I'll be hosting a live podcast on Monday on the topic of 'sonic convergence.' More specifically, the art and science of designing immersive experiences.

With me will be: renowned soundscape designer Martyn Ware (London) whose work spans from founder of Heaven 17 and the Human League to a sound designer with recent installations at the NY MoMa and the Venice Architectural Biennale; and Brian Schmidt (Seattle), who has been the guiding 'sonic spirit' for audio in the Xbox and primary composer for multiple game titles for Sega, Sony and Electronic Arts, in addition to hundreds of arcade, console and pinball games.

This will be a live podcast, meaning you can 'tune in' live and participate in the conversation (via IM+Skype). (You'll also be able to listen anytime after the show as you would a traditional podcast.)

Show details: Monday January 26, 9:30 a.m. Pacific time, 12:30 p.m. Eastern, 5:30 London time. Show URL: http://www.smallplateradio.com/042/

Please join us. Many thanks in advance to Small Plate Radio for making it possible.

-- Noel Franus

Keeping it light this week as we tackle the big to-do list that precedes most holiday breaks. Our friend and Chicago-based sound designer Joseph Fosco pointed me recently to Auditorium, a Flash-based sound discovery game that's worthy of your attention for at least an hour of your time (preferably sometime later this week, post-Turkey and cranberries, when you're not billable or accountable to others). Auditorium is created by Philadelphia's Cipher Prime. Happy exploring. -- Noel Franus

Really looking forward to Inverge -- "the interactive convergence conference" -- next week. At first blush, this isn't a natural "sonic branding" fit. Yet convergent, cross-media design is the inevitable future. And we believe sound is a significant ingredient in designing the immersive and interactive experiences of that future. The lineup looks great. I'm especially looking forward to Joshua Green, Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT and William Swartout, Director of Technology for USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. Also looking forward to finding out what "cyborg anthropologist and social media consultant" Amber Case does for a living, as that's a most curious title of the bunch. On a related note, 5D is coming up soon, too -- Long Beach in October. Martyn is running a two-hour Future of Sound event there, which should provide yet more great options for shaking hands and devising beautiful things that may or may not be useful. Links: Inverge conference site; Inverge blog; 5D conference site. -- Noel Franus

I'm back after more than two weeks away. Here's five inspiring links to get things rolling again.

Does music sound better today than it did 30 years ago? Sonic ID's very own Martyn Ware leads a podcast conversation with experts Tom Dunmore (Stuff magazine), Rob Kelly (Strongroom studios), Stephen Budd (artist/producer manager) and Tim Lawrence (culture writer). Facilitated by B&W.

Bowers and Wilkins Senior Design Engineer John Dibb recently led a "sound tasting" at Abbey Road Studios: "On a personal level I felt the same satisfaction I felt as a teenage speaker designer, and still do as a professional, when someone really gets how important sound is and how getting the illusion closer to reality is such a magical thing." Here's the story.

Brandchannel.com has a good writeup on the use of sonic branding and identity in India -- with quotes from our pal Marcel de Bie and my former Elias frontman Martin Pazzani.

Mascara has gone electric. Unfortunately the sound of Estee Lauder's and Lancome's new electronic eyeliner is a "hum as annoying as a vibrating cellphone." I can only assume this is not an intentional attribute of either brand.

And finally...nice Frontline World story about a Mozambique singer who's saving lives by singing about...latrines.

-- Noel Franus

The world's atwitter over Muxtape. My friends at Mule and Substance suggest it's the next sliced bread, but I'm still kicking the tires waiting to be really wowed. (Update: wow factor increases with use.) Nonetheless, your humble DJ Franux has given it hist best global-blues-funkytown mix -- check it out or give it a spin and make your own. Happy Friday. -- Noel Franus

