Heavyset

I awoke to a fantastic post on Make this morning about Youth Music Box – an installation at the Royal Music Hall in London that allows kids to construct their own original composition in a few short minutes.

Youth Music Box is a free, interactive musical experience, allowing you to create your own unique track and video using cutting edge technology, all in under 10 minutes!

Youth Music Box has been developed by music and graphics experts Silent Studios with interactive artist Chris O’Shea.

Take a few minutes to view the introductory video – really ingenious stuff, not altogether different from the Gridio installation that fascinated me some years ago at Le Centre Pompidou.

Youth Music Box Experience from Silent Studios | Resonate on Vimeo.

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Also in my reader this morning is a wonderful missive this morning from the always-thought-provoking Christopher Penn on the visceral experience of breaking glass (as represents breakthrough achievement, not necessarily the physical act of destruction, although one supposes that might count for something).

When it comes to limitations, whether internal or external, breaking through them very often isn’t a sledgehammer’s swing to victory. More often, it’s just a small crack in the glass – but that first breaking point is the key to that barrier eventually shattering into dust.

For example, there’s a student at the Boston Martial Arts Center who’s relatively new. For privacy reasons, we’ll just call her Katie. Started not too long ago. She came in with no confidence, no belief in herself, and not even a clear sense of why she was there. Katie started taking classes, started learning just a few of the basics, and one day during a class I was teaching, she delivered a solid lead jab to her partner’s heavily-padded target. Her partner, a guy who probably outweighs her by a hundred pounds or so, was knocked back and down.

That was the crack in the glass for Katie. Prior to that day, the idea of knocking down someone with a lead jab was ludicrous for her. But in that moment, the glass cracked, and suddenly what was impossible was not only possible, but real. That changed her instantaneously and irrevocably, and now, just a few weeks later, Katie’s a different person. Her mind shattered a limitation and is now wondering what other barriers and limitations she has that are equally vulnerable, equally breakable.

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With all of the discussion focused on user/participant (thanks, Gareth)-centric experiences, there’s a tendency to focus on large-scale achievements that fulfill the needs of knowledgeable, savvy participants. This is, of course, natural. After all, we like people who ‘get’ our products and services. We take pleasure in those who leverage the nuances of our offerings to create/learn/ehance an experience, thereby validating our own hard work.

A more interesting question as we probe the depths of branded utility in an effort to reframe our brands for a new world: Is it possible for a novice to combine our product or service with a piece of insight or functionality to create/achieve/solve something of personal value (to them) in a few minutes with the tools already at their disposal? If not, how can we facilitate this sort of glass-breaking moment?

Related posts:

1. Recurring Themes in (Musical) Collaboration and Co-Creation
2. “Your users don’t care that it’s hard…”
3. The Contextual City
4. Not if they’re not going to try…
5. Project Natal vs. Tactile Response