DOOH idea

The Digital Out Of Home (aka public or in-store TV) industry is booming, and The Sound Agency is flattered indeed to be featured in DOOH guru Adrian Cotterill's blog here; also I did a long interview with David Wiseman that he's boiled down and run on his Minicom blog here. They're running a competition with some signed copies of my book as prizes.

I believe the digital signage/DOOH industry is approaching a crossroads with a major decision to make about sound. It can either add to the noise of modern living, turning on speakers in lifts, shops and even toilets and driving even more people to take refuge in their iPods, or it can make visuals work with audio to create a carefully-crafted, pleasing, appropriate, effective environment in every space. This means creating the right background first, with ambient visuals (they don't even have to move!) teamed with ambient audio, ideally generative. Then and only then should designers start to think about foreground sound, delivering it according to our four Golden Rules: make it optional (or at least targeted); make it appropriate; make it valuable; and test it often.

The analogy is creating a picture: you make the background first, and then you make the foreground object stand out by using contrast but always acknowledging the tones, mood, elements and movement in the background.

I hope to see and hear a world of moving wallpaper and helpful, appropriate foreground content that offers us guidance or advice just when we need it in either visual or aural form, or both, as appropriate.

The dark path, of course, leads to noise (in every sense) - a random mush of competing messages that bombard people everywhere in ever-more shrill and frantic tone. Let's not go there!

The sound of London

The other day I attended the opening of the London Innovation Centre in Croydon. Not only is The Sound Agency a member, but we also created the restful but cognitively stimulating generative soundscape that plays in the reception area of the Centre. The opening was a big event, with hundreds attending and even a steel band playing. The Mayor of London gave an inspiring keynote speech about innovation in London, and about London's role as the world's financial and business hub.

I was delighted to meet Mr Livingstone after the formal proceedings, and chat for a few minutes about sound. He has a keen interest in reducing ambient noise levels, as evidenced by the Sounder City plan, written by the GLA's sound guru Max Dixon, which details London's ambient noise strategy. You can download the full plan or summaries of it here. This is the only comprehensive city noise plan that I know of, covering every aspect of noise in London and setting out detailed plans for reducing all of it.

This is important because noise is irritating, debilitating and a massive cost to the economy and to people's wellbeing. The EU estimated that noise damage is costing Europe "tens of billions of euro per year"; it also stated that "environmental noise, as emitted by transport, industry and recreation, is reducing the health and the quality of life of at least 25 per cent of the European population".

These estimates date back several years. Now there is evidence that noise has much more serious consequences: it kills. Just a few weeks ago, the World Health Organisation published the finding that around 3 per cent of the UK's 101,000 coronary deaths are due to noise. There is more, as summarised in The Guardian:

"The WHO's working group on the Noise Environmental Burden on Disease began work on the health effects of noise in Europe in 2003. In addition to the heart disease link, it found that 2% of Europeans suffer severely disturbed sleep because of noise pollution and 15% can suffer severe annoyance. Chronic exposure to loud traffic noise causes 3% of tinnitus cases, in which people constantly hear a noise in their ears."

Europe's population is around 730 million, so if these research findings are correct there are over 14 million people suffering severely disturbed sleep because of noise. As well as (presumably) tens of thousands of coronary deaths a year across Europe, one speculates on the horrific cost to the community: social and family costs as stress and fatigue cause relationship breakups, traffic accidents and domestic violence; and economic costs with tired people making expensive mistakes at work, as well as absenteeism, chronic sickness and negative effects on team and customer relationships due to irritability and tiredness.

Europe is measuring all this now, with noise maps compulsory for every member nation. But measurement is just the start: well done to the Mayor for going to the next level and putting in place policies to reverse the rising tide of noise, improve the quality of life of millions - and save hundreds of lives.