Motivating Video

This video by Jane McGonigal, goes over details about how we should be implementing games into our everyday lives to improve the way we live. When people play games, they are utterly immersed within their game play, imagine a world where people are just as immersed in the real world as they are in playing games.

The interesting thing about this speech is that it relates directly to my Bird Interactive product idea, in how we can implement gaming into our every day lives to help improve the way we solve problems and live.

Term 2 - Business amalgamation

Term Two - Business amalgamation

Towards the end of term one, a choice was given to those who wanted to carry on with their products or business ideas, either in groups or on their own. Looking at the nature of my Working Bird business idea, I found that for the first year of business, I wouldn't be able to generate any source of income, neither would I have the skill based knowledge to build such products. As a result, I am amalgamating Working Bird with my work colleague's company, which is based around a product called Knightly. Knightly works to something similar to Voucher Cloud, it is a place where night clubs, bars, restaurants and any other evening businesses can upload their events. The idea is to generate revenue from the advertising which will be placed within the application. The knightly product is aimed at mostly students and will start locally, however, it has the potential to become international.

Elevator Pitch

Elevator Pitch 02




Elevator Pitch 01

Using animation software such as Adobe After Effects, I was able to construct an animation of my elevator pitch. This pitch would be targeted at teachers and to those who are stationed within education. The narrator for this pitch was presented by a friend, however, I still feel that the narrators vocals could do with a more positive attitude on the idea. For example, "THE KIDS WILL LOVE IT!" should really ring out with excitement and enthusiasm.

Client Interview

Interview Sheet

Interview
Over the course of the Christmas holidays I was able to get in touch with a Primary School NQT teacher, who I emailed a few questions in regards to the idea and prospect of my project.

Questions and Answers:

What did you think to the idea?

It would be a great way to engage learners.
How much 'Game-playing' will there be to the learning time?

Do you think primary schools would be interested in an idea such as this?

In principal, yes. However, I think they would have to see the product to decide if it fits their needs.

Do you think something like this would help engage pupils, as well as teach them?

Yes, I believe it is a good way to engage pupils especially when so many younger children are confident with technology and digital gaming

Do you think this idea could work in a secondary school environment, if the content was upgraded to the pupils suited level?

Possibly for KS3, but the 'game' side may take away too much lesson time.

Resource Database

This data base holds all the business links that are linked towards my company Bird Interactive and displays a list of useful resources for getting my business started.

5-Minute Pitch Evaluation

5 Minute Pitch Evaluation

What is a 5-Minute Pitch?

After a product or business plan has been written, the next stage is to pitch the idea to potential investors who might be interesting in what you have to offer. The pitch has to be a number of aspects to make it a successful one. The perfect pitch should be concise, well presented in a convincing manner and accurately planned. In some cases, pitches can often take months to plan, whether it is physically or mentally. It is also important to have an understanding of your audience, so that you can relate to the investors on a more personal level.

Pitching an idea to a group of investors can be a very nerve racking experience, because most of the time you only have one shot at presenting it. This is why it is important to plan everything in advance and perform practice presentations before hand, because practice makes perfect.

Introduction

During the Venture Culture module we had to come up with a product or a business idea that we could pursue and bring our ideas to life in the public domain. Once we had our business and product ideas, we then had to present them in a 2-minute presentation in front of the class, without using any visual aid. The 2-minute pitch was there to give us an experience and an understanding on how to present a business idea in front of a group of people. The 2-minute pitch also gave us a good opportunity to see whether our ideas would be sufficient enough to bring out into the public domain.

The next development process was to start to fine-tune our business ideas in preparation for the 5-minute pitch presentation. The pitching points were: Introduction, production, process, customer, distribution, costs and setup. The pitching points were there to guide us in terms of the different aspects we should cover during our presentations.

The Pitch

Starting from the beginning of my presentation, I found that my eye-to-eye contact with the audience was adequate, but my arms would have benefited from being uncrossed, because this shows a more open displayed posture. Some of the phrases I used within the first minute of introducing the idea could have been delivered differently. For example, instead of saying, "making learning fun and interesting, really", I should have said, "making learning fun and interactive for pupils", which fits more into the criteria I am trying to put across. The Introduction to the product also could have been complemented and simplified if I had given game examples on the slide, to help explain how the Interactive White Board game would work.

