Hugh Garry

SXSW: Maps, Books, Spimes and Paper (quotes and links)

The Internet is situated in the real world, and interesting experiences have to blend physical and digital. Mixing new technology - Arduinos, GPS, RFID, QRcodes - and old (web, paper), this session presented examples of the recently possible future, and the lessons learnt.

Chris Heathcote (anti-mega.com)

"Screens are becoming mundane. Digital is natural, not a special thing anymore".

"Getting off screen and back to the real physical world " post digital"

"The recently possible new media".

"Let's just try stuff and see what works, and let's try it really quickly".

"Curation, Criticism and Craft are the 3 things Google can't replicate".

"Most people prefer to pay for products, not services".

http://newcurator.com/

Local London

As It Is Today

James Bridle (http://booktwo.org/)

"Books have that feeling of permanence".

"One thing digital hasn't been able to do yet is to create souvenirs".

"Something changes when we start thinking about designing stuff for time, rather than for a specific format".

"One thing the great painters didn't do when photography came along was to say f*ck it, guess we'll go get lawyers".

"Cameras are not just picture-takers, but digitizers. You just snap and upload".

SXSW Field Notes

Mike Migurski (Stamen)

"Openstreetmap.org was the only publicly-available street level during Tehran demonstrations last year".

"Walking papers. print maps out, scribble notes on them and then scan them back in".

"SheevaPlug is a whole server in the size of a wall wart".

Ultra Mapping 

Sheeva Plug

Ben Terret (Berg)

"Analogue friction in producing digital to print objects gives it value, sense of craft and endeavor".

"Moving past digital infatuation and analogue nostalgia".

"There are magnificent bits of infrastructure just lying around".

"We've broken your business, now we want your machines".

Newspaper Club

The Postcode Paper

the most fun Ben's had all year from russelldavies on Vimeo.

SXSW: Fans, Friends & Followers

Finding an audience has become essential to the filmmaker's arsenal. Featuring real-world examples, this panel explored the filmmaker's art of cultivating an audience for their work, spread the word, showing up for screenings, and buying the DVDs or downloading. Scott Kirsner (author of Fans, Friends and Followers) chatted to film director Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Objectified).

For the duration of the conference Scott's book is available as a free download here.

Quotes

"The audience is not a passive group of people. In new social media world they want to engage". (Kirsner)

"If people watch the painter they end up buying the painting. being present at the creation increases personal investment". (Kirsner)

"Rate it even if you hate it". (Hustwit)

"I'm not creating a cult just connecting with an existing group of people". (Hustwit)

"Don't wait until your project is "complete" to begin building your audience". (Hustwit)

"Audiences built over time, not instantly. I'm in it for the long-term". (Hustwit)

“There has never been a noisier, more competitive time to try to make art, entertain people, and tell stories.” (Hustwit)

"If you are shy try talking about it (your project) as if someone else had made it". (Hustwit)

Kirsners 5 essentials of building an audience

1. Engage your audience

2. Go where your audience is

3. The power of links

4. Ask for a review or rating

5. Embed and Spread

Interesting Links

RIP: A Remix Manifesto

24 Hours on Craigslist

King Corn

Powertools Wiki

Objectified

CrowdControl Mapping Tool

SXSW: Web Awards Winners

Sunday saw the 13th Annual SXSW Web Awards take place at the Hilton. For a list of all the nominees click here whilst a full list of the winners can be found below.

Activism

Green and Non-profit websites that are striving to make the world a better place.

Waterlife

Amusement

Humor, memes and all the stuff that is weird for the sake of weird.

Atlas Obscura

Art

From traditional photography to untraditional performances, this category focuses on web-based collections of life, society and culture.

odosketch

Blog

Sites that revolutionize the power of publishing by providing regularly updated content of a personal or professional nature.

The Vile Plutocrat

Business

Sites devoted to the promotional needs, functions and services of for-profit businesses.

TheyMakeApps

CSS

This category showcases sites that push the boundaries of CSS coding technology, bringing together top-notch design and content with standards compliant and accessible code.

Legwork Studio

Classic

While the SXSW Web Awards focus on the best new internet destinations, this category is devoted to sites that launched before January 1, 2009.

Mint.com

Community

Social networks and wikis that have quickly developed an extraordinarily active multi-user community and an exceptional following of users who assist with content development.

Aardvark

Educational Resource

From elementary school learning to advanced technology-related tips, these are sites that help you learn.

1066

Experimental

These are cutting-edge and trend-setting destinations that are pushing the envelope and challenging our perceptions of the web.

BooneOakley

Film / TV

Sites related to actors, television, films and the film industry, as well as destinations that offer streaming video content.

Jim Carrey

Games

The online destinations that help make your life a lot more fun.

