See Ya Next Time, Austin.
Bye Austin…
I surprisingly loved Austin. I would definitely go back to visit. My first perception of Austin was a hot, humid place with nothing to do. Wrong.
I didn’t know what to expect at SXSW. I couldn’t have imagined a better conference to attend. With all the people I’ve met and the knowledge I’ve gained…
It’s been an amazing trip and I can’t wait until next year. :)
Here are my favorite things off the top of my head:
1. All three keynotes. Each memorable in their own way.
2. Hearing all sorts of bands in different venues while walking on 6th street.
3. Going where the locals go. Each store having a very distinctive style.
4. Meeting people from everywhere.
5. Cornflake chicken salad. Need I say more?
I was planning on posting pictures from #3, but here are just way too many. I’ll upload it to my Flickr site and post when they’re all uploaded…
Thanks for reading! I should have a recap presentation in a day or two.
Random Photos from the Conference
I got this on the first day…giving money out as a marketing tool!
Rockband..EVERYWHERE.
I was pretty much the only person in the convention without an iPhone!
Extreme multi-tasking. Chatting with others in the room, taking notes, listening to the keynote and taking pictures. :)
Billy Bob Thorton performing at the Dell Lounge
At the tradeshow…
Some sort of gadget…
Antonia’s willing to try it.
I don’t believe it (whatever she’s suppose to be seeing through those glasses). :P
Zappos….EVERYWHERE.
Funny book I saw at the tradeshow.
Some guy promoting his CD outside of the convention center.
Information overload.
Happiness, Virtual Reality + Soulja Boy
After an extremely satisfying meal at Moonshine’s, Antonia and I headed back to the convention to see the final keynote by Jane McGonigal, a game designer’s perspective on the future of happiness.
Waiting for the keynote to start…
The presentation started with a video highlighting “The Lost Ring,” the most recent game McGonigal developed.
McGonigal is a researcher at Institute for the Future (yes! It’s for real! :)). It is a think tank where they look at interesting things that are happening today and what will happen in the future. A new field they are focusing on is called, “positive psychology.” Positive psychology is looking at our brains and finding what makes us happy. Usually, psychology focuses on order, disorder, why we feel bad and how do we fix it. But this new field is to understand the brain and body so we can live a higher quality of life. It is about trying to capture the BEST human experience 0 to make the people’s life worth living.
Happiness is the new capital. If you want someone to value your service, you must explicit the value of happiness.
The four key principles of happiness from scientific research:
1. Satisfying work to do.
2. The experience of being good at something.
3. Time spent with people we like.
4. The chance to be a part of something bigger.
According to McGonigal, GAMES are a good example of all of these principles. Especially, multi-player games. They are the ultimate happiness engine. They also enable us to be really good at things that in reality, we are not good at. For example, in the game, World of Warcraft, you are thrown all this data and you are able to consume all the data feedback. But, in reality, when you have a million things thrown at you, while trying to multi-task, you can not do it.
McGonigal questions why are we making the games only in the computer? We should be using games to understand the world and learn about each other. She wants to see games in the real world rather than just on the computer screen, just like words are used all over the place, rather than just in books. McGonigal lists some examples such as Zyked, a Scandinavian game that gives you points and increases your skills while you work out. Another is a virtual currency game called Serios. If you want x employee to do something, you have to give them y amount. “I’m willing to give you 50k serios if you do this presentation for me.” You play with each other and do tasks to make more money.
All these are skills we develop as gamers..the 10 superpowers:
1. Mobbability – Ability to collaborate and coordinate really large skills in real-time.
2. Influency – Ability to adapt to persuasive mediums.
3. Ping quotient – Measures your responsiveness to other people’s requests for engagement. Are you easy to engage? If you are high, you are responsive to others, low – not open for others.
4. Multi-capitalism – Understanding that people are trading in different value systems (natural, intellectual, social and financial). Everyone wants something different in return, so how can you combine all these together?
5. Cooperation radar – Ability to sense, almost intuitively, who would make the best collaborators on a particular task.
6. Open authorship – Creating content for public consumption and modification.
7. Emergensight – Ability to prepare for and handle surprising results and complexity.
8. Longbroading – thinking in terms of higher level systems, cycles and the big picture.
9. Protovation – Rapid, fearless innovation. You fail quickly, but get back up and do it all over again.
10. Signal/Noise management – Filtering meaningful info, patterns, and commonalities from massively multiple streams of data.
Lastly, McGonigal mentions, if there’s anything we need to learn from this presentation, it’s these three things:
1. Soon enough, most of us will be in the happiness business.
2. Game designers have a huge head start.
3. Alternate realities signal the desire, need and opportunity for all of us to redesign reality for real quality of life.
