Ed Mitchell: Platform neutral

On Monday 15/12 we had the ideas lab launch event for Media Sandbox 2009. I designed and facilitated the event partnered with Victoria Tillotson of iShed overseen by Clare Reddington of iShed.

It was fun. We worked hard and focused and produced some interesting stuff. David Wilcox did some fantastic social reporting, the attendees captured their work on video which is gradually appearing, and there are lots of photos on the flickr group. Expect much knowledge sharing; we work to an open innovation model.

A full event report will follow with the high level design rationale and details on the interventions and how you can do it yourself; in the meantime, one of the workshops was to identify the ‘five golden rules’ for anyone thinking of launching a new multi-platform project.

Here are the top five golden rules to consider when thinking about an ‘innovative multi-platform content’ project, as identified by the event attendees:

(the five golden rules as voted by attendees of the event)

Here are the those that didn’t make it into the top five:

(the next golden rules that didn’t make it to the top five)

Here is the full list of all the rules (the top 16 are in order of voting):

• What’s the point?
• Know your target audience
• Know your platforms and their features and constraints
• Identify a desire/need that this product is filling
• A single/simple idea
• Innovate or improve
• Consider potentials, adaptability, flexibility, extendabiity of your concept
• Go Gonzo: create a culture of use; go out there and create the story
• Ask if it makes financial sense
• There are no rules
• Release early and often
• Innovation must involve risk
• Give it a title
• Keep communication simple
• Content must be find-able
• Is it feasible?
• Develop/have a strong idea and stick to it
• New or existing technology used in a compelling and powerful way
• Agree upon a plan
• Don’t spend more than 1/3 of the budget on technology
• Start from what the user wants, not what you want
• Keep it simple
• Ask why it is multi-platform
• Ask yourself if you have the right skills to make it
• Understand the lifecycle and stages of development
• Ensure seamless content interaction across all platforms
• Do you or we have the expertise?
• Know how to measure success
• Can it grow?
• Are you using the right platform?
• Don’t forget your audience
• Platform must be driven by idea not technology
• Platforms must have relevance and value ‘use strenghts’
• Content must appeal to audience
• Interdependence of platform, content, audience
• A clear and adaptable business model
• A clear target audience

Now, we all know that having favourites is wrong, so these aren’t my favourites, but a couple of them really touched my favourite spots:

This one made me think of Nancy White, John Smith and Etienne Wenger and their work on the emerging role of Technology Steward:

(golden rule from event)

This one just simply IS:

Good work all! Full report to follow.