ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Ben Templeton is a writer, creative director and facilitator in the field of games and playful technology. For almost 20 years Ben has helped organisations around the world create fun ways of bringing audiences together to interact with art, culture and science.
The Robin Hood Experience at Nottingham Castle is a series of immersive arcade games in four renovated coach arches. Supported by real-time motion tracking, custom electronics and large screen projections, players can grab an authentic medieval weapon and test their skills against a range of challenges. In the longbow games, three players compete for the high score but the quarterstaff is a solo battle against Little John on the bridge.
This is how we built… shares the honest stories behind digital projects in the cultural sector, exploring what sparked them, how they were delivered (and what they cost), what nearly went (or did go) wrong, an the lessons learned along the way.
IN THIS EPISODE
SHOW NOTES 🔗
TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:19.199
Welcome to This Is How We Built, a short series of digital works, digging into the real stories behind digital projects in the cultural sector.
00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:26.079
Each episode is about 20 minutes, covering the ideas, the costs, the surprises and the lessons learned.
00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:32.000
I'm Ashman, a consultant who works with cultural organizations on digital strategy and initiatives.
00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:36.560
And I hope you find these conversations honest, practical, and useful.
00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:38.399
Okay, let's go.
00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:46.079
Today we'll hear from Ben Templeton.
00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:52.159
Ben is a creative director who works with cultural organizations to make games and playful digital experiences.
00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:58.799
And we're going to go behind the scenes of an interactive longbow exhibition at Nottingham Castle that Ben and his team worked on.
00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:07.280
We'll hear about the importance of prototyping, the difficulties of diagnostics, and to beware of the carbon fibre microdust.
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:19.920
Ben, what was the original idea?
00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:22.719
I think it all would have started more than 10 years ago.
00:01:22.879 --> 00:01:28.480
The Nottingham Council wanted to relaunch the castle as a modern tourist attraction.
00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:31.120
And the castle historically is quite underwhelming.
00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:38.319
It's firstly, it's not a castle, and secondly, they're not really telling the Robin Hood story anywhere near as well as Hollywood.
00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:42.400
So they wanted to give a much more authentic, compelling experience.
00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:49.040
They wanted to tell the story of medieval archery and how important that is in sort of British history.
00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:56.799
And they wanted to show that these weapons, the longbow and the quarter staff, were part of everyday life.
00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:01.120
So, you know, men and children over 10 had to practice each week.
00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:07.439
And the quarter staff is essentially a long bit of wood that peasants had access to.
00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:14.879
And peasants used it to herd their geese or knock acorns out of trees, but they also used it to fight rich people.
00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:19.520
And with this project, who were you working with?
00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:20.479
Who was involved?
00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:28.400
So Nottingham Council was the primary client, and they handed operations over to Nottingham Castle Trust at launch.
00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:42.319
But in the early days, that sort of team there, Ben Gammon was running content and Cal Warren was project lead, but Cass and Mann were the exhibition designer, involved with the kind of heritage lottery funding section of it.
00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:44.159
And then we came on board.
00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:49.039
I was creative director at Preloaded, who are a game studio.
00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:57.919
And then as part of the production of our section of the exhibition, we brought on board artists and engineers who are an amazing small team.
00:02:58.000 --> 00:02:59.680
They specialise in electronics.
00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:06.319
And then we also brought on board MDM Props, who are a fabulous fabrication team.
00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:12.960
They've got an amazing warehouse down in Greenwich, which was just a real thrill to have such professionals on board.
00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:18.639
They make all the stage shows for the West End, and yeah, they make incredible physical props.
00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:28.960
And I'm always fascinated with projects like this, which involve you know experience design, making stuff, software, content.
00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:32.400
How did you go about it?
00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:43.360
So the brief, there were four old coach arches in the car park, and essentially they created a new exhibition space enclosing those four arches.
00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:49.120
And the content team wanted some longbow and some quarter staff experiences.
00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:54.000
So the first thing we did really was to research those games.
00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:55.520
A lot of it was about archery.
00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:59.360
Archery is the sort of more high profile of the two weapons.
00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:15.120
And we just got really excited about this one chap in particular who became famous on YouTube for the sort of speed and dexterity with which he could shoot arrows, you know, running and backflipping, or riding a motorcycle, or doing two shots, or like shooting his own arrow at himself.
