Being Human-Friendly While Becoming More Digital

With all the analytical power currently used by large businesses to segment customers, automate personalized messages ("missed you!"), and spy on the shopping and decision making habits of site visitors, it's more important than ever to be human-friendly. We cannot forget that customers are real people and not just stats on a spreadsheet. Things can go wrong very quickly if we don't remember this, thanks in no small part to the powerful digital systems available to our human customers (Twitter, etc).

John Winsor explores this and cites recent examples in his latest post on the HBR blog, Being Digital Demands You Be More Human.

"As new digital marketing tools and systems are implemented they must be balanced by even more analogue systems than before. The ability to reach out, in a human way...can quickly create either positive or negative momentum for your brand. That makes human interaction more important than ever."

The challenge--how can analogue systems keep up with the large scale made possible by digital systems?

Remembering Matt Brown

On Wednesday April 25th, I received the devastating news that I had lost my close friend and longtime bandmate Matt Brown. For the better part of a decade, we played and toured together in the Two Dollar Pistols, worked studio sessions and performed in various groups. Though our musical lives had taken different turns in the last few years, it was always a joy to see him and we would pick up where we left off like no time had passed. He was like a brother to me.

Since his passing, not a day goes by that I don't think about the music and laughs we shared over the years. I think about all of the crazy gigs we played (that community center in rural Holland with the fog machine?), the long hours spent traveling in the van made much more than bearable by his company, and the occasional harmless prank to pass the time either waiting to play or return home to our loved ones.

I think about that time Matt nearly got thrown off of an international flight for accidentally ringing the service bell too many times. I think about that time he was introduced at the Grand Ole Opry as Matt "Baby" Brown, which made his new nickname official. I think of that smile he'd give you across the stage just before he'd kick off a tune. And, of course, I think about the absolute power and dynamic precision of his drumming following that 4-count--you could feel it right through the stage like you just hopped on a freight train.

Most of all, I think about how unwaveringly SOLID he was--as a drummer, absolutely, but also as a friend, husband and father. Matt was the anchor. He would not let you down and he always brought his best.

I cherish the time that I spent with Matt and all the music we made. I'm going to miss him terribly.

Soundtracks For Your Dressing Room

Dressing rooms are always too quiet and vanilla, or is that just where I shop? Here is some cool work from DDB Singapore for StarHub Music Store in Singapore--sort of like iTunes. It combines music and fashion, making use of RFID chips on clothing in a store to trigger songs in the dressing rooms that work as a unique soundtracks to that garments. 10,000 songs were used, from 16 genres, for 8 clothing brands in 42 stores. Texts were sent to the customers with an offer to download the song playing. Songs weren't just given away--this work actually boosted paid music downloads at Starhub by 21%.

I wonder how they dealt with all the songs being triggered at once in a busy suite of dressing rooms?

What if a sound logo or piece of branded audio could DO something?

What if a sound logo or piece of branded audio could DO something? Of course, I mean doing something in addition to connecting people to a brand via sound--the power of audio branding.

I read about Sonic Notify by Densebrain here and I think it may be a game changer for creative use of sound with mobile, primarily because a user does not have to actively switch on an app to listen to a coded sound. Sonic Notify is based on bus tracking technology and you could see it as a kind of “audio QR code” that delivers some relevant content to a user via their smartphone. However, QR codes are too much work and require action on the user’s part.

This is what differentiates it from sound apps like Shazam, which the must consciously turn app on for it to hear and identify a sound code and follow through with content delivery. With an auto-playing audio "code" instead of a picture you must photograph, your smartphone can pick up nearby sound that you may not be able to hear and you receive branded content on your phone. It works with sound outside of the human frequency range, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be combined with a sound logo, or any audio for that matter. Plus, content can be location specific due to the inherent properties of sound coming from a speaker source.

Consider the possibilities for creative use of sound to deliver content via mobile and how that could enhance someone's experience with a brand.

The Radioactive Orchestra

With 2011 wrapping up, this year's best-of lists are starting to make the rounds. In terms of creating a fun and stimulating sound experience, the Radioactive Orchestra from this summer is one of the year's interactive sonic highlights.

Give people something fun to do, and they might stay to play, create and share. The Radioactive Orchestra, an interactive sound project created by a Swedish nuclear safety team in collaboration with composer Axel Boman and musician Kristofer Hagbard, demonstrates the fun and the potential power of utilizing sound and music for active engagement. I love the way this project creatively uses sound to demonstrate the relatively heady concept of radioactive decay, inviting site visitors to create their own music based on the unique decay patterns of isotopes. This project is primarily education and awareness focused (awareness of the concept, not necessarily the KSU brand), but imagine the potential for active sonic engagement with commercial brands and products. This year's Google Les Paul doodle comes to mind as a successful example in this vein.

If this were a brand with an existing sonic identity, reigning in the options and offering a curated palette of sounds and options could reinforce or help build that identity. Also, I would have loved to see the option of a simplified design for a broad target in order to quickly get non-musicians creating and sharing. The interface is fairly advanced and you’d have to know a bit about music to really have fun. Perhaps taking a cue from the Google Les Paul doodle and simplifying the interface and sharing functionality would make for a friendlier experience and a broader appeal.

I’m still impressed. Check it out and start playing by choosing isotopes from the blue cloud.

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Music for a Rainy Morning

Fog. Rain. Trench coats. Raw deals. Dredging the river for evidence of the crime... Well, maybe not that dark. But, there's definitely a noir-ish feel to this one that resonates with me.

Now that the touring and live shows have slowed down, I'm getting taste for loud electric guitars again (it never really goes away). I put this one down on a recent rainy morning.

Paper Lamps

I've been busy lately with the demands of the advertising world, recording sessions and non-electronic music, but I've been working on a few bits and pieces in the spare moments. I've been enjoying pushing the envelope with the gnarly side of FM synthesis and cross modulation, finding the nasty sounds with instruments traditionally associated with the slick, bell-like tones ubiquitous in the pop and soundtrack music of the 1980's. It's more fun when you find something a little scary and try to make it into something beautiful than when you start with a well-groomed and presentable palette.

For some reason, I see glowing paper lamps when I hear this number. Don't ask me why...I have no idea.