I have a unique background working in all verticals and facets of entertainment; Music, Sports, TV & Film… and these days we can even call Politics entertainment.

I started my first company, Media Street, in the year 2000 where we manufactured digital ink & paper that we sold to professional photographers and Artists in over 100 countries.

During the height of our ink and paper sales I sought to displace and cannibalize our own products by developing the first of its kind Digital Photo Frames that we sold to top retailers and camera stores throughout the world.

Spending way too much time in China, I began to design and develop special MP3 players that would allow record labels to displace eroding CD sales by offering embedded albums on our MP3 Players

I built relationships with all record labels and I was fortunate enough to work direct with many legendary artists and bands. By the time social media came around, I was known as “Norm the Inventor” to the Artists I worked with and they asked for help getting their Fans to “believe” it was really them Tweeting and posting their Facebook updates rather then their publicists. This is when I created ShoutOmatic which became the defacto in Voice Status updates for Celebrities. Most major record labels still use ShoutOmatic today to dummy-proof the way Fans receive call-to-action links to BUY their music, concert tickets and merchandise.

Wanting to diversify and increase my network beyond music and sports, I consulted for Grumman Studios and helped them get their 8 incredible sound stages booked for TV and Major Motion Film Production. This was an invaluable education for me and I got to know amazing creative people from all major production houses; Marvel, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Disney, DC/Warner Bros, CBS, NBC, etc.

All of my contacts in Music, Sports, TV & Film began to ask me about the Virtual Reality workflow and that began my mission working for Nokia and helping them to successfully launch the world’s first Professional Virtual Reality Camera; OZO

Internet Week NY – Hosted by Ruder Finn

Norm appears on panel alongside incredible visionaries….

Experts agree: virtual reality will completely transform how we interact with each other and experience the unexpected. As we all grapple with how to take advantage of this new technology, representatives from Ruder Finn, The New York Times, Nokia and other thought leaders will walk you through how brands can best leverage VR to build experiences and showcase hands-on examples of VR campaigns. Ruder Finn, the agency who helped live-stream the first ever rock concert in VR, will host this session in their future headquarters in mid-town east.

• Panelist Background Information 

Scott Schneider, Chief Digital Officer, Ruder Finn (Moderator)

Scott is the Chief Digital Officer of Ruder Finn, overseeing the agency’s digital innovation strategy for major clients and programs. With over 16 years of award-winning experience in the digital industry, he spearheads the digital growth of Ruder Finn and its full-service in-house digital shop, RFI Studios. Together with his team, Scott has worked on innovative digital platforms for client partners like Nokia, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Tivo, Citi, Amgen, Pepsi Co., The Michael J. Fox Foundation, Samsung, Home Depot, MetLife and L’Oreal and the NAACP. In the last several years, Scott has been instrumental in leading RFI Studios into the next frontier, bringing a strong focus on user experience, experiential activation development, bots, VR and the Internet of Things. Prior to his tenure at Ruder Finn, Scott worked as Senior Producer at R/GA.

Sebastian Tomich, Senior Vice President, Advertising and Innovation, The New York Times

Sebastian Tomich serves as Senior Vice President, Advertising and Innovation for The New York Times. In this role, Tomich leads The Times’ “T Brand Studio” — a team that creates and distributes native advertising for brands and steers the company’s advertising innovation efforts. Since its launch in November 2015, the T Brand Studio has been the leader in virtual reality journalism, distributing more than 1 million Google Cardboard viewers to subscribers and debuting a VR viewer app that became the most successful product launch in Times history. Tomich also oversees a number of The Times’ national integrated sales teams across the US.

Before joining The Times, Tomich was the director of East Coast advertising at Forbes Media. He was named to Advertising Age’s “Creative 50” list in 2014.

Norm Levy, Nokia – OZO

Norm Levy is a live stream and cinematic VR expert who recently joined Nokia to support the continued rollout of the OZO, the first professional-grade virtual reality camera. Prior to his role at Nokia, Norm served as CEO of ShoutOmatic, a voice overlay platform, which allows voices to be heard across social networks, web sites, blogs and TV screens. He also founded Media Street, where he helped to develop the world’s first printing solutions that allow ink to last beyond 100 years before noticeable fading or color shift, as well as the world’s largest wide-format printers. Additional prominent projects created by Norm include the first of its kind “web-based” digital photo frame solution, “LifeGoRound,” and “Beyond.FM,” a music content portal where consumers buy music, videos and photos directly from performing artists.

Joergen Geerds, CEO, Koncept VR / Freedom360

With a background in art, film-making, photography and art direction, Joergen Geerds has been a key driver in the cinematic VR space for the past 5 years. The original inventor of the modern fully spherical video camera array, 360Rig, Joergen’s understanding of technology allows him to push the language of VR filmmaking with well thought out compositions and dynamic movements for commercial clients around the world. Before entering the VR space, Joergen served in various Senior Art Director roles for Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, Digitas, Ogilvy and Wunderman.

Luke Kingma, Director of Content, Futurism

Luke leads content strategy and production at Futurism.com, one of the web’s fastest growing digital publications. Futurism reports on the technology trends that are shaping our future—artificial intelligence, aerospace, 3D printing, robotics, renewable energy, and bioengineering, to name a few. Most recently he oversaw the launch of Virtuality, now the largest virtual and augmented reality community on Facebook. Prior to Futurism, Luke spent three years working with Gary Vaynerchuk at Vaynermedia, where he led creative teams in the company’s Los Angeles office.

As of May 2nd, 2016, I am working with the:

Expertly created. Intelligently designed. Purpose-built.

OZO is the world’s first professional Virtual Reality camera.

Please hit me up for the incredible details in full 360 🙂