Brad Bird and the Shared Experience at the Heart of Movie Magic

Readers of the Social Business Insights blog already know the power of sharing. Sharing information leads to efficiency; sharing expertise unlocks innovation; sharing data yields insights. In his TED@IBM talk “Dreaming Loves Company: Tomorrow’s Cinema,” Academy Award-winning writer and director Brad Bird explained how the shared experience lies at the heart of the magic of cinema. He was preaching to the choir as far as I, an avid movie-goer, was concerned, but it was fascinating to hear an expert articulate what’s so unique and captivating about seeing a movie on the silver screen, especially when the theater gets it right.

Take Star Wars, for instance. When Bird saw the original on opening day and Darth Vader came on the screen, the entire audience hissed, as if some “dormant villain-hating DNA … had been suddenly awakened” in them.

I had a similar experience during Star Wars Episode II: when Yoda battled Count Dooku and started flying all over the place like a hyper two-year-old on a sugar binge, the crowd went completely nuts. It was a moment of shared exhilaration and joy that is impossible to re-create in a living room. It remains one of my all-time favorite movie-going memories. So somewhat paradoxically, when you have a great, enthusiastic crowd with the members feeding off each other’s energy, it can make the moment more personal.

This is true of any special moment we share with a community, even online, but it is difficult if not impossible to simulate the energy of a live audience in a virtual setting. And movies differ from sports (for example) in the expectations of the audience. As Bird said, "a movie audience enters a theater agreeing to surrender control to the storyteller. It’s a group dream, shared with a ‘one time only’ mix of strangers. Collectively, a single audience has thousands of years of hopes, dreams, hurts, experiences ... a gold mine of emotions waiting to collide in the dark.”

During his riveting talk, Bird had much more to say about what makes the cinema experience magical and how theaters have lost their way. I still love going to the movies at modern theaters, with all their flaws, but Bird’s talk left me with the hope that more establishments will follow the lead of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and others, and put in the effort to create experiences that are worth leaving the house to share with strangers.

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Lisa Seacat DeLuca: Inventing the Future

Every kid knows it: inventors are cool. It’s one of the things we want to be when we grow up, right up there with firefighter, ballerina or astronaut. But as we get older, we realize the improbability of having “Inventor” on our business card.

Thankfully, Lisa Seacat DeLuca never gave up on that dream. In her TED@IBM talk, “An Inventor’s Vision of the Future,” she told us about her first invention, a full-length umbrella she not only designed but prototyped with a plate and shower curtain when she was just seven years old.

When she created that umbrella, she was identifying and addressing a current need. Another role for an inventor is to gaze into their crystal ball and anticipate future needs. A third is to use that same crystal ball to look not at needs, but at possibilities. Do we need our toilet paper to reorder itself when the roll is running low? Do we need a hanger that glows red when you haven’t worn the shirt in six months, with a suggestion that you donate it?

No and no, and those particular inventions might not even be your cup of tea, yet still they are cool, and more to the point, you can imagine what else the technologies behind them might make possible. “The speed of invention in the future,” said DeLuca, “will be as fast as we can dream up ideas.”

DeLuca reminded us that as great as these inventions might prove to be, they won’t fundamentally change who we are as human beings. With all of our faults, some might consider that a bad thing. DeLuca, I believe, sees this as a positive, and I agree. After all, one of the greatest parts of our humanity is creativity, the very thing that allows us to reimagine our world and all it could become.

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Google Hangout Replay: A Social Business, Cloud, Mobile and IBM Connections Conversation

A new post on SocializeMe:Last week I had the opportunity to try out Google Hangout On Air. It's been something that I've wanted to try for a while and with the latest cloud release of IBM Connections last week, it would be a good time to try it out.



Joining me is Luis Suarez (no, not the guy who bites), an independent social business advisor and Simon Vaughan, an IBM Champion and one of the organizers of Social Connections, the IBM Connections User Group.



