sign in sign up
<<
Home , ARToolKit, Google Glass, HTC Vive

THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES VOLUME 36, ISSUE 6, DECEMBER 2017

TECHNOLOGY 10 UX RULES! 19 OMNICHANNEL MARKETING 24 CHART YOUR COURSE TO VALUE-DRIVEN LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTORS

8 27 5 Graphic Design Tips To Take Your Navigating the Complex World Proposals to the Next Level of Marketing Technology BETSY LOEB, PLA, LEED AP, is marketing coordinator TIM ASIMOS, CPSM, is a strategist, writer, and for Stewart in Richmond, VA. She is active in SMPS national speaker. As VP and director of digital Virginia and will serve as Treasurer for 2018–19. She innovation at circle S studio in Richmond, VA, uses her background in communications, graphics, Asimos leads the agency in website development, and landscape architecture in one fun job. Contact her content marketing, lead generation, and marketing at 623.262.1025 or [email protected]. technology. Contact him at 804.232.2908 or [email protected].

10 32 UX Rules! How Interactive 3-D Reality Systems Enhance Client Engagement Keep Your Head in the Clouds, but Your Feet on the Ground Marketer Contributing Editor CRAIG PARK, FSMPS, Assoc. AIA, is a principal with The Sextant Group in ARIK BROOKS is the owner and co-founder of Omaha, NE. Park is an SMPS Fellow, past Society SoSimple Interactive, a custom A/E/C website design president, and the 2007 Weld Coxe Marketing and application development firm based in Wolcott, CT. Achievement Award recipient. Contact him at He is also owner of Untapped Resources, a design and 402.932.6121, x341, or [email protected]. advertising agency. Contact him at 203.887.6048 or [email protected]. TERRY CAYWOOD, CPSM, is the director of marketing for The Sextant Group in Pittsburgh, PA. Caywood can LINDSEY MATHIEU is the owner and founder of be contacted at 412.323.8580, x105, or Golden Egg Concepts in Colchester, CT. She provides [email protected]. graphic design, web development, proposal prepara- tion, and strategic planning for A/E/C development and real estate clients. Contact her at 860.531.9721 or [email protected].

19 Omnichannel Marketing: Catching Up to the 35 Future of B2B SMPS Member Spotlight IDA CHEINMAN is principal/creative director of Substance151, a strategic brand communications firm MINDY M. BACON, M.S., CPSM, is vice president, in Baltimore, MD. She is a designer, strategist, tech director of marketing for the Bacon Group, Inc., in geek, writer, speaker, and huge fan of all things Clearwater, FL. Bacon is responsible for marketing and SMPS. Contact her at 410.732.8379 or public relations, proposal writing and coordination, and [email protected]. business development. Contact her at 727.725.0111 or [email protected].

24 38 Chart Your Course to Value-Driven Leadership A 360-Degree View of Marketing/ JEN MCGOVERN, CPSM, is mid-Atlantic regional BD Technology marketing manager for VHB in Vienna, VA. McGovern serves as the Director of the Career Advancement SHELLEY SHAFFER is the vice president and director Committee for SMPS Washington, D.C. Contact her at of marketing at HKS in Richmond, VA. Working with all 571.389.8171 or [email protected]. 24 offices, she is a strategist, collaborator, and problem-solver. Contact her at 804.644.2905 or [email protected].

JEFFREY M. TAUB, CPSM, is senior technical director for business development at AKRF, Inc., in New York, NY. He is a former SMPS chapter president, current member of SMPS chapter and regional conference committees, and prior contributor to Marketer. Contact him at 646.388.9857 or [email protected].

6 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES UX Rules! How Interactive 3-D Reality Systems Enhance Client Engagement

By Craig Park, FSMPS, Assoc. AIA, User experience (UX) design is the next “new with Terry Caywood, CPSM thing” in professional services. From marketing to projects, client-facing experiential-design thinking is changing the ways firms position, promote, sell, and deliver their services. Today, using advanced 3-D visualization technologies—drawing on more than two decades of some of Silicon Valley’s technology company best practices—the A/E/C industries are catching up fast, showing clients something they’ve never experienced before.

10 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES Lynx Center, Colorado University Denver Student Commons Building, Denver, CO. ©BradNicolPhotography, bradnicolphotography.com.

