Experimenting with Technology without Chasing Trends

If there’s one skill we should all want to walk away with when the clock strikes midnight on January 1st, it should be adaptability. Being flexible, resilient, and quick on our feet was more important this year than ever before. For Josh Goldblum, Founder & CEO of Bluecadet, these skills have always been top of mind. He explained that in the studio, they are constantly looking to reinvent and innovate, “That’s a lot about how we approach our work. But I think we’re kind of like always up for a challenge and we’re always up for trying things differently,” Goldblum said.

When it comes to facing challenges, Goldblum likes to focus on problem solving. “I think we just look at everything as kind of a problem. You know, like, how do you make this work and like how do you optimize for it?” Goldblum explained. He believes that as long as you stay curious, you don’t get too discouraged.

One example of how Bluecadet has adapted in our new world involves touchscreens. “We’ve always been looking for different ways to express ourselves and to like create new types of interactions and physical space. And I think we were also like, very wary of certain solutions.

So you know, I mean, honestly, we’ve probably deployed like 1,000, touchscreens. You know, we’ve done tons and tons of touch walls, we’ve done lots of projection,” Goldblum said. Bluecadet was already beginning to rethink if this technology and then touching things became an undesirable thing to do.

What did they do when it was time to make a switch? “We weren’t thinking about it, because we’re like, oh my God like COVID is everywhere, and no one’s gonna want to touch a screen. It was like mostly, these screens don’t serve the content that well, and they’re kind of boring, and like, not magical.

So, you know, we’d already been thinking a lot about like AR and how to sort of blend the, you know, people’s devices with the physical environment,” Goldblum noted.

“We want to make sure that we’re like using a contemporary toolset to express ourselves and which is not to say that, like, we’re always trying to push like the most contemporary technology, because sometimes it’s just totally inappropriate…But you know, it’s stuff that interests us and you know, it’s just different ways that we can kind of express and solve different problems.”

Join host Bryan Meszaros on Experience by Design every other Wednesday as he explores the latest trends and solutions helping craft the world’s most intriguing experiences.