Tag: Storytelling

As an Innovation Lead at the AT&T Foundry, I work on applying emerging technologies to make the world a better place. In 2017, I led a technology for good project to create immersive entertainment experiences for children in hospitals as a form of distraction therapy, through collaboration with Quantum Interface (technology startup) and the Melodic Caring Project (nonprofit).

AT&T is transforming into both an Entertainment and Telecommunications company. Projects such as this highlight the need for a strong 5G use case where there is a need for high throughput and bandwidth to support a quality experience for users. By applying emerging technologies to real-life problems, we are able to solve business needs, uncover new markets, and help change lives.

In 2016, I initiated and spearheaded our exploration of the Augmented and Virtual Reality market to propose strategic business plays for AT&T and Ericsson. As I engaged with our ecosystem, I discovered two amazing companies, each experts in their own field — one a technology company specializing in virtual reality and custom interfaces (Quantum Interface) and the other a nonprofit that streams concerts to children in hospitals (Melodic Caring Project).

It occurred to me that if I connected Quantum Interface’s next generation, interactive interface for 3D experiences together with a 360 virtual reality video of Melodic Caring Project’s live streaming of personalized concerts to hospitalized kids, we could create something truly memorable. So, we did just that.

After introducing everyone, the project took off immediately! Quantum Interface brought in SubVRsive to make the Virtual Reality capture a reality, and Melodic Caring Project brought in singer-songwriter Amos Lee and team as the content creators at the core of this experience. Together, the team used the magic of 360 live streaming to transport hospitalized children to an Amos Lee concert experience that they could share with their loved ones as they received encouragement from near and far!

Our partners were pivotal in making our live stream a success. Fresh off this achievement, we quickly moved onto the next step — building an interactive, immersive experience.

“Watching the concert as a VR show completely swept Maya away. She was feeling badly from recent chemo and having the glasses and the 360 experience took her away from the yuck that she had been feeling.”

– Maya’s father (Maya is in the photo below)

After the live stream, our team created a post-produced 360 experience with an interactive layer on top of this recorded concert. Children are not only able to be immersed in the concert, but also can interact with the environment and control playback using only small head movements, all completely hands-free! This is huge for patients who may not just be confined to their care facilities, but may also be bedridden or tethered to medical equipment with limited mobility.

We have been fortunate enough to share our interactive experience with countless viewers both inside and outside of hospitals, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

We started by collecting anecdotal evidence that we are helping patients escape from the discomfort of their hospital rooms. Now, we are quantifying the impact our immersive entertainment experience is providing as distraction therapy through clinical trials.

With the use of quantifiable biometric sensors and qualitative surveys, we are able to correlate the two to assess how effective this experience is as distraction therapy and what factors are necessary to build an effective distraction therapy experience.

As we widen our audience reach, we are also expanding the catalog of content accessible within our video player. Using AWS, we are building a repository of content pieces that a user can draw upon. Patients are able to navigate hands-free through a library of options to suit their needs, whether it be a desire for an outdoor adventure to a relaxing meditation by the fire.

Austin – March 7, 2017 – Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter Amos Lee played a sold-out concert at the world-renowned Austin City Limits Moody Theater on Saturday, February 25, 2017. This time, Amos’ sold-out show didn’t just reach the crowds of the Moody Theater. With the support of partners including Quantum Interface, SubVRsive and the Ericsson team at the AT&T Foundry, the Melodic Caring Project, a nonprofit that bridges the gap between music, technology, and patients battling serious illness by live streaming personalized concerts to kids and teens in the hospital, live streamed its first-ever multi-camera, virtual reality 360 video show directly to kids’ hospital/home care rooms.

Since Melodic Caring Project’s founders, Levi and Stephanie Ware, began this journey seven years ago, the nonprofit has broadcast approximately 400 concerts to nearly 5,000 children all over the world and has partnered with some of the world’s biggest artists, including The Black Eyed Peas, Jason Mraz, Andra Day, Alabama Shakes, Rachel Platten, Daughtry and The Head and the Heart. The nonprofit gives the performing artists a list of kids (aka rockSTARS) who will be watching the night of their show. Then, during the shows, the artists call each rockSTAR out by name, offering support and words of encouragement.

The project all started at the AT&T Foundry, a place where corporations, technologists, start-ups and content creators come together to incubate ideas and test concepts. With a mission to take the viewing experience to the next level, a three-way collaboration was created between The Melodic Caring Project (MCP), Quantum Interface and AT&T Foundry/Ericsson. Quantum Interface and MCP crafted a vision to live stream a concert in fully immersive 360 Video and, by drawing in other parties from their networks, were able to make that vision a reality. With the support of Ericsson and thanks in large part to AT&T Foundry’s network of partnerships and the leadership vision that pioneered this collaboration along with Amos Lee’s desire to get involved, that vision came to life in Austin’s famous Moody Theater.