Do You See What I See? users to interact in a Star Trek holodeck- One of the biggest challenges A/E/C style experience. (See sidebar, “Cool Tools firms face is helping the client visualize for Creating Your Own UX.”) the potential results of the design, engineering, and construction processes. This Is How We Do It… As one of Marketer’s Contributing Editors, To get a feel for where our industry is Marjanne Pearson of Talentstar once said heading, we interviewed several firms that about marketing professional services, have been using visualization technologies “It’s like selling the amorphous to the for marketing and as a key component of uninformed.” That’s not a challenge to their design practice. take lightly, but one where advanced user experience design can make all the Arash Irani, visualization specialist at difference. SmithGroupJJR, describes that the company-wide investment in VR In the past, design ideas were developed technologies includes the goal of having using 2-D drawings, which often elicited a dedicated VR space in every office. “In the customer’s nodding agreement, only our Chicago office, we use HTC Vive VR to result in “I didn’t think it would look like headsets with wall-mounted sensors and that…” at project completion. This would specialized in a purpose-built happen even when those drawings were 250-square-foot VR space that allow our supplemented by models and renderings. architects to work directly with clients to Customer understanding was good, but experience design concepts.” Some of not always great. their VR content includes realistic medical operating suites. “New advances in VR With the advent of 3-D building software and hardware will allow clients to information modeling (BIM) tools like not only look around the room, but to also SketchUp™ and Revit™, enhanced by be able to move/relocate furnishings to various rendering tools like Enscape, better configure the space.” designers could display realistic walk- through models using projected images For marketing, Irani says that VR or large flat-panel screens. These more goggles—using a SmithGroupJJR- effectively showed what the final project branded version of Cardboard would look and feel like when complete. goggles—and AR (with ) are used for interviews to show a selection committee Today, designers are using augmented design ideas. “We often include a URL reality (AR) and (VR) to in our proposals that takes a potential any design firms are give the client an even more realistic client to cloud-stored visual designs that investing heavily in learning, experience of walking through life-like they can experience using our branded applying, and enhancing and at-scale models of their projects. goggles.” client engagement using Combining these technologies, there M are now (MR) systems, like RDG Planning & Design began by using 3-D technologies to improve both the accessibility and level of collaboration in Microsoft’s HoloLens, that merge real and AR, taking iPads to interviews and their client interactions. User experience virtual worlds to create environments and allowing the selection committee to design improves the traditional, personal visualizations where physical and digital see an overlay of a 3-D building design relationship-building of the business objects co-exist. Further, companies concept through the iPad screen overlaid developers by extending the conceptual from aerospace to land development onto a physical model of the site. They experience of two-dimensional (2-D) are building advanced immersive reality found this had a wow factor, as it also drawings to a three-dimensional (3-D) spaces—known as a Computer Aided allowed for immediate client feedback— virtual representation of how services, and Virtual Environment or CAVE—combining interactions that made the interview the resulting project, will be delivered. VR with architecture to allow multiple process more effective.