Smokescreen

Mobile

Sites optimized for handheld and portable devices.

Gowalla

Motion Graphics

Animations, cartoons, and other intriguing content built using applications such as Adobe / Macromedia Flash.

We Choose the Moon

Music

Sites related to musicians, bands, and the music industry, as well online radio and other destinations that offer streaming audio content.

Echo & The Bunnymen

Personal Portfolio

The portfolios, pet projects and personal collections of individuals who are displaying their work and passions online.

Clouds 365 Project

Student

This category is devoted exclusively to the student web designers who are refreshing this industry with new talent and new ideas.

D.I.E. - Der Interuniversale Erdball, Inc.

Technical Achievement

These are the sites that are re-inventing and re-defining the technical parameters of our online experience.

Wolfram Alpha

People's Choice Award

The online public's favorite finalist site from the competition. Over 12,000 signed up to vote for this year's People's Choice Award.

Cornify

Best of Show Award

The judges' favorite finalist website from the competition.

Wolfram Alpha

SXSW: If my phone had 5 senses

The phone in your pocket has the sense of sight (camera), sound (microphone), touch and location (still working on taste and smell). Through live demos we'll show off some new mobile hardware (could your phone really be replaced by AR glasses?) and what developers and marketers will be able to create with these new tools (speech recognition, computer vision, etc.)

Ted Power (Google)

Nicolas Jitkoff (Google)

Matt Biddulph (Formerly of Dopplr)

Ben Averech (Microvision)

Quotes.

"Recording all day for a year on a flip would require 35TB. Moore's law dictates that in ten years that amount of storage would cost less than $3." (Power)

"Star Trek has taught us that we can ask for "Cheesecake" and get it whenever we need it" (Jitkoff on phones learning to understand voice recognition)

"All these great apps only use longitude and latitude, and thats it, but there there is so much more it can draw on." (Biddulph on the untapped potential of data)

"Multisensory integration should be stressed when designing haptic interaction." (Biddulph)

"The first Augmented Reality tool was the Sony Walkman" (Power understanding the full potential of AR beyond marketing gimmicks)

Links

Google Goggles

Lattitude

The Haptic Guide

Nokia N900 Push Project

Microvision Laser Projector

Skinput

Sleepcycle

SXSW: The Era of Crowdsourcing: Guiding Principles

 

Since 'Shoot The Summer' I've been waiting for an excuse to do another crowdsourced project. The challenge of what to do with the Essential Mix lead me to ask What are the assets of the show? After the music I'd say the next biggest asset is the community around it. So, this year I will look at how to bring that community together in an interesting and playful way to create something quite wonderful around the show.

With that in mind I came to this session hosted by Scott Belsky, Behance Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Digg, formerly Threadless.

Before defining the guiding principles they discussed the value of wisdom plus labour, both of which are key factors in crowdsourcing. The wisdom of Wikipedia is the knowledge around the project, whilst the labour is the editing and correcting that is required.

They also discussed the difference between a crowd and a community. A crowd has a common purpose, it’s based around an event. A crowd can disband at any point, like if at the end of a rock concert you leave, you’re no longer apart of that crowd. However, when you leave the concert you’re still a fan of the band, and you are going to continue giving the band your money by buying their music and merchandise. The community member puts work into the community, and it becomes self perpetual.

Before taking on a crowdsourcing project you need to be aware of the risks involved.

The Risks of Crowdsourcing

Discount sushi - Something that seemed like a good idea at the time but you kinda regret it afterward. It filled a need.

Football Team Vs. Strip Club — A football team benefits when all members of the team work together, help each other and work towards a communal goal. Behind the scenes in a strip club is the opposite. Because girls are working for tips there is not mutual benefit in working together

Careless engagement -  Does your community care enough? If it is disconnected from reputation then it is a risk. If your only incentive is to keep your job then you’ll only work hard enough so that you don’t get fired.

Wasted neurons — At the end of an open call, people have spent a lot of time working on a project, and the vast majority of it isn’t used. You have to weigh your time against the potential rewards.

No contextual reputation — If you’ve already got a great reputation in your field, the level playing field created by communities isn’t your friend. If you’re the new kid with great ideas, it is helpful.

Questions we should ask of any sourcing model

1. Can it foster community?

a. Is there incentive for conversation and learning?
b. Is there incentive beyond a specific transaction?
c. Is there a culture of collaboration?

2. Does it tap collective wisdom

a. If in gaining opinion or insight, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

3. Does it nurture participants

a. Does work benefit reputation?
b. Are participants building relationships?
c. Are resources being wasted?
d. Are the terms and facts are crystal clear?

 

SXSW: The Happiness Project

So here's how my day started. Woke up at 4am in a flea pit of a motel due to jetlag and a screaