Media surfaces: Incidental Media from Dentsu London on Vimeo.
As usual Dentsu/BERG have completely nailed something in these two videos - the idea of polite media. It's a great expression of a thought that was floating around at 2screen - designing for inattention, for second screens you're not really watching. (You should watch all those talks). A great expression and an important one - because if we apply media's usual instincts to all the screens that are going to arrive in our world we'll be drowned by the shouting. We have to learn to be polite.
The films they make are brilliant; doing design by doing media, it's such a clever way forward. I've always thought that one of the last cards regular agencies have to play is that we make films - and films are enormously quick and persuasive. It's one of our last edges versus design/digital/consultancy businesses. But right now the BERG/Dentus cabal are making the best films.
And it suddenly occured to me, this morning, that once again they've out-rigouroused us. We (and the broader BRIG gang) have been mucking about with various second screen / polite media things for a while but have never stopped to think about the theories and ideas within them.
For instance, we've finally got round to building the Big Twitter client I first mentioned in 2008. It's a glanceable, readable version of twitter that you can run in a browser window on a second screen - and read from across the room. (Working name Dougls {now dextr}, coming soon to an internet near you.)
And I nudged James into building BRIGtunes, which he's made rather lovely.
We have these shared AirTunes speakers in the office, hi-jacked by different people at different times and we were all always wondering what was being played. So, now, on a screen high on the wall, we have a little display that shows you who's playing what. Glanceable, quiet, polite. James explains the Technical Achievement here.
These are little things but they're useful experiments. Ways of thinking about Apps For Screens rather than Applications For Computers. That might come in handy.
Anyway - you should watch those Dentsu/BERG films. That's proper media thinking that is.