00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:18.000
And all this kind of became our North Star.
00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:22.240
We really wanted a fluid, physical, untethered experience.
00:04:22.399 --> 00:04:24.160
And that was our North Star, really.
00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:28.160
We fought quite hard for the bows not to be bolted down.
00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:34.959
The original exhibition design from Casaman talked about the longbows being bolted to tables, which I understand is sensible.
00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:39.120
The fewer moving parts means for a more robust experience.
00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:45.439
But our vision was to try and make the four arches cohere from a user experience perspective.
00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:48.000
And to do that, we needed a framework behind it.
00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:52.240
So that's not just a visual framework, but also technically.
00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:58.879
So we wanted to use technology that would work for both the weapon types across the four arches.
00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:06.959
And really the most important starting point was settling on how are we going to track these weapons as they move in space.
00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:12.079
And so the screen-based stuff is all Unity.
00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:17.759
So we had a sort of an aesthetic for the world that we wanted to create, this medieval world.
00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:20.720
So there were four screens, one in each archway.
00:05:20.959 --> 00:05:22.560
That was all Unity-based.
00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:26.240
And then we had a motion tracking system from Opti-Track.
00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:29.920
So in each arch there were some infrared cameras mounted.
00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:36.160
That would mean that on each of the weapons we needed to mount lots of reflective markers.
00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:46.000
And there was only one quarter staff in each of the quarter staff arches, but in the longbow arches, we had three, three bows in each of the longbow arches.
00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:50.160
And so tracking three different longbows as they move is quite challenging.
00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:59.439
And we we designed a system for creating different patterns of reflective markers on each bow so that the system could distinguish between them.
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:02.639
I mean, we did a huge amount of physical prototyping.
00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:11.439
Really, that's how we got to the point of what feels like a really playable experience is just mucking around with physical stuff.
00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:18.000
It started with cellotaping two dog ball throwers together to get the feel of a bow.
00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:22.160
Then we got this amazing first prototype off MDM props.
00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:31.279
They welded some steel together in a curve, and it was really rudimentary and far too heavy, but gave us a quick sense of the physicality of this experience.
00:06:31.439 --> 00:06:36.639
And then we moved on to a sort of a fiberglass construction for the longbows.
00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:45.040
And its final state is still fiberglass, but covered in black electrical tape because of all the dinks and drops of kids throwing it on the ground.
00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:49.040
We'll come back to the kids throwing it on the ground when we talk about maintenance.
00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:55.600
But you know, you talked a lot about prototyping there, fabrication, software design, technology.
00:06:55.920 --> 00:06:58.560
How long did this project take to put together?
00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:00.879
And if you can share, what did it cost?
00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:13.839
So the broader project was part of a£35 million sort of heritage lottery fund capital project, and our piece of the puzzle was those four old coach arches to make these arcade-style games.
00:07:14.079 --> 00:07:18.879
The production was around 12 months, and the budget was around£200,000.
00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:24.160
But the lockdown slightly changed things, and we'll come to that.
00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.319
That was probably one of the biggest surprises.
00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:30.319
So, on the subject of surprises, what did catch you unawares?
00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:31.600
What surprised you along the way?
00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:33.360
Lockdown was a nasty surprise.
00:07:33.439 --> 00:07:38.240
It's really hard to prototype a physical interactive when you can't be in the same room as each other.
00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:48.160
We couldn't visit the site very often, and consequently, the quarter staff experience is not quite as fluid and as intuitive as I had hoped.
00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:57.519
It follows the kind of guitar hero, dance hero thing where there are patterns that you have to follow because we didn't want kids just smashing each other with quarter stars.
00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:02.079
So we tried to structure it with, you know, provide game world scaffolding.
00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:05.360
But beyond lockdown, we found workarounds for that.
00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:11.839
I was actually really surprised with how the pitch vision transitioned into production.
00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:14.720
And I don't want to kind of blow my own trumpet.
00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:26.079
It wasn't me, it was the whole team at pitch stage created what was a really simple pitch, and we could take that simple concept and it ran right through.
00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:36.080
And we did all the hard work up front in a way by thinking yes, we needed a standardized technical approach, a standardized visual approach, a standardized game design system.