The whole thing was very informal, and again, it's something that I did to play with the concept and understand what's possible and what's not, while at the same time having a great conversation with subject matter experts on the other side of the ocean.



The result? I have to say I really enjoyed the conversation (it's all about my favorite topics so what's not to like!) and got me wondering if something like this is something that we should try to do on a regular basis (perhaps as a complement to 5 minute tips on IBM Connections).



Check out the replay of the Hangout:







What do you think ? Is this something that we should do more of ? Tell me what you think!

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Changing the World, One Continent at a Time

The TED Institute micro-documentary on Project SyNAPSE gave us a look at the future of cognitive computing, with glimpses at some possible practical applications. Those exciting possibilities become positively exhilarating in the Project Lucy micro-documentary, which gives us an idea of the potential for cognitive computing to transform a continent.

The project is a collaboration between IBM researchers in Africa and the company’s business and academic partners to bring to bear the full power of IBM Watson on the continent’s biggest challenges. The goal is to use Watson to discover insights from big data and develop commercially viable solutions in the areas of energy, healthcare, water and sanitation, agriculture, human mobility and education.

It is this last area that is the particular focus of IBM researcher Dr. Charity Wayua. In the film, the Kenya-based Wayua lays out the ambitions for cognitive computing to give teachers greater ability to deal with crowded classrooms. Armed with data-based insights, teachers can address needs and situations on a student-by-student basis.

While Africa’s challenges are daunting, it is far from the only place where classrooms are overcrowded, teachers are overstretched and children are underserved. The potential impact on Africa’s education systems is awesome to contemplate, and it’s easy to see how the benefits could be replicated around the globe. Add in the other challenges Project Lucy is tackling and the potential for cognitive computing to improve the lives of millions becomes even greater.

“For the African continent,” says Wayua, “I think this is going to be our 'big bet' on transformation.” If that big bet pays off, it won’t just transform Africa, it will transform the world.

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#20Questions with Erick Brethenoux

Meet Erick , Director of Business Analytics and Decision Management Strategy at IBM, curious connectionist, unconventional thinker, and soon-to-be TED speaker!

Get ready to be inspired by Erick as he Reimagines Our World at TED@IBM with his talk on emotional analytics.

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#20Questions with Bryan Kramer

Meet Bryan , CEO of PureMatter, an award winning global digital agency, social strategist, author of the acclaimed book: Human to Human #H2H, and soon-to-be TED speaker!

Get ready to be inspired by Bryan as he Reimagines Our World at TED@IBM with his talk on the importance of sharing.

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Brand Image and Security Concerns – All the More Reason to Become a Social Business

A new post on SocializeMe:To get the full benefit of social business, you must inject it into your key business processes for stronger customer engagement and workforce collaboration. But many enterprises are afraid to fully embrace social business, with 30 percent of them citing security concerns and perceived risk as major adoption barriers, according to IBM's 2014 Business Tech Trends report.

But these fearful enterprises need to realize the true nature of social business. At its core, social business is a grassroots movement. Your customers have already embraced social. They’re online, on multiple channels, multiple platforms, talking about your business and reviewing your products and solutions. In other words, there’s no such thing as ‘opting out’ of social business.



In fact, the real risks of security and brand perception are increased when you don’t engage in social business. If you're struggling to integrate social into the core of your business internally and externally, IBM can help.



For example, IBM Connections can help you reorganize, restructure and transform your enterprise into an effective social business with social guidelines and policies set into place to optimize both customer engagement and your internal workforce communication.



When social business is done right, the possibilities are endless. In fact, Pacesetters engaging in social business have reported an 87 percent stronger competitive advantage in their respective markets.



To read the full IBM 2014 Business Tech Trends report, click here.



To watch the webcast replay of the Business Tech Trends announcement, click here.

After you’ve read the report, join us for a Bluemix app JAM! Simply download the report's data in an IBM Bluemix app and start discovering new insights! Share with us and IBM will highlight our favorites!

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