Months ago, we thought out loud about a whole new approach to the audience/presenter dynamic. Back then, we couldn’t help but cast a light on how the presentation experience had fundamentally changed:
People aren’t only sporadically ignoring you. They’re reporting out to the world their observations about what you’re saying. All the while, they’re reading up on what others are tweeting about what you’re saying while you’re saying it. And hundreds or thousands of their followers learn about these judgements in real-time as well. Your audience has become entranced not by you, but by the meta-activity around you. You, the presenter, are no longer the center of attention. You’re more like a backdrop. You’re the talking head on cable news, but it’s the ticker that streams below you that steals our attention.
Our answer to the swirl of chatter that taunts a presentation isn’t to reprimand or even try to contain it, but rather to embrace it. And so, on Sunday, March 13 at SXSW, we’ll be introducing our latest lab experiment: Donahue.
Designed and built by Arc90 and the talented minds at Behavior Design, Donahue seeks to bring all that chatter forward to create an entirely new type of presentation experience that unfolds in real-time as the presenters join the fray and the fray nudges its way onto the stage. It’s part commentary on the state of attention and interaction and part app debut. We hope you’ll join our own Tim Meaney and Behavior Design’s Chris Fahey for what we think will be a memorable event at SXSW.