The interactive media professional and a world only populated by one person

Image source: http://aum.ca/workplaceethics.ca/canstockphoto1669220cropRBGbluecorrect.jpg

Are all the world's best inventions and creations only made by one person? And this person is immortal? Our world is no longer populated by 7 billion people, but only this one single person living beside Lake Ontario, lonely watching as times goes by?
Well, that scenario would only be possible in some movie director's mind, as part of one of those apocalyptic movies. In the real world, this are not like that. We've seen human beings of any gender, sex, age accomplish some of the world's most amazing inventions, creations, market-changing theories and all else we could imagine. Now, please carry this scenario to your workplace. Consider yourself as as interactive media professional. You have just arrived for your first day at the new job in that great digital agency you've been dreaming to be hired to. You want to help redesign the website for your favourite burger chain. But there's only one problem. You are an alien. You are not from this world. The world is only populated by one person. The name of that person is Unequell.
Unequell, or Une, as he auto-nicknamed himself, is the only existing human being ever in this planet. He built that agency alone, and he built the whole city alone. He built TTC. He built Tim Horton's. He built the CN Tower. And he was the founder of Toronto Maple Leafs. He's everywhere in the hockey rink. He has founded the Pittsburg Penguins and all other hockey teams as well. He shoots and defends. He passes and he intercepts. He's the referee.
You see? That would simply be impossible to work in a digital agency founded, directed and employing only this Unequell guy to do all the stuff. So, if that digital agency wants to continue being the reference to you and to many others, what does it need to do? It needs to know that the world is not only populated by Unequell, a 35-year old, white Catholic swedish guy who was claiming that the whole world was...himself. And also...in consequence, the agency was himself. That agency need to know that it's gotta hire catholics and muslims, man and women, young professionals, and experienced ones, to be able to manage egos and lack of experience. It needs to welcome that great blind musician who will be able to create some amazing original soundtracks to the company's portfolio of clients who demand original music to its media experiences on apps, websites, events, crossmedia storytelling efforts and it goes on and on.
We call it equity in the workplace. And Unequell will need it. Your great digital agency will need it to sustain all its status as a great place to work. If it wants to be part someday of Forbes list of Best Places to Work, it needs to provide an outstanding work environment and company culture for its employees.

Image source: Forbes.com

Air BNB, not satisfied in topping Forbes' ranking, also topped the Glassdoor ranking. And for those of you who still haven't heard from Glassdoor, its ranking reflects itself as a business: it's based entirely on employee's feedback.

Image source: Glassdoor.com

The interactive media professional who arrives in that great digital agency where Unequell is struggling to adequate himself, will have to understand the we're watching a media revolution. All audiences these days, and it doesn't matter which target audiences they're part of, are claiming for equality, for honesty when creating or transmitting information, for sincere and human pieces of communication. So, it doesn't matter if you are a designer or a copywrighter. You must be able to fit in that workplace. You will need to be able to work with a fellow swedish guy, a pregnant woman who's leaving her job to give birth in 15 days and will stay out for one year, and that buddhist guy who need to meditate every friday afternoon for 3 hours longer than the usual days.

Unequell's world only populated by himself does not exist, but the world dominated by ethical leadership exists. The world, in which he will only be able to create an award-winning campaign for that burger chain, will have the company of yourself (there you go!) and that 22 year-old single mom that just arrived in the agency last month, for Unequell's initial despair. And for Unequell's best of lucks in the future, as that single mom just happened to be the most amazing talent in UX design in the whole agency since day one.

Unequell will have to read the book "7 Lenses: Learning the Principles and Practices of Ethic Leadership", by author Linda Fisher Thornton.

That will be an journey for ethic in the workplace that you will all benefit from. Not only because the laws are telling you to do so. But because you are a leader and you need to be ahead. You need to be part of this ever-changing world that we are facing now. And as an interactive media professional, you and Unequell will need that even more. As all our decisions are in the publics eye to be judged, every day.

