A Long Quick Moment: SATC

I know this blog is meant to be about Quick Moments and instantaneous moments of happiness brought about by using technology but I can't help but comment on the fabulous evening I've just had. For the first time in my life I attended a movie on opening night that was sold out and it wasn't an action flick but a chick flick - Sex and the City, what else could it be? And the astonishing thing is I cannot recall ever going to a sell out movie where the audience was 90% female.

Now the interesting thing is I have only watched a couple of episodes as we don't have cable at our house. However there had been a vibe building around this movie that suggested it would be an experience.

For over 2 hours this movie held the audience captive - they laughed, cheered, and called out during the movie. There was camaraderie in the crowd. Imagine for years this audience had been watching the episodes in isolation of their homes, and finally everyone was out watching it together. It was absolutely an experience to see this movie on opening night to feel the female power in the theater. What was the magic formula and how can Hollywood produce more spellbinding block busters for women. I certainly hope so. And while it wasn't exactly a technological experience, maybe I can make it count that my friend ordered and paid for the tickets online before the show in fear it would sell out (how right she was).

BTW I was also very pleased to see included in the movie reference to 'Bag-Borrow-Steal' which I mentioned in my post in January. Such a cool idea, great to see it in operation in the film. Now to develop the life style for the bag.

Your Phone Video Clips in Overheated Symphony

I love media projects like this that take aspects of real life from around the world and creatively assemble them for a larger audience enjoyment. There is a film festival about to start in England called Birds Eye View (March 6-19). One creative project they have running is to collect phone videos (40 second to 4 minutes) submitted by women to their site. On March 9th Sarah Turner (film editor) will edit the clips to produce a film called Overheated Symphony. The film will be shown at the festival and then posted on their site.

What a fascinating project to get insights from women around the world - so many voices to listen to. I can't wait to see what they come up with. Video is being used much more now not only in casual home postings, but also as a medium to post comment to blogs or video postings. I'm curious to see how well video takes off as a feedback mechanism for companies. In my work as a user researcher we have known for years that a power video clip of a user having difficulties can impact a team to respond more than heaps more research and numbers. How will the use of video feedback to companies empower, or not women to impact the products they want? What types of skills will companies need to understand free form video feedback? Given women are known to be better at interpreting non-verbal communication will they be better judges of content? There are some interesting times ahead in the use of video.

Knowing the Movies are Always There

So who hasn't heard of Netflixs? Netflixs became part of our lives in 1999 when we had our first child. We love to go to movies, we're talking at least two or three times a week back in 99. Once realizing our evenings out where a little less frequent (though we made the most of going to cry rooms which are small rooms in movie theaters where you can take babies and still see new movies) we bought a big screen tv which came with a trial Netflix subscription. We've been hooked ever since. What's not to like about selecting endless films of your choice to be sent to your home, watched at leisure, and no late fees.

My only minor complaint was I'm surprised they haven't done much to evolve queue management over the years. All I want is to be able to say, 2 movies from this queue (mainstream), 1 from this one (documentary/foreign), and 1 from this one (kids). But with a bit of manual management it works just fine.

But what I tried today was an amazing quick moment! I finally got around to trying their Browse Selection (online viewing). I'd tried it a while ago but it was flakey, but now it's pretty darn great - it was a click-click experience with no thinking to install whatever pieces for viewing, and then the show started to stream - great picture quality, sound, etc. I'm hooked, or to be honest I love the idea that viewing content is available to me at the click of a button. I don't know when I'll really find time to watch something completely on my computer but simply knowing it's there waiting for me provides a quick moment of happiness. I had heard it was pretty good but finding time to try it just doesn't happened until now, but now I'm mentally hooked.