Smart Thing #8 – Get connected

Het communicatievakgebied is constant in beweging. Innovaties volgen elkaar in rap tempo op. In deze rubriek vragen we een communicatieprofessional een verdiepend blog te schrijven over een trend of innovatie waar hij of zij zich mee bezighoudt. Het blog geeft een eigen visie, maar het moet jou – als lezer – ook uitnodigen een visie te creëren op hetgeen wordt besproken. Laat dus gerust van je horen!

Sensoren, arduino’s, programmeren en 3d-printers, wat heeft dat nou met communicatie te maken? Meer dan je denkt! De integratie van sensortechnologie in branding of PR staat nog in de kinderschoenen. De studenten van de minor #GetConnected verkenden de mogelijkheden hoe we deze technologie kunnen inzetten om mensen met elkaar te verbinden. Afgelopen week bouwden ze in 16 uur (!) een prototype waarbij sensortechnologie werd ingezet om brand communities te versterken. En met verbluffend resultaat. Studente Kayleigh Bolink deelt haar ervaring:

Pressure cooker alert

This week we had a ‘pressure cooker’, and as the word pressure already might indicate, this meant two days of hard work. Before I am going to tell you if the hard work payed off, I will tell you something about the topic. Sensor technology is a way to make living easier. Sensors have the same senses as a human being. For communication it means that we know better what people are doing and what they need. We can contact people on a more effective way and we are able to build a community around your company or brand easily. Sensor technology all sounds very difficult but it isn’t!

Building communities 3.0

For our ‘pressure cooker’ we had to make our own sensor for building a community. Yes, you read that well, a sensor! How are we going to do that? Well, of course we had some help but in the beginning they already told us that there would be a lot of frustrations. And that was not a lie, we had to work very hard. Despite the frustrations, we have learned a lot. We worked with 3D printers, laser cutters and we even learned the process of programming. When we look back at these two days, we can be very proud of ourselves. We all succeeded to make a working sensor, which even led to building a community.

We worked in different groups so we had a lot of different sensors at the end of those two days. Some of us made a sensor for automatically filling your beer when it is empty, others made a box where two strangers find out if they have the same interest by their fingerprint. So many useful sensors that I cannot even remember them all!

So, if we can build a sensor, you all can do it!

Kayleigh Bolink

“Advertising has always sought to change or build someone’s emotional response to a brand. With the data that sensors can produce, there’s a real possibility that emotional response can be reliably inferred or even targetable in the future by using combinations of heart rate, temperature and skin changes.”

– Ben Samuel, Marketing technology director by PHD Media World Wide

PS. Ook een keer kennismaken of experimenteren met 3D printen, arduino of sensoren? Loop dan eens binnen bij het Stadslab van Hogeschool Rotterdam.