MARKETER DECEMBER 2017 11 RDG principal Joe Lang comments, and visualization and began using VR “We’ve moved on from several years ago. Brandon Wlosinski, and are now regularly using virtual reality the firm’s manager of virtual design and technologies with a combination of HTC construction notes, “We’ve been using Vive headsets and the Enscape Revit VR for both marketing purposes and for plug-in. Where the Vive is great for giving design review of ideas. We found that an individual the walk-through experience, is a very inexpensive displaying the Enscape rendering on a and useful tool. Combined with Enscape, large screen is a great way to engage a it’s a simple, fast way to show the spatial large group with a simulation of what the qualities of the design idea with clients space will be like.” and collaborators and get feedback on the design. It’s been an important part of our Lang notes that from a marketing process for acquisition of work.” perspective, it can be challenging to use VR in an interview, given limited time and Dan Siroky, architectural technology and software—develop in such a short logistics, but having it there can still be specialist at BNIM, adds, “Today, plugins timeframe.” useful. He says, “You have to really think to Revit, like IrisVR, make VR an easy, through your marketing objectives. In an portable, and quick way to render that Aubrey Tucker, innovative technology interview, a short video of someone using takes little or no time, and allows clients developer at Stantec Architecture, com- VR can be more effective than trying to to be able to see a 3-D space quickly. It is ments, “Interactive BIM is our holy grail— get the selection committee to use the a good way to start the conversation, and being in an environment that responds technology. While there certainly is a wow entice them to consider full-scale VR in in real-time and allows for complex data factor to consider, showing VR is less the design process.” manipulation that is effortless in its exe- about the moment of the interview than cution. We want things to be simple and about educating our clients about what Dan Brown, graduate architect at BNIM, intuitive so that we can get more people our capabilities are.” notes, “We’ve used VR in interviews to participate and capture their input for and events to showcase our technical a truly collaborative process. If we do our Ron Heims, RDG’s principal and IT prowess. In one instance, we created a job right, the technology is invisible and director, adds, “We see some version VR model that allowed clients to navigate the ability is greatly enabled.” of mixed reality as the next frontier, the full buildout of a master plan concept. combined with data science. Imagine It was a very effective way to stimulate Brendan Mullins, an associate at Stantec being able to simulate a scenario, and engage them in the conversation Architecture, is currently leading a overlaying the VR images with content about the goals for that development.” company-wide research and development drawn from data from the client’s current grant exploring how the firm can integrate Brown adds, “The VR toolset is continually facility usage—circulation and traffic VR into its design practice. “Using cutting- adapting and evolving and becoming more patterns, weather, even population density edge, real-time visualization and virtual streamlined. We’re beginning to use it over time—to illustrate how buildings will reality technology gives both our design to engage the clients early in the design actually be used.” staff and clients the chance to occupy process, where VR helps with visualizing unbuilt projects in first person. This has At BNIM, VR content is being developed design iterations in a much more fluid and democratized our designs, allowing staff for a wide variety of projects. BNIM adaptable process. It’s been interesting and clients at any level to understand our recognized the potential for technology to watch the technology—hardware

12 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES Deloitte offices, Denver, CO. Turner Construction Company. ©BradNicolPhotography, bradnicolphotography.com.

projects the way they are supposed to be Those looking to create group collaborative collaborating on a design, something a experienced: at human scale. As a firm, interactions in a virtual environment turn single HMD does not provide.” we continue to innovate and strategize to a Computer Aided Virtual Environment, methods to stay at the forefront of this or CAVE. These three-, four-, or six-sided Why the Focus on UX? emerging technology by supporting purpose-built spaces use rear-projected UX design’s main goal is to solve a and funding research by staff, always images on special glass surfaces or an client’s problem and the technology for encouraging us to be forward thinkers.” array of flat-screen displays to create communicating the design is critical to spaces where 3-D images can be viewed. the ultimate success of the project or Finally, Bostwick Design Partnership’s interaction. AR, VR, MR and immersive BIM manager, Rami Berner, says, “While Mechdyne has been creating 3-D virtual reality design strategies are quickly we use VR in projects, the extent of our environments for clients for more than becoming established methods where marketing use is to show that we do it, 20 years. As both pioneers and market marketing and design work together to not to actually put headsets on everyone. leaders in the development of immersive create a truly memorable user experience. On one project, we used 3-D panoramas technologies, Mechdyne is at the and Google Cardboard headsets to forefront of CAVE development. Kurt Making UX a focus for your marketing evaluate designs and finishes. Later, in Hoffmeister, vice president of research effort can net results that clearly design, we did a true VR walkthrough and development, says, “Not everyone is distinguish your firm from your session with Rift to engage all the comfortable with wearing head-mounted competitors. For the A/E/C communities, users. We also did a walkthrough with displays (HMDs). Many times, our clients new visualization technologies offer the client’s physical plant staff to help combine a large screen or multisided an enhanced and engaging user them understand a particularly complex CAVE that mirrors the virtual environment experience with interactions that can be mechanical room.” view on the HMD. Think of it as a two- designed, refined, and customized for player game where one player leads the each unique client. n Beyond the Single User Experience game, but several people can have a See the sidebar on page 14, "Cool Tools One of the challenges of the current AR, mutual viewpoint. The advantage of the CAVE is that it can be a shared view or for Creating Enhanced UX," for definitions MR, and VR technologies is that they are, and descriptions of new and emerging for the most part, single-user experiences. an independent view for a small group visualization technologies and products.