00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:42.240
And so that was really pleasing to often there's a big pivot from pitch stage to production.
00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:47.039
I'm also surprised how quickly we got a playable version of the game.
00:08:47.200 --> 00:09:01.039
So we had to use mobile phones and the accelerometers in the phones to give that impression of a physical object, but we could direct the arrow in different directions on the screen using the accelerometer and it and it very quickly felt quite fun.
00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:06.080
I mean, the the more interesting surprises came after launch, really.
00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:12.559
There were lots of technical surprises, and just one quick example is to do with machine tolerance.
00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:18.000
And I talked about how we distinguished between the different longbows in each arch.
00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:24.960
So we had three players, and we needed to create this pattern system for the markers on each bow.
00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:31.360
And just the slight difference in machine tolerance around where it drilled the holes created a real problem for us.
00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:39.440
And boring things like threaded nylon rod, you know, when the thread is like a tiny gauge different, it pulls out.
00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:44.960
And so the kind of physicality was new for me, coming primarily from a software background.
00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:48.639
So it was it was a real treat to work in that physical space.
00:09:49.039 --> 00:10:01.840
That's something that I've heard in other conversations for this series that when it comes to making things, the tooling and the machining and the fabrication suddenly unlocks a door to a room you didn't even know existed.
00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:02.639
Exactly.
00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:14.320
You've already talked a lot about there, there were prototypes, there was mucking around, as you say, there was sort of electrical tape, you know, you're dealing with lockdown, you're dealing with doing and playing with new ideas and new technologies.
00:10:14.559 --> 00:10:19.759
What didn't work, or maybe nearly went off the rails while you were going through this project?
00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:27.200
I feel like there were endless missteps, sort of micro missteps, just in production, miscommunications.
00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:29.279
That sort of feels par for the course.
00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:36.480
But the most complex thing was the sequencing of the hardware, the physical sort of chain of hardware.
00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:54.399
We had the longbows themselves, which were tethered into the setworks, and the other side of the setworks they fed into an interface box, and that interface box then fed back to the server room, which sort of fed to the screen that the player actually sees.
00:10:54.639 --> 00:11:02.879
And just troubleshooting along that chain was really difficult, and we didn't have all of the tooling up front that we would have needed.
00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:12.799
It's quite difficult to plan for the tools that you need, and they're also building tools, establishing more efficient workflows, is costly.
00:11:12.879 --> 00:11:17.679
And so when you're on a tight budget, you need to kind of plow ahead as quickly as possible.
00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:24.480
So that complex sequencing of kit was really difficult, and it came down to boring things like naming conventions.
00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:33.360
So we used to call them interface boxes, and that became a real mouthful when you're trying to shout down a bad phone line with no reception.
00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:41.679
So now we call them Z boxes, and there are cassettes, which is the electronics that sit inside the long bow, and they all have like ID numbers.
00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:44.960
So they're C, and we have arrows which are A.
00:11:45.039 --> 00:11:48.480
And it took a while to kind of establish these naming conventions.
00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:54.720
And the bows themselves needed ID numbers because certain ones would be dropped and swapped in.
00:11:54.879 --> 00:12:03.759
And even just adding an ID number to the bow was so much harder than you'd realize because every element of the bow can be sort of taken off.
00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:08.799
And it's that sort of philosophical problem: when does the ship remain, you know, that Egyptian guy's ship?
00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:11.679
If you change one plank of wood, is it still the same ship?
00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:15.279
But if you change every single plank of wood, is it still the same ship?
00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:20.159
So we had a lot of problems on those silly, small scale.
00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:31.759
In terms of other things, like the original idea of bolting the longbows to the table, we felt was a bad one, just from an authentic visitor experience perspective.
00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:33.759
It that's not what archery is like.
00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:38.639
The thrill of a longbow is that you can wield it in any direction.
00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:44.559
Think of Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games and how quickly she can kind of fire off an arrow.
00:12:44.720 --> 00:12:50.399
So, really, that was a vision passed on to us from the designers, and this is not to talk them down.
00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:58.240
Casaman did an amazing job, but that was one of the failings, I think, to think of it in terms of everything having to be bolted down.
