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Manipal Digital is a premier global brand servicing agency that facilitates brands to go to market with innovative and creative solutions.

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Latest Trends in Packaging Design

Packaging design has evolved into almost a new category in artistic expression- one where marketers, graphic artists, printing experts, and consumer behavior specialists come together to invent new ideas to keep brand messaging and consumer interest fresh. In the arena of commercial art, packaging design has also become something of a time capsule- with marketing cycles becoming shorter and shorter; packaging design can often reflect the mood of the times. In the past years, functional elements have included see-through packaging, plastic-free or biodegradable containers, and reusable or multi-functional packaging, in keeping with brands’ messaging about their eco-friendliness. On the creative side, art philosophies like minimalism or maximalism, color gradients, and even optical illusions have been used to grab and hold consumer’s curiosity.

There’s also been a new wave of fine art-styled, beautiful and original artwork that would be as much at home as a painting on a wall as a packaging design. The mood is one of freshness, re-birth, and a continuation of trends like storytelling from years past.

1.Illustrations that hint what’s inside This one is a brilliant play on achieving functionality with beauty. It’s also really intelligent. When you look closer, the illustrations reveal the product too. This is quite distinct from a straight-up image of the product, which is frankly, an old hat. Second, it communicates the product, as well as the mood that the consumer can expect to be in when the product is used.

2. Anatomical or Technical Drawings with fine detail Remember those beautiful hand-drawn ink & pencil illustrations of exotic birds and animals on yellowed paper? This new packaging design trend takes its inspiration from the detailed, anatomically, and technically correct drawings of the 19th and 20th centuries, featuring anything from birds and insects to balloons and ships.

3. Bold Geometry, solid color, and organic color blocks Bold is good. The Monotone is bold. That’s the theme that many brands have adopted this year. In a sense, “go bold or go home” seems to be the shoot-from-the-hip, no BS messaging that brands seem to want to convey to keep their message simple.

4. Fine Art Beauty, it turns out, isn’t just in the eye of the beholder. It is a complete experience, full of smell, taste, and touch. In this next trend, graphic artists have taken things to a whole new level, blending the visual impact as well as the textural experience of fine art to inspire awe and longing in the consumer. Fine art forces viewers to peer closer, trying to peel layer after layer of experience, searching for emotions deep within themselves, as if like Pygmalion falling in love with his own reflection in a pool of water.

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Augmented Reality and How it is Helps Retailers Grow Their Business

Augmented Reality is not a new concept. In Retail, AR made its first appearance in the early 2010s. In the following ten years since its introduction, the technology environment is very different. Powerful smartphones, fast mobile internet, platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and Google with built-in AR technology, and specialized technologies like LiDAR and SLAM are advancing AR with fast wireless internet. That’s not to say that AR isn’t driving engagement and sales already. Retailers are already creating user experiences with AR that are driving engagement and sales significantly.

AR Events Marketing events can be grand things, like major movie productions or like modernized versions of medieval country fairs where people congregate to show off their best work to willing audiences. The problem is, these are physical events that translate rather poorly to be televised or broadcast using traditional methods. This development is still early in its evolution. The first virtual catwalk of a supermodel at a major fashion show happened just about a year ago. As live events continue to get canned around the world, an entire industry has sprung up offering AR conferences and expos for all sorts of industries. Such events offer a great way to continue interacting with industry contacts and discover the latest and greatest in one’s field of interest.

Product Visualization and Customization Of all AR applications, this category has received the most attention, and with good reason. For a long time now, online retailers and shoppers have been aware of and have lived with a big flaw in the shopping experience- the inability to trial products before purchase. While the current state of AR cannot solve this problem completely, especially regarding products where feel, smell, or touch is very important, it can certainly address the “look” part of “look & feel” through realistic, real-time renders. This has already become important in the online beauty, jewellery, and footwear retail spaces. The real estate, interior decoration, furniture, and automotive industries have also adopted AR with enthusiasm. Other consumer goods categories, from Food & Beverage to sports gear and adventure, are experimenting with AR to improve user engagement on roads, in shopping centers, and even at home.

AR is also being adopted by malls and supermarkets to attract buyers in a variety of methods. While some sellers prefer Spatial AR that guides shoppers inside stores, others like Walmart and Carrefour prefer AR to create immersive experiences that improve activation or interaction with special signage that gets shoppers to walk around and discover more goods inside the physical stores.

Gamified Social Experiences Remember those big-name bookstores from the 90s where you could browse as long as you wanted, buy a coffee, even play a boardgame? Now imagine that in virtual space. Gamified social experiences are the next big thing in Augmented Retail. Brands like Estee Lauder, Burberry, Gucci, and many others are partnering with platforms like Snapchat to create video apps, mobile game arcades, and virtual storefronts to align with a lifestyle that Burberry’s SVP of Digital Commerce, Mark Morris calls "…living in a gamified environment both online and offline".

Retail of virtual products It would definitely be negligent on our part if we didn’t at least give a nod to the phenomenon of virtual products retail. In short, virtual products refer to digital renders meant for use or possession inside virtual environments but paid for with real money. Before you dismiss this as a gag or fad, consider this: By 2022, the global market for digital products like skins is expected to cross $50 billion.

