The ah haa Moment

Every so often I see an idea for what it is. The “ah haaa” moment. Sometimes, I see through the idea. Other times, I respect the intention or dismiss as snake oil. On occasion, I am able to take the idea and implement it, or even take it to another level. This past week, I have been working in Vegas watching dozens of presenters pitch their ideas to investors at InvestFest 2010.

While I endure the long hours and pitch men, my team in Vancouver has been putting on the BC Technology Impact Awards. Both events went very well. In fact, “The best ever” according to Michael Lathigee (Freedom Investment Club) and “It looked.. Great!” Cindy Person (BCTIA’s Vice President). Both shows required 80 ft and 100+ ft screens, syncing 4 and 6 projectors (respectively). We couldn’t have done it without Dataton’s Watchout technology. But the real work is in the creative. Zach Shore, the Media FX Group’s motion graphics guru worked long and hard hours to prepare the content for both shows, looking, quite simply, amazing.

We had people in Vegas ask us, if they could have this same type of staging/creative format in, London England. The question is a difficult one to answer. The short answer being YES! (of course). The long answer content is more technical, and really should be approached like any multimedia question. Event producers, planners, marketing directors, etc. should be looking at the portfolios of the creative teams that pull this off on a regular basis. It seems, today, people think that anyone can do this stuff. Like they could put a PowerPoint presentation up on a 100 ft screen with animation!! Maybe 5-10 years from now.. But for now, this is a niche the Media FX Group has established itself as a market leader.

Back to the ah ha moment. And this has nothing to do with the 80s band A Ha. Though I was a fan... still am. Anyway. While listening to the banter on the Clear-com behind the scenes at InvestFest, and trying enjoying a presentation on SEO, I realized how the Media FX Group could streamline it’s SEO practices. For someone who reads al nlot of blogs on this subject, and teaches into the New Media program at BCIT, it is hard to find novel ideals. I am very excited about this one, and can’t wait to implement the technology for our clients. I almost feel bad about learning something new at a conference I’m being paid to work at. There was much more to think about at this show too... I wish I had the money to invest!

I stayed an extra few days in Vegas to attend Infocomm. Infocomm is the largest electronic audio and visual trade show in North America. I met with Dataton, and many other manufacturers and suppliers in the Audio/Visual industry. There are many web centric businesses to review as well. Our staging partner Evolution AV invited me to an exclusive/sought-after party at the Hard Rock Café. It was amazing! I took that last two days of my 12-day Vegas excursion off. I took in the Blue Man Group, and Believe (Chris Angel). Vegas is quite the place… Love the shows, hot sun/pools, and the grandiose themed hotels… but could do without pretty-much everything else; especially the smoke-filled casinos and lines of immigrant workers along the strip handing out pornographic adverts for prostitution.