It's a new year in a nascent industry -- no better time to address the opportunities and challenges we face as an industry in the coming year. That's what I'm exploring in this piece. Note that these are, naturally, my opinions only. I speak for no one else. These ramblings may, in fact, be simple projections of what I want rather than what I expect. If you think so, call me on it. And by all means join the party by adding your own predictions to the forecast. Put the needle on the record: Ask around: what exactly is audio branding? Audio identity? Sonic branding? Sonic identity? Visit the websites for ten different firms and get ten different answers. This gumbo of offerings slows industry growth and dampens the market; prospective clients don’t buy products or services they can’t understand, and a fuzzy value proposition equates to longer lead times. Nobody wants that. Brand consultancies, sound-design production houses and equipment resellers offer very different services, and shouldn’t be mistaken for one another. Online, however, it’s difficult to tell the difference between these three -- or any huckster with a copy of Garage Band and a website, for that matter. Future clients who are researching this field shouldn’t have to sort it out. That’s up to us. What’ll it take to grow a shared understanding of our practice? A common language. Best practices. Case studies. Measurement. ROI. It'll be messy, but it all starts with conversation and community. This year we will see a lot more of that -- both in face-to-face forums and online. No doubt about it, this is a highly creative field. But to ignore or downplay the business case for sonic branding is to miss the full equation. Brand-based audio assets are financial assets that grow in value -- especially when deployed as part of a sonic identity system that allows multiple touchpoints to reinforce one another. They create economies of scale. And they build recognition, awareness and preference of and for a brand, which translates to monetary value. That’s just the short list. It’s up to us to continuously position the benefits of audio identity and sonic branding on financial terms. Service providers who speak the language of business will move this industry forward. Doesn’t it seem that today most common issue regarding audio and interactive media is limited to the question of “shouldn’t your have audio on your website?” Ack. There is no didactic, prescriptive answer, is there? And more importantly, doesn’t this miss the bigger questions of: 1) would/could/should/how can audio augment the user experience?; and 2) how can it link to or reinforce other brand initiatives -- how can it work harder for the brand? The digital marketplace is huge -- and still growing. There’s a lot more to digital media strategy than just asking just a few pedestrian questions. Those who understand the right questions are more likely to become a client's strategic partner rather than a mere provider of content. Have you noticed an uptick in the conversation -- at least online in the last six months -- about the role of sound at the product level? Methinks this is bound to continue gathering steam, and my expectation is that the buzz will expand beyond traditional “sound UI” and sound design for products. Retail environments, public places and physical spaces are becoming increasingly more important in the relationship between people and brands. The high-value opportunity for audio/sonic branding firms isn’t in providing just bleeps, blips and soundtracks for these experiences (late in the creative process) but in the broader consultative role of experience designer, director, producer, and curator for brand-based, audio-intensive experiences. We will see Design Thinking (yes, with a capital D and T) move to the forefront in 2008. What happened when the studio musician, the sonar expert and the ethnomusicologist walked into a bar? We have no idea. It's never happened, but you can bet the conversation would be an ear-opener. This lack of collaboration is unfortunate given that most other design disciplines have found a way to work across typical boundaries to create create compelling products and in fact address some of humanity's grander challenges. Take, for example, the Hippo Water Roller or Design for Democracy. These innovative efforts came about via collaborations among industrial designers, architects, design researchers, visual designers, and so on. This is very much the IDEO or Archeworks model: pick a problem, throw a variety of skills into the mix, and see what happens. Today, though, most sound-based specialties generally live in isolation of one another. And rarely do they work in meaningful, game-changing ways with other design disciplines to address social concerns. This, too, will change in 2008. I'm not sure if this will be a competition, an event, or some other forum. But I am sure that we have a lot to learn from one another, and that we'll all be much better off leveraging each others' strengths -- people in need benefit from the solutions derived from such work, and down the road, brands benefit from the innovation process that ensues.

There you have it for the future of audio identity in 2008. At least in one man's eyes and ears. Now let's see what's buzzing in your brain...comments, ideas, and constructive feedback encouraged. I'm all ears. -- Noel Franus

Happy new year! This past year has been a remarkable 365 days for those of us in the business of audio branding, sonic branding and audio identity. In 2007, colleagues and clients alike have fortunately expressed expectations well beyond the level of novelty...interest and money isn't going into audio branding because it's cool or new. It's going into audio branding because sound is increasingly understood as a valuable tool for communicating a brand and its intentions.

Why? As you know, things are changing. Where, how and what brands communicate is something we all thought we've had figured out for the last sixty-plus years (it's in advertising and on the sales floor, right?) but now that our world has become increasingly fragmented and our media ever more one-to-one, all we know for sure is that nothing's for sure. People don't watch as much TV as they used to. Product experiences drive perceptions. Personal, mobile media is both the present and the future, yet most of us barely even know what that means, really.

Brands that must stay front of mind understand that having a well-constructed audio brand strategy provides a comprehensive, cover-your-bets approach to future brand identification and communication. Some of the reasons why are probably familiar to you by now: music, sound, voice and silence can alter behaviors in ways that nothing else can; sound communicates when and where visuals can't; unique, proprietary sounds are unforgettable (in ways we can't escape, like it or not); and music is an ideal vehicle for audience/customer engagement and collaboration. Perhaps most importantly, music can communicate in mere moments what words, images and visuals often take minutes or longer to achieve.

The list of benefits goes on, but the takeaway is simple: the delivery and consumption of media will always be in flux. And brand-savvy companies looking to create meaning amidst the cacaphony must leverage every tool in their toolbox for doing so.

I'm thrilled to have worked, in 2007, with brands that get this. It's not even that they're the most innovative among peer brands (though, of course, they are ;-); it's that they have their act together well enough to see the future, understand it somewhat, and plan for it now. Those that can't or don't do the same will be left scrambling. (I don't quite know, yet, what the sound of scrambling is, but I can assure you that it's not pleasant.)

So there you have it, a last post and the end of the year. If audio branding is your business, too, then I'm sure you've experienced this as well. No doubt you're excited about the new year and beyond.