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5G and how it will impact the digitization of business

Introduction 5G, the next generation of a mobile telephone, is now getting rolled out around the world. This new evolution of mobile data transfer standards is a revolution in the making for two reasons- very high data transfer speeds and very low latency compared to 4G-LTE, the state-of-the-art technology today that individuals and companies use today.

IoT

The idea of IoT, or the "Internet of Things" is extremely enticing. Envision dozens or even hundreds of embedded sensors measuring all kinds of parameters, from the body temperature of athletes to packages in eCommerce delivery chains, and relaying the information in real-time for analysis and corrective actions. These IoT applications enabled by the blazing fast speed and low latency of 5G will revolutionize smart manufacturing, remote healthcare, self-driven automobiles, and much more.

Mixed Reality

We mentioned the ultra-fast data transfer and ultra-low latency of 5G earlier. In as little as three years after 5G rollout, consumer AR/VR devices like headsets are expected to explode, spawning new industries to create, transmit and consume AR & VR data like movies and video games, as well as pure B2B applications like collaborative engineering. The innovation opens up new ways for consumers to experience products, like Khaite’s blending of AR and offline fashion material like vinyl records and photographs to create a new sensory experience, or last year’s virtual catwalk by a supermodel at the London Fashion Show to usher in a new era of high tech fashion experiences.

Enhanced Operational Effectiveness and Positive Social Impact with Teleoperation

Beyond self-driving cars and AR-powered fashion, 5G is expected to revolutionize how companies do material handling and supply chain management with enhanced worker safety and ergonomics. For example, Starsky Robotics is developing its fleet of commercial trucks, which blend teleoperation and autonomous driving. However, once stabilized in the commercial space, this teleoperation + autonomous operating model could become the mainstay in operating all sorts of vehicles, from taxis and commercial trucks to drones, harbor cranes, and vehicles in the mining and farming industries.

Conclusion The above three use cases are just a few of the myriad of changes about to come in the next few years. Not all business models will mature at the same time, but 5G is a key functional driver to realize the economic value of these and hundreds of more use cases in manufacturing, Mobility, Healthcare, Financial Services, Retail, Energy, and Media industries. At the governmental level, 5G represents an attractive backbone technology to drive social and environmental benefits by enabling remote learning and making homes, workplaces and cities smarter.

Ready to make your business 5G ready? Manipal Digital Systems partners with design firms, manufacturers, transporters, and educators to identify and implement new ways to bring efficiency and innovation to create business advantage with technology. Contact us today for a free consultation!

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Artificial Intelligence, The next big thing

Introduction Artificial Intelligence is the 21st century’s equivalent of Electricity. Some have even called it "more significant than electricity and fire". Elaborate concepts have been written about the potential of AI in various industries and the transformative potential of this technology in virtually every aspect of modern life, from smarter appliances to AI becoming so smart it can pose philosophical, even existential questions.

The Nature of AI

At its core, AI refers to a software system or software-driven robotic system that does tasks normally associated with human intelligence, like reasoning, decision making, and learning. This approach makes it quite distinct from traditional computer programming, which is essentially a series of sequential steps which a computer system executes without concern for the input.

AI systems have three potential advantages over traditional systems:

1. An AI algorithm can be trained by humans, other AI systems, and even itself without updating the code itself, to solve progressively more complex problems; 2. AI systems can utilize the vast reams of data produced by sensors and digital devices to produce more accurate results faster, where traditional systems and people would simply be overwhelmed; and 3. AI systems can take on tasks of ambiguity that are simply outside the capability of traditional computer systems.

Domains of AI and their use in Image processing Modern digital image and video processing are based on identifying and manipulating characteristics of screen pixels that form edges, shapes, and shades in a single or multiple frames. AI’s various methodologies can be used to automate these tasks for further processing.

AI systems can take on tasks of ambiguity that are simply outside the capability of traditional computer systems.

Consider the first use case- changing the color of a shirt in a digital image. Currently, this can be achieved either by a person manually using a photo-editing software package like Photoshop or via an automation script. However, the automation script is "dumb"- it can change the color of any object in the image but cannot identify the shirt from a chair, meaning significant human involvement is still necessary. Enter Machine Learning.

Machine Learning- Let us continue with the above example of identifying a shirt in an image using machine learning . In a "standard" or "supervised" Machine ML algorithm, several images of shirts are "tagged" with the desired characteristics such as edges, and the resulting dataset is given as input to the ML algorithm as "training".

This can work well for relatively simple images, but more complex work is too difficult for standard ML systems to handle. When faced with such difficulties, methodologies other than standard ML are needed.

Fuzzy Logic Systems- "Fuzzy" logic is the concept of accounting for ambiguity by assigning it a mathematical value. In the context of image processing, this can be assigned values between 0 and 1 to pixels that are neither totally dark or black nor totally lit up or white . For example, an off-white might be assigned the value 0.1, pale yellow 0.2, dark gray 0.8, and so on. Creating a quasi-continuous logical framework like this allows AI systems to is incredibly useful when we consider the real world as an analog world consisting of continuous processes. In the world of image processing, Fuzzy logic systems can simplify edge detection of objects, among other applications.

