Category Archives: Tips & Hints

Disney Imagineers and Theme Park Designers Are Leading Experience Marketing into a Whole New World of Brand Storytelling

By: Liz Alton [@Beinglizzie] Insights from Disney:

Emotions and Storytelling

Disney is one of the best storytelling engines in the world. Immersive storytelling elevated the brand beyond the basics of regional amusement parks and water slide attractions to become a global titan that’s captured imaginations from Orlando to China. The dream team that builds the attractions, the destinations, and every aspect behind the experiences are the Imagineers.

From immersive storytelling to bringing cutting-edge technologies to bear, the line between marketing and entertainment is thinner than ever before. Brands are creating apps, virtual reality experiences, pop-up branded events, and full-scale immersive tours to delight customers, tell their origin stories, show the manufacturing process, and help build deeper, emotion-based connections.

My Take from Brownie Bytes

I was fortunate to know the executive VP of Imagineering at Walt Disney World in Orlando (his son was my best surfing and cycling buddy in high school / college). I got the inside scoop on how Disney produced their story-themed attractions. Then my buddy and I were the first two “test particles” (that’s what the imagineers called us) at Typhoon Lagoon. Yep, the first two surfers at the wave pool.

Prior to Typhoon Lagoon, in the mid-1970’s in college I worked for an engineering firm that tested a lake/beach/wave machine in a Disney World lake. It was a complete failure. The wave washed away the sandy beach every 2-3 waves and the water looked like the stirred up brown cypress oil muck that it was. I got to ride 1 wave. That’s right 1. It was a white-water-willy wave only the white water was the color of barely foamy puke. Not a pleasant experience. Not all Disney rides make it to the public. In fact, most are running at 20% of their capacity for safety reasons. Typhoon Lagoon can crank out a 9 foot wave. But the public only sees 2-4 feet.

Years later I was fortunate to work for both IBM and Motorola. I was the first multimedia producer at both companies so I got to work with Disney imagineers to build business and home of the future exhibits at EPCOT. I learned how to develop stories with the integrated Disney spin. A great experience.

How to Protect Yourself from Hackers Taking Your Phone Number & Accounts

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Here’s a guide on how to prevent and protect yourself against the threat of hackers taking over your phone number and going after your online accounts.

Criminal hackers have been targeting Instagram users with short or unique usernames, as well as people who own Bitcoin. To steal the victim’s accounts or cryptocurrencies, the hackers first seize the cell phone numbers of targets, which gives them the ability to reset passwords on any account linked to a given number.

This kind of hack is what’s called a port out scam—an expression derived from the concept of porting a number from one carrier to another—and is also known as SIM swapping or hijacking.

Ultimately, this hack relies on scammers tricking carrier’s tech support, and if the company’s representatives take the bait, it’s important to remember that there’s only so much you can do.

Here’s how:

‘Waze of Parking’ App SpotAngels Raises $2.3 million

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By; Kirsten Korosec [@kirstenkorosec]

SpotAngels, an app that uses crowdsourced data to help drivers find parking and avoid tickets, has raised $2.3 million from a group of investors that includes Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen.

Luc Vincent, the former head of Google Street View and vice president of engineering at Lyft, as well as Y Combinator, Streamlined Ventures and Via ID also invested in the round.

The startup plans to use the funding to expand to other U.S. cities and improve its free mobile app, including a new “predicted availability” feature that it hopes to launch later this year. The new feature allows drivers to know what the odds are of finding a spot in any given area before heading there.

The existing app works like a network — the more users, the better the intel. Once a user installs the app, it can provide real-time data to the greater SpotAngels community. The app, which uses the car’s Bluetooth connection or phone motion sensors, knows when the user’s vehicle is parking or leaving a spot.

More (TechCrunch)

Go to SpotAngels

This is going to be really useful in the Town of Palm Beach. The number 1 concern for residents in town is “Where can I park?”

Robocalls Made My Phone Useless

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The phone part of my mobile device was becoming useless. Nonstop #robocalls. Happens to everyone.

I’m now paying a monthly fee to @Hiya to #block them.

The device and network phone companies should be doing this as part of their customer service – for free.

Attn: @verizon @apple

A New Kind of Phone Scam: Neighbor Spoofing

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Are you experiencing an increase in the number of local calls to your home and/or cell phone? You’re not alone. This phenomenon is called “neighbor spoofing” and it’s the latest caller ID spoof strategy being used by phone scam artists in an attempt to get people to answer the phone.

For phone scams to be successful, scammers need people to pick up the phone so they can initiate the conversation. Neighbor spoofing uses a spoof caller ID to trick a person into thinking somebody local, possibly even someone they know, is calling. According to experts, this may interest someone just enough to answer their phone.

Replace Laptop with iPad? Careful!!

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I was thinking about getting an #iPad Pro 12.9 tablet to replace my MacBook Pro laptop. Not so fast! I read the reviews on the Apple website about the keyboard. No way…

– “If I could leave zero stars….”

– “Nothing but trouble…”

– “This accessory not supported – by the company that makes both the tablet and keyboard…”

– “Listen to the reviews – #AppleKeyboard unreliable…”

It looks like the keyboard gets about 2.25 stars out of 5 on the Apple website. The reviews about other keyboards aren’t much better.

A device is only as good as its weakest link. Not having a reliable keyboard for what looks like a great iPad kills the product for me.

Time to rethink… I type, shoot, create web content, and video edit for a living. I’m a writer and producer. A keyboard is NOT optional. You’ve been warned!

See Apple Reviews

My Take from Brownie Bytes

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