Amdocs USA Inc., a maker of software services for communications and media companies, wanted to upstage bigger, better-known rivals at the 2019 Mobile World Congress (MWC), such as Qualcomm Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. To achieve that end, it joined with Landau Design Ltd. to create a booth as irresistible as its competitors were prominent.

Attendees passing Amdocs' 6,000-square-foot exhibit would have found its 7-by-55-foot walkway impossible to ignore. More than just a pedestrian path that collects scuff marks, the passage, comprising hundreds of pressure-sensitive LED tiles, displayed a selection of technology terms. Using voice and text recognition, the company monitored attendees' conversations in its booth, MWC's keynote presentations, media coverage, technology sessions, and related social-media posts. From that pool of talk it gathered more than 200,000 words, sifted them down to the 50 most common tech-related expressions, and clustered them into related groupings, such as neural networks and robotic manufacturing, which subsequently appeared on the illuminated track. When visitors reached the walkway's end, they stepped into an L-shaped corridor that had been sound-dampened. Thirty clocks – analog, digital, and even conceptual – lined the hushed hallway. Accompanying the timepieces was a two-minute-long audio loop of a serene female voice discussing the time pressures visitors were under and inviting them to dream about where to take their companies in the future.

Emerging from the passage, guests made their way into an infinity room. The 9-by-12-foot enclosure included mirrored walls plus a high-gloss floor over which hung a canopy of 20,000 lights, creating an illusion of a bright endlessness – and by implication the infinite possibilities of Amdocs' products. Compelling and thought-provoking, Amdocs' booth drew in hundreds with a design that was as much sorcery as it was silicon. E