A new year which, by the way, will kick off with a five-things-to-watch-for-in-2008 piece here at this site. I'll follow that up in mid-January with the second of a two-part article series at the AIGA Gain website. (The first, Building Brand Value Through the Strategic Use of Sound, provided an introductory overview of audio branding and identity; this upcoming second piece is a real-world, client case-study for a brand we know and love.) All of which will be followed by yet more surprises.

So stay tuned. Get in touch (noel at intentional audio dot com). And keep in touch. Here's to more good things to come in 2008.

-- Noel Franus

Photo by Joachim S Müller Shining a little sonic spotlight on a new organization: Ear to the Earth, a group whose aims go well beyond art for art's sake -- they have a problem to solve, and it's a big one.

Ear to the Earth is an organization that aims to engage the public in environmental issues through environmental sound and sound art. It's a new idea. And it's an important idea. Listening can get people involved. Listening is close and personal. And we believe that by connecting people with the sounds of the world, we can involve people in what's happening to the world.

Multimedia bonus from their website: Bernie Krause, one of the leading researchers on the "noises of nature" provides a sonic peek at the sounds of a jaguar in the wild, practically sitting atop Krause's microphones. Grab your great speakers or headphones and turn it up: Stunning, beautiful, haunting, superlative. Awareness-raising, for sure. -- Noel Franus

Here are four late-night links for the always-curious sonic-branding nut in each of us. Some of these may seem to be from left field, but there's always something to learn. How can you apply some of the innovations/ideas/thinking that's referenced below to your (or your client's) brand/product experience?

The remote you've been waiting for Dolby offers a new TV-volume leveler that actually sounds kinda interesting. Wild prediction: customers will love it, advertisers not so much. How long before Microsoft buys them out?

The music tool you've been waiting for? Yamaha's Tenori-On...it's been out for a while, and I've avoided it because of its high-gimmick factor. (It's very hard to believe anyone who pitches their "digital music instrument for the 21st century.") But most reviews of the Tenori-On have been positive...so what gives? If you've played with this (perhaps at the MusicLive Show in Birmingham?), please share your thoughts.

The chair you've got to hear to believe From Networked Music Review: "the Sound Chair begins as a sound that is precisely crafted to form the physical shape of a chair when visualized as a 3-dimensional object using a volume, time, frequency line plot. The life-size chair is an exact replica of the soundwave graph. The result is a product with dual existence as both a 'sound' & a 'chair.'"

The noise you won't forget Making Noise in NYC features "work by visual artists who utilize the many different modes by which sound is produced and received. Exploring the possibilities that lie within the relationship between producer and receiver, these artists demonstrate how the manipulation of sound can become a tool for the organization of power and, in turn, the subversion of it." November 28, 2007 – January 2, 2008 at the Melville Gallery at the South Street Seaport Museum.

-- Noel Franus

Julian Treasure has penned a thought-provoking piece at Sound Business: Where Has Sonic Architecture Gone? Required reading. Here’s a snippet: Since Pythagoras (and surely long before that) building designers considered sound as at least the equal of visual design in the making of buildings. The sound of water (representing life) has been used for millennia, especially in hot places, to create pleasing ambient soundscapes, with many homes designed around a central fountain. Clever architecture has deliberately utilised echo, reverberation, focusing, diffusion and absorption to manipulate sound waves for spiritual, artistic and practical reasons.... When and why did the skill to design like this get lost? With modern architects and urban planners investigating the leading edges of interactivity, technology and all forms of light, it seems sad that the ancient wisdom about how to make buildings that sound appropriate and nourish the activities inside them is gone. I wonder if we can ever recover it? I’m so glad Julian’s asked this as it’s been on my mind lately. I agree that the skills are lacking, but it’s without blame -- most architects and designers simply lack the sound-related playbook or best practices necessary to ensure successful projects. Understandably so; for many architectural engagements, budgets and time become first priority and clients often give their attention to that which is familiar (and negotiable): walls, floors, heating and air conditioning, materials, colors and furniture. It's no surprise that fuzzy intangibles like sound drop to the bottom of a priority list. I’m encouraged, however, by my own conversations with architects who compensate for any lack of expertise with an abundance of enthusiasm. Architects who see themselves as facilitators of choreographed experiences are clearly eager to acknowledge and leverage our relationship with sound. They’re waiting for inspiration. So, consider this a call to action: if you're reading this, show me your inspiration. Where have you experienced successful sound in the built environment? If you think that sound affects our thoughts, actions, spending patterns and habits; if it can direct our physical movements and alert us to danger or guide us to safety; and/or if it can transform our sense of being in ways that are conscious, subconscious and even physiological -- then where are you seeing it happen? I'll share my hit list with you next week, and I may also dive into some of the guiding principles for designers that I provided at the Experience Architecture Forum at Harvard last month. For what it's worth. Meanwhile, let's keep the ball rolling -- let's hear your thoughts.