SXSWi(nteractive) ... My takeaway from SXSW 2010 ...

It's insane to think that one can summarize an event as large as South by Southwest (SXSW).  Only looking at the interactive portion, organizers estimated that about 12,000-13,000 people, a 40% increase from 2009, descended into Austin.  Google indicated that there are about 37,400 search results matching "sxsw interactive recap".  That's a lot to read.  And that's only the published text portion.

Since I have documented quite extensively my food journey in Austin while attending SXSW, I figure I should add a token journal about the actual festival.  It's totally my own observations from attending a relatively very small number of organized sessions, from talking to various people there, and from observing activities that went on during the festival.


Margaret's top 5 observations (in no particular order) ...

• It's about people!: Even though it's a tech-focused conference, most of the sessions are more about the people element than the technology element.  Either it is about how people are changing because of newly available technology, or about how people are working behind the scenes to deliver new technology.
• It's a good cause!: Business case is not holding the same weight in the minds of the new tech entrepreneurs as old business minds.  At least on the surface, a lot of talks about about the transformational factors and social value of new technology, and very little about the monetization.
• It's about pooling resources!: Crowdsourcing is becoming more of a trend, and communications & collaboration becomes easier with the Internet.  I recall being in Silicon Valley back in year 2000, where buzzword B2C2C was everywhere in startup lingo.  After 10 years, this is finally becoming a viable reality.
• It's NOT about devices!: The number of devices on the market & their proprietary operating platforms (yes, that's you Apple!) are fracturing the development world once again.  Consumer technology development went from PC vs Mac applications into the web-based applications back in the 1990's, where we started having hopes of one day developing one application that can run on any computer.  That dream is now crushed with all the proprietary mobile devices.  Growth & adoption of any new consumer applications will highly depend on cross-platform compatibility.  Think of all the ways one can tweet! 
• It's NOT about North America!: A few eye-opening sessions for me are about technology use in other parts of the world.  We think North America is so innovative with Facebook & Zynga games?  That has already built numerous successful Internet business in China since a few years back.  (Do you know that the 3rd largest Internet business in the world, after Google & Amazon, is Tencent in China?)  We think privacy is a big concern in North America?  It's literally a matter of life & death in Latin America.

Margaret's presentation picks ...

Social Networking:

Socialnomics – Erik Qualman

How to Create Viral Video (#howtocreateviral) – Panel consisting of Damian Kulash (OK Go), Margaret Gould Stewart (YouTube), Jason Wishnow (TED) moderated by Jonathan Wells (Flux)

Social Media & China: Different Than You Think – Panel consisting of Jacqui Zhou (Dell), Benjamin Joffee (Plus Eight Star), Sam Flemming (CIC)

Changing Environment:
Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity – danah boyd
[Full transcript is posted here.]

Exploiting Chaos – Jeremy Gutsche (TrendHunter)

Thought Starter Technology Usage:

Augmented Reality: Gimmicky Trend or Market-Ready Technology (#sxswar)  – Matthew Szymczyk (Zugara)

Interactive Infographics (#interinfo) – Panel consisting of Casey Caplowe (Good), Eric Rodenbeck (Stamen Design), Shan Carter (The New York Times) moderated by Ben Fry

For those who love technology ...

Check out the finalists of the Accelerator (like a start-up Dragon's Den) here.  These are fine examples of the up & coming technologies coming to us.

For those who love videos ...

Interactive films - Water Life (SXSW Web Awards / Activism), Prison Valley

Presentation snipits: SXSW YouTube channel

My final words about the festival ... Check out the Gary Vaynerchuk talk.  Having worked with many corporate clients on customer-centric business strategies since the 1990's, I am shocked to hear that marketers nowadays are thinking that corporations deliberately not serve their customers well.  I know first hand that many marketers deal more with the sales and dollars side of the business, and not the delivery side of the organization.  The truth is many delivery teams are treated as second-class citizen when it comes to corporate resources.  Even in corporations that proclaim to be customer-driven, many of them have the spotlight on cost when it comes to delivery & post-sales service.  Many marketers & sales people, as well as senior executives, don't put the time into understanding the complexity to implement what they perceive as a simple vision.  Hopefully people will see this talk more as a wake-up call that marketing (and sales) need to be more collaborative with delivery & post-sales service to form a total customer experience, and not another slam on the delivery teams for how they have failed to live up to marketing's expectations.