Moving onto the Process slide of my presentation, again I found that I had good composure and highlighted the necessary sections, which guided the attention of the audience to which topic I was talking about. A method of improving this however, would be to present the content on the slide in a more fluent order. On an important note, I could have improved this slide by explaining who The Department of Education actually was. Also I would have liked to avoid saying the word “it” and instead used a more descriptive word like “the product”.

On the next slide was a mind map graph of the Target audience of whom I would be out reaching my product to. During this slide, I kept good composer and highlighted the areas of the slide that I was covering. I could have gone into more details as to why children aren't so much my target audience, and could have replaced phrases such as "funnily enough", with something more suitable, like "interestingly".

After the Target audience slide came Distribution. I am now thinking that the content used on the Target audience slide, would have benefit from being on the same slide as the distribution slide, due to the similarity of the two topics. Notes were taken during the distribution section of the 5-minute pitch, I put down that I had good posture and was able to highlight the content of the slide clearly, however the slide could have benefit from having more information displayed. Certain aspects of this slide could have been shorten, practically in the overview of why books are going to be involved with the product.

Setup and Costs, this slide was probably one of the more difficult areas of my product idea to explain, due to its complexity and having to go into further details about the development costs. A lot of the content on this slide could have been simplified, but also maybe the slide could have been split into two columns, thus making the presentation move more fluently. I also muddled up some of the words I was trying to describe, however, I feel this is purely down to being nervous.

Conclusion

Reflecting back on the moment of the 5-minute pitch, I found the whole experience of presenting a business idea to a group of students exhilarating. I was still very nervous and had a slight lack of confidence when it came to explaining the more in-depth areas of my idea. However, on a positive note, the process of explaining the more in-depth areas of my presentation was complemented by the unique and captivating style of my Power point slides.

In reference to the chapter ‘What is a 5-Minute Pitch?’ and comparing it to my Bird Interactive pitch, I personally consider that I was able to pitch my idea in a convincing and accurately planned manner. In situation to knowing my target audience, I was able to relate to them on a more personal level, if needed, because most of the audience are my work and study colleagues. However positively I may feel about my pitch, there is still a lot more room for improvements. One particular example of this would be the dialect used when presenting, I had a tendency to get my words mixed-up or not pronounce them correctly, when explaining certain aspects. However, this issue can be solved, through being more prepared and constantly rehearsing the pitch, to gain an in-depth understanding of what needs to be said.

Feedback Questions

The feedback from the audience was very constructive. They particularly enjoyed the unique and colourful style of my slides. One person asked me a question as to how I would go about tailoring the game idea to individual pupils. At the time of the pitch, I believed the answer I gave was suitable for the question that was asked, however, after reviewing the question asked I think I would have rephrased the answer like this:

“This is a question that I'm sure most teachers ask themselves everyday, and to solve this, my product gives teachers the opportunity to upload their own learning material, which will then be embedded within the adventure game structure. Thus making the content of the game managed by the teacher”.

5-Minute Pitch

The 5-Minute Pitch

Final Presentation Slides

Final Presentation Slides

After noting the key points for the content of my slides and adapting a similar style to the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy book, I was then able to construct the slides for the final stages of my presentation.

Pitch Theme

Pitch Presentation Theme

In the past when I have watched teachers, clients, students and important people give pitch presentations, I have found that they all use a piece of software called Power Point. Now, there is nothing wrong with using Power Point, however, there is nothing exceedingly special about it either, it is generally down to how the person displays their content. There is another presentation software called Prezi, which enables the user to create almost 3D dynamic slides. Prezi works by the user developing a collage of images and then creating a set path for the camera to move along. Like Power Point, the Prezi software allows you to import movies and extra animations.

