His Royal Hologram Prince Charles - technology King

By TJ MacDonald |

Warning: When you get immersed in ways to use technology to expand the scope, range and impact of educational messages, it’s hard to stop babbling about 21st Century concepts like digital leverage, electronic delivery and virtual learning.

But how does it all fit in to the lives of ordinary people? Or celebrities? Or plain old-fashioned, fuddy-duddies? With that in mind I just have to say…

You gotta love technology! Odds on, that’s what all the critics of Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of England must be thinking at the moment.

Prince Charles is a hologram.

“Hooray!. Can we keep him that way?” they are asking. “When he waffles on too much with his loony ideas, or upsets too many people with his political insensitivity… “ (Or is that his father, Prince Phillip? Maybe there’s a hologram of him too?)

Back to those fantasies of the anti-Charles brigade… when you’ve just had enough, find the switch, remote-control button or whatever powers these things and poof! – or zzzzt! – or Just Silence! He’s gone. Vanished from before your very eyes.

Fortunately for Camilla, Princes William and Harry, and all the Charles fans round the world, holograms also have an ON switch, so he can also be brought alive in a flash.

This just happened at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.

Sky News has just been beaming images of holo-Charles to my TV while I had breakfast this morning. Please, don’t anyone ever try to serve me virtual muesli though. I’m far from ready for replicated food. But for communication, this virtual stuff is really cookin’!

Thanks to another bit of electronic wizardry, I finished off breakfast with a quick scan of the Telegraph (a UK newspaper, being read in Australia - get the picture? Obviously it’s the online edition, different format, but the news is the same.) Here’s what I read:

The Prince of Wales was beamed in Star Trek-style for his first appearance as a hologram when he delivered a powerful speech on the environment to the world’s leaders before vanishing into thin air.

We’re talking life-size, three-dimensional image of the Prince. Scary? Cute? Who cares? It was mighty effective – “powerful” they described it – and an excellent choice of medium to deliver his educational message. Because that is exactly what Charles is doing – educating! Helping people think. About things and in new ways that can have long lasting effect.

The people at this Future Energy get-together presumably have a keen interest in that nebulous thing called “effect-on-the-environment”. So wasn’t Charles only preaching to the converted? Maybe, if it had been a conventional address. But clever use of technology suddenly shifted audience learning opportunities into a new dimension. Even added new audiences.

Hoards of people have criticized Charles’ thinking on many issues in the past, but has that dampened his zeal for the things he fights for. You be the judge. My view is his latest speak-up is brilliant. In several senses of the word.

Let’s have the Telegraph pick up the story again.

The Prince was reluctant to attend the summit in person because the flights for him and his entourage would have generated an estimated 20 tons of carbon waste.

In comparison the hologram is thought to have left a carbon footprint equivalent to a lightbulb.

The hologram drew much surprise from the 2,500 delegates, most of whom had flown thousands of miles to discuss how to save carbon emissions.

Just for a moment ignore where you, personally, sit on the green debate.

Look at Charles’ message. Not just the words – the whole package.

The man’s a genius – or has one advising him. If so, I would love to get together one day (virtually, of course) and chat about the thinking that went into this presentation. It really is brilliant communication. More specifically…

This is brilliant educational communication

Although Charles’ message was important and its mode of delivery was clearly entertaining, I doubt that was the primary objective of the address.

My guess is Charles wants people to learn something from his presentation. In my book, (and I suspect His Royal Highness’s as well) that means acquiring new knowledge, skills or attitudes – that RESULTS in CHANGE! Most certainly, Charles’ message is educational. So what is he looking to change?

It’s often argued that electronically-assisted learning is better suited to facts than feelings. But, once again, “It ain’t necessarily so!” In this case, I believe any facts Charles uses are, like his choice of technology, aimed less at transferring knowledge and more at changing attitudes.

Let’s face it. Most of his audience probably already knew more about global warming issues than the high-ranking hologram addressing them. But how much did they actually ‘feel’ what they were at the Summit to discuss? Or was their interest more intellectual, commercial or political? My guess is – whatever their reasoning– they are ‘feeling’ it more now.

How many were squirming just slightly on their flight home, trying to calculate the impact of their frequent flyer miles, multiplied by 2500? And then, ashamedly, tried to stop comparing it with the light-weight, ‘like-a-lightbulb’, carbon-footprint left by Charles’ visit.

It was reported that ‘the hologram drew much surprise from the 2500 delegates’. Much surprise? Really? That sounds like classic British understatement to me.

Sure, appearance of the hologram may have been unexpected. But if it wasn’t accompanied by a rippling of Ah-Hah moments (even amongst the converted) as its – sorry Your Highness, YOUR message – the total, holistic message – beamed in to them, then some people were surely at the wrong Summit.

Part of the genius of this particular message is that, like a diamond, its brilliance has multiple faces.

Now, if for a moment my writing can resist being further influenced by mental images of the crown jewels, I will explain. Briefly.

If Charles had attended and spoken live, his exact same words would have conveyed a weaker message to a single audience. Some delegates may have even nodded off, like I have been known to do during an ‘important’ speech. (If you are going to try that yourself, do not snore. Or you may forever remember, not the speech, but the incredible force a young daughter can deliver through her elbow.)

Thanks to an astute appreciation of technology, a potentially forgettable speech is unleashed with a tiger in its tank. Suddenly, it’s got power.

I must be on a hobby-horse. I’m getting carried away. Didn’t I just say I’d explain – briefly? (Perhaps I meant “in a moment”. As in “be there in a moment”. When has that ever been related to time?)

A big part of that power is derived from the technology, its efficiency and the leverage it generates. Put simply, a few itty-bitty electrons turns a little bit of input into a big amount of output. And transforms it from local event to global reach - in a flash!

Need an explanation of this power-boost?

OK. Here goes…

For starters, Charles’ message has transformed from a short, local speech. (6 minutes I believe – must be a record for a dignitary.) It is now a sophisticated communication that has multi-messages, multi-audiences and multi-purposes.

Multi-purposing is a strong feature of electronic media but I promised to be brief so I’d better start leaving stuff out. So let’s look at just the first two areas of leverage: message and audience.

First, let’s make something clear. By multi-messaging, I’m certainly not inferring Charles is sending mixed-messages. He may have done some of that in his time but definitely not here.

Far from being confused he has cleverly presented multiple messages in one. It’s cleverly leveraged to now mean something to multiple audiences. He has:

Six minutes. Three messages. Three distinct audiences.

And that’s not to mention the extra mileage his message(s) get when the world starts talking about them. (Ahh! I knew there was a reason I couldn’t brief.)

Now that’s leverage!

Where did this extra power come from? I referred earlier to ‘an astute appreciation of technology’. I should have said – an astute appreciation AND USE of technology.

But even that is not quite explicit enough to be the right answer (although it is implied in ‘astute’). Earlier in this discussion I commented on the appropriateness of Charles’ choice of medium to delivery his educational message. If you recall, I was impressed how the medium was at much part of the message as were his words.

It’s time to jump back to that point because now, finally, I’m getting to the point of all this. So, briefly…

Does technology make an educational message more powerful? Uh-uh! It ain’t necessarily so!

If you want to see power unleashed in your message, make sure you couple that message with APPROPRIATE technology. That’s worth repeating.

If you are using technology to give digital leverage to your educational message, your success depends not just on technology you select, but on how appropriate it is to your purpose.

Take a lesson from Prince Charles and his hologram. I salute them both.

When it comes to using technology for educational messages, Charles is already the King.