Quick PR Reads You Can Tackle Between Bites
What’s this weird filmy thing in the air? Oh right, that’s D.C. summer, and my archnemesis, Humidity, has returned.
In this week’s communication news, our wands are at the ready for Harry Potter’s 20th anniversary, Amazon patented a drone skyscraper, YouTube is bringing VR to your fingertips, and Fast Company says the emerging creative age is a new Renaissance.
Go ahead and dive into these juicy reads. I’ll be over here in the AC, waiting for the sun to down.
Facebook Works A Little Harry Potter Magic
Two decades after its release, Harry Potter hardly needs marketing to keep its ravenous fan base fueled … but perhaps the fact that it does so anyway is part of its seemingly effortless magic. In celebration of the boy wizard’s 20th anniversary, the wizarding world collaborated with Facebook to create an Easter egg to delight fans. Key words from the series like “Harry” and the four Hogwarts houses made the text light up with the house colors, and clicking on them made a magic wand appear and shoot sparks. It’s been 20 years already? Time flies.
The Future Is Drones
What else flies? Amazon delivery. Following its acquisition of Whole Foods, the company has now acquired a patent for a drone skyscraper. The company’s massive fulfillment centers currently encompass 1 million square feet. You can’t get that kind of floor space just anywhere, which makes reaching urban customers more of a challenge for Amazon’s drone army. These skyscrapers will offer a vertical alternative to the massive warehouses that are more city-friendly. Like a beehive for AI.
As someone who has watched a lot of science fiction, this sounds like a great idea.
Don’t Forget Your VR Goggles
YouTube’s new VR180 video format lets users create virtual reality footage with normal cameras. As described in this Re/Code article, by eliminating the barrier to access created by the special 360-degree capture equipment, anyone with a camera will soon be able to create and post VR footage using YouTube’s tools. Yet another step for VR toward mainstreaming it into the consumer experience.
For Better Ideas, Focus on Losing Focus
According to an article from Fast Company, the best creative minds are rarely specialized. Instead, they tend to chase multiple passions, on a constantly evolving basis, driven by their curiosity. We tend to think about career paths linearly, as a singular pursuit that progresses and hones as experience accumulates. But, the article asserts, pursuing various directions sharpens a collection of skills, which are a necessary asset in today’s new creative age.
