Bill O'Connor is one of our corporate strategists. He and I do a lot of work together. Via this blog, I have shared a few things that Bill has done — one of which involved the Future of Storytelling conference.

• POV Dispatch: Storytelling: Our Secret Weapon in an Age of Complexity

The other day I was at a meeting where Autodesk team members talked about what they learned at the Future of Storytelling conference. Well at that meeting, the famous "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" commercial from the 1970's was highlighted.

Recently this was re-imagined by Coca Cola. Coca Cola had its employees film short segments where they said "I'd like to buy you a coke." Vending machines around the world were then instrumented so that as would-be customers approached the machines, they would see/hear the message and get a free Coke. The recipient could then enter a text message and thank the employee for the free Coke. Check this out:

• People’s Insights Volume 1, Issue 32: Hilltop Re-imagined for Coca Cola

This was successful, filmed, and will be used in future marketing campaigns.

The process has even expanded where one person, a non-employee, could give another person a Coke.

I had a thought. What if we had a "I'd like to buy the world a 3D Print." campaign? Employees could film brief segments saying "I'd like to buy you a 3D print of your design." When would-be customers come to our web site and click on the "free trial" link, a random number of them would be taken to a page where they see an employee's message and are able to download a coupon for a 3D print at Red Eye. Stupid or brilliant?

Thinking out loud is alive in the lab.