Style
Due to the nature of the Bird Interactive company being all about adventure and interactivity, I found the inspiration for my presentation theme on a film called Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. In the film, there is electronic book called "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy", which has a very simple and yet intelligent style to it. The theme within the hitch hikers guide book, has a mono tone silhouette style, which gives of a very colourful affect and is easy for users to understand.

The image below displays screen captured shots from the film "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy":

5 Minute Pitch Presentation

Pitch Presentation Key Points

Introduction:

"Hi Good afternoon, my name is Paul Bird and I am the Director of Bird Interactive"

Product:

My company develops e-learning narrative games for Interactive White Boards for primary schools, for pupils aged 5 - 11. (IWB)

- The goal is to create a collaborative learning environment between the teachers and the pupils.

- The game will also following with the National Curriculum and be interchangeable according to the pupils scheme of work.

Process (How will you sell it):

The product will be marketed by giving pitches and seminars in schools, colleges and trade shows.

The product will also be marketed on teaching websites (tes), be presented on press releases and written in trade journals.

Fact: There are over 20,00 schools within the United Kingdom, which gives me a large target audience to present my project to. These figures can be found on The Department of Education website: http://www.education.gov.uk/

Customers (target audience):

The game will be targeted at The Department of Education and will be presented to the Head teachers and teachers of each school.

Parents will also be introduce to the game to gain an understanding and support of what their child is learning.

The children won't be the target audience so much, however, there will be plans to produce games for the I Pad and mobile devices, of which children can download and be apart of.

Distribution:

There will be a online and offline product package will be distributed and pitched to the Department of Education and be available on the web, which people can download.

Narrative books of the game will also be published, that will be available for pupils use at home or at school.

In the future we also plan to develop the game for mobile devices, this will be another method of distributing the product.

Setup and Costs:

The development team of the company, will concise of a Director, Marketing person, Designers and programmers.

On shelf products will marked at a set retail price (depends on working hours), which will concise of a premium and a deluxe package.

The game will also be available online, where teachers can sign up and download the product and inquire a 1 year license, which will be charged at a price of £200 pounds

Quick Maths: A game developer earns about £11.50 hr, he makes a product over a 6 month time span, which gives him an earning of £11,960. However, you have other members of the company to consider, so you times the £11,960 by 3, that gives you £35,880 overall.

If we were to sell the game to just 2% of UK schools, we would have to charge £89.50 per product to break even.

So overall we are already making a profit of £110 pounds on the product.

Fact: The product and the developer prices are varied, due to the flexibility of the working hours and what the going rate is for the game developer.

Logo Animation

Logo Animation introductions

Most common companies in the world, such as Disney, Sony, Pixar, Aardman etc, have bumper animations to help promote their companies. Bumper animations are short but precise to the point of the company's theme, for example, one of Walt Disney's home video bumpers, was of an animation of his signature being written, which then had his "mascot" Mickey Mouse along side it.


Walt Disney intro:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXCkH-kBHro&feature=related

Animation Tips:

http://donbluthanimation.com/tips.php?c=2&t=90

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8z2JaDtJvM

Bird Interactive Promotional Introduction

The idea for the promotion of my company, is to make an animation of a flying bird, which then merges into the Bird Interactive logo. This animation will be used for the beginning of my 5 minute pitch.

In using the traditional animation methods of layering transparent paper and following the Don Bluth tutorial, I was able to develop a Bird flight scene of my own.

Once I had animated the first 4 flight sequences, shown by Don Bluth. I then had to draw an extra 4 frames to enable the bird to land. I also had to make the bird drawings more round, this was so the bird would merge with my Bird Interactive logo. After I had completed drawing all the flight patterns from flying to landing, I took the drawings into Adobe Illustrator, where I then started the process of turning each image into a vector.

Bird Flight Sequence

Adobe After Effect

Adobe After Effects is an animating software, which enables you to create high quality movies. I decided to use Adobe After Effects, instead of Flash, due to it's animation flexibility and how you can easily create special visual effects.

I was shown the basics on how to use After Effects, by one of my university colleagues. Once I gained an understanding of the software I was then ready to start animating.