MARKETER DECEMBER 2017 13 Cool Tools for Creating Enhanced UX By Craig Park, FSMPS, Assoc. AIA

Augmented reality (AR) is a live direct or Virtual reality (VR) is a computer indirect view—often using tablets, mobile technology that uses virtual reality phones, or specialized head-mounted headsets—sometimes in combination displays (e.g., )—of a physical, with physical spaces or multi-projected real-world environment whose elements environments—to generate realistic are “augmented” by computer-generated images, sounds, and other sensations sensory input such as sound, video, that simulate a user’s physical presence 3D Systems, Littleton, CO. Tenant Planning Services. ©BradNicolPhotography, bradnicolphotography.com. graphics, or GPS data. in a virtual or imaginary environment. A person using VR equipment is able to AR enhances the viewer’s current “look around” the artificial world, and perception of reality, whereas in contrast, with high quality VR move about in it and ¡ virtual reality replaces the real world with a interact with virtual features or items. VR : The Oculus Rift is a simulated one. Augmentation techniques headsets are head-mounted goggles with powerful, low-cost, PC-tethered VR are typically performed in real time and in a screen in front of the eyes. VR systems system for creating an immersive VR context with environmental elements, such may include audio and sounds through experience that works with Oculus and as overlaying supplemental information like speakers or headphones. SteamVR platforms. It does not provide scores over a live video feed of a sporting for whole-room VR, and requires four event. The worldwide phenomena of Check out these resources: USB ports to fully function. Pokémon Go is an excellent example of AR. oculus.com/rift ¡ Enscape: A Revit plugin for simple and ¡ SmartReality: This software was Check out these resources: fast 3-D and “walk-through” content designed for the A/E/C sectors and creation. works with many 3-D software ¡ ARToolKit: An open- tracking enscape3D.com library for augmented reality. Supported programs, including Revit. It allows ¡ platforms: Android, iOS, , View: A step up from users to turn 2-D plans into interactive Windows, Mac OS, and Smart . Google Cardboard, and an affordable 3-D models on a tablet or through a VR and comfortable gateway to virtual headset like the Oculus Rift VR smart .org worlds—there just aren’t many to visit glasses. Project team members can use ¡ Augment: An iOS and Android app lets yet. This is more comfortable than other SmartReality to scan their paper plans users overlay building plans, marketing mobile VR headsets. Included remote with the device’s camera, syncing it materials, and other 2-D collateral on a control is easy to use, but very little with the correct 3-D model. 3-D BIM model. hardware and software support so far. smartreality.co augmentedev.com madeby.google.com/vr ¡ EasyAR: A free and easy-to-use ¡ HTC Vive: A comprehensive PC- alternative to Vuforia. Supported tethered VR system that supports both Computer Aided Virtual Environments platforms: Android, iOS, UWP, motion controls and whole-room VR. It (CAVE): This was originally developed in Windows, Mac, and Editor. provides an immersive experience and 1992 at the Electronic Visualization Lab easyar.com is expensive. Tethered headsets make (EVL), University of Illinois, Chicago. It is an immersive reality environment where ¡ Visidraft: An iOS app to let project whole-room VR tricky. teams see building products and other vive.com/us projected images or flat-screen displays are directed on three to six of the walls elements, such as furniture, a ¡ IrisVR: An immersive architecture plugin (floor and ceiling) of a room-sized cube. 3-D CAD model of a space. Compatible for VR. It works with SketchUp, Revit, with models from Autodesk’s AutoCAD, Groups of users wear 3-D glasses, similar Rhino , and creates panoramas in to those used in commercial movie Revit, and 3DS Max platforms, as well the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Google as Trimble’s SketchUp, Nemetschek theaters, and an operator with a gaming- Daydream. style joystick to navigate through what Vectorworks, and Graphisoft’s irisvr.com ArchiCAD. appears to be a virtual 3-D space. ¡ Microsoft HoloLens: The first self- visidraft.com contained, holographic computer Creating the types of 3-D spaces ¡ Vuforia: One of the most popular enables users to experience MR that are truly immersive is more platforms to help you work with AR engagements with digital content and science than art. Checkout Mechdyne development. Supported platforms: interact with holograms in the world (www.mechdyne.com) and Eon Reality Android, iOS, UWP, and Unity Editor. around them. (www.eonreality.com). These firms are developer.vuforia.com microsoft.com/en-us/hololens leading the way. n

14 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES