The GE Show
launched: 2010
project type: website
About a year-and-a-half ago we set out on an adventure with General Electric. Over the course of a few months we explored GE and blogged our observations and ideas. We called our client discovery process GE Adventure. As we explored the different business units we started to recognize a unifying theme: everyone works on problems that touch a lot of people but can be so large or abstract that they are difficult for individuals to comprehend. It’s pretty hard to get your head around trillion dollar infrastructure projects, but it is really interesting and really important, so we dug in and started thinking about a new context to talk about this stuff.
Everyone knows the name GE but few really know its scope and scale – GE needed to tell its story in a digital way and through a truly web-native experience with different interactions to connect with people at all levels. We wanted to highlight the large and abstract problems that GE tables daily because we recognized that these challenges were interesting and important for all of us.
While we were on the road we spent time batting around ideas of how to solve this problem. One of the thoughts we had was to launch a “show” to explain all of GE’s big problems. We knew we weren’t interested in repeating what everyone else does—fitting 30 minutes of content into a three minute ‘show’. As a result, we spent a lot of time thinking about making a truly web-native show, creating modules with various types of interaction in place of the segments that normally make up TV shows. As we slowly developed this idea, it emerged into what is now The GE Show.
Episode 1 Healthy Hospitals
The first episode helps illustrate the size, scale and complexity of the healthcare world and of running a hospital by using a video, games, infographics and polls. The game ‘Patient Shuffle‘ helped visitors understand the difficulties of allocating resources inside a hospital and was a huge success with over 93,000 hits and with average play time of 8:28 minutes. Because the game was so popular, we even made it into an iPad and iPhone game that’s now been downloaded over 7,500 times.
The first episode helps illustrate the size, scale and complexity of the healthcare world and of running a hospital by using a video, games, infographics and polls. The game ‘Patient Shuffle‘ helped visitors understand the difficulties of allocating resources inside a hospital and was a huge success with over 93,000 hits and with average play time of 8:28 minutes. Because the game was so popular, we even made it into an iPad and iPhone game that’s now been downloaded over 7,500 times.
(Patient Shuffle for iPad for iPad is now available at the iTunes App Store.)
Episode 2 Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicles have been around for about a hundred years but only in the last decade have they become a viable alternative to gas-guzzling internal combustion engines. Recognizing that overhauling the automotive industry for a sustainable future is a gigantic challenge, we made electric vehicles our subject for the second episode of The GE Show.
Electric vehicles have been around for about a hundred years but only in the last decade have they become a viable alternative to gas-guzzling internal combustion engines. Recognizing that overhauling the automotive industry for a sustainable future is a gigantic challenge, we made electric vehicles our subject for the second episode of The GE Show.
In four weeks we developed the second episode, which includes a tool to calculate your daily driving mileage, a driving game, some stunning data predictions projected out to year 2030 and several fantastic videos to tie the whole thing together. We are hoping to make each episode better than the last, so this was definitely a step in the right direction for us. Each new episode gets more ambitious than the last, and we are pushing our storytelling in new directions.
Episode 3 ‘Flight!’
We have been chasing the dream of flight for hundreds of years. As we have conquered this frontier flying has become mundane, almost an annoyance. It has become about being groped and strip searched in security lines. In this episode we hoped to reconnect people with the magic of flying. It’s really pretty awesome that 450-ton metal tubes can zip across the sky everyday carrying thousands of people. With a new format, this third episode features a short film about the hidden intricacies of take-offs and landings, a plane design simulator, some of the craziest planes and plane photos you’ve ever seen, the possibilities of electric flight and the future of super efficient engines. And be sure to watch the highly acclaimed path of flight video.
We have been chasing the dream of flight for hundreds of years. As we have conquered this frontier flying has become mundane, almost an annoyance. It has become about being groped and strip searched in security lines. In this episode we hoped to reconnect people with the magic of flying. It’s really pretty awesome that 450-ton metal tubes can zip across the sky everyday carrying thousands of people. With a new format, this third episode features a short film about the hidden intricacies of take-offs and landings, a plane design simulator, some of the craziest planes and plane photos you’ve ever seen, the possibilities of electric flight and the future of super efficient engines. And be sure to watch the highly acclaimed path of flight video.
Episode 4 ‘The Rebirth of Rails’
Trains are awesome. Did you know that people who are obsessed with trains are called “foamers?” It’s true. Over the course of the few weeks it took to produce The Rebirth of Rails, we all became little honorary foamers. Highlights of the fourth episode include a train switching game, a visually stunning slow-motion video that breaks down the idea of regenerative braking at a zillion frames per second and an interactive word problem that gives visitors a glimpse of the potential future of rails.
Trains are awesome. Did you know that people who are obsessed with trains are called “foamers?” It’s true. Over the course of the few weeks it took to produce The Rebirth of Rails, we all became little honorary foamers. Highlights of the fourth episode include a train switching game, a visually stunning slow-motion video that breaks down the idea of regenerative braking at a zillion frames per second and an interactive word problem that gives visitors a glimpse of the potential future of rails.