Sometimes, the ambiguity in an image may have nothing to do with an "in-between", but instead with a gap in the "knowledge" of the system. In other words, the object in the picture may mean nothing to the average person but holds immense meaning to a domain expert, like a doctor looking at an ultrasound or an x-ray. These are called "Expert Systems". Expert Systems- Expert Systems are more than just AI algorithms. This "human in the loop" model allows AI to access uniquely human knowledge and is therefore extremely useful as an "intelligent assistant" to solve complex problems within a specific domain.

Neural Networks- Biological neural networks refer to the complex matrix of interconnected neurons that make up brains- especially human brains. The curious thing about NNs is the way they solve problems. As a result, NNs can achieve incredible tasks like creating new music, composing poetry, and blending the painting styles of several artists to create original artwork. The results tend to be unpredictable, with most results often being nonsensical, but even the few acceptable results point to a truly astonishing practical possibility for the future! In the context of commercial visual art, NNs can be used to create animations, generate 3D characters for various applications, and perform tasks like image composition.

Natural Language Processing- NLP is a branch of AI that seeks to simplify the way humans interact with AI systems by using human language patterns for ease of use for people, converting them on the backend to machine-understandable instructions and feedback. The process is two-way. Some NLP systems are utilized in speech-to-text conversions, others in IVR systems, and still others in voice search.

Image processing vendors in the future will need to be more than users of image and video manipulation software. They will increasingly create value for their customers by also enabling smart utilization of assets by being experts in AI applications for image and video for digital media. Manipal Digital Systems creates unique business value for its clients in eCommerce, Fashion, Packaging, eLearning, and Media through end-to-end software + visual graphics services. Contact us and let us help you in unleashing the power of AI for your business.

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The Rise of Image Post-Processing Industry

21st-century humanity is a digital image civilization. Commercial photography has gone almost completely digital, both in the shoots as well as post-production. Before that, commercial visual image production was a largely centralized activity, from planning and shooting the images to the pain-staking, slow, highly creative process of post-production involving scissors, glue, and even tabletop chemistry.

Modern Image Post-Processing Industry Ever since Kodak pioneered the software outsourcing business model in the late 1980s, every industry raced to incorporate outsourcing into its supply chain to achieve greater efficiency. The commercial photo industry achieved this in the late 90s, assisted by the rise of industry-leading tools like Photoshop and access to high-speed internet.

While expertise and capabilities vary between each company, the best Tier I operators are large, sophisticated setups in their own right and can help companies achieve most or all of the following:

1. Deep domain knowledge of standards and aesthetic preferences in fashion, ecommerce, food & beverage, etc. 2. A high degree of volume flexibility to suit companies’ cyclical or business needs; 3. Expertise in multiple state of the art tools such as image editing, 3D, illustrations, publishing, etc. High-quality talent to brainstorm original ideas for effect creation Cutting edge software skills in AI, automation, quality control, etc. to achieve high levels of cost and quality control; and In-built transparency of workflow, costing, and access to decision-makers to resolve issues.

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A beginner’s guide to AI Style Transfer

In recent years AI has become intertwined in our everyday lives. From globally available, real-time maps to newer applications like self-driving cars, it seems AI is everywhere. AI is even one of humanity’s main trump card to solve enormous challenges like climate change, cancer research, agriculture, etc. However in creative fields like cinema, music or art AI has played only a supportive role, such as recognizing and sorting images. While this is very useful, it is not central to the creative process itself. A recently invented technique called "Style Transfer" seeks to change that. This is a revolutionary step in art "creation", both because the computer program independently makes the decision what aspects of the reference art to pick up to apply to the target art and as opposed to older techniques, does not need a pair of photo and art of the same subject to compare, thus allowing the reference art to be pretty much anything.

All the big players in the image processing hardware and software field- Adobe, Google, Microsoft, NVidia and a host of small AI specialists as well as several universities are working on their own versions of Style Transfer for images, art and video. It isn’t difficult to understand why. In an age where over three-fourths of all web traffic is audio-visual, a technique like Style Transfer is worth its weight in gold. Entire new stylizations for video, animation and still imagery can now become available to graphic and CGI artists, creative directors, advertisers as well as the rest of us in a variety of programs, from professional to freeware, opening all sorts of new possibilities for digital advertising. In one case, the website offers multiple stylizations in various artistry movement styles, from Renaissance to Cubism and allow unlimited experimentation. Once the user has found a style that creates the desired effect on the target photo, the website scans the result, recommends the medium, and offers the user a chance to order a real painting in the style the user has just created, thus creating participative art where the user creates the concept while the company executes.

Style Transfer also creates opportunities for growth for existing professional companies involved in commercial image processing, such as large outsourcing companies already proficient in image manipulation techniques. For instance, with minimal skill upgradation and workflow changes they can offer commercial style transfer services to their clients and can execute them based on the creative requirements, by tying up with a company proficient in computer vision and CNN-based Style Transfer techniques.

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Maximalism, and Why it Matters to Packaging Designers

Introduction to Maximalism There is a standing joke among advertisers- "If the branding is good but the product is bad, it will eventually fail. If the product is good but the branding is bad, it will fail immediately!" After all, product packaging is a sort of "emotion gateway", creating visual and tactile stimuli that make consumers develop attitudes towards the product before it is even unveiled. Brands know this, and go to great lengths to ensure packaging is consistent with the overall brand message. They also work hard to keep their visual looks fresh and contemporary, often by creating new designs based on emerging visual trends in popular media, pop culture or the Art Scene.