The best part of the keynote happened during Q&A. I forgot what the question was, but McGonigal started talking about how this one time, she was in her car at a red light with her husband. They jumped out and started dancing to Soulja Boy on the street with the people in the car next to them. Someone from the audience yelled out, “Do it!” and she did! Look at the great video below. It was hilarious and I couldn’t believe she was actually dancing Soulja Boy. A grown woman, dancing on stage and being very serious about it. It was awesome.
Another great experience is seeing Twitter in action. After she said she’d dance Soulja Boy, a sea of people quickly trickled into the ballroom. People were twittering..telling each other what was going on. Twitter is an excellent tool to give information quickly to a large amount of people. More of that later…
People trickling in to see McGonigal dance Soulja Boy!
The last visual information design of the conference…
The Best Salad Ever.
Antonia and I heard great things about Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill, which is near the convention. We tried going there on a previous day, but it was super packed. The day we went was also pretty full, but we were determined to try it. I’m so glad we did…it was the best meal I’ve had in Austin!
Side of Moonshine..you HAVE to go!
Miss Antonia
The ambiance was rustic, ranch-style but not cheesy. Water came in mason jars, really cute! I was instantly in love with the place. They pay close attention to detail! Instead of a basket of chips or bread, we got a pail of buttered popcorn. Super adorable. OK. So it sounds like I fall for anything gimmicky. :X
Popcorn in a pail!
To start off, Antonia and I shared shrimp corn dogs. Yes, you heard that right, SHRIMP corn dogs. Instead of a hot dog, you get a big piece of shrimp dipped in cornmeal batter with a side of mustard blueberry sauce. There wasn’t really a lot of blueberry in the sauce, just a small drizzle of it. It was delicious. Never had such a thing….and loved it.
Shrimp corn dogs with mustard blueberry sauce
I ordered cornflake chicken salad. I am drooling just thinking about it. It was soooo good and huge enough to feed both of us. The chicken was moist and tender. The coating a perfect texture of cornflake and seasoning – not too thick, just right. There were about 5 pieces of chicken sitting on a bed of mixed greens..all drizzled with a thousand island-like dressing. I was turned off by the cheddar cheese sprinkled on top, but I didn’t care. My mouth was accepting it and loving every bite of the salad. Sooooo good.
Cornflake chicken salad
I barely finished the salad, but was so tempted by every single dessert on the menu. Skillet apple pie with maple ice cream (quoted “It’s big!” I’m not doubting it at all), peanut butter mousse pie, buttermilk coconut pie…….. We saw a table next to us with a party of 4 sharing a red velvet cake. They were sharing one slice and they each STILL had a huge piece! Antonia and I knew instantly, we wouldn’t have enough room for any of the desserts.
The list of desserts we said no to…
And with our tummies filled, we went to the last keynote of the festival, Jane McGonigal’s…..
Picture Time
Hi everyone! Giving y’all a break from the discussions with picture time! :)
Antonia and I were living baller status on the 20th floor (highest level of occupancy) on the first night. But, the smell of paint and our well being was over ruled so we had to change rooms. We got downgraded to the 6th floor. The view changed from over looking downtown Austin to this…
Looking out into another building…into someone’s office.
More glass.
Looking down into the waiting area.
My badge. “The?!” Gap Inc.
Tote full of nothing good (ton of brochures/magazines/flyers, 3d glasses, fortune cookie, etc….)
Entrance to the convention…
Lego Land!
Cool little Lego building.
Excuse the reflection, but it was a cool line up of Legos.
Miss Antonia is ready to start taking notes on her laptop – so tech savvy.
Chairs.
Random people in the convention.
Side stairs of the convention.
This building looked like a painting…
Never found out what this building is called. But, it was beautiful.
Umm…ok?
Don’t mess with Texas!
Queso?
Dinner for Monday night was at Manuel’s in downtown. Unfortunately, the theme of most eating events is getting stuffed to the point where our buttons are popping. :X Everything IS truly big in Texas.
Antonia and I heard of this dish called, Queso – cheese in Spanish. We heard great things about it and immediately wanted to order it when we saw it on the menu. I’m not a big fan of cheese, but hey, I was determined to have an authentic dining experience in Texas.
Turns out, it’s a bowl of melted cheese (what else was I expecting? No idea). It came in a small bowl of Monterey jack and cheddar cheese with chopped jalapeños and a scarce amount of tomatoes….all topped with a layer of oil. Sounds gross and definitely did not look that appetizing to me. I put a little amount of the mixture into a tortilla and I was instantly satisfied. Basically, a quesadilla.
