Sunday, 1 November 2009

Making Connections - Assignment 2

Brainstorming 2a

For our second assignment brainstorming was our first task. We had to use "The Tipping Point" and cover all important aspects of the book in detail. It was good working as a group for this particular task as we had all covered a different chapter when creating a mind map in the first assignment. It was an advantage having each person cover a different chapter previously as it made the brainstorming alot easier especially when it was a chapter we needed to refresh on. The brainstorming method was quite successful and we managed to cover each chapter thoroughly or as best we could. Usually one idea would lead to another idea and so on until we thought we had plently. Often we had so many ideas we had to stop and move on to the next chapter because we could have gone on forever just firing different ideas. I found the brainstorming quite entertaining and alot more enjoyable than mind mapping. I think ideas flow alot easier and faster as a brainstorm, as one idea can lead to several other ideas.

The first chapter we looked at was Epidemics which i think we all found easy enough to brainstorm. As Hush puppies is mentioned several times throughout the book that was the first idea that came to our heads and so leading us on to several other trends which became epidemics for example - Poppers, skinny jeans, baggy jeans, crocs and so on...and not forgetting the fashion trends including punk, 60's, 70's and 80's fashion. Other ideas included Crime, addiction and gadgets which all lead onto other ideas.

We then did a brainstorm on The Law Of The Few - where the chapter tells us about connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. We looked at each sterotype individually and came up with ideas corresponding to each one. We first looked at Connectors - someone who knows alot of people and instantly thought of social network sites for example Facebook, Twitter, bebo.. etc. This is an ideal way for people to connect or reconnect with people they want to get intouch with. There are so many different ways to connect with people through- letters, telephone, fax, pager, email and loads more. We then did the same for mavens - people who have alot of knowledge. Looking at different resources - Internet eg. Google, Library - where books are filled with information, Maps, The news and so on. There are hundreds of sources you could use to find out what you need. For salesmen we looked at different ways of selling without there actually being a salesman involved, which is highly successful. For example, online shopping - meaning you dont need to leave your house, everything is available to you online.



The Stickiness Factor was the next chapter we went on to look at. As this was the chapter i had chosen for the first assignment it was alot easier to relate to the book aswel as throwing my own personal ideas into it. Firstly we looked at advertisments and the different ways of displaying them to make them sticky. Some of the most sticky adverts realeased on tv are the Cadburys advert with the gorillia playing the drums. I think this advert is particularly sticky because it reflects the distinct colours of the Milk chocolate bar aswel as adding a fun factor - the gorillia playing the drums! . I think a particularly good one is when tv advertising encourages health and safety. The hedgehog advert which is advertising the green cross code and making people aware of their safety.
Other issues including tv soaps came up - which is the issue i have selected to research. I enjoyed researching tv soaps and trying to find a solution to make them even more stickier.




The Power Of Context was the hardest chapter to brainstorm. We not only had to refresh ourselves with the chapter but also try and understand the concept of it. Once we understood the main concept of the chapter and the relevance it had to design we were able to start relating ideas to design and come up with suggestions. One idea that we came up with that i found interesting was considering the envirnomental factors and how they can have a big contribution to the way you react. One issue raised from this factor is Racism and how it has changed over time.





Brainstorming as a group was alot more enjoyable than creating a mindmap. Ideas were alot more diverse and broad and often one idea would be enough to collaberate other ideas, and all connet at the same time.