One of the most distinctive of these art world-inspired packaging design styles is Maximalism, which arose in the late 1970s as a counterweight to the Minimalist movement. Where Minimalism eliminates as much detail as possible to focus on the subject, Maximalism emphasizes celebration of opulence, and layered complexity.

Maximalism in Packaging

Visual design of packaging is still very much a marketing activity. After all, packaging Choose a Maximalist design scheme with a repeating theme, like Celtic runes, Indian temple art, Mayan wheels etc. to frame or emphasize the package, combining it with the right color tones Pair designs with the right surface. On-package designs are great at attracting attention in the store, but packaging gets discarded relatively quickly. On the other hand, on-container designs will remain visible for a longer time Remember that Minimalism has influenced packaging for a long time, for both design and economic reasons Finally, harmonize your design with the overall modern aesthetic in mind.

Get it right with balance

Maximalist designs need careful curation of the many patterns and elements to be done right, much like a composer designs a symphony. And just like a good piece of music, an attractive packaging design evokes interest in the consumer by achieving balance and applying context in the design. Apply context to the design by using themes, colors and textures that reinforce the brand. For example, Ample Hills Creamery, an ice cream brand known for its good quality and quirky flavors like "Ooey Gooey Butter Cake" reinforces its local, middle-class, home-spun roots by using crayon art and a bright red color scheme from its lids to its font, reminiscent of childhood and simple pleasures. Ample Hills extended their Maximalist approach by changing their container shape from round to square, not only to attract attention, but in the words of co-founder Brian Smith, "to better tell an illustrated story through time- kind of like an illustrated children’s book or comic strip.

A great use of Maximalism art in packaging is to infuse energy and blast the senses with distinctive designs that stay in the mind for a long, long time. Look at these can and label designs commissioned by Indeed Brewing, and Jack Jeckel’s Pepper Sauce respectively. The former, a craft beer’s design is all about vivid color, motion, and sparkle, while the latter’s design, a throwback to psychedelic, hippie music of the 60s and 70s leaves a distinct memory of a "cloud of green", vaguely reminiscent of a hot pepper sauce! Use of color and pattern can be powerful associative techniques for marketers!

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The Story of Packaging- A Design Trend for 2020 You Never Saw Coming!

The age of packaging as "just a box" is long gone. Today’s product packaging is one of the three most important channels that brands use to get customer engagement. While this is true for all consumer brands, it is especially important for brands that rely largely or solely on ecommerce, as they have to find a way to make up for the inherent disadvantages of ecommerce- the inability to touch and where appropriate, smell the products before purchase. Packaging has grown beyond functional necessity or shallow advertisement to become a medium for all kinds of messaging, from social awareness to entertainment in a way that appeals to the modern, informed, connected consumer.

Attraction

Choice is good. It reflects the diversity of people and fosters competition. However customers on eCommerce sites or huge warehouse-style supermarkets often experience an overwhelming feeling, as hundreds of individual brand "shout-outs" blend together to become sensory cacophony. As a result customers often leave without making a purchase. Scientists call this phenomenon the "Choice Paradox". eCommerce sites started countering this problem using technology like layered filtering and AI-driven recommendations. Physical supermarkets went to great lengths to redesign store layouts that did not overwhelm buyers, but did make them spend enough time to improve the likelihood of making some purchase.

Engagement

The objective of the story-telling packaging approach is to create "unboxing experience", i.e. to reintroduce delight akin to the anticipation and excitement of opening Christmas presents in the brand experience, triggering it with the packaging, and telling the story through three principal elements- the Brand Personality, Brand Promise and Brand Perception.

Brand Personality

Brand personality refers to a set of characteristics, usually associated with humans, that are associated with a brand to become relatable to a particular target set of customers. Brand personalities generally fall into one or more of five categories: "Excitement", "Sincerity", "Ruggedness", "Competence" and "Sophistication" . When customer think of brands as "sophisticated", "youthful", "tough" etc. they are really forming impressions about the brand’s personality.

Brand Promise

Today’s consumers make purchases based not only on the product and price, but also on a large set of value-influencers, like politics, environmental consciousness, supporting local communities, etc. Therefore brands weave in specific, tangible promises about the product or in support of a cause that target customers care about, if the customer purchases that product. The brand promise is can be a direct message, like a promise to give a share of profits to a particular charity, or a product experience that is verifiably better than the competition. It could also be action-based.

Brand Perception

Whereas a brand is largely in control of the personality and promise it communicates, its perception is something it earns. For example, the car brand Volvo has earned a perception as the car brand that values passenger safety above all else, through a hundred years of consistent commitment to creating cars with excellent safety records, and marketing copy with safety as a standard element. If a brand, or its product belong to a category with controversial associations, the brand requires careful perception management.

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An Introduction to xAPI and Why you Should Care

Introduction Suppose you decided to learn a new skill online- say, a computer language. One way would be to sign up for an online class, delivered via a series of online sessions, followed by an assessment. Alternatively, you could start by seeing a few introductory videos on YouTube, download and read an eBook, and simultaneously start doing projects and frequenting a well –known web forum to get advice from experts.

