David J. Danto
Principal
Consultant, Collaboration/ AV / Multimedia / Video / UC
Dimension Data
Director of
Emerging Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com Follow Video &
Technology Industry News: @NJDavidD
(Read David’s Bio) (See
David’s CV) (Read David’s Other Blogs & Articles)
First
and Second Screens
At the end of a long day I like to sit back in
front of a TV and just decompress.
That makes sense, right? Since the debut of broadcast television it
has served as a portal for the mind to travel to exotic worlds, an empath to
help us feel great joy and great sorrow, a keyhole to voyeuristically peek at
things we shouldn’t see, and teacher and babysitter all rolled up into
one. Many of my generation grew-up with
TV. Regrettably as my generation has
matured broadcast television has devolved on a path from ‘hall of fame’
performances to the ‘Real Wives of spoiled suburbia.’ Regardless, it has been the ubiquitous
appliance for companionship. Till now
that is.
When I get to my bedroom my wife is already there,
the TV is already on, and she’s playing a game on her iPad. (I wasn’t sure if it was Candy Crush Saga, Flow Line,
or some other, brand-new offering.)
Since she was busy I picked up the remote and changed the channel. “What are you doing? I was watching that” she complains. “No you weren’t” I reply, “You’re playing
level three hundred forty seven of your game.” “I’m doing both” she explains,
“put my program back on.” Really? She’s managing to remove all the jelly and
chocolate with exploding candy AND trying to figure out which bachelorette will
win the hand of Mr. Obnoxious - the born again virgin?
Apparently she and a whole bunch of other people are
doing just that. In the last few years
western society has developed a taste for ingesting content from multiple
sources simultaneously. At work we call
it “multitasking” - sitting in meetings with our PC’s, tablets and/or
smartphones on and pouring content into our brains – and only we know if that
content is an urgent email or our latest move in Words with Friends. Modern day corporate boardrooms are now being
designed and constructed with this second screen built in. Each participant has their own display that
can do many things – such as look more closely at the content being shared,
read email, check a portfolio (and harvest a crop in Farmville I presume.) Businesses have flipped 180 degrees from being intolerant of “rude
people” who look at their blackberries in the middle of a meeting (yup - that
was one I was accused of once only ten short years ago) to fully embracing the
concept that people may need to be constantly ingesting content to be effective
at what they do.
Consumer oriented businesses are getting this too. I just finished my first trip on Virgin
America Airlines. Their new Red
interactive seat-back ordering and entertainment system allows passengers
to watch on-demand movies, watch live Dish-TV and/or play games, and simultaneously you can on-screen
chat with fellow passengers and/or order food or drinks from the galley. Your movie shrinks to a quarter of the screen
and keeps playing as you place your order.
Virgin America ensures that you can get your Caramel and Sea Salt
Popcorn without the indignity of having to pause your Django Unchained
experience for even a moment.
We spend so much time with our gadgets multitasking that
the airline industry is finally also starting to hear the overwhelming cry of
passengers regarding personal electronic devices (or PEDs.) The stupidity of the oft-stated policies that
claim an airplane can be harmed by anything electrical has reached an insane
proportion. On that same Virgin America
flight – one equipped with powerful in-flight Wi-Fi throughout the cabin – we
were specifically asked not to even consider using anything with Bluetooth – as
if my BackBeat Go
headsets could somehow overpower the autopilot and bring us down in a ball
of flames. (It reminds me of the famous
quote from The West Wing
when Toby says, “We're flying in a Lockheed
Eagle Series L-1011. Came off the line twenty months ago. Carries a Sim-5
transponder tracking system. And you're telling me I can still flummox this
thing with something I bought at Radio Shack?”) The FAA created a task force
to review the PED policies in the hopes of bringing
them up to date with a society where most wristwatches are in fact PEDs that
use batteries and cannot be switched-off, and where the lines between a phone,
camera, book reader and tablet continue to blur. Many find it difficult to just “turn-off” and
not multitask just because they’re on a plane, especially considering that we
hear many pilots today are using iPad apps in the cockpit.
When we bring this
multitasking mindset to our homes and leisure time it is referred to as “second
screen” experiences.
As Mr. Obnoxious contemplates his choice of
bachelorette and the TV network starts a series of commercials, my wife’s
divided attention percentage shifts to the striped jelly beans she is about to
combine for a super candy. Suddenly a
message pops-up on her iPad – would you like a coupon for your local store for
$2 off the detergent that is being advertised on the TV right now? She looks up and see’s it is the detergent we
use, and clicks “yes.” The coupon is
sent to her inbox.
Broadcasters are embracing this second screen reality
with zeal. Technology is being developed
that will allow your smart device to be aware of what you are watching on your
TV, and since it already knows who you are and where you live it will know what
offers you’d probably like to see and use.
The advertisers know they’ve probably lost your attention to Bejeweled and the like,
so they are coming after you on the screen you are using. This was one of the many technology advances
discussed at the just concluded National Association of Broadcasters
conference. (You can read my show wrap-up here if
interested.) Getting you to port your
attention from the first screen to the second screen is a top priority of
programmers. Games, backstage news,
branded shopping and chat forums are only some of the methods content providers
are using to keep you interested in their message as all the new gadgets divert
your attention.
Second screens and multitasking are nothing new to those
of us that use Unified Communication and Collaboration tools at work. We use all the input from all the sources to
electronically simulate an office environment wherever we are. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve
been interrupted while trying to write this blog. But that’s no more so than I would have been
if my colleagues stopped by my desk if we happened to be in the same building -
and unlike those interruptions, with UC I can decide which interruptions need
to be handled immediately and which ones I can get back to later.
You’d be surprised how many people have not embraced UC
because they feel that there is no benefit to technologies that provide a
“constant distraction.” Then again,
these are probably the same people that use their smart devices to check their
email while having dinner, and play games on a tablet while watching TV.
I finally give-up trying to change the channel and
just go to my PC to see what’s been posted on social media recently. Once Mr. Obnoxious proposes to his chosen
girl and all the candy has been rescued my wife and I can finally watch some
good TV together – until I get an email from work about a meeting the next day
and have to break away…
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This
article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own,
personal opinions. David has over 30 years of experience providing problem
solving leadership and innovation in media and unified communications
technologies for various firms in the corporate, broadcasting and academic
worlds including AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan
Stanley, NYU, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase. He now works with Dimension Data as their Principal
Consultant for the collaboration, multimedia, video and AV disciplines. He is
also the IMCCA’s Director of
Emerging Technology. David can be reached at David.Danto@Dimensiondata.com
or DDanto@imcca.org and his full bio and other
blogs and articles can be seen at Danto.info. Please reach-out to David if you would like
to discuss how he can help your organization solve problems or develop a
future-proof collaboration strategy.