00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:06.639
Yeah, we encountered a few road sort of bumps in the road persuading them to think about it differently, and I'm so pleased that we persevered.
00:13:06.879 --> 00:13:09.120
Just a quick note on carbon fibre.
00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:25.600
We thought that would be the right material to use for structural strength, but actually it created through wear and tear, it created this fine particles of carbon, which became magnetized, which then sent all of our sensors awry.
00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:31.200
And it took us so long to work out why are the readings all over the place, and it's because of this micro dust.
00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:42.399
So then we swapped to plastic arrows and they shattered very quickly with all the impacts, and now we're on nylon arrows, which are holding up really well.
00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:57.120
So, yeah, there was some physical failings, but I'd like to just sort of credit and pay testament to the Castle team for persevering with these design cycles where we could work iteratively, and that all happened after launch.
00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:06.320
And I think the continuous iteration that we've done through the maintenance period and beyond is really interesting, and maybe we can talk a bit more about that.
00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:07.200
Absolutely.
00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:12.879
And I mean it sounds already that there were so many lessons coming out of almost every aspect of this project.
00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:15.279
But what are the big things that you feel like you learned?
00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:17.919
It's easy to say keep it simple.
00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:26.559
But in this project, I really saw how powerful that principle is, and it's very hard to keep it simple.
00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:28.559
It's very easy to say that.
00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:42.639
And I found that the framework we created in pursuing that simplicity of an overarching technical approach, an overarching visual framework, trying to use the same game design principles across two very different interactives.
00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:47.679
As I said, it was painful at first, but I think that really paid off.
00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:52.240
So I'm really pleased that we persevered with that simplicity of approach.
00:14:52.480 --> 00:15:00.240
The other thing around simplicity is that people play what they know, and we didn't need to innovate in the gameplay.
00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:02.639
Shooting a bow and arrow is already really fun.
00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:06.639
Wielding, you know, a six-foot quarter staff is inherently quite fun.
00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:10.399
So we had to be quite restrained with the game design.
00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:24.240
And there were some missteps there in over-engineering the complexity of the gameplay, and actually just shooting at moving targets rather than static targets was enough of an elevation for you know level two.
00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:30.639
And I think it was lovely to look back on the games and feel the reward of having been restrained.
00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:32.799
So that restraint was quite important.
00:15:32.960 --> 00:15:38.399
I think it's so important to invest in people, and that came down to the training.
00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:45.919
So we did on-site training with the staff, but of course, staff move on, and we had to sort of provide subsequent training.
00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:59.200
That was really quite difficult, enabling the on-site team to do some of the low-level maintenance because the off-site maintenance, the electronics, is a lot more expensive, and so bringing an outsourced team in to help is an expensive solution.
00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:02.960
So we really wanted to enable the people to look after it themselves.
00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:12.159
And I guess the final thing is just around the iterative nature of the project and how we got to support the project over time.
00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:26.080
We we were very quick to find something playable, and then when it came to fixing those hardware issues I spoke about, we quickly 3D printed new solutions, we sent them up to the castle, try these out, take a photo.
00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:27.440
Yeah, that one exploded.
00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:28.240
Okay, great.
00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:29.759
Let's do it in a different way.
00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:35.679
But the team at the castle were amazingly patient with that process, and I actually really enjoyed it.
00:16:35.759 --> 00:16:42.879
And we've gone through five or six design iterations on the physical setup over the last few years.
00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:50.320
And I have never in 20 years in the industry had that experience of such a long-running project.
00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:56.960
And I feel like we're adding value to it as we go, and it's a real treat to be involved for such a long period of time.
00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:05.599
And on that question of things that have happened since launch, what do you feel has worked and maybe what hasn't?
00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:17.119
Well, it's really hard for staff on the ground to support this interactive, partly because 30 children will come screaming in and just pick everything up and chuck everything around and pull things.
00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:19.519
So the tethers pull out of the wall.
00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:24.799
And I mean, the main job for staff is to untangle the tethers, which is so boring.
00:17:24.960 --> 00:17:27.680
Um, stock control was a total nightmare.
00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:34.160
We've tried physical whiteboards and taking photos of them, digital whiteboards, spreadsheets, emails, WhatsApp.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:38.559
There's simply too many components to track in such fine detail.