A brief history In the early days of eLearning, each LMS and content production company followed its own standard, so that there was very little interoperability, leave alone standardization between LMS, content, etc. This changed with the introduction of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, or SCORM in 1999 for the US Department of Defense, but soon spread into the business world as well. SCORM 1.2 in particular became the first real set of technical specifications that governed how eLearning content should be created, shared, and tracked, and was adopted around the world so that pretty soon, if the content wasn’t SCORM 1.2 compliant, it didn’t sell well. The other notable eLearning standard back then was AICC, which mostly dealt with technical specifications for content for the aviation industry.

While SCORM worked well for years, it was always intended to govern the type of linear eLearning that is sequential, module based and desktop-based. However, as computing became more mobile, first with laptops and then with tablets and smartphones powered by fast internet bandwidth, it quickly became apparent that SCORM had basic limitations. Furthermore, learning itself had started changing. People preferred shorter videos lengths, more focused topics, and also preferred to learn from a variety of sources, from free audiobooks and youtube to full-length research paper PDFs available online. After a while, SCORM was hopelessly out of place. However, for want of a better method, it continued to be the industry standard for commercial eLearning.

What is xAPI xAPI, or "Experience" API is a new set of technical specifications that expand the basic intent of SCORM viz. to create purpose and device-centric specifications. xAPI takes into account the modern learner’s method and limitations when it comes to learning.

At its core, xAPI is a log of every learning activity called "statements" which are compiled in a record register known as a "Learning Record Store", or LRS.

Making an Impact with xAPI

In the above section we mentioned what xAPI can help learning managers achieve. As we mentioned, if we can track what helps people succeed at their tasks then we can ease their journey towards achieving their and the organization’s goals. Functionally, this means a personalized or at least semi-personalized training plans can be created based on learning styles. ADL even claims that xAPI may help learning managers attain the holy grail of learning- tracking learning activity to an extent that learning can be correlated with success in the workplace.

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Extended Reality in the Automobile and Medical Education Sectors

In recent years there has been a lot of buzz about the emergence of a "new kind of reality"- one which is a mixture of elements of the physical world around us, and those created digitally. Enabled by lighter, more powerful devices and high bandwidth wireless internet, this "blended reality" is opening new possibilities in a variety of fields, from research and engineering to entertainment and education. Extended Reality in the Automobile and Medical Education Sectors.

Three distinct types of digital-physically blended reality have emerged. These are:

1. Virtual Reality 2. Augmented Reality 3. Mixed Reality

The umbrella term for all three scenarios is "Extended Reality", or XR. In this article, we take a look at how XR is transforming the Automotive and Medical Education fields.

XR in the Automotive Industry

The potential for "reality enhancement" has been recognized by the auto industry since its inception. For instance, some modern cars use proximity sensors to inform drivers about safe distance via auditory feedback. Manufacturers have also experimented with overlaying information like speed etc. directly onto the windshield, similar to a fighter pilot’s "Heads-up Display" to improve the concentration of drivers and put more information at their fingertips. With the advent of widespread mobile internet at 4G and 5G speeds, digital data can fuse with physical objects with much more realism than ever before. The automobile industry uses all three types of XR for a variety of manufacturer-focused, customer-focused, dealer-focused and auxiliary support-focused applications. Manufacturers use both VR and AR extensively. Virtual Reality is extremely efficient to promote R&D, simulation and remote manufacturing, as well as collaborative operations management. AR-enabled glasses are used in the field and the factory floor for applications in supply chain management, on-product repair training, quality control, and logistics. On the customer experience side, AR-enabled showrooms allow potential clients to test drive, customize, configure and accessorize before purchasing. These XR experiences can range from simple smartphone apps that give only a little extra information to highly elaborate setups in showrooms where potential customers can sit in a seat similar to the actual car seat, put on VR glasses to get realistic test-drives, or use Mixed Reality headsets like Microsoft’s Hololens to look at an actual car and customize it to their taste before their eyes.

XR in Medical Training

As the Human species devises new ways to use technology to make life easier, it is inevitable that one of the areas of focus would be healthcare. After all, what good are self-driving cars if one’s healthcare remains Victorian? Just as the great strides in healthcare and medical research made great strides in the past, so too is a new era of IT-driven strides already rising. Extended reality is already used to visualize and simulate surgeries, interpret test results, experiment with prosthetic design and even help therapists derive new techniques to help their patients overcome various mental health issues.

VR-based replicas of detailed anatomy are expected to be widely used instead of cadavers as primary training, making it suitable even for remote learning

A fascinating area of development is the use of VR for radiologists, to help interpret and visualize scan readings in full-360 view, helping create much more accurate medical assessments. Emergency responders need to practice their skills constantly. Furthermore, they often find it difficult to learn new guidelines and techniques necessary for their life-saving work. VR on headset holds excellent promise to address this need.

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Gamification at Play

Press "Play"

eLearning is exploding. Since its early beginnings in the mid-1980s it has grown to become a $100B industry worldwide and will cross $300B by 2025. It is relatively easy to set up, allows interactivity, and can deliver educational material on any connected device, worldwide. Most eLearning is delivered linearly, but new methodologies like micro-learning and gamification indicate how it can easily incorporate new innovation and how these new ideas find popularity. Gamification, for example, is now a full-fledged industry, estimated to cross $40B in global revenues by 2024. As it gets adopted widely from the classroom to the boardroom, it is important to understand what Gamification is, and how it should be used to derive maximum learning impact. We play games voluntarily because they make us happy! It turns out that games are also extremely successful at achieving very high levels of concentration and participation among the players.