Group Discussion
2b

As a group we selected two of the chapters we thought were the most successful from the brainstorm. We selected The Law Of The Few and The Stickiness Factor. For each chapter we pulled out a few ideas and discussed how they could relate to design and then discussed ways of making them better.
The Law Of The Few
We started off looking at The Law Of The Few and picked a couple of ideas which we thought we could move forward. The first idea we selected was Connectors and discussed briefly different ways to improve this.
Social networking is also a good way to connect with lots of people. The good thing with social networking is you can search for specific people and have a continuous conversation. We suggested as ways of improving the social networking system is by mixing the idea of skype with Facebook and so you are able to hear and see the person while speaking to them not just as a written format.
We then took Mavens as our next discussion point. We looked at the idea of maps as they hold alot of information. Problems that were raised from this idea is that they are bulky and hard to handle. Suggestions were made to create a more flexible material for example some sort of fabric.
Salesmen was the next disccusion. We raised issues connected to online shopping and how you could go about solving them. Online shopping has everything available to you but how do you know what it is going to look like when its on? will it fit? We did this with several ideas. It was fun discussing it as a group because we came up with ideas that we probably would not have thought of individually.
The Stickiness Factor
I really enjoyed discussing The Stickiness Factor and ideas we had brainstormed from it. I think it is the chapter i most fully understand and i find it personally interesting to look at the stickiness of something and why it is so effective or non effective.
We discussed three ideas - Advertising, Smoking and Tv Soaps. How could you make them even more stickier?
With advertising we discussed a very popular gadget today - the ipod. What else could we do to make them stickier? Instead of having to physically search through your playlist for a particular song why not create some sort of eye recognition where your eyes move the playlist along automatically.
We then went on to discuss smoking. How could you make people more aware of their health? How could you make this message stickier? Suggestions included raise the prices or get less for more money. Creating a packet which can only hold one cigarette at a time and when you go to the machine you have to pay £2 + per cigarette.
The Tipping Point discusses childrens tv programmes and how they engineered them to make them stickier. I wanted to raise ideas on how to make tv soaps stickier? Is there a way of making them more portable? How can we increase the number of viewers? After raising these questions i decided i wanted to take this idea forward and do some research and find a solution for making them stickier? I will discuss this idea further in the next section.

Poster Design 2c

For this task we had to pick an idea from our discussion, develop it and create a solution to make it better. As i mentioned above i decided to pick The Stickiness Factor and discuss the stickiness of Tv Soaps. How could you make them even more stickier? How do you grasp the attention of more viewers? I decided to look at it from two perspectives, firstly how could you make soaps more portable? My idea being that you could watch the soaps anywhere, in the car, on the train, on the bus? I thought what about having a tv which slides out from the side of your mobile phone? I created a spider diagram with different ideas on how to approach this. For example it could be voice activated and you just say the name of the soap you want to watch and it searches automatically. It could be a multiple choice screen and you just touch the one you want to watch. Having this kind of portable technology would probably make people watch the soaps more if say they are on a bus and have nothing else to do. On a more negative note I then thought that this type of technology would be quite expensive to buy so not many people would buy the accessory.

I decided to elaborate on the idea of allowing the viewers to suggest more reality issues for storylines. They would then send in their brief idea and the producer would have to tackle the different senarios and come up with three storylines. The viewers would then vote which one they would want to watch and the most popular vote would win. Creating more realistic issues in soaps will increase relevance and therefore viewings. The viewers would be able to relate to the issues and will therefore make it more benifical for viewers and soap ratings.

I researched different voting systems which already exist, particulary looking at reality tv shows including x factor and im a celebrity and how their systems work. Also communicating via blogs invites viewers to leave comments.
A simple Interative voting system for "Soaps" viewings.

So i decided to try and make audience participation stickier through creating a new voting system and this would hopefully make the soaps stickier.
My solution was - Viewers would have the chance to participate in a monthly interactive vote, maintaining viewer interest in on going storylines involving characters. A sky handset would be the reciever and the software would be available to download free onto your laptop through soap blogs and then linked to the tv screen via a usb cable. A multiple choice screen would appear on the tv screen at the start of the first broadcast of the month and at the start of each broadcast that month. At the end of the final broadcast of the month, results will appear on screen as a graph. The result would influence future storylines in the soap.
The audience would select by pressing the appropiate coloured button - SIMPLE, FREE AND INSTANT DONE! A range of issues will be included to maintain interest and will include characters, storylines, music and settings. By taking account of viewers opinions producers will be more confident they are producing what the viewers want to watch and therfore making soaps stickier.


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