Masterclass: Callan Rowe's (AKQA) presentation at Mumbrella360
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AKQA's R&D team engages in hands-on exploration of emerging technologies through a structured sprint process that spans three weeks. They focus on both client and technology sprint challenges, producing prototypes and case studies that catalyze change across business and social contexts. The team's approach emphasizes practical understanding and collaboration, developing skills while documenting findings to educate clients and improve workflows.
Masterclass: Callan Rowe's (AKQA) presentation at Mumbrella360
- 1. DEVELOP 02. Research, investigate, connect, understand, collaborate, meet, interrogate RESEARCH 01. Research, investigate, connect, understand, collaborate, meet, interrogate DOCUMENT 03. Research, investigate, connect, understand, collaborate, meet, interrogate
- 2. From Post-It Notes to Prototypes UNDERSTANDING THE R&D PROCESS Callan Rowe Lead Designer at AKQA Research and Development rnd@AKQA.com
- 3. AKQA is a digital ideas and innovation company We exist to create the future with our clients
- 4. How do you create the future?
- 5. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ― ANDRÉ GIDE
- 7. Tim Devine EXECUTIVE R&D DIRECTOR Tom Brophy LEAD DEVELOPER Callan Rowe LEAD DESIGNER Saul Flores EXECUTIVE STRATEGY DIRECTOR A Multidisciplinary Team AKQA Team Member SPRINT SPECIALIST ―
- 8. FUNCTION OF R&D WE CREATE CATALYSTS FOR CHANGE Through hands on exploration of emerging technologies, we’re transforming our clients, agency, colleagues and society. Business, social and technology contexts are ever changing. By actively exploring the change, our business, clients and staff have the knowledge and tools to both grow and shape the future.
- 9. KNOW THROUGH DOING WE’RE HANDS ON WITH EMERGING TECHNOLOGY At our core we’re an applied research team with a broad set of skills working in consecutive three week sprints. In our day to day, we’re either hands on proactively exploring emerging technology or we’re prototyping for a client. The multidisciplinary character of the R&D team means there’s no media we can’t get our hands dirty with.
- 10. Prototyping Lab
- 11. PROCESS Our
- 12. 3 WEEK SPRINTS We work in
- 13. 2 AREAS OF FOCUS Which fall into
- 14. 01 CLIENT SPRINTS Explore a challenge or technology for a client or not-for-profit
- 15. 02 TECHNOLOGY SPRINTS Get hands on with a technology to better understand it, develop our skills and educate clients and the agency
- 16. 01. RESEARCH Immerse ourselves in the problem - Define sprint challenge - Understand the problem - Decide what to build Research, investigate, connect, understand, collaborate, meet, interrogate 02. DEVELOP Know through doing - Design - Prototype - Code Construct, script, make, photograph, code, film, design 03. DOCUMENT Be a catalyst for change - Test - Document - Share Experience, refine, contextualise, teach, simplify, share SPRINT PROCESS
- 17. We’re hands on. Prototyping and experimenting. Ensuring at the end of each sprint we create sharable content around the topic and prototype, starting conversations in the agency or with our clients. OUTCOMES - Case studies - Workshops - Prototypes
- 18. PROJECTS Our
- 19. 1 year | 14 Sprints
- 21. HESTA | Chatbot
- 22. INITIAL SPRINT CHALLENGE Explore how HESTA could benefit from Chatbot technology 22
- 23. 23 IMMERSE OURSELVES IN THE PROBLEM Research
- 24. INITIAL SPRINT CHALLENGE Explore how HESTA could benefit from Chatbot technology 24
- 25. PRIMARY SPRINT CHALLENGE Reduce the number of calls to the HESTA call centre by empowering customers to self service through the Member Online portal or find relevant information on the HESTA website. 25
- 26. RESEARCH ACTIVITIES – Client Workshops – Landscape review – Consumptive review – Secondary research – Technology investigation – Content Audit
- 27. CONVERSATIONAL SEARCH Chatbots offer a more human way to find information - Conversational Search. Natural Language Processing platforms excel at defining the intent of a users query - better than traditional search. 27
- 31. 31 DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES – How do we format the chat content? – How complex does the bot need to be? – Will website content translate to chat content? – How will we input chat content? – How will content be approved and amended? – How well will the chatbot be able to differentiate similarly phrased questions? – Which platform do we create the proof of concept on?
- 33. FACEBOOK MESSENGER TEST PLATFORM
- 34. FACEBOOK MESSENGER TEST PLATFORM Questions Text response Link Images Cards Alternate phrasing t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniamquis t enim ad minim veniam, quis adfdadfasd adfdadfasd t enim ad minim veniam, quis t enim ad minim veniam, quis
- 36. SECONDARY SPRINT CHALLENGE Develop an end-to-end process for HESTA to update and maintain chatbot content 36
- 38. P U B L I S H T O C H AT B O T
- 39. WORKING FACEBOOK MESSENGER PROTOTYPE
- 40. 40 BE A CATALYST FOR CHANGE Document
- 41. 41 ANALYTICS AND TESTING What do we want to learn from a trial? – What were the most common questions? – How many queries were resolved as helpful? – How many queries were resolved as unhelpful? – Did it reduce call centre wait time?
- 42. 42 OUTCOMES – Working prototype – Chat content – Client presentations – UX recommendations – Analytics implementation – Prototype trial plan – Delivery roadmap
- 43. 43
- 44. DEVELOP 02. Know through doing RESEARCH 01. Immerse ourselves in the problem DOCUMENT 03. Be a catalyst for change
- 45. ® R&D | VR for Retail
- 46. To explore the opportunities of Virtual Reality for retail. Identify key usability and interaction problems and to gauge the maturity of the technology. SPRINT CHALLENGE
- 49. RETAIL FLAGSHIP STORE VR TEST ENVIRONMENT
- 50. Anti AI AI Wearable Artificial Intelligence
- 51. PRIMARY CHALLENGE Develop the ability to work better with machine learning and explore how far we can go in developing a custom Bluetooth Low Energy IoT device.
- 52. 2017 CONTEXT POST TRUTH, FAKE NEWS & IDENTITY APPROPRIATION Deep learning is democratising the ability to generate convincing replicas of our voice and image. Social media is rife with snapshots of how we speak and what we look like, opening the gates for flood of false content.
- 55. ANTI AI AI WEARABLE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Preempting this we prototyped a device worn on the ear and connected to a neural net trained on real and synthetic voices. The device notifies the wearer when a synthetic voice is detected and cools the skin using a thermoelectric plate to alert the wearer the voice they are hearing was synthesised: by a cold, lifeless machine.
- 56. ANTI AI AI – ARCHITECTURE
- 57. ANTI AI AI – CIRCUIT DESIGN PCB Simblee SOC /Arduino BLE 3.6cm 1.5cm
- 59. ANTI AI AI – THERMAL FEEDBACK Thermoelectric Peltier Plate 3.96mm x 3.96mm x 2.40mm
- 60. Custom Wearable IoT Device
- 63. 63 WHAT WE LEARNED A year of Research & Development
- 64. WHAT WE LEARNED – Innovation requires proactive exploration – Development can be form of research – A tight timeline stops over thinking things – Trust the process – Wrong turns are not a waste of time – To get a true understanding of a technology you need to get your hands dirty