Okay, so my daily SXSW wrap-up idea didn’t end up happening. I guess, given my history of procrastination, that’s not too surprising. So that I don’t get so overwhelmed with the idea of these posts hanging over my head that I stop blogging altogether, I’m doing a quick, one-post wrap-up.

Before going into the details of what I saw, did, etc., some stray observations:

• AgencySpy has a pretty good summary of the zeitgeist of the event, courtesy of David Bryant. Themes: Failure, Snark, and Weirdness. Yeah, that’s about right.
• Working towards happiness was a common theme, highlighted by Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com in his opening keynote. The first lady of happiness, Gretchen Rubin, has a good wrap up of how SXSW itself can teach us about happiness.
• Some people are way better at taking notes than I am.
• Videos of a bunch of the panels are online. So are the slides.

Marci’s Final SXSW Wrapup:

Sunday 3/15/09

• Journey to the Center of Design – Jared Spool rocked my world on this one (slides). Highlights:
  • “User-centered design never worked.” Whoa.
  • How Design Teams Work:
    • Process = how you get something done
    • Methodology = common rules for processes
    • Dogma = unquestioned beliefs/ practices
    • Techniques = building blocks of processes
    • Tricks = what you do when the right technique is too hard
  • Unsuccessful companies increase their methodology while successful companies use lots of tricks and techniques
  • We need to ditch UCD dogma in favor of informed design:
    • Vision – can everyone on the team describe the experience of using your design 5 years from now?
    • Feedback – in the last 6 weeks, have you spent more than 2 hours watching someone use your design or a competitors design?
    • Culture – in the last 6 weeks, have you rewarded a team member for creating a major design failure?
• After listing to Mr. Spool (and watching him dance) I punked out and napped like a maniac. In the evening, I hooked up with some NYC peeps for BBQ at Stubb’s and some aimless party-hopping.

Monday 3/16/09

• What Can We Learn From Games – Increased complexity in games creates opportunities for user-based designs (implicitly, through the choices they make). This has been common in games for some time, but is now happening in other media, e.g. the way in which ARGs related to Lost.
• Advertising is Entertaining – Who’s Selling Out? – This conversation was kind of silly, as it was moderated by content providers and I more frequently find myself on the advertising side. It seemed to populated mainly by advertising douches (“why won’t The Onion feature my movie in a sketch?”).
• The Decider Party – Best party of SXSW, mainly because I got to pat Eugene Mirman on the back (even though I arrived to late to see him perform).

Tuesday 3/17/09

• The Future of Visual Storytelling is Interactive – Or Is It? – Cool discussion on interactive storytelling that primarily focused on interactive video and ARGs. I do think that as computers continue to take over mainstream media channels (most notably TV), these sorts of distinctions will be less relevant.
  • “Filmmakers think that digital is trying to displace their medium and we’re not.” – Victoria Ha. I completely disagree with this – I think digital WILL displace traditional film/ TV as they are now.
  • Types of interactivity discussed include:
    • Choose-your-own-adventure-style storytelling that adapts through audience participation (e.g. lonely girl15)
    • Environments in which users can create their own story through their interaction with a open-ended environment (e.g. sandbox games)
    • ARGs (alternate reality games) incorporate live elements and live events that users can selectively participate in.
  • An amusing afternote to the panel was a very irate audience member who didn’t like how their definition of “interactive” varied from the one she used in her thesis, or something.
• Tuesday Keynote Interview – Chris Anderson interviewed by Guy Kawasaki – Inspiring (and ambitious) discussion about the meaning of “free” and how it’s affecting businesses and user expectations online.
  
  • The way to be free: Step 1. Create Celebrity, Step 2. Monetize Celebrity
    • Which is harder: achieving or monetizing popularity?
    • Our job is to build an audience the right way: by providing value.
  • What is “free”? It’s a very loaded word. Atoms get more expensive as they increase, bits get cheaper.
  • Models for free:
  • 1. Media model: advertising subsidizes costs.
    2. Freemium – give away 95% to sell 5%. E.g. MMORGs. Only 5% conversion is necessary for profit. People misunderstand how hard it is to get 5% of any population to pay. Switching from Free to Freemium breaks a social contract.
  • Is there any scenario in which this generation will pay for digital content? NO, but people will pay for convenience.
  • FREE/ CHEAP has no negative connotation on the web.