Innovation, Passionate Storytelling, and INTENSE Knowledge

NYC Media Lab 

Mark Arem

9/22/16

 Innovation, passionate storytelling, and INTENSE knowledge.

That is what I saw and felt at the NYC Media Lab conference today. Having no idea what to expect from the event, I was thrilled to find a wonderful breakfast spread that set the tone for an absolutely tremendous day.

The conference began on a triumphant note with a marvelous keynote address by Jim Bankoff, Chairman & CEO of Vox Media. He couldn’t have addressed the crowd in a more fitting manner when he exclaimed, “It is a pleasure to be here with fellow media nerds.” Bankoff immediately connected with the audience, and wove a masterful story about the digital media landscape, and how he felt digital media would progress in the future. Bankoff used Vox Media as the content of his story, speaking of its humble beginnings as a blog for the Oakland A’s, to the eight diverse media brands it showcases today. Bankoff shared his core beliefs regarding successful media by conveying the secret sauce of the Vox Media formula. He stated that “taking great storytelling, turning the stories into brands, and building a business around it,” made Vox into the tremendous success it is today.

Bankoff was adamant that change is very difficult, and human beings don’t normally enjoy change, but he stated that, “It all comes back to stories that build brands.” Captivating and innovative storytelling was the order of the day.

Christian Guirnalda discussed the Verizon Challenge, explaining how he never envisioned working at Verizon Wireless when he was younger, until the new age Verizon came about. He explained that Verizon was no longer just a phone company,  and made a convincing case about why Verizon decided to partner with the NYC Media Lab. He detailed how the Media Lab was a great pipeline for exciting in VR (virtual reality), and AR (augmented reality), and that Verizon was investing into that digital media talent. Talented startups such as Video Lab told stories about how their products could disrupt the digital industry, and even converge the physical and digital. The Viacom Next initiative also showcased some wonderful concepts. The stories they told throughout their VR games were very interesting, and I’m sure very addictive to gamers. My favorite concept was the VR game where the player would begin as a ghost, and they would go about finding clues as to how you met your demise.

Joe Inzerillo of MLBAM continued the trend of attempting to develop passionate storytelling by asking, "What does the next generation of baseball fan want?" Many speakers used aspirational rhetoric to excite the crowd about the different things we can currently do with VR and AR, and what can be accomplished in the future. No speech at the conference was more ambitious and extravagant than Associate Professor Winslow Burleson, who asked the audience to think about humanities greatest mysteries. He is attempting to create an experiential supercomputer in a "journey into the future," that can hopefully find unseen truths about the universe. While this idea is very similar to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film, it is an extremely interesting and exciting idea, and Burleson was the perfect person to deliver it.

My favorite workshop involved Blippar, an augmented reality platform that attempts to create a seamless integrated experience, while making the world more informational and intuitive. We were told to color a butterfly on a special sheet of paper, and then use the app to see what would happen. The result was similar to a picture in the Harry Potter film series, as the app jolted the butterfly to life through the screen, fluttering around as if it was alive. I believe that augmented reality has a real shot at dynamically impacting the digital media market for the foreseeable future for a number of reasons. For one, the success of Pokémon Go has done wonders for AR, and it comes with the added benefit of not causing the nausea that many experience with virtual reality.

The conference was a fantastic experience for me. It made me very proud to work and study media. It is remarkable to ponder what new technologies such as VR & AR, and even an experiential supercomputer can have in the future of digital media, and the world in general. It is evident that beautiful storytelling coupled with new and interesting technology will change the face of digital media frequently and profoundly. In this case though, change is GOOD! It was also wonderful to see the unbridled passion that people in the media industry have for the integration of new technology into digital media. Not only were the speakers and workshops interesting and insightful, but I’ve never been to a conference where people were more engaged and truly excited to be there.

I know I will be attending this conference again next year, and learning even more about the new technologies taking the digital media industry by storm, the interesting projects spearheaded by the NYC Media Lab, and the captains of the industry that create amazing stories to accompany them.