Oh my…and the chips and salsa! Before the queso came, I was munching away on chips (on too many, I might add). It was fresh and hot when it arrived to our table. The salsa was ok, but I LOVED the chips. I’ve never had this type of tortilla chips before. It tasted like Sun Chips – the same texture, but without the flavor. Surprisingly, they weren’t greasy and left your fingers oily. They tasted like they were baked…yum. I would love to order a bag if I could….
My next dish was a plate of chicken enchiladas in mole sauce with black beans and rich. It was raved as “Austin’s best enchilada.” Quite good, but after finishing only my first enchilada, I could not eat anymore. Somehow, I did finish both. :X
Looks like a blob, I know, which it was.
Antonia’s sizzling beef fajitas
I was too stuffed for dessert but I was ready for them to roll me out of the restaurant and carry me to my bed.
A Mixture of Mediums
The Web Agency: There Will Be Blood
Chris Bernard, User Experience Evangelist, Silverlight/Microsoft Corp
Kevin Flatt, Exe Creative Dir, Tribal DDB
Garrick Schmitt, VP, User Experience, Avenue A | Razorfish
Brooke Nanberg, Exec Creative Dir, ip pixel
Peter Eckert, Chief Creative Officer, Projekt202
According to Garrick Schmitt, the number one tool to succeed is to understand and analyze data of how the customer interacts and behaves. From this data, you can adapt to the customer.
You must know the customer. Maybe the customer doesn’t want you to be there and certain channels make sense than others. You need to find what’s right for the customer and engage it.
Old advertising is working with print, tv and radio. It is no longer that way. We need to mix interactive mediums with audio, visual and motion. The distribution of our messages no longer rely on these traditional methods. Ads are blending marketing messages and entertainment to keep the customer amused.
Social media NEEDS to be in the business model no matter what. Clients and marketers need to embrace the new medium. We need to sell the connection of people – an emotional aspect that adds human-ness to our product. It is the most effective way to attract customers.
Lastly, sustain the experience of the customer and engage them to interact with each other.
Redesigned
Design Eye for South By
Andrei Herasimchuk, Principal, Involution Studios
Bronwyn Jones, Sr. Writer, Apple Inc.
Paul Nixon, Sr. Art Dir, Apple Inc.
Keith Robinson, Creative Dir, Blue Flavor
Ryan Sims, Lead Designer, Virb Inc.
Design Eye is an experiment in which a team of designers and writers collaborate to bring a fresh vision to an existing web site. You can check out their site to see their new ideas for Craigslist and a couple of other sites. This year, they’ve decided to change the online registration page on SXSW’s web site.
The team wanted to showcase the actual experience of being at SXSW. They broke the idea down to:
PIMP
People
Interacting
Meeting
People
SXSW is not just about the information you learn from all the different panels, but it’s also about meeting people and having face-to-face interaction. I find this very true. I’ve met several people already. It’s so easy to strike up a conversation at one of these conventions. SXSW has even incorporated “hallway-conversations,” a place where you can discuss the panel you just saw with others.
The redesign is a portable social network. Instead of focusing on the 3 major conventions – music, film and interactive, the team chose to focus on profile, events and parties.
The new profile page captures all the other social networks you use (Twitter, FB, Vimeo, Pownce, LinkedIn, etc.) in one place – your profile page. By having one place for this, you’re able to share and interact with people on a grander scale. A user can go to your page and gather all the information they want about you. It encapsulates our normal behavior of how we already do things.
Click to view larger
In the events, the user can include all the panels or other events she’s going to. This page will enable another user to find out if she wants to attend too. A quick, interactive map is also necessary to navigate around the city.
Click to view larger
Lastly, the parties page is quite straight forward. Which parties are you going to? I want to go too! Photos and videos are highlighted a lot more on this page, because seriously, that’s all we care about.
Click to view larger
The actual process is supposed to be easy. Filling out a form really quickly to include what you and don’t want on your personal space. From there, it will dynamically feed from all of the user’s other networks.
The pages use the original SXSW design style (block, 3D letters, grainy background), so I personally, don’t think it is amazing in that sense. In terms of the content of the pages, I really like it. I think it’s smart to have one page with all your social networks. It’d be easy for me to find out which panel that random person I just met is going tomorrow. The redesign is a lot more accessible than having to go to that person’s Twitter and then having to go to Flickr to see her photos.
It’s an interesting concept and really captures the greatness of SXSW – interacting with each other. It also enables the user to get ready for the conference, enjoy it and then relive it.
Maggie @ SXSW 