Who would’ve thought chasing Wolverines across the Arctic would one day help invent a new kind of book.
During the early 80s, when I was a bit fitter than I am now, I was writing software for the acquisition and maintenance of fitness in extreme situations at the Human Performance Laboratory at Salford University. Whilst there, I was involved in a series of Arctic expeditions and during my time in the wilderness I was introduced to a fascinating animal — the Wolverine. I became a little obsessed with studying them, writing papers and books on the subject. I visited Wolverine habitat many times to further study, film and photograph the animal. Over the years, I’d wanted to produce a documentary-style video and an accompanying book.
However, our technology work unearthed some interesting new media production techniques that I wanted to explore. So, armed with Wolverine content, we set about piloting our emerging technology.
The breakthrough was deceptively simple. The technology fundamentally took a conventional book format, but when online, these PDF books did something unusual. The pieces of paper were tricked into thinking they were websites. Anything a website could do, so could our paper. The books launched video footage (very Harry Potter), played music, conducted quizzes, surveys and questionnaires in real time, produced full back office data storage, statistics and valuable marketing intelligence. My Wolverine book was published in late 2004 and is now sold on Amazon using the latest print on demand technologies.
A new technology had emerged.
The IPGOS solution went on to have far-reaching application possibilities. A variety of market sectors began benefiting from IPGOS technology: Sport, News Media and Entertainment, Children’s Learning Materials and Business and Marketing. The underpinning technology enabled clear and distinct advantages over conventional delivery platforms. IPGOS offered the ability to push your message directly into your target’s inbox, tracking, monitoring and fully monetising all marketing collateral.
Who would’ve thought it would all start with a Wolverine.
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