Scenarios!

I have dabbled with this blog for some time now, writing tidbits about new products that I like etc. But everybody else is doing that, so now it is time to focus.

I am shifting to English. Swedish is a beautiful and clever language, but somehow it is lacking the global spread that I seek”¦

My focus here will be on writing very short scenarios. I like scenarios, they trigger my mind.

A scenario is a description of a situation and how the user interacts in it. It could be set in the future for in the present. Scenarios are often used for participatory design activities, since they generally do not require any specialist knowledge.

The gap is now wider than ever between the vast possibilities offered by today”™s technology and our ability to use it to develop new and out-of-the box products and services. Just look at how most of us use the very powerful networked computers we now have: we mostly type texts and send emails.

My heart is in media, the creation and distribution of it, so many scenarios will describe new ways of enjoying media. Every new medium has always imitated the previous; the first movies where filmed theatre plays, TV started as illustrated radio, internet has up to now mostly been a digital newspaper or one-to-many message medium.

I attended my first interactive media conference in 1988, invited by Apple Computer to San Jose, California. The buzz there was about the digitalization of media and the upcoming merger of television, IT, print publishing and telecom. Well, a lot has happened since then and it is certainly taking off now, but nobody knows what will be the next -killer app” and who will succeed. I suspect that the old, big players in publishing will have a hard time breaking out of their old boxes, since so many of the old truths about media now need to be reconsidered.

So stay tuned, I hope to create some discussion and make new connections, comments are welcome!

Henrik 🙂

“Television is a medium because it is neither rare nor well done.”
– Ernie Kovacs