New local company ‘teleports’ its customers

At first, it sounds a little Star Trek-y: “To put it simply, we teleport people,” said Nehemiah “Nemo” Chu, leader of a new digital technology company called Spinneractive. “We put people in cars. We put people in hotels. We can put people in somebody else’s shoes, in a sense.”

In a “Teleporting for Dummies” explanation, a “spinneraction” is a 360-degree still photograph of an event, place or object. The spinneraction is created by using a technologically souped-up camera and some coding on the computer side.

“Let’s say you’re a car dealership and you have your latest model coming in late in the evening. You want to show your most loyal customers the interior of this new car,” he said. “The car dealership would call us up, we’d go in and capture what we call a spinneraction with our equipment and put that spinneraction where that car dealership wants it.

“If they want it on a Web site, if they want it on an exclusive Web site that only their most loyal customers can access, we can do that for them. When it’s on a Web site, we can integrate all of the Web site components — links, buttons — we can integrate it into that spinneraction and create a very compelling car interior experience. It’s almost like you’re inside the car looking around.”

Chu believes the technology has many applications. Another example he gave was in creating company training experiences.

“For certain types of training, you want all of the trainees on location,” said Chu. “We’re able to emulate that training experience. Say a company is trying to train trainees to spot hazards and improve response time. … It could be a construction site. There’s a lot going on in a construction site. What we’d be able to do is go in and capture a spinneraction of a construction site, purposefully manipulate it a little bit so that there are some hazards, then turn that spinneraction into an interactive training.”

Chu described how a trainee would be shown a 360-degree view of a construction site and then be required to mark all the hazards within a certain time allotment.

Spinneractive, which is only a couple of months old, has launched a new version of its Web site to coincide with the publication of this article. For better understanding of what Spinneractive does, go to www.spinneractive.com and see a spinneraction of this interview.

The new company already has done work for an Ada-based golf course and for a rental facility owned by Mosaic Space, a sister company of Spinneractive.

Spinneractive and Mosaic Space both fall under the umbrella of Steve Robbins & Associates, though the formal relationship between Steve Robbins & Associates and Spinneractive is still being finalized.

One of Spinneractive’s long-term goals is to create a spinneraction map of Grand Rapids.

“Personally, I see Grand Rapids as one of the brighter spots in Michigan right now, and to go down the Medical Mile and see the development — it’s exciting. I’m not from this city, but after arriving here, I have come to really enjoy and love it,” said Chu. “I feel like this city has more potential if only people knew about what goes on here.

“We think we can put people all over the world in the shoes of everyday Grand Rapidians with our technology.

“Being able to capture a spinneraction of Grand Rapids from the sky, having key locations turned into little buttons where people can click on the JW Marriott and instantly see the lobby; they can click on a Herman Miller showroom and see a very innovative furniture company showcasing its work.

“Maybe with spinneractions of the city, we can convince more people to host their conventions in this city in the various locations.

“We think we can really highlight this city and help showcase it to the world.”