Reporting live from Vancouver: sharing the experience has never been easier
Near where I am staying in Vancouver is an interesting public pavilion, put on by Yahoo!, called Fancouver which is "an entertainment center where all fans can go to enjoy the games." This is a cool idea, enriching the experience of fans so they can share their time in Vancouver with family and friends from around the world.
This setup got me thinking about the sharing of the Games experience. Clearly, part of the fun of being at the Games is sharing it with others. I was thinking about the difference in sharing now versus Olympic Games from an earlier era, say the '72 Winter Games in Tokyo. We now are able to upload to facebook, send a text messages, shoot out an email, jump on a web conference or any other of the myriad of communication methods we now have at our disposal. Back in '72 I imagine that a phone call would have been a pretty big deal, and a postcard would have been the norm. We now have a much more immersive media life, which I for one am grateful for.
Here is an example of the enriching quality of our collaborative options came during the hockey game yesterday. I was very excited to share the experience of being there with some of my family and friends as I knew they would be excited to have that connection to the Games. So, I blasted out a text to some folks, and in a small way they were transported into the arena with me. I could tell that they were excited to be a part of the Games in this way, since they all wrote back their excitement. The Games became more personal for everyone.
When this communication became interesting, and two-way, was during the video review of a potential goal for the Swiss team. From my view and in real time game speed, it was impossible to say for sure one way or the other whether the puck went in the net. There is a policy during live events to not show replays that are still under official review. So, me and 18,000 of my closest friends were waiting with baited breath to see the results of the review. However, I had an ace in my back pocket, as a friend all the way back East was kind enough to let me know what he thought after watching the slow motion reviews on the NBC TV feed in the United States. So, here I was a hundred feet from the goal, but getting meaningful and useful updates from 3,000 miles away.
This is a great example of instantaneous communication in action, and the enriching quality of the communication. These kinds of 2-way interactions via robust networks that make the Olympics more fun, both here in Vancouver and around the world. Here in Vancouver, Avaya is the Official Converged Network Equipment Supplier, for Bell Canada's deployment of the first all-IP converged network at an Olympic Games.
Don't forget to follow green avaya on twitter at @greenavaya.
Posted 25 Feb 2010 at 01:58 PM