On the night of the show, SubVRsive, which handled the end-to-end production and distribution of the stream, placed cameras in two spots on stage and streamed the entire concert straight to the VR headsets of the evening’s rockSTARS. As the kids watched the concert, they were able to stand on stage with Amos Lee and the band, look out into an audience full of supportive faces, and leave the sights and sounds of the hospital behind to truly feel present at the show. Saturday’s concert in Austin was the first Melodic Caring Project concert that used state-of-the-art VR technology to give kids an opportunity to virtually be on stage with Amos and his band.

“One of the rockSTARS watching the show in Austin was a girl named Maya,” said Evan Blackstone, VP of Melodic Caring. “Maya had previously taken to Amos after watching one of his concerts and afterward, Amos paid her a hospital visit in Seattle. On Saturday, Maya lay on her couch in her hospital room, yet was front row at the show getting the full live experience of hanging out with her buddy Amos. He spoke directly to her and the other rockSTARS throughout the night and, although he was miles away, they were all able to be right there at the show, no longer in the isolation of their hospital rooms.”

“It’s been said that virtual reality is the ultimate empathy machine because it allows users to not just look through a frame, but step into it,” said Austin Mace, CCO of SubVRsive. “Being able to let these kids step through the frame and be on stage with Amos was a really powerful thing and we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to leverage 360 live streaming for such a great cause.”

The final stage of this project will be to combine the video with a virtual interactive layer, which Quantum Interface will be contributing. In this way, the amazing 360 video will become an interactive experience, so the children will not only be able to be immersed in the concert, but interact with encouraging messages, the environment, and other virtual content using only gaze, completely hands-free. This is a significant and first in world experience that will bring the 360 experience to life even more.

“Music is a celebration of life. Musicians have such a unique, magical ability that deeply moves people. We live in a time and place that needs this energy more than ever. Especially the kids that Melodic Caring Project works closely with. Levi, Stephanie [Ware] and crew are world class. We look forward to supporting their process and helping them tell that story”.

– Amos Lee

Check out AT&T’s featured article on the project. AT&T’s LinkedIn post. AT&T’s Tweet. AT&T’s Innovator Series post.

Check us out on the Ericsson Tech For Good Blog.

Read SubVRsive’s perspective on our project.

Read our partner Melodic Caring Project’s perspective on our project.

We are also receiving international coverage.

Check out one of our demos at the following locations: AT&T Foundry in Palo Alto, AT&T Foundry in Houston, Ericsson Experience Center in Santa Clara, Ericsson Experience Center in Plano, Ericsson Experience Center in Sweden, AT&T Forum in D.C., Quantum Interface in Austin, and Melodic Caring Project in Seattle.

While at the AT&T Foundry, I led an Augmented Reality project to create a pre-visualization tool for filmmakers, specifically camera crews and directors in collaboration with Quantum Interface, Economist Media Lab, and teammates at Ericsson Research. Together, our team conducted user research, designed, and implemented a complete voice and natural gesture controlled Hololens solution to a prevalent need for film crews within three days at the Fox Studios Hackathon in June 2016.

In June 2016, we were invited by the Fox Innovation Lab to build an augmented reality concept to improve the entertainment production process using the Microsoft HoloLens. In response, we created Spike, a tool that helps filmmakers streamline their pre- and post-production processes by tagging sets with virtual camera marker “spikes” and visualizing adjustments to camera settings. This same concept can be applied to other virtual objects in other contexts as described in the presentation video below.

As the first Foundry AR/VR project, this success demonstrated the value of this technology solving real use cases beyond the gaming industry. It has since sparked interest in looking deeper into Augmented and Virtual Reality with further explorations into other industries and spurred discussions across the company.

Quantum Interface’s video of our proof of concept showcasing their innovative interface technology.

The Futurecast Series is a thought leadership series by AT&T Foundry and Ericsson. With a deconstructed panel format, Futurecast brings together leaders in technology, government, business and beyond (like Sebastian Thrun, Gavin Newsom, and Steve Case) to engage in vibrant discussions with an intimate, curated audience.

Since its inception in 2013, the series has been growing year over year. However, the branding and processes had not grown in turn. I noticed a unique opportunity to create a unified face for our growing event.

When I joined the AT&T Foundry in 2015, I led the charter to refresh our branded collateral, operational processes, and growth strategies for the Futurecast Series.

“Futurecast is a gathering of thought leaders designed to vet, debate and ultimately spark ideas that will set the course for our collective technology future. We invite the best and brightest around a particular topic to participate in a curated, intimate discussion with fellow experts in the field. It is a fantastic opportunity to move conversations forward, challenge orthodoxy, and generally define the future.”

– Futurecast Series Website

Our brand was all over the place. There were inconsistencies throughout the material.