More to come on some thoughts on the not-so-official part of the SXSW festival next ...

Films as a Reflection of Daily Me

As I mentioned in my last post, more & more people nowadays seem to want the fast way out - only receiving knowledge served up in bite-size easy-to-understand summary form.  The comfort of the familiar, coupled with the ease of understanding, has trumped over the need to expand the horizon for many.

With consumers spending more time with media than sleeping, how is the quality of information they are receiving?  If the Daily Me concept is true, I would say that it's probably more of the same.  According to Cass Sunstein, people who are only tuned in to other like-minded ideas is a threat to democracy.

Democracy might be a pretty big topic to talk about.  So maybe we can talk about the impact on something most people are familiar with - films.

I am a self-proclaimed semi film buff, always on the hunt for movies that are different.  And yes, I even occasionally participate in a film group called "We Don't Do Mainstream".  I am lucky to live in Toronto where there seems to be an endless number of film festivals showing fairly good quality films that are not in wide distribution.  (I heard someone mention we have over 80 film festivals in Toronto each year!)  However, it is still a sad state that some of these fabulous films never got the audience that they deserve.

Instead, looking at the 2009 box office, it's hard to miss a pattern of top grossing films (which I presume means they are watched by a large number of people) are what I would call entertainment-oriented films.  Many of them are sequels to previous films or adaptation of books.  Many of them have heavy emphasis on actions, special effects and computer animation, with some comedy thrown in.  And the pattern for the 2008 & 2007 box office results?  More of the same.  The supposedly-not-based-on-anything-blockbusters?  Some of them are still more of the same.

Worst part is people actually like these films.

According to the imdb top 250 films chart, which is determined by netizens' votes, people seem to like these recent films a lot.  If you look at the AFI 100 top movies of all times chosen by industry jury, it's not difficult to notice that the 2007 revised list, after expanding the selection criteria to films released up to 2006, only contains 1 addition from after year 2000!

The proliferation of B2C2C reviews like the prediction algorithms developed for Netflix are only going to make people more reliant on other like-minded individuals.  Peer reviews have their place & benefits - they serve as great first hand information, and definitely more trustworthy than official marketing materials.  But with people's tendency leaning towards the fast & easy, it's not hard to imagine people taking the summarized "5-star" recommendations as-is, without understanding why, and without understanding themselves.

What happened to our sense of curiosity & adventure?  Where are some of the films from award winning films from around the world? Short films? Documentaries?  As the Internet becomes a more viable & cheaper channel to deliver films to their audience, we need better ourselves in making informed decisions, and not be dictated by mechanical algorithms and marketing dollars.

Fast Knowledge

I recently read an article about açai berry, not so much its health benefits, but the changes it has made to the lives of Brazilians.  This reminded me of the many discussions recently by some environmentalists advocating for going vegetarian.

My observation is that many people in the modern age not only live in an age of fast food, they live in age of fast knowledge.  After all, knowing something being good or bad is much simpler than understanding why it is so.

Many ancient cultures are rooted in a sense of balance.  To achieve balance, one must understand the reasoning behind the good and the bad, the fact that everything has its good and bad sides, and knowing when to apply this understanding.  For example, knowing my body type and some basic traditional Chinese medicine information, I will stay away from chicken & beef & a host of other foods when I sense the early symptoms of irritated throat, and most of the time it helps me prevent getting sick.

With the fad in all the health food phenomenon (not to mention in self-help, business, etc.), it shows we are becoming a society of shortcuts.  If enough media says something is good for us, it must be.  It's not only poisoning our bodies with roller coaster eating routines (remember Atkins diet?), but also hurting the environment with poor farming practice for corporations to make a quick buck by fueling these types of extreme diets.

If we as a society value knowledge and analysis on a personal level, not leaving the thinking to scientists, perhaps then we will stand a chance to becoming healthier and being more sustainable at the same time ...