Final Bird Interactive Animation

Company Name Crit session

24 Nov - Group Crit session

For the start of the lesson, the teacher showed us some online examples of 30 seconds to 1 minute pitches presented by entrepreneurs.

For this session we discussed our individual company name ideas and were given constructive suggestions into how we could improve them.

People suggested to me how the overall theme of my company could be structured on the icon of my BIrd logo. For example, they said that the icon could incorporate well presented animations, using the bird, also how different types of birds could be used to distinguish separate products of the company, which would add an extra dimension to the overall theme.

Branding an Identity

Branding an Identity

One of the fundamental aspects for any company, is the branding involved. The brand should almost be a representation of the type of company it is, for example, the company Nike uses a tick to represent a positive and proactive attitude. Nike also goes further into creating slogans that co-operate along side their branding, such as using the phrase "Just Do It". The history of branding goes as far back to when cattle ranges used to scold their cows with a hot iron, that would be used to determine ownership of property.

Task:

Develop a brand identity for your company, which involves coming up with a suitable name, an icon to go with your name (however, this can be changed depending on whether you are using a typographical logo or not), and then a slogan or catch phrase.

Ideas and Inspirations
The first step to creating my own brand for my company is to establish the key elements(words) of the company and what each word could represent. I started generating ideas by drawing simple mind maps and doodling on an A3 sheet, to help get some ideas going.

Mind Maps

Through noting the keywords that are affiliated with my company, I was then able to start writing down company names. I find that coming up with names for products or companies is always the most difficult part, this is due to the endless possibilities and routes you can go down when thinking them up.

Branding Inspirations

The brands displayed in the image above, are logos which have always given me inspiration when creating my own brands or logos in the past. A lot of them use icons or symbols to help promote their brand, for example, Shell, Apple, BP, Adidas, Nike etc. However, it is interesting to see how typography has been used to represent world wide brands, such as Sony, Marks and Spenser, Disney and coca cola etc.

FedEx - A clever use of typography

I find that one of the key elements with any brand is the typography involved, for example, you can manipulate the type to work along side your business. A clever example is the FedEx logo, if you look closely at the "E" and the "X" you can see how they have used these two letters to create an arrow and as we all know, the company FedEx is all about moving forward or from A to B.

There are many companies that have been successful through the use of their icons, apple and Nike are the top two that have caught my eye, especially Nike, just because their logo has a lot of meaning behind it, which relates to what they are trying to promote. As for the Disney logo, this is a good example where a name has been used to represent the company, but also the name isn't just there to represent the man so much, however, it brings forth a theme of adventure and history of the company (for example, it was Walt Disney who made the classic characters, such as Mickey Mouse, come to life).

Slogans
Now the cheesy part of slogans. Slogans are another important aspect of promoting any company brand, if you look at Nikes "Just Do It" slogan, you can see how that brings forth the energy that collaborates well along side the message and theme they are trying to get across.

it is important to relate the slogans to the theme of the company. Just to recap, my company provides E - learning games for Interactive White Boards and other electrical devices. The Idea is to create a collaborative working environment between the teacher and the students through using a game to help simulate their learning process.

Here is a list of the slogans I have thought up so far: "Digital Enhancement", "Discover Learning", "Learning of Discovery", "Discover", "Exploring your Imagination", "Bring your mind to life", "Making learning fun", "Making learning interactive", "Bring enjoyment to your touch(or learning or education)", "Enjoy Learning", "The Interactive Learning Experience", "Thinking outside of the Book", "A Digital Adventure", "A Learning Adventure"

Out of all these slogans, the ones that i prefer are: "A Digital Adventure" and "The interactive Learning Experience". A Digital Adventure would be my first choice, just because the words that are used, such as adventure, bring to mind the idea of Games, exploring and traveling. Using the word Digital also gives people an idea to what field I am producing for.

Logo Development
After doodling on the A3 sheet for hours and generating mind maps on which names to use, I then went to a smaller sketchbook and started to refine my logo ideas. I liked the idea of using a bird as the icon to my company, at first I thought it was deemed cheesy to use your own name for a branding, but luckily, the word bird can be translated as either an object or as a name. Following Disney's example, I decided to stick with using the name Bird Interactive, or bird studios, Bird Digital, Bird Media... I haven't quite came to a decision on this matter.