"Drink Me"

In the wonderful book "Alice in Wonderland", Alice falls down a rabbit hole and comes to a room with a tiny door. She wishes loudly that she could be ten inches tall so she could go through that door, and lo-and-behold, a bottle appears before her, with a label that says simply, "drink me". She checks the bottle to see if it is marked "poison" anywhere, and finding it isn’t, proceeds to drink from the bottle. The taste is strange, but not unpleasant at all, and reminds her of roast turkey and buttered toast.

The Games People Play

A game is like any other consumable item- there has to be an initial hook that motivates people to give it a try. Studies show that voluntary participation is key, otherwise, it may seem like one more thing they have to do, and that leads to quick disengagement . The hook can be anything- the game may appear unexpectedly like a Christmas gift , or it may be something that already has social pressure attached to it, because everyone else is talking about it, or may even make a bold claim- "Play this game and you will master Calculus!". Whatever it is, the game’s mystery may entice people to begin playing, but it takes more to keep them engaged. In other words, what’s inside the bottle has to match the sense of intrigue the sign creates. It must live up to the promise to be effective and to do that, it must deliver a sense of achievement, competition and fun. Achievement is an intrinsic motivator. Brain chemistry actually changes when people feel a sense of achievement. Dopamine release creates pleasure, and the release gets bigger as more achievement occurs, making the participant return again and again to the activity providing that sense of achievement. However, the achievement cannot be total. There has to be more to do- another level, another undefeated enemy, another unsolved puzzle which entices the player to keep playing more. Competition works quite differently.

From Games to Learning

Quality- Quality refers to operational aspects of the module that make the playing experience a positive one. These aspects include the UI, gameplay, and proper functionality of all features. A great tip is to tailor the module’s look and feel to the organizational culture where it will be deployed. Pay attention to cultural norms, geographic relevance, and familiar practices. Do insert aspirational features that improve players’ engagement levels like color palettes, stylizations, and characters that are most likely to appeal to the players. Quality is also about the content. Outdated, irrelevant content looks terrible in the modern aesthetic. Information and use cases should be current. Finally, establish "social sharing/acceptance" of the module as one of the KPIs- if your module isn’t getting talked about, nobody will use it, at least not willingly.

Player attributes- Think about the target audience. It is often said gamification in learning primarily appeals to millennials used to mobile devices and video games. That isn’t entirely true. Pay attention to what the target audience will find appealing. However, gamified Learning works best if players have some familiarity with device-based gaming, so consider including a familiarization practice in the client’s organization before rolling out the module. Consider handing out several devices on which the game will be played so players can get used to them, or create a video campaign with small levels of interactivity to get the target audience used to the idea of gamified learning. Then launch the actual module.

Finally, ensure that the learning objectives are closely matched with the game’s features and gameplay. Consider the skills required to succeed at the game, and see if that skill development will help meet the learning objectives. For example, suppose the learning objective is to give new hires preliminary training in sales negotiation. In that case, a candy-crush type game won’t be very useful, but a quest or fantasy type might be. Also, consider secondary learning objectives. For example, a school may want to provide math and reading practice through a game. However, if the gameplay relies almost entirely on narration, then the game designers have lost a chance to get the players to learn to read to extract relevant information!

The Missing Pieces eLearning Gamification is not a panacea. For instance, several surveys show gamified learning doesn’t always improve learning. Therefore, it is important to remember that gamification, like books, is a tool- just one of many that work in concert with each other to improve the result of the training effort. Rather, it is designed to improve engagement in students so they are more receptive to what is being taught. Thus, it is useful to think of modern learning as "blended learning"- making a lesson game-centric, for example, allows a teacher to step back and become a mentor on students’ journeys of self-discovery. Corporate training about POSH, for instance, or disaster relief training is not suitable for games with "fun" elements, as they need to be handled with sensitivity. However, simulations can be used in training. Know your audience and your motivation: We have talked about this before, but considering how many gamification initiatives fail because of poor matching we think it is important we mention it again: Don’t design a gamified eLearning module unless you know who is going to use it! Also, don’t gamify a module just because it is "the thing to do"

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Ten Women Photographers Who Continue to Inspire us

Every March 8 we at Manipal Technologies recognize the 3,500 women in our workforce that play an integral role in our company’s success, by choosing one field where we are successful because women, past and present played a role. Finally, we decided to seek out those women photographers who inspire our own staff.

"Ash", Digital Marketing Manager- Ash is Manipal Tech’s Digital Marketing Manager, responsible for all our outward marketing.

Dorothea Lange: Who doesn’t know Dorothea Lange? Perhaps the most famous depression era-photojournalist , Lange is perhaps best known for humanizing that great economic meltdown, focusing on capturing the despair but also resilience on the faces of hundreds of ordinary men and women across America.

