These slides were a part of a presentation given at DIYDays Conference on March 3rd in NYC at The New School. Most of the participants at the conference were story tellers and were interested in how to better work with technology to tell a story. Our goal was to help them know when in a project to start to work with a technologist, what to expect and where to find them.

1. Working with a
creative technologist
with Mark Harris and Heidi Hysell

2. Who are we?
Mark Harris
Director of Platform Engineering
Broadcastr
mark@broadcastr.com
http://www.broadcastr.com
@megamarkharris
Heidi Hysell
Creative Technologist / Software Engineer
Future Future / Nickelodeon
heidi@heidihysell.com
http://heidihysell.com
@heidihysell

3. First, what is a
creative
technologist?

4. What is a creative
technologist?
• Department Head (Brings their take on story)
◦ Cinematographer
◦ Art Director
◦ Sound
◦ Technology

5. What is a creative
technologist?
• Understands the limits and abilities
◦ Existing tools
◦ Custom tools

6. What is a creative
technologist?
• Can ask the questions you don't even know
exist

7. Well, why do you
need one?

8. Why do you need one?
• Everything will be software

9. Why do you need one?
• Everything will be software
◦ VOD / Second Screen experiences
◦ Tablet movies
■ Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
◦ Interactive Books
◦ Web documentaries
■ Highrise collaborative doc
◦ Mozilla working to make movies that act like the web
◦ Vodo.net peer to peer film release
■ The Lost Children

10. Why do you need one?
• Or if it’s not software, it will be created via
software

11. Why do you need one?
• All transmedia will include some sort of
technology (web, apps and AR)

12. Why do you need one?
• Even live events

13. Examples
creativity+technology
It has many different forms, but it all has the same outcome of
getting the user to interact and see things from a different
perspective.

14. Examples
Epic Theatre + Broadcastr
Theatre experience starts before you even get to the theatre
Experience the content customized for your city

15. How to work with a
creative technologist.

16. Working with a creative
technologist.
• Discuss project with open mind
◦ discuss main goals, don’t worry about the how, they
will help you with that

17. Working with a creative
technologist.
• Value their input, partner with them

18. Working with a creative
technologist.
• Set expectations with budgets in mind at
onset

19. Working with a creative
technologist.
• Agile, iterative development
◦ Requirements
◦ Use Cases
◦ Timelines and milestones

20. Where to find a
creative
technologist?

21. Where to find a creative
technologist?
• It’s hard.

22. Where to find a creative
technologist?
• It’s hard.
• Extremely Competitive Market

23. Where to find a creative
technologist?
• It’s hard.
• Extremely Competitive Market
• Find a culture/creative match
• Challenge the tech (more ways than one)

24. Where to find a creative
technologist?
• It’s hard.
• Extremely Competitive Market
• Find a culture/creative match
• Challenge the tech (more ways than one)
• www.storycode.org

25. Questions?