Once I had started to finalize my logo in drawings, I imported the sketches into Adobe Illustrator, where I then started to vector trace over the image. Trying to get the curvature of the bird was a difficult task, because the one I had drawn, didn't seem to fit within a perfect circle as I had hoped it would. However, through using the alignments and using a perfect circle as the basic shape for the bird, I was then able to add in the additional curves for the wings and beaks, to form a well balanced icon.

Even though the image of the bird fits into a perfect circle, if you were to central align the bird in the outer circle, the whole image would look unbalanced. Thus, to counter this problem I have moved the bird just off the central position to the left.

Typefaces
After creating the icon for the logo, I then went into some research into what typeface to use. I started by looking at the typeface options that I have installed on my computer and selected the typefaces that I thought would be suitable. I also searched on a font website called Da Font, which allows you to download free fonts.

I also searched into what makes a good typeface and how best to utilize the styles you have. This one particular website covers 8 steps/ rules to creating an effective typeface.

http://designshack.net/articles/typography/8-rules-for-creating-effective-typography

This article also goes into the basic knowledge into how the anatomy works in a basic typeface.

The graph above shows the individual elements that make up a typeface.

I'm still unsure which typeface I want for my logo, ideally I would to prefer to develop my own personal typeface, just so the logo is more unique to others. It is very common for companies to use famous typefaces, for example, Marks and Spenser uses the same Helvetica typeface as BMW.

Current logo

Competitors:

BBC - BITESIZE
The BBC have an interactive learning section to their company called Bitesize, which provides e-learning revision and games for GCSE schools. Bitesize covers all national curriculum topics and is apart of key stages 1, 2 and 3.



mymaths.co.uk
My Maths is a UK based portal for schools and teachers to access Interactive White Board games and e learning material.,Schools buy into a 1 year license and have access to all the material on the website. My Maths only covers mathematical topics, which means there could still be an opportunity to expand on such an idea.

Research - 3 Similar Companies.

Task for this week is to research 3 similar companies, which can give you inspiration towards your own product or business idea.


Company 1.



EPIC WIN App

Epic win is an I Phone application, which allows users to incorporate a game into their every day tasks. The game works by creating a To Do List and each task has it’s own point scoring system. So the more points/tasks you do on your list, the more powerful your character gets and the further you progress through the game.

Selling: Available on I Tunes app store

Online marketing: youtube, vimeo, Itunes Application Store.

Target audience: 7+ (To who ever has an I phone and a list that needs doing).

Price: $2.99

Category: productivity

Management: A small independent game studio called Supermono manages the product.

Company 2.

Mathsframe.co.uk

Produces math’s games for Interactive white boards. The product is designed to make planning less time consuming and much easier to plan for teachers.

Selling: Online, with a sign up system for £10, which gives you access to all their sources.

Customers: Aimed at teachers or schools who are in need of a faster teaching solution.

Management: The games and the website are managed by a primary school teacher, who wanted an easier solution to his lessons.

Company 3

Crayon Physics Deluxe

Crayon Physics is a game created by KlooniGames. The game is a puzzle game that is based around the concept of physics. The game works by the user having to draw obstacles, to get their ball to hit a floating star. Once the star is caught, you can move onto the next level, which then progresses onto harder islands and other aspects of physics.

Selling: Available online, form

atted for PC, MAC and mobile phones.

This product is available for ages 4+.

Cost £4.99 for I phone

Management: Klooni Games Ltd manages this product.

SWOT Analysis -

SWOT is Strengths, weaknesses, Opportunies and Threats. SWOT analysis is there to ensure that you think of every positive and negative spectrum your business or idea can give.

Here is my SWOT analysis for the IWB e - learning game idea.