How can 360 degree videos impact your life

Tiny Toronto is a Toronto based company, specialized in design fabrication of attainable housing. As a solution to reach their target audience more comprehensively, the idea of using 360 degree videos seems adequate. As it's a new solution for creating additional housing space and reducing stress and cost of comute, 360 degree videos can help them immensely in their goals of establishing themselves as a successful startup.
One of the advantages they will have using a 360 degree video as a tool will be to help their potential clients to visualize what use they could do of their free space. If a traditional video would be used, it wouldn't be able to scale precisely the area available to put a "tiny house" on site.
Here are 4 companies making a good use of 360 degree videos for different reasons:

1) REI

The outdoor gear company REI created a 360 degree video campaign to help "multicultural millennials" to expand their view of where the outdoor starts and stops. With that initiative, they were able not only to reach this specific goal, but also to reach 1.5 million Facebook users. Such numbers are definitely powered up by using this type of videos, instead of the traditional ones.

Image source: REI's website screen shot

2) IC Real Tech

Another company using 360 degree videos but as a way to promote sales of its gear is IC Real Tech. They have partnered with Google to integrate YouTube 360 livestreaming capabilities into its ALLie camera. They also avoided being limited to YouTube users, as they also allow users to post 360 videos of their cameras through Facebook's 360 video platform. The other side of their business which also must be considered is the virtual reality headsets. Their cameras supports all available head sets, including Google Cardboard and Facebook's Oculus Rift.

Image source: Fortune website

3) Nescafé

After seeing "millenials" sharing clips using only cups as instruments, Nestlé launched a 360 degree video campaign as part of their REDvolution identity, ensuring a global look and feel across all their products sold in the 180 countries where they are located. They have released two 360 degree videos, as they had launched a previous video on their south american coffee plantations.

4) North Korea

Photographer Aram Pan went to the spotlight after releasing a 360 degree video on how's life in Pyongyang, capital of North Korea. That's a subject that attracts curiosity of many people around the world, and he had the help of this tool to draw attention to his work and to his YouTube channel.


As any other tool, there are pros and cons of using it in your strategy. Here are some of them:

PROS:

- You can definitely say that it's more engaging than traditional videos. As it's quite a new tool, everybody wants to check how is it. And brands can take advantage from that.
- As it's such a new technology, you can establish yourself as an innovator, using 360 degree videos to do live sessions of your events, for example.
- even though it's something that's only available now to the masses, anyone can assess this technology.
- before the adoption of 360 degree videos, the only way to discover if that college course you want to go next year had a good and modern building that fits your expectations would be through photos viewing, videos, and content available in apps and websites. With the option of using 360 degree videos now available, a college can provide its future students a full and rich experience of what it is to be on a day-to-day basis in that environment

Image source: www.makeuseof.com

CONS:

- you will not find the best quality in 360 degree videos, when talking about "image quality". So, for those brands and professionals that give "quality" an enormous importance and not that much importance to "being a pioneer", this tool may not be the ideal one.
- it's still too expensive to buy the best camera to record 360 degree videos. Which means it's not universally popular as an option to record videos. And well, high price doesn't mean good quality. yet.
- even though brands can use their financial power to create great 360 degree videos, for users creating 360 degree videos through apps that's not an easy task, as it's incompatible to some social media tools, such as the most popular one: Facebook. Which means that it's still not a too attractive option to users interested in using this tool.

After considering these pros and cons, we must also consider the 360 degree videos as its importance for global advancement.

- brand universe immersion: Star Wars fans can now experience speeding across Jakku's desert on Rey's Speeder. Which means other brands can also make use of it to position their clients even more deeply inside their brand's universe.
- surgery advancements: now it's possible to stream surgeries on 360 degree videos, which means that medicine professional can use it to improve many aspects in their professional tecnhiques. Also on medicine, it started being used to help treat depression.
- natural disasters most compreehensive perspectives: NGO's have already used 360 degree videos to document landscapes for free and public use, in ordet to understand and help the humanity to be more aware on how to deal with natural disasters.

360 degree videos are a reality. We're probably witnessing only the beginning of what promises to bring us so many different uses and possibilities. Hope that's good news. We don't need another tool to be used and cause depression on its inventors, such as Santos Dumont's depression for the airplane use on the First World War.


