If you have kids, you can pick up no end of good tips by watching what they get up to on new technology. If you don’t have kids then here are 3 great tips for starting up any Transmedia or digital project, courtesy of my daughter Miller.

Transmedia Tip 1 – Trends

–The Hunger Games Game

Miller is getting into games programming (with only the gentlest of nudges from me).

She set about making a Hunger Games character game last week. Of course, she is caught up in the global marketing campaign that is currently driving the 2nd film in the HG trilogy “Catching Fire”. But even so, I was impressed by her wanting to get creative around the stories she currently loves.

In effect she is tapping into TRENDS – and when you’re reaching out to find an audience on new devices and platforms this is more important than the news.

Which brings me to…

Transmedia Tip 2 – Agility

– Move Quickly On A Good Idea

Miller is programming in a system called “Scratch” – this is really COOL! (And deserves a separate post sometime.) In short, Scratch is a visual programming social network for kids.

She can knock something together in an hour or two in Scratch. Which is what she did, making her HG character game version 1 very quickly and as a result picked up a ton of visits to her game.

It’s crucial to not get too bogged down in the finer points of an idea or project as ultimately it’s going to live or die with the audience – so get AGILE and get it out there QUICK!!!

So how do you reign in your Transmedia or interactive story idea when you can do so much with media nowadays?

Transmedia Tip 3 – Simplicity

– Less Is More

Often with kids and their ideas you have to step in and help, even if you get called a poopoo head (or worse).

Miller’s ideas know no bounds and in order to take advantage of Tips 1 and 2 (Trends and Agility) – I had to try and convince her to keep her idea simple. Or run the risk of not getting it out there.

Several heated debates later – she actually took my advice on board and pared things right back to a SIMPLE version so she could finish it without employing all her school friends to help her finish it.

The result was great. She got her idea up and running in version 1 and quickly revised into a version 2 that was vastly improved and picked up more traffic, fans and comments.

And she is currently revising the game again..

Bonus Transmedia Tip – Respond – The Audience Know What They Like

Listen to what your audience like / don’t like and be RESPONSIVE.

Learn to listen to what your audience is saying or playing with – and focus in on that.

After all without your audience you have nothing…

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