00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:40.880
So we've slightly softened our approach.
00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:52.720
The anal part of me wanted to audit exactly where every component was at every point in time, whether it's in London or Nottingham or in the stockroom or on the floor, but that wasn't practical.
00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:58.240
And the stuff that really has worked is that continuous iteration, which is incredibly rare.
00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:02.160
So tackling the weak points in that chain of hardware one by one.
00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:13.519
And firstly, we did a big round of re-engineering to make it much quicker to service, turning what was essentially prototype electronics, where each connection was like manually soldered.
00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:17.440
We created a cassette with plugs that could slide in and out of the longbow.
00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:20.079
And we just couldn't afford to do that in the first iteration.
00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:26.240
But being able to create these cassettes that can then be posted, and that saves on postage costs.
00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:32.960
Early days we had to send the entire longbow to London for us to work on it, and now we can just send a cassette.
00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:34.079
So that was fantastic.
00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:38.240
And the arrows, as I said, we had that issue with the carbon fiber dust.
00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:41.119
We iterated and went to plastic and went to nylon.
00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:52.000
And it's really nice to have a working relationship with the castle where we can, as part of our maintenance contract, we can send up a new component and see how it works on the floor.
00:18:52.240 --> 00:19:03.359
And finally, for anyone listening to this and maybe thinking about doing their own interactive longbow or you know, any interactive that sort of has this big physical component part.
00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:06.720
What's your advice for someone thinking about doing something similar?
00:19:07.039 --> 00:19:11.680
I guess the problem with advice is it's dished out with rose-tinted glasses on.
00:19:11.759 --> 00:19:14.559
And budgets are always tight, people are always stressed.
00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:19.039
And having something as exciting as this to work on feels like quite a rare gem.
00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:28.880
But in general, even on small interactive projects, I think I would suggest you stay in the low fidelity world as long as possible.
00:19:29.039 --> 00:19:36.000
And that means keep things rough, the prototypes, keep things in sketch world as long as possible.
00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:42.319
And as soon as you start polishing, it becomes very hard to adjust and move.
00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:49.200
And I think no matter how experienced the team are, you need to allow space for changes.
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:53.440
And the cheapest way to do that is to stay low fidelity for as long as possible.
00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:59.839
And in user testing, audience members are perfectly happy to use their imaginations and to flesh things out.
00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:01.599
So stay low fidelity.
00:20:01.759 --> 00:20:04.160
It's a bit boring, but plan for servicing.
00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:10.720
The logistics of that, the on-the-ground reality of servicing things like this does need planning for.
00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:16.480
But to end on a more positive note, I think if you can imagine it, it really is possible.
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:20.480
I think the ambition at that early stage is so important.
00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:30.319
So for us to really stick to our guns on this being a free-moving bow, not bolted to the setworks, might have felt like a pipe dream.
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:38.319
Indeed, we had many discussions in the early days, and it was felt to be impossible, but we actually made it happen by sticking to our guns.
00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:46.480
So I think if you can keep it simple in the areas that you can control, then you can go big with that one sort of ambitious piece.
00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:53.039
And I suppose a final practical note would be the value of tools and tooling.
00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:56.640
So this is about dashboards and things for reading out the status.
00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:08.240
And after launch, we created a little web app that allowed us remotely to check on the status of the different items of hardware in that sequence.
00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:10.000
And it was just a revelation.
00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:18.160
It meant we were no longer getting the team to sort of send screenshots and photos with the torch highlighting these obscure LEDs.
00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:20.240
It was um a real revelation.
00:21:20.319 --> 00:21:25.680
So building those tools as you go is important, and that costs money and takes investment.
00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:29.920
So I think if you prioritize it early, you will save yourselves pain down the line.
00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:32.000
And on that note, Ben, thank you so much.
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:33.359
Thanks, Ash.
00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:38.960
Thanks for listening.
00:21:39.200 --> 00:21:46.079
If you enjoyed this conversation and want to hear more, you can find all episodes of the podcast on thedigital.works.
00:21:46.640 --> 00:21:53.119
And if your organization needs help making sense of digital, you can get in touch with me via my website at Ashman.co.
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:55.039
That's man with two ends.
00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:57.839
See you next time.