Technology Meets the Real World.

I absolutely love it when cool new technology gets used in an innovative way. I find it even more exciting when it gets used in a way that real, everyday people would get excited about as well as the 1% mega tech savvy super early adopters.

Here are three examples of what I’m talking about;

Paddy Power using skywriters to show fans' tweets over the Ryder Cup.

In order to redress the imbalance of the USA home support at the Ryder Cup, Paddy Power offered fans the chance to have their tweets written in the sky above the golf course. Now that’s just cool full stop. But thinking specifically about how other brands struggle to get any meaningful dialogue going with people on Twitter, let alone gaining any wider publicity, this is an excellent example of doing something people actually want to get involved with.

Disneyland use the world's most advanced camera and 3D printer to make personalised princess models.

Every single girl in the world (who likes Disney princesses…) would want one of these. Even I quite want one. 

And finally Tupac performs with Snoop Dogg at Coachella 2012.

For the impatient of you skip to 2.25 to see the hologram interact with Snoop. 

Holograms are a classic example of a cool piece of technology that could be used in a really boring way. Just think about all of the truly dull augmented reality apps / branded stunts that have happened over the past few years. This on the other hand is genuinely exciting. I think it all stems from the basic starting point of what do people actually want – ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if Tupac could …’

I suppose all good stuff should begin with that starting point it just seems that technology (more than anything else) gets used for it’s own sake rather than because it’s actually a good idea.

PS Please do get in touch if you have any other examples of this kind of stuff and if you did find this post interesting and can give it a shout out on Twitter I'd be hugely grateful!