman’s address at the Radio & TV Correspondent’s dinner in DC is a pretty good listen filled with nerd references including this one on the topic of nerds versus jocks:

You know where I stand on this great divide, I’m a big fat geek. And there are those of you who’ll say, “Wait a minute didn’t he earlier say he’s a nerd? There’s a difference between geeks and nerds, of course.” To you people I say: shut up nerds. This is not the time for bickering. This is a historic moment because seated to my right, right now is the person some people say is the first nerd president of the modern era.

IMHO, not quite as awesome, but much more friendly than Stephen Colbert’s performance a couple years back.

Looking Sharp, C#

Pizza and programming language overviews: a balanced meal at The Nerdery.

Our resident .NET guru, Jeff introduced C# and the .NET framework to a dozen of us over pizza today at The Nerdery. The presentation isn’t for the technologically challenged among you, but it’s a great intro to Microsoft’s primary development platforms.

Wolf Shirt Friday

As nerds we, of course, live on the cutting edge of not just technology, but also fashion. Friday some of our more fashion forward residents held an impromptu fashion show here at the office. Fresh off the runways of Paris and Milan, I give you Wolf Shirt Friday.

The discerning eye will spot some kittens, a dragon covered with a Post-it, a bear driving a pickup, but you should know, those guys are wearing a wolf shirt on the inside.

In honor of the auspicious event, our traditional Friday bottlecap talk was enhanced with Wolf vodka and Blue Moon ale.

Act now and with expedited shipping you can join us this Friday…

How Many Nerds Does It Take…

Q: How many nerds does it take to assemble a 3D puzzle of the Millennium Falcon?

A: All of them evidently.

When I found a 3D puzzle of the Millennium Falcon in a batch of my childhood stuff my parents refused to store for me any longer, I knew it belonged at The Nerdery. Puzzles and Chess are two of the constants of the break room here. I don’t want to ruin the ending of the video, but this “fully dimensional” puzzle was no match combined talents of Dave, Matt and Jessica. [Editor's note: everybody was off the clock]

Star Wars Millennium Falcon Puzzle from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

And, in honor of the Millennium Falcon:

Agency Primer Notes: iPhone Wrapup

Yesterday marked the first in our Nerdery Agency Primers series, this one centering on what a creative agency needs to know about the iPhone market in order to vision and pitch iPhone projects to their clients. Thanks to those of you who attended and we apologize to those of you who were turned away because of capacity (we were a little overwhelmed with over 50 attendees turning out for it).

As promised on the call, we’re posting the slides from the presentation here along with a list of links where we drew the data that we shared on market statistics and demographics.

Source Links

• 148apps
• Apple’s iPod touch sales double, nearly on par with iPhone
• Study: iPhone generates 43 percent of mobile web requests
• The Life of an iPhone App According to iPhone Ad Network
• What iPhone Apps Are Used Most? Hint: Not Games
• Apple Reports First Quarter Results

If you missed the Primer the first time around, don’t worry, you’ve got another chance. We’ll be holding the talk again next Tuesday, June 9th at 11:00 a.m CT. You can register using the form on the right or at event page at http://nerdery.com/iphone. This next event will be after the WWDC announcements so we’ll hopefully have plenty of new tech and insights to share about what’s next for the multitouch platform.

If your agency has a bunch of people interested in learning more about developing ideas for the iPhone platform contact us and we can arrange for a “private screening” of the talk.

iPhone Users Never Forget

ReadWriteWeb has some interesting analysis on a report from eMarketer about ad recall rates for iPhones versus other mobile devices and other platforms in general. Impressively, their data shows that 59% of iPhone users recall ads they’d seen on their devices.

I’m a Twitterific user on my iPhone and while I seemingly only ever find time to check out my feed on my drives to and from work, I do admit that the Deck ads that they show do get my attention (at times probably more than the surrounding traffic).  It might be the placement amongst other bite-sized info, or it may be the relatively small screensize of the device and their resulting prominence but it works on me and evidentaly on 59% of you all too.