2023 marks a new season of the StoryTrove educational product to improve conversational competency by group collaboration. The experience will help with the following critical soft skills required for the future workforce:
Critical Thinking
Creative Problem Solving
Interpretive Analysis
Team Work
Conversational Competency
and more…

Dean Kamen’s arm prosthetic innovation

https://www.ted.com/talks/dean_kamen_the_emotion_behind_invention

People like Dean Kamen are our inspiration. His TED talk “The Emotion the Invention” shares his experience that drives our motivation to transforming great inventions into compelling innovations where they can make a difference. Ih his work, soldiers who’ve lost limbs in service face a daily struggle unimaginable to most of us. At TEDMED, Dean Kamen talks about the profound people and stories that motivated his work to give parts of their lives back with his design for a remarkable prosthetic arm.

Enjoy giving…

https://www.ted.com/talks/dean_kamen_the_emotion_behind_invention

As much as the idea of Virtual Reality (VR) Arcades excites us, should we not consider that these are two concepts have already died a dramatic death in the marketplace before? So it seems that these businesses and products have come and gone.  Now we are putting them together at IAAPA like we did with fine dining and theater and called it “dinner theater.”  Putting two things together, doesn’t necessarily make them better.  It can make them worse, but its not because either are bad. Its how they are crafted together that is important, We shouldn’t make all the same mistakes and be surprised at the results.

The arcades that survived were the ones that had a social elements mixed with food and merchandise such as Chuck E. Cheese’s or Dave and Buster’s. The arcades who thought it was about the technology created what some call a “coffin industry: One box, one player, one game.” It attracted a small lonely demographic that was not worth taking up prime real estate.

What makes VR popular now and not before is because of the enabling technologies of tracking, resolution, processing power, field of view, etc. at a lower price point. However, this makes for a good consumer product at home, but not necessarily a Location Based Entertainment (LBE) solution. In fact, it can be anti-social slapping a piece of plastic on one’s face and excluding everybody else out of the excitement. Even if you put up a monitor showing what they are seeing, your friends are still once removed from the player’s experience. That is not increasing social engagement and human connection, it is diluting them. Plus the hygiene problem with all the greasy fingers from the food and beverage just adds to the operational hassle.

The reason people leave the home for entertainment, no matter what century you live in, is because they all can enjoy being transported to an escape together. Otherwise, they can watch the entertainment at home. So a LBE with VR needs to consider the guest experience first and layer in the VR where it adds and not diminishes the social engagement and human connection that we all crave. There are so many more ways you can incorporate VR without an Head Mounted Display (HMD).  It is critical to the bottom line that the experience design needs to expand beyond the VR HMD. That is why you need an Experience Architect before buying or building any VR Arcade or LBE (even if you do solve the sim-sickness issue).

An Experience Architect creates memories, not buildings. They imagine the LBE from the point of view of the guest experience.  They design the social experience from how we engage with our hearts, hands and heads, not from the technology, flashing lights and theming. This is something that can’t be rendered in a sketch or watched on a Pre-Visualization video.  This has to be rigorously play-tested with prototypes that can bring together the real, the virtual and the imagined together for affective assessment. VR Prototyping is where VR is most dramatically being used to transform our industry. Prototypes are intended to amplify problems so we can fix them. The standard rendering and or pre-viz video tends to hide these problems to sell an idea, not to prove its value. Pretty sketches do not represent the true guest experience that will be making the long-term Return on the Investment (ROI) in the end.

With VR Prototypes we can create and test the ability to make memories that will bring guests back over and over again. This repeat business is what keeps the doors open to the venue to reach the bottom line of the long-term ROI. When developers are obsessed with just opening the doors on budget and in schedule at the cost of guest experience, the venue will experience a slow death as we have seen many times before. This was seen most dramatically with Wanda’s development of experiences that were suppose to out-Disney Disney.  However, we saw how those venues slowly became empty. As reported by the the Wall Street Journal, this drove their massive divestment of their toxic LBE assets this last year. As an industry, we must learn from our mistakes and not cover them up. We can’t be fooled by the shiny, sparkly things in the window surrounded by flashy lights and carnival music.