And if the off-brand visuals were not enough, it was also not easy to engage with our end users and our processes were not streamlined to easily create collateral for future events.

We had a successful event with engaged followers, but we were not set up to scale well as we continued along our upward trajectory.

I started us off with an overhaul of the branded collateral, operational processes, and growth strategies.

For the collateral, I brought in an external visual design consultancy. I laid out our requirements, expected deliverables, and goals (low-resolution mockups) and kicked them off.

Soon after, we had new social media images, video screens, digital posters, and email templates.

In the meantime, I dove into updating the website. I updated the information architecture to encourage users to engage with past content and clearly see upcoming events.

With the website as a key touchpoint for our users, I wanted to improve our internal processes for keeping information as updated as possible. I developed easy to use standards in the form of templates to streamline the process of creating archives for past events.

Before each event, we host startup technology demonstrations. I created a website funnel for demo requests to offer an open door for interested companies to approach us.

To harness our user engagement and amplify it, we began live streaming our events via Periscope and Facebook to open up the events to a wider audience, while maintaining the intimate, curated atmosphere that makes Futurecast so special.

We added in analytics and tracking to better understand our user behavior.

I also shifted our hashtag use from a unique hashtag for each event to a single #futurecastseries for all our events.

We launched the new branding at CES in January 2016 and have been using it successfully every since. Even as the event has been handed over from teammate to teammate, my improved collateral, processes, and strategies have persisted, freeing up valuable time for teammates to start other projects, like the Futurist Reports.

I joined the Ericsson team at the AT&T Foundry in Fall 2015, and my experience has been extremely diverse and fulfilling. My work spans a number of disciplines and industries as we work to create innovative solutions to challenging problems.

The AT&T Foundries are a network of six innovation centers across the world–Palo Alto, Atlanta, Houston, Plano (2), and Israel, each sponsored by a different company or internal organization. In Palo Alto, we are sponsored by Ericsson and jointly innovate with team members from both AT&T and Ericsson. As a member of the Ericsson team at the AT&T Foundry, I serve as a bridge between the two companies.

The Foundries were originally created several years ago as an open, collaborative environment to inspire and promote the rapid invention and innovation of strategic ideas from concept to commercialization. Foundry team members drive their own projects and champion them to stakeholders, much like entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. Projects emerge from personal passions, business unit needs, external partnership opportunities, and our employee crowdsourcing platform.

As one of the top internal brands to AT&T, we are highly regarded internally as the reliable source of all types of innovation, with a special focus on efficiency and disruptive innovations.

I was hired to lead design at the Foundry, and since then I’ve led numerous design projects, trained up team members, and worked on initiatives to bring design thinking to all of AT&T. I am frequently consulted on how to apply design to products, teams, processes, and business models. My work ranges from exploratory research to ideation to prototyping and implementation.

Projects

For instance, since 2016, I have collaborated with my teammate on the design portion of building a highly trafficked, enterprise product to provide a complete, seamless, self-service experience to incubate and validate any virtual network function against AT&T’s Domain 2.0 Architecture as part of the release of ECOMP (Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy). Check out some press on this project and how we are in the process of open sourcing it in 2017:

Has AT&T ICE’ed VNF Onboarding?
AT&T ICEs Vendors of Virtual Network Functions

In 2015, I immersed myself with our key enterprise customers to understand their needs and expectations around our new Network on Demand product. My research uncovered key product strategies and features that our team was able to champion both companies.

In 2016, I led design for yet another engaging, enterprise design project, though for an internal tool this time. Our efficiency innovation reduced the time for network capacity engineers to plan out how to decommission legacy network machines from several weeks to hours.

Leadership

Over the years as the head of design at the Foundry, I have trained my teammates in design thinking through collaborative projects, coaching, mentorship, and workshops. In turn, my colleagues are now applying design thinking to their work and even leading training sessions of their own.

One such instance occurred in 2016 when my colleague and I conducted interactive design thinking workshops for middle school and high school women interested in technology. Read more about our contribution here: AT&T hosts Girls in Future Technologies (GIFT) Day

My design team has found success identifying and solving difficult problems they could never have imagined in short periods of time through my guidance. One team member dove into understanding the needs of Uverse and DirecTV installation and maintenance technicians for several weeks. His research uncovered so many high impact opportunities that when we presented our work to the Senior Vice President responsible for these teams, the SVP allocated millions of dollars in resources to addressing these findings immediately.

While at the Foundry, I have had the pleasure to engage with hundreds of startups working in emerging technologies. In early 2016, I became especially curious to learn more about augmented and virtual reality and identified it as a high potential path to new revenue streams.

With my market research, I educated, championed, and began the dialogue within AT&T to apply these emerging technologies to our business strategy. As concrete demonstrations of strategic AR/VR plays, I sought out and developed strong partnerships with leaders in the industry to create cutting-edge projects.