Margaret Bourke-White: Bourke-White had many distinctions- Life Magazine’s first female photographer, America’s first female war correspondent, the first American photographer allowed to photograph life in the Soviet Union, and photographer of subjects as diverse as the Nazi-controlled Buchenwald Concentration Camp shortly after its liberation, and India’s Mahatma Gandhi, shortly before his assassination. She was as intrepid as she was talented, with the result that her work has become a continuing source of inspiration for every aspiring photojournalist. Anna Atkins: Anna Atkins was truly remarkable. Not only was she the first female photographer back in 1843, she was also a trained biologist. Her photos of plant life became the subject of the first book with photographs every printed. Shadi Ghadirian: Shadi Ghadirian is remarkable not only for the art she produces , but also for the fact that she is such a courageous woman, practising her art in the environment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Fatoumata Diabate: Fatoumata Diabate is from the African country of Mali. She is a modern photographer who focuses on everyday life in her favorite Mali as well as other parts of the world.

Kopal Goel: Kopal is a mountain climber and adventure photographer. She represents a new breed of women around the world that are both doers and chroniclers. Victoria Volchenko is a Russia based photographer who specializes in drone photography. She is starting to make waves in International markets.

Hou Bo: In modern Chinese history, Hou Bo held unique positions, including movement autonomy. She was a chronicler of Mao Zedong.

Victoria Volchenko is a Russia based photographer who specializes in drone photography. She is starting to make waves in International markets.

Gerda Taro: Gerda Taro had a short, yet remarkable career.At one of the most tumultuous eras in history, Gerda Taro (real name Gerta Pohorylle) was not only a woman and a war photographer, but also a Leftist and German Jew, all dangerous tags to possess when the Nazis were in power. Ultimately Greta died in line of duty, making her the first female journalist to do so.

Shadi Ghadirian: Shadi Ghadirian is remarkable not only for the art she produces (9 series of photos till date), but also for the fact that she is such a courageous woman, practising her art in the environment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Brooke Shaden: This fine-art photographer and photoshop artist is one of the most respected and viewed photographers on the world’s biggest photo-sharing network, Instagram. And that’s all for now. Remember- the camera doesn’t care whether it is a man or a woman behind it, but the viewers sometimes do.

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The 4Es of Marketing

The modern marketplace is unlike anything seen before in human history. For example, eCommerce allows anyone to order practically anything from anywhere in the world with virtual currency, often with the help of a virtual assistant that personalizes its recommendations so that each person’s buying journey is unique. In this new age, previously reigning marketing paradigms like the 4Ps of marketing are also undergoing a transformation. Welcome to the age of the 4Es instead.

The "4Es" of Marketing are "Experience", "Everyplace", "Exchange" and "Evangelism". Anyone familiar with Marketing theory will recognize that the 4Es draw their basic wisdom from the famous "4P" mnemonic in modern marketing theory.

Experience: Customer purchase decisions are a mix of utility fit and emotional appeal. A retailer’s focus may be on the visual appeal of the store, having friendly staff at hand to put customers at ease and answer questions, and helpful digital screens to direct customers to the right aisles or show helpful product usage videos. That’s not to say that customers aren’t cost-conscious; in fact, they have become even more so, and desire more from the transaction than just "money-for-goods".

Exchange: They say nothing in life is free- not even free stuff! Customers understand that, yet there is a rush every year during the Christmas discount season. Product pricing is inevitable, but the modern customer demands more. Customers really value brands which respect them- those who value their time, respect their values, support their favorite causes, or even just acknowledge them with genuineness. When a branding succeeds, customers are willing to make an exchange: their commitment to the brand in exchange for the brand’s loyalty to them.

Everyplace: In modern trade, a brand’s distribution channels are many more, and much more fluid than in traditional business models. In the modern marketplace, there are still the old channels, but customers may now reach them over the phone, their websites, social media, or even through ERP-to-ERP ordering.

Evangelism: The dictionary defines promotion as "support or encouragement of a cause" and evangelism as "zealous advocacy". That’s exactly what the last of the 4Es suggests brands attempt to do. The 4E concept isn’t totally new- it was first proposed by an Ogilvy executive over a decade ago. However, it is more relevant now than ever before, with faster connection speeds, better devices and new emerging technologies like augmented reality.

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Introduction to Adaptive Learning

There is a major flaw in the "one size fits all" classroom training method- for one we are not all the same "size" or "type". In fact, there are as many variations in people’s style, content and assessment preferences as there are people.

On the other hand, we live in an interconnected world powered by a smart device , rich content and fast connectivity. The world of learning has long sought a way to address the flaws of traditional teaching, and has recently begun the Adaptive Learning model of content creation.

To put it simply Adaptive Learning is a technology-enabled method that attempts to create different learning paths, with the assumption that at least one path will fit each student. To be sure, the idea of personalized teaching has been around for a long time, but it just hasn’t been practically possible to do. After all, teachers cannot teach 40 students in a class the same concept 40 different ways. But technology can.

In a typical Adaptive Learning exercise, the learner is "pre-assessed" to establish their existing level of knowledge. Next, content is presented to the learner and the response is measured.

Adaptive Learning is not Personalized Learning

This may come as a surprise, but there is a difference between Adaptive and Personalized learning. The reason is that Personalized learning isn’t really personalized- after all, that would be untenable for most large organizations.

