“Help the NPOX Festival to get their RoomWare Installation”

[to be edited for final version] At Reboot11 I was approached by Marieke Hermans: if we could do a RoomWare installation at their event. On the morming of Juli 9, 2009 I had a meeting with three members of the NPOX Festival team.

The main theme of these festivals (this will the 3rd) is – in my words: “To introduce, promote and advocate the new thinking of sharing and cooperation as is common ground for Open Source Projects”

At the NPOX Festival (see the festival site of 2008) more than a thousand media professionals (Radio and TV) get together: writers, researchers, journalists, planners, presenters, programmers, content managers and so on.

The initial investment for a RoomWare installation with hardware and software is between 30.000 to 50.000 euro.

The NPOX simply does not have that budget.

So today I started the first part of a campaign to “Help NPOX to get their RoomWare Installation”. You can respond with tips and leads using the “Leave a reply” box at the bottom of this post.

Here is the plan:

1. To find one or more parties, “the Sponsor”, who have a clear added value to the RoomWare installation we will use at the NPOX 2009 festival
2. To create a complete solution catering festivals, events and venues
3. To have the Sponsor sponsor the costs to create this RoomWare Event / Venue solution

Here is the approach:

1. The RoomWare application will be created in such a way that it is applicable for the NPOX festival and directly applicable to cater the needs of the Sponsor
2. It will be launched at the NPOX Festival
3. After the NPOX festival it will be installed in the venue of the Sponsor

This is what we can build:

1. A tracking and tracing system for people within the venue. Based on a simple BlueTooth device people get when entering the venue the flow of people can be tracked in real time. This information can be used to:
   1. Optimize the space and the flow of people in that space
   2. Help people to find other people (“Where the F#ck is [anyperson]?” and “Tell me who matchs with [anypreference]“)
   3. Display user generated content, like photo’s, blog posts and twitter feeds
   4. Change the mood of the space, based on i.e. a balanced collection of the personal musical preferences of the people in the room
   5. Re-trace who was with whom in that same space
2. A RFID-tag based link and presentation system. Using RFID-tags connected to personal public profiles, RFID-tags can be used to:
   1. Connect people using public services like LinkedIn and FaceBook
   2. Recieve a personalized agenda of the event and venue based on personal preferences (using proximity and scheduled time to define priorities)
   3. Show your different (professional) outings as part of the conversation
   4. Tag places and events for later recall
   5. Vote on objects or events (“I like it”, “I do not like it”) and track these votes real time

Where a RoomWare installation like this comes in handy

Finding people: a RoomWare installation linked to personal profiles can cater you in finding people fast and effectively while being there. When you are on an event like the NPOX Festival; where you can expand your network, potentially meet a lot of new people sharing the same interest, or requiring your services, or who can potentially solve one or another problem.

Connecting to people directly: Instead of collecting business cards, you can potentially directly connect to the person and the public services you share, like Linked In and FaceBook. The system can immediately send out an e-mail stating that you linked using the RFID-tags and when and where this happened. If your profile includes the links to these public services you can also link via that.

Find commonalities and added values: Public data from services like LinkedIn can show you which contacts you have in common or how you are connected while you are talking. If you have basic data like showcases, you can present them directly – showing who you are, what you do and what you have achieved.

Tagging places and events for after service: Using the RFID-tag or Bluetooth ID’s connected to your profile, you can tag- or bookmark a talk, a place or something else you are interested in for later reference. For instance, if a talk is recorded and photo’s are made, the moment this material is released online you will be notified.  All the people you were with in a room at a certain moment can be found so making connections afterward is easy.

Tracking and tracing the flow of people: As mentioned before, using the RoomWare  data you can see how many people were in a room at a certain time, how they moved and how this relates to the goals you stated. You can track back the number of people who attended lectures or talks or specific spaces of your exhibition. You can see for how long people stayed in one room. You can see how many left during a talk and where they went to.

Type of locations a solution like this can be suited to

1. Conference spaces
2. Festivals and conferences
3. Network meetings
4. Business fairs
5. Musea and exposition spaces
6. .. (anything I forgot or am not aware of)

At the NPOX festival, November 16

With RoomWare at NPOX we like to:

1. Help people find other people based on names or preferences (skills, job titles, who knows who)
2. Present showcases of people on big screens (photo’s, video productions, audio productions, writings, portfolio’s)
3. Connect people using RFID tags
4. Show connections between people (who knows who?)
5. Track who was together in the same space and open this info to the people who were part of that group and specific moment

Protection of pivacy

As with these kind of technologies we need to keep privacy high. We will present the “how” in a later post.