Balance is the Present Moment; Interdependence is the Future;
That’s the big “shower epiphany” I had when tasked with writing something that interested me.
I was struggling to put my thoughts together because I have so much to share! I am a very curious person. I’m the guy with 1,001 hobbies. The exact number doesn’t matter though, because everything is interdependent — especially in media.
After almost a decade in Out-of-Home (OOH), I decided to jump into what I thought was a completely different world at Blue Bite. It was a natural progression because I wanted to learn about how media channels are inter-connected, and I knew that mobile was a big, central part of this puzzle. Central yes, different, not-so-much. I’ll explain.
Fast-forward 3 years and I’m still the same guy tinkering with how to thread the mobile string into various parts contributing to the “machine” that is the Internet of Things (IoT). I quickly realized that it is not such a different world but instead, a complimentary cog. At Blue Bite, we have built an entire eco-system that fulfills this machine. We are a conduit that connects the physical to digital. We are participating in a global movement that is breaking down isolated systems to contribute toward better user experiences.
Today, I believe Blue Bite has achieved the basic building blocks. We’ve created a system that can deliver context at the right time and place, within a wide range of environments — but the job is nowhere near complete. This is what excites me! We continue to break down walls to involve what Google calls, the Physical Web. We collaborate with media owners in places like airports, malls, movie theaters, college campuses, check-cashing outlets, C-stores and retailers to connect their wares to our cloud. Together, it forms a massive mesh of inputs that, in due time, will be able to intelligently “talk” to one another to deliver instantaneous experiences appropriate for just that moment. As such, personalized content is achieved.
The next part is to go beyond personalization. The next part is where computing gets ambient. It’s where we sort the signal from the noise; where we can unleash real utility to create precisely timed value. This, to me, should automatically translate into great UX. This is the part where we actually start to understand the big picture through the media ripple effect of the consumer life cycle. Mikhail Damiani, my CEO, often paints the present day as a society filled with IoD (Internet of Devices), as opposed to one filled with IoT. I agree because we have yet to reach the Super Saiyan level of delivering great experiences. I believe we have the current tools and data to achieve it, but not many of us (myself included) are actually doing it. We need to practice interdependence more deeply. It’s great that we started to pay more attention to location, contextual timing and mining through historical data (search, location, purchase pattern, etc). Add on bits captured from digital signage, personal devices, peripherals like Chromecast and Apple TV, apps like Netflix and we are getting warmer. With even deeper connections, we can achieve so much more.
This is where interdependence of wearables and true IoT can deliver beyond personalization. We need to use sentient signals like vibration, facial expression, heart rate, vocal tone, and position via beacons. These signals unlock a language that’s undetectable through current methodologies. Thus, predictive modeling through sentient signal analysis can really “get it right.” A majority of communication is simply body language; we need to start analyzing it like we analyze Facebook updates, purchase transactions and Tweet locations.
Using our mTAG platform, Blue Bite wants to be able to sense that you want a certain product and help you make that ultimate purchasing decision. This is what Google terms, ZMOT. We don’t want to shove an ad for Nike because we understand that you’re interacting with a kiosk inside a mall and are likely to make an impulsive buy. We want to take it so much further than that. Rather, we want to share the right sneaker promotion at that mall kiosk at that moment in time because we know you really want that pair of Kobe’s. How? By using logic based on all of the aforementioned signals. Last month: you watched Kobe highlights on YouTube; you searched “best basketball sneakers;” your Fitbit registered an average of two basketball activities per week; you voiced your sadness on Kobe’s retirement via social; you tapped your NFC device for Laker sports scores every time you were at a bus stop; because our esca beacons noticed you checked out the new Kobe X’s for 5 minutes at a Footlocker downtown, and finally, because your heartrate went up when you read the latest Kobe article on Hypebeast.
And all of this information?
Achieved through the power of interdependence (and without PII).
Alex Kim
VP, Mobile Partnerships
Blue Bite