Links and sources

- http://fortune.com/2016/04/18/allie-camera-comes-with-youtube-360-integration/
- https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/10-ways-vr-could-change-the-real-world
- http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-insane-360-degree-videos-facebook/
- http://mashable.com/2016/07/22/360-degree-north-korea-video-tour/#TsYllK9Mj5qs
- https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/the-first-ever-360-degree-video-surgery-is-happening-on-thur
- http://digiday.com/brands/rei-uses-facebook-360-video-multicultural-campaign/
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160812073656.htm
- http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/33290531/mid-pacific-students-capture-3d-video-of-volcano-scape
- http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/11/12/nescaf-unveils-360-degree-good-morning-world-facebook-ad-create-real-connections
- http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-insane-360-degree-videos-facebook/

O que esperar de Thiago Monteiro?

Nossa esperança na ATP, o cearense Thiago Monteiro jogou muitas partidas este ano e deu um salto gigantesco no nível dos jogadores que enfrenta.
Aos 22/23 anos, 2017 será a temporada onde saberemos para onde ele vai. Se vai para as cabeças ou se será um jogador de Top 100 como o Bellucci. Que é o que de melhor temos hoje em dia e desde que o Guga parou.

Pro Monteiro ir para as cabeças, precisará começar a surpreender nos ATPs 250 e 500 e chegar ao Top 50 em 2017.
E aí, com mais experiência, ele tem chance de ganhar seu primeiro grande torneio em 2018: um ATP 250 pra começar.
Tenista não tem 2 carreiras. E o tempo é cruel contra ou a favor.
Ao final deste ciclo que citei, ele fará 25 anos (Maio de 2019).
Ou seja, ao final da temporada de 2018, se ele tiver ganho ao menos um ATP 250, beliscado uma semi ou final de 500, estará num top 30 ou bem próximo.
Aí sim podemos sonhar com um Top 10 pro Monteiro, que eu acredito ser possível. Tudo dependerá mesmo da confiança que ele conseguirá em seu tênis. Porque tênis ele tem.
Agora...só vale um registro: galera, o Thiago Monteiro não é um mito como Guga. Não cobrem um Top 5 dele, muito menos um número 1.
Os grandes campeões do tênis surgem aleatoriamente de um país ou outro.
O raio caiu na Suíça com o Federer? Sinto, Wawrinka, não vai cair em você. Foi um raio único na Suíça.
O mesmo na Sérvia. Não vai se ter um novo número 1 na Sérvia tão cedo. 

Mesmo a Meca do tênis, os EUA...vejam há quantos anos sem um número 1.
O Taylor Fritz é a esperança deles. E olha que lá são 17 milhões de tenistas...

Talvez vocês se perguntem: este cara tem bola de cristal? Não, é o tênis que é assim mesmo.A afirmação do raio não cair no mesmo lugar de fato pode parecer meio pretensiosa, mas eu pensei nela mais dentro do contexto desta postagem de expectativa sobre o Thiago Monteiro.

 A quantidade de jogadores de um determinado país no Top 100, aí sim, pode mudar com o investimento de sua confederação. Porém, e ao menos historicamente, o número 1 da ATP, depois da profissionalização do tênis em 1973, quase nunca veio na sequência de um só país. A única exceção vem dos EUA em três ocasiões: com um revezamento entre McEnroe e Connors em 1981-1983, com Courier-Sampras-Agassi em 1992-1996, e Sampras e Agassi, em 1999-2000.

A China tem atualmente 15 milhões de tenistas em seu país. E não deve nutrir expectativas de um número 1 tão cedo, visto que não tem nenhum tenista no masculino no Top 150, e nenhuma tenista no feminino entre o Top 20. E a única tenista mais nova, Saisai Zheng, não deve chegar ao topo, visto que já tem 22 anos e ainda não chegou ao Top 50.

Enfim, concluindo, Monteiro é nossa esperança de Top.10. E as duas próximas temporadas, 2017 e 2018, nos dirão se esta esperança se concluirá.

* Imagem: UOL Esporte