Summer has officially arrived, which means late evening barbecues, day trips to the beach, and weekend excursions out to the ballpark. For individuals like me, it’s an opportunity to really soak in all that Southern California has to offer, from impromptu trips to the beach to a night out under the palm trees in Downtown Los Angeles.
The special nature of all these events and the creation of memories in today’s version of summer is dramatically different from year’s past. Several decades ago we snapped our memories on polaroid cameras and today we opt for the selfie on our mobile devices. Furthermore, we also engage in our experiences, taking the time to explore related content which adds to the activities we partake in. Such is the story of IBM who has worked to innovate upon technological experiences at the Wimbledon tennis tournament for the past quarter century.
At this year’s Wimbledon, IBM is taking their technology game to the next level by introducing applications supported by the hybrid cloud. For example, employees this year will have access to the Cognitive Command Center which allows them to follow social media conversations around the event so the team can share more relevant and engaging content. This is already in addition to the available applications for attendees at and away from the event to follow all the action live.
The Summer Cloud Experience
If you manage a hot summer, year-round destination, or the movie theater down the street, you too can replicate the magic at Wimbledon. As consumers turn their experiences into stories, you can capitalize by developing similar technologies that tap into wants and needs. A few ideas come to mind:
- County fairs are popular destinations for tourists and locals alike who want to eat fried concoctions, pet live animals, and experience once-a-year entertainment. The experience can be augmented by offering location-based engagement points that appear when an attendee walks by a particular station. Attendees can be encouraged to share the experience, take a video, or invite a friend to join them. As the attendee experiences more of these stations, the associated software can build a profile and suggest the next point of interest to stop at.
- Summertime is perfect for baseball — and bots. With a rich history, baseball stadiums offer the perfect chance for the young child or longtime fan to learn about America’s past time in between pitches by talking to a bot. For the baseball statistics aficionado, getting sucked into a hybrid cloud baseball data engine might just be the perfect application to use in between handfuls of cracker jacks.
- Out here in California, the beach gets very crowded during the weekends and traffic becomes a nightmare towards the end of the day. Developing an application to optimize traffic might let beachgoers stay a little longer and enjoy the sun, versus sitting in the car regretting they hadn’t left.
What do you think? Do you have any ideas for experiences you can implement to create a memorable summer? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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