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This year I was again invited to join the judging for NewMedia Magazine's annual Invision awards, helping to select the best multimedia software created during the past 12 months.
The contest drew 850 entries. When it was over, only a few big software or media companies were to be found in the winners circle. No real surprise there: If you want to find startling originality and refreshing creativity, you look to entrepreneurs. This year they have outdone themselves.
Hands down, the best-in-show was Passage to Vietnam--a visually stunning CD-ROM compendium of 350 photos taken by 70 photographers. A nice bonus on the disk: Several photographers comment on their techniques, illustrating their interactive chats with examples from their private portfolios. As an electronic coffee-table book, Passage to Vietnam is utterly gorgeous. As well it should be: Producing the thing cost $2 million.
At the other end of the expense scale, Lebuse's Letters was created on a $500 budget. Developed by the grandson of one of it's heroines, the software tells the true story of two Checz sisters separated at the outbreak of World War II. One escaped to America. The other remained trapped behind the Iron Curtain. The two women were never reunited, but corresponded until their deaths. If you don't believe a computer disk can touch the emotions, take a look at this one. That is, if you can get a copy--inexplicably, its creator (Robert Linehan of Bethesda, Md.) has yet to find a publisher for it.
As for games, my favorite was Paataank, a sort of pinball game seen from the perspective of the ball. A word of warning--- while fast and funny, PaaTaank is definitely not intended for those who suffer from motion sickness. Another excellent time waster:Slam city with Scottie Pippen. It's a basketball simulator, of course, and one sure to get your adrenaline pumping. For those who like puzzle-solvers, I would recommend two: The 11th Hour(a sequel to last year's bestselling 7th Guest), and Voyer, an uncommonly well written and acted interactive movie with a plot reminiscent of Alfred Hichcock's Rear Window.
Less fun, but of more enduring value, were the multimedia products intended for business,
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mostly training and marketing CDs.
With 128 submissions, CD-ROMs centered under the "sales and marketing" heading outnumbered entrants in almost every other category. And no wonder. If you are an adman, your definition of nirvana is a medium that makes customers want to sit down and interact with your spiel. The top award went to Bose for an interactive demonstration of its speakers sufficiently impressive to make even the most sales-resistant (me, for example) think about buying a set.
Other winners: Clement Mok Designs, a developer of an impressively persuasive CD_ROM catalog for Herman Miller Furniture;McGill Multimedia, creator of a dazzle-dazzle multimedia show for Toyota; Digital Facades, which did the same for Acura; O'Hara Systems, builder of an in-pub interactive kiosk for Labatt, which--unless I miss my bet--is going to sell a lot of Canadian beer.
As with advertising, training works best if the trainee interacts with the lessons. No better demonstration of this principle exists than a CD-ROM created by Lexus for its dealers. What lessons does it teach car salesman? Just what you would expect: how to extract every last nickel from customers and still leave them feeling good about the process.
Other award winners include Personal Protective Equipment from Coastal Video Communications. Targeted to blue-collar workers, the program's portrayals of accidents in the making are sufficiently graphic to persuade most employees to take safety seriously. At the other end of the personnel spectrum, the Harvard School of Business weighed in with a thought provoking multimedia package called Becoming An Effective Manager. Based on Professor Linda Hill's work, its case studies
If you don't believe a computer disk can touch the emotions, take a look at "Lebuse's Letters."
including delegating, hiring, handling stress and managing your boss. The presentation is first class and the lessons are full of good advise.
Finally, a training package titled Sexual Harassment in the Workplace received kudos. Personally, I thought the thing didactic, patronizing , lamely acted and a showcase for lawyers, who need no encouragement. However, political correctness prevailed.
As did the entrepreneurs. When the judging was over, the score was 7 fold medals for the empires, 31 gold medals for entrepreneurial companies no one's ever herd of.
At lease not yet.
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