Adaptive Learning is not Branched Scenarios

While Personalized Learning creates individual learning plans for each persona, a branching scenario creates a few variations in the plans for each persona. Let’s look at an example: Suppose the L&D requirement for a new employee is to learn the firm’s Corporate Communication guidelines for a "new entry-level employee" persona. The training plan may give the trainee a few choices- Would they like to learn via a video? If the trainee chooses that option, they may watch a video, then take a quiz.

As the name suggests, Adaptive Learning is a learning method which provides training in line with an individual’s learning goals, based on personal and business requirements. This means it must provide the right training at the right time. To do so, it may combine a plethora of resources and approaches including videos, simulations, in-class training etc. on a continuous learning basis that can be incorporated into the employee’s workflow. Most importantly, the Adaptive Learning method requires that a firm stop assessing trainees based on their ability to do well in tests, and learn to measure performance in the real world, especially if it is not easily quantifiable.

Adaptive Learning shows a lot of promise as a mass education tool, that’s for sure.

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5 Themes for Packaging in the Post-Covid World

In these unprecedented times punctuated by a world united, if not in deed then at least in predicament, fighting a global pandemic that is fueled by those very things that are foundational to all human societies- coming together, having in-person conversations, shaking hands and giving hugs, sharing food and hospitality. As the current global situation only exacerbates the isolation, how will packaging evolve and play a greater role in the lives of consumers and brands?

Active packaging There is a small chance you can catch the virus from a recently contaminated package. The exact mechanisms remain to be seen but going forward we expect Active packaging- i.e. packaging with properties to control temperature, humidity, pH and other properties to gain importance for both rigid and flexible packaging. This could be especially important if cooked, preserved meals must be shipped across large distances to more affected communities.

Public Messaging Packaging, especially retail product packaging has been a communication "wall" for a long time. This "Keep Calm" message on a Snickers bar, circulated in a different context does wonders for the brand as well as the consumers even in the time of Covid-19! How brilliant is that!

Buddies In Deed In the new "4E" marketing paradigm, brands understand that pricing is for transactions, but the exchange is for bartering loyalties. We expect rich designs, positive messaging, and a general attempt to be upbeat and help people become hopeful and positive. Think of it less like an ad that’s enticing you to buy a product and more like a friend cheering you up by taking you somewhere to have a good time.

Virtual Expos In the wake of the pandemic and the total forced remote working, dozens of important expos have got canceled. We aren’t talking about digital marketing here, nor just podcasts or webinars. After all, event marketers, one of the most important marketing assets of any company use marketing expos and fairs to not only interact with potential customers but also to get a sense of the market, ecosystem, and competitors. True, the grandeur, scale and sheer usefulness of in-person expos is still impossible to replicate online, but we think emerging technology is about to change all that. AR glasses, VR experience centers, and increasingly sophisticated haptics activation will make virtual expos an important destination for brands.

Sustainability Before the pandemic and ensuing problems hit, there was already a lot of focus on eco-friendly, sustainable packaging. That focus will increase even more going forward. We expect more "ready to retail" packaging to appear, where protective product packaging also serves as a display case, migration of more ready-to-eat foods like Mayonnaise and Ketchup from hard plastic to upside-down flexible containers with a significant portion of the container made of sustainable materials, and packaging that serves a central purpose to the functioning or proper consumption of the product itself- from a simple pizza box which separates into separate pizza plates to a sophisticated electronics case which turns into an attractive stand, protective cover or similar for the product. On the pre-press side, this could mean significant challenges for pre-press artists. If packages are to do more, they will be more expensive.

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Serious Games for Social Good

Games, especially those played over digital media including computer games, mobile games, online games and console games have massive appeal among teenagers and young adults, especially in the West. In one 2018 survey of over 700 US teens in the 13-17 age group, 97% of males and 83% of females said they played video games1. This level of penetration is already known and exploited by product companies with teen-oriented marketing, product placement and game art. However, a more important use of this penetration and the impressionable age of the players may be to build awareness and sensitivity in teens and young adults towards important global issues. This is being attempted with considerable success through a special sub-class of video games called “Serious Games”. “Serious Games” is a term used to describe those games which retain the elements of competition and fun which improve engagement among the players, but replace the purely entertainment purpose of other games with creating awareness, or helping build skills to cope with serious, real-life issues. There are three main types of Serious Games: Awareness building games The main purpose of such a game is to bring attention to an ongoing problem in society, be it the issue of a genocidal war in a faraway land, the plight of homeless children, or the complexities of environmental devastation. Skill-building games To be clear, these games aren’t necessarily designed to replace actual training to gain expertise in a subject. Rather, they carefully balance giving just the right degree of challenge and complexity to help the player appreciate the enormity of a problem without making the problem as hard as in real life, which might make the player lose interest out of a sense that the problem is too complex, and therefore not “fun”. The crowd-sourced problem solving game This type of gamified learning has shown spectacular real-life results in the past. In 2008, an online puzzle game, “Foldit” threw a challenge to online players to solve particularly intricate protein binding puzzles. The combined effort of thousands of players helped decipher the crystal structure of an AIDS-causing virus, the Mason-Pfizer virus. Making the player feel a sense of “fun” while actually using the resulting engagement to introduce multiple difficult, even tragic ideas. As a pedagogy gamification has become an increasingly over-used buzzword.