2 Minute Pitch Review - Apart from my pitch being awfully cheesy, I feel that I managed to put across my idea in a good enough fashion. However, there are a few changes that I would make differently, should I need to do it again. The first change would be to wear a better jumper, that doesn't roll down, I only say this because I've noticed that throughout the presentation I am constantly fiddling with it. Another aspect I would change would be my pronunciation of certain words, for example, instead of saying "theme of work" I should have said "scheme of work". Also another issue is that I talked over my allotted 2 minute period, which I'm surprised the teacher didn't saying anything on (thank goodness).

As for the audience feedback, I found it to be very constructive and has raised my awareness to the different directions I could take this project.


2 Minute Pitch

Following on from our previous lesson, when we were coming up with entrepreneur ideas for businesses and products. Our next task is to pitch a two minute presentation of a personal business ambition or an idea.

Quick run down of pitch:

- My company provides e - learning game solutions for Interactive White Boards for children aged 5 - 11 that covers key stages 1 and 2 (years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6). This will be implemented within the education system, i.e schools, colleges and universities.

(In using assets such as, social networks, online advertising on school sites and magazines, will be an effective way to market this product.

- The USP (unique selling point) of this product, is to establish a collaborative working environment, between the teacher and the students, through using a narrative interactive game.

- This would collaborate with teaching methods used from the National Curriculum and will be interchangeable according to their schemes of work.

- These e - learning game solutions could then be adapted for any screen base media, such as computer, mobiles and tablets.

For the level designs for each of the game levels, will follow the catergories of the attainment targets 1- 6, which are used in the Nation Curriculum.

Initial Idea
Following up on my 3 business ideas, I plan to investigate the business and development possibilities with creating e - learning games for the Interactive White Boards (IWB).

Interactive White Boards - Research
- Through my research I have found that there are in fact a number of different Interactive white boards, which are being used world wide, in schools, businesses and universities.

Promethean IWB

Two of the best selling companies for IWBs are Promethean and SMART. Promethean runs a software learning kit called ActivInspire, that enables students to engage and learn certain topics. SMART is another company that specializes in building interactive touch screen technology and is one of the commonly used interactive white boards used around in schools, businesses and education.

SMART IWB

- Looking into detail about the IWB, I can see how it can affect teaching, because of the touch screen interactivity, it could lead to lessons taking longer and also it diverts the attention more on the technology, rather on what is actually being learned. However, the structure on how the IWB is used in teaching their students, is up to the teacher to decide. Therefore, the speed and the rate on which the pupils are learning can be adjusted accordingly.

www.edgalaxy.com - This website talks about how they are creating cheaper interactive white boards, that don't actually need the use of a board, which will cut down the cost of the product. This website also gives teaching tips for e - learning games.

DAT304

Venture Culture DAT304
This modules introduces students to the concepts of entrepreneurship through the practical exploration of individual, collaborative and organization creative enterprise. Generating new ventures within the creative industries, the formation of prototype companies enables students to rehearse the commercialization of their practice.

Task One - Week 9
+ Think up 3 creative industry business ideas and proposals.

Game Development company for E - learning solutions
E - learning solutions for educational purposes - Provides mobile, online and printing methods to bring learning to an interactive and entertaining level.

Marketing Strategies
- Target games to specific audiences in schools.
- Online, use online mediums for advertising and worldwide usage.
- Mobile, use mobile phone applications for other means of entertainment and learning at the same time

Important - Target audiences, topics and what makes the company special.

Example company: Mutant Labs, www.mutantlabs.com

E - Learning - Whiteboard Games

As a new method of getting kids interested in technology and in learning, schools are now integrating interactive whiteboards. Interactive Whiteboards are connected to a computer, which is then displayed on a multitouch screen. The user uses a pen or in some cases their finger to control all the elements on the screen. Interactive whiteboards presents an opportunity to develop e - learning games that can cooperate along side the teachers subject and that can get students more engaged in learning.

Marketing: Schools, Magazines, Universities and online sources.

Product Design Company
Develop a unique style or brand that can be embedded inot a variety of products. (Clothes, Mugs, Sports Wear, Magazine promotions).

Marketing Strategies
- Online marketing, social networks
- Magazine advertising and promotional packages
- Approach other companies for product development

Example company: Toki Doki, www.tokidoki.it