VR Arcades could be awesome, but they first need to meet the expectations they set in the imagination of an adoring audience passionate about great out-of-home entertainment. Whether you are the real estate developer, operator or IP owner, hire the Experience Architect first! They can either design you a great experience from the beginning or help create an “experiential make-over” to fix what is already done.

The International Association of Amusement Parks and Amusements Infographic

I have been going to IAAPA for 30 years. It is the largest Theme Park Conference in the world. I have also been going to IITSEC, the largest Military Simulation Conference in the world. They are in the same city at about the same time.  Over the three decades, they have been beginning to look alike.  The key common denominator is Virtual Reality (VR). At IAAPA, the VR HMDs were quite the oddity with the clowns, pitch games and frozen dots that fill the conference, but there was a difference this year.

Talon Simulation, who has been exhibiting VR at IAAPA for years, says the questions are changing about VR. Instead of people asking, “What is that (VR)?” They are now asking “How much is that?”  For being in the VR business for 30 years, I would say that is a turning point.  When they want to buy it, that is adoption! However, I ask,  ”is that true innovation?” VR has been creeping into all parts of the conference since Facebook bought out Oculus.  Consumers realized what immersive, interactive entertainment was all about. Out-of-home entertainment venues are now suddenly interested (or maybe scared of the competition?).

This is the “awkward stage”. for VR in the Location Based Entertainment (LBE) business.  They innovate like the razor business. The razor industry slaps another blade on and calls it “innovation.”  The entertainment industry slaps another “D” on it and calls it innovation. First there is 2D, 3D, 4D rides! Yes, a 5D attraction won an award this year. Doesn’t the 5th Dimension branded that already? In lieu of 6D they now have VR.  So slapping a VR HMD on the old carney rides and arcade games is now called “Innovation!”  REALLY?

The turning point with VR and LBEs is that now there is a demand. That means now we can start innovating creatively with it, not just the technology, but everything from the guest experience to the return on the investment (ROI).  What the industry doesn’t know is that VR, once it is considered strategically and not tactically, it will completely change the business as we know it. Are they ready?  Personally, I don’t think they are because they are calling them VR Arcades.  VR and Arcades are two industries that have already died a slow death decades before.  There will be a whole new experience, business and name for it. What should be call it?

Stay tuned, I have been taking notes on what I see and speaking to people to see how they react.  If nothing else, it will be both scary and wondrous!

IAAPA:

I had a great opportunity to be an Honorary Teacher at the Crooms Academy of Information Technology where I taught “Innovation Skills” all day to five classes of over 20 bright students each.  It was exhausting and exhilarating all at once (how do teachers do it?). These kids are so full of ideas and innovative thinking, which seems to come so naturally in an environment that encourages a student’s full potential.  Each class was so unique and brilliant in their own ways.  These core innovation skills and personalities are not always encouraged in traditional schools and work environments (creative problem-solving,  expressive communication, critical thinking, interpretive analysis, team building, etc.). Creative behavior and expression in more strict environments is often misunderstood as deviant and disruptive (we did get a bit noisy and rambunctious). However, the school was founded by someone who was a powerful voice for an amazing community that can’t be overlooked.

The school was founded in 1926 by Joseph N. Crooms the fifth child of freed slaves. He grew up in Goldsboro, Florida a Freedmen community that was later annexed in 1911 (unscrupulously) by Sanford’s infamous Mayor, Forest Lake. Mr. Crooms founded two schools in the community for African Americans in Seminole County, a highly segregated community. Crooms Academy is now a proud technology magnet school of the Seminole County Public Schools system. I highly recommend visiting the Goldsboro Museum , across the street from the Trevon Martin Memorial in Sanford Florida.