In one such project, my partners and I created an augmented reality, spatial tagging tool for camera teams and film production crews using the Hololens in collaboration with FOX Studios.

In another, my partners and I developed hands-free, interactive, virtual reality entertainment experiences for hospitalized children and tested immersive entertainment as a form of distraction therapy.

Along with our numerous technology and design projects, marketing, partnerships, and thought leadership are similarly top of mind. I have contributed on visual design, information architecture, content strategy, startup partners, and developing marketing and brand collateral for several key initiatives, some of which are elaborated below.

Specifically, six times a year, we host the Futurecast Series, where we invite an honored guest to participate in a deconstructed panel where the curated audience is invited to participate in the conversation between the guest and moderator. Before the discussion, we also invite relevant startups to demo their latest and greatest to attendees. All our past and future events can be found on our website.

In 2016, we also began the Futurist Reports. In this series, we dig into technologies and trends while highlighting key insights that are reshaping entire industries and our world-at-large. Each report includes an industry-wide view from a diverse array of leading experts and features select startups at the forefront of technology. We delve into broader business implications of these technologies and explore indicators such as collaborations, investments, market demands, and technology advancements. Check out our latest reports on the Future of Drones and the Future of Entertainment.

Summer of 2015, I joined Esper, a small startup working on improving time management and productivity, as a consulting Product and Design Strategist. In collaboration with the founders, I guided the company through several key strategic pivots, including shifting us from providing services to focusing on building great products. I also led the team’s Product Design by conducting user research interviews and creating interaction flows, wireframes, and mockups. The journey of working in a small, roughly six person startup environment, where my voice has a significant impact on our direction, has been extremely fun and fulfilling.

Over the course of my two years working with Esper, I have been fortunate to influence several iterations of company direction. When I joined, the team had built a productivity product for Executive Assistants. To better improve their product, they dogfooded it on themselves by creating essentially an Uber for Executive Assistants, where Executives would be matched with Esper Executive Assistants 24/7, and the EAs hired by Esper would then use the Esper product to perform quality and efficient work.

Soon after I joined, I realized that we had learned what we needed from our service. As a team, we decided to close the service and shift our focus back to building an amazing product for EAs and Executives. We also discovered some unique insights into how the best of the best EAs worked. For instance, these EAs not only handled tactical scheduling for their Executives, they also strategically managed their Executive’s time.

I took findings like these and proposed several strategic directions beyond our scheduling and calendaring assistant product. One of these, in particular, stuck with the team, and we dove into building our next product, Esper Charts. With Charts, anyone can strategically manage their time by quickly analyzing how they are currently using it. We essentially built a Mint for time. Our users were more than just individuals interested in upping their productivity, but also entire groups that wanted to manage their time as a team.

As we focused more energy on Charts, we decided we needed some more tactical products that our users could use daily. Hence, we opened up our suite of products beyond longer-term time management and created short-term hooks with Esper Ratings and Esper Agenda Check.

Esper Ratings on Slack

Esper Agenda Check on Slack

Check out a TechCrunch blog post on Esper.

Create a 60-second video to creatively answer the question: “If every penny counts, tell us how.”

Within three days my partner and I wrote, filmed, edited, and submitted A Life Changing Penny! We were living in Beijing at the time, and faced the additional fun challenge of filming in a foreign country with limited resources. We had a blast pulling together this stop motion video, and were fortunate enough to win 1st Place in the competition!

In the Summer of 2009, I moved to Beijing, China to work for Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) as a User Experience Design Researcher. I worked on a team of two Psychologists and two User Experience Designers/Researchers.

My time at MSRA was divided into two primary projects: Cross-Cultural Design Research and designing an Enterprise Social Networking Platform.

With our design research, we strove to understand how to design better digital experiences for a Chinese audience. Using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and usability studies, we honed in on elements that resonated with our target audience. Specifically, we conducted market research and competitive analysis, surveys, interviews, A/B testing, card sorting, walkthroughs, task analysis, facilitated brainstorming, and participatory design.

We conducted much of our research with our Enterprise Social Networking Platform, the Twinkle Project, which in turn informed our design choices and directed our next iterations.

Social networks are a fantastic way to generate and share knowledge among large groups of people. Social software has the potential to build and maintain strong communication and collaboration channels. Yet, why do enterprise social software solutions still leave something to be desired?

There is a huge opportunity to apply social software within the Enterprise. The Twinkle Project explores exactly that. Could we redesign and reinvigorate Social Enterprise Software? How can we enable users to connect, collaborate, share content, knowledge, and expertise, manage information, and increase productivity across an enterprise?

As a designer for Twinkle, I was responsible for design research and strategy and UX and UI design.

A blurb about our work on Twinkle was featured in the 10 Year Anniversary MSRA Book (pg. 28).