I am a New York-based digital strategist with a background in experience design. I work with agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and startups to figure out how to best meet their brands’ needs on the web. Learn more...
Tag Archives: art & design
SXSW Days 3, 4, 5, etc.- I’m a Procrastinator
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.
As I should have foreseen, I am already behind on my SXSW roundups. Here’s a quick look at the awesome on Saturday 3/14/09:
Curating the Crowd-Sourced World – Okay, I have to admit: I ended up at this panel accidentally thanks to conference room confusion. But I was psyched to hear Gina Trapani.
Opening Remarks by Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh- So many people have written volumes on Tony Hsieh’s speeches that I don’t want to go into too much detail. But some of my favorite points were:
A company’s culture becomes its brand.
Chase the vision, not the money: whatever you’re thinking, think bigger.
Happiness is the ultimate life goal for EVERYBODY – so take time studying your own happiness.
From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small - So far, my favorite panel of SXSW. This is a topic that has been near and dear to my heart recently, as I figure out what my own business path will be. Whitney Hess is my better-known, better-spoken döppleganger.
Comedy on Television and the Web - Fun and funny panel with some celebrities (web and IRL). Interesting how people still differentiate between media channels – to me, both the web and TV are distribution channels, nothing more.
I am endeavoring to take notes on the conferences, panels, and parties I find interesting at SXSW, so that I might say that I got more out of the event than a series of hangovers (which I’m already dreading).
I arrived late Thursday night, so a lazy Friday morning putting the final touches on my new web site seemed in order. By the time I got to the convention center at 1pm, the line for badges was about an hour long. Fun!
Much later, badge in hand, I attended my first session: Oooh, That’s Clever! (Unnatural Experiments in Web Design). It was presented by Paul Annett, of Clearleft Ltd., and discussed the “clever little tricks” and easter eggs that can make design fun and bring consumer opinions up from satisfaction to delight. Lots of great examples, and the main idea, although simple, is something that people tend to forget in the realm of daily client projects.
The next session was a topic near and dear to my heart: Try Making Yourself More Interesting. All the panelists were fantastic, but Kristina Halvorson, of Brain Trust, completely blew me away with her insights on interactive brand engagement and the concept of building brand love as an indirect way to foster eventual consumer transactions.
The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.
Fantastically gorgeous and creative video from Kanye West for his song “Welcome to Heartbreak”. I love that the imperfections of digital technology are used to create a new kind of art.
Nice design templates from Yahoo’s design team. What particularly impressed me was that they included a bunch of nice patterns (in addition to the standard controls), like carousels, mobile design patterns, and standard ad sizes.
