Innovation hurts
On the 14th of April 2016 we were invited to speak at the Immovator Cross Media Network event held at the beautiful location of the Sound and Vision building in Hilversum. Also Ineke Middag of the museum of Sound and Vision (experience) was going to use QANDR to poll the audience on what the new museum should be like. Unfortunately not everything went well in terms of QANDR and it ended up being a day of mixed emotions.
The Immovator Cross Media Network is a networking organisation that focusses on the enhancement of the media sector specifically on innovation and economical viability. This happens through the gathering and sharing of knowledge and the organisation of events where the various stakeholders of the industry take part. We were present in the form of the use of QANDR by our host the museum of Sound and Vision and by giving a presentation of our museum spotlight and multiscreen applications in general.
The idea was to use QANDR in a brainstorm session with the audience, on the renovation plans of the Experience, the Museum of Sound and Vision. In order to make everything look tip-top we worked hard to give QANDR the new front-end design. Beside that we worked on some good engaging questions and we went to the location a day before the event, to test the whole scenario. This was quite some work but in the end everything looked good…. we were ready to go.
So there we are, at 14:15 in the afternoon, when the first slide opens and the speaker ask everybody in the audience to join the QANDR session. After giving the audience some time to type the link on their mobile, the speaker decides to go to the next slide. End then…..
……….. nothing happens…….
She tries the clicker again, and again…… no movement on the presentation screen. In our last desperate hope we go on stage to try the keyboard, maybe there is something wrong with the usb clicker?
Nope, shame on us, in front of this audience we got a very ugly freeze, the browser just hung, the slides on the presentation screen did not update anymore. Also the phones froze, it was not possible to vote or point to anything…… The amount of people was just too much for the application. But embarrassment aside, this did turn out to be a real-life stress test that has given us invaluable information to make the product more robust and truly scalable.
As for our presentation, you can view this by clicking here. Apart from the freeze of QANDR we had a very inspiring day. We met with a lot of people in the industry who share the same passion. In terms of multi screen applications it was good to know that there is a consensus in the fact that mobile phones will be with us for years to come. That means we are on the right track and hopefully you will see many more multi screen applications built by us in the near future.
At the end of the afternoon, when talking to people, feeling slightly uncomfortable, it was a quote of Remco Bron, founder of Inbeacon that helped us through the day….
innovation hurts, when you try new things you have to accept a failure once a while