Simiosys’s Christopher Stapleton launches the Virtual World Society’s Story Explorers at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) EU 2017 in Munich Germany. Panel discussion features pioneers, Valentino M, Navid Nassir, Anastasia Miron, sharing ways to apply stories to transform lives.

Simiosys’s Christopher Stapleton launches the Virtual World Society’s Story Explorers at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) EU 2017 in Munich Germany. Panel discussion features pioneers, Valentino M, Navid Nassir, Anastasia Miron, sharing ways to apply stories to transform lives.

Watch Video Proceedings

Language of VR,  the Augmented World Expo

Simiosys’s Christopher Stapleton presents the Language of VR at the Augmented World Expo (AWE)  2017 in Silicon Valley, USA Germany.  Presentation looks the origin of language and how it informs new heuristics of the language of VR and the interplay of story, play and game to augment the human experience.

Real World Laboratories,   Augmented World Expo

Simiosys’s Christopher Stapleton presents Real World Laboratories for the Virtual World Society at the Augmented World Expo (AWE)  2017 in Berlin .  Presentation looks at innovative venues to stimulate state-of-the-art advances in Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Gymnasium of the Imgination,   Augmented World Expo

Simiosys’s Christopher Stapleton presents a panel discussing creating Gymnasiums for the Imagination for the Virtual World Society at the Augmented World Expo (AWE)  in Silicon Valley USA.  Presentation looks at innovative venues to stimulate experiential learning with Augmented and Mixed Reality

Unlocking Pathways in the Brain with AR,  Augmented World Expo

Christopher Stapleton presents featured keynote about Simiosys’ ground-breaking StoryTroves, story therapy activities for the world of Aphasia (the loss of language due to a stroke). Augmented World Expo (AWE) Silicon Valley USA

Storytelling with the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented World Expo

Christopher Stapleton presents experiments and methods for storytelling with physical artifacts and the internet of Things (IoT).  Examines examples from the Holocaust Museum, Maitland FL.

Augmenting Human Experience, Augmented World Expo

Christopher Stapleton presented at the 2014 Augmented World Expo, where he presented with Matt Johnston (Design Interactive)  and Dr. Janet Whiteside (UCF’s Aphasia House) about using mixed reality to address real world challenges.

AWE 2014 Presentation

AWE 2013 Presentation

For more information on the AWE conference and Christopher’s presentation, visit: AWE Homepage

Christopher Stapleton’s Interview with Delight.us

In October 2014, Christopher will be speaking at the Delight Conference in Portland. As a preview for his upcoming talk, Delight conducted an interview with Christopher where he discusses the role of innovation in shaping and designing meaningful experiences.

Watch the video:

For more information on the conference, visit: Delight.us

Interview with Entertainment Designer

In 2012, Christopher sat down for an interview session with Entertainment Designer where he  discusses his role as a creative venture catalyst in shaping the next generation of experiential learning.

Link to full interview: Interview with Christopher Stapleton, Creative Venture Catalyst 

When a colleague fell in the garden with a stroke, he suffered a devastating brain injury that statistically would more likely to have happened to any one of us.   He was healthy, bright and successful, but now with Aphasia, he is unable to communicate,  a curse unbearable to a storyteller and maker.  Similar to the condition of Gabby Gifford that was caused by a gunshot wound, the condition devastates the individual, the family, friends and colleagues.    Little did we know that the stories, architecture, technology and entertainment we do everyday, just may be the breakthrough not only for him and other aphasics, but for mental health patients worldwide.

We engage your audience, by designing immersive user experience that captivates the hands, hearts and heads of all ages. We focus on starting from the small and intimate moments that network into a culminating big impact.  We next-generation simulation technology to mediate a world of wonder; seamlessly blending reality and fiction together into a magical interactive environment

At heart, we are creative expressing new ideas as artists, storytellers, educators, scientists, and magicians. Our diverse interdisciplinaryteam members are experts in entertainment design, user experience, instructional theory, and interactive storytelling. We also collaborate with experts from around the globe, embracing trans-disciplinary collaboration in order to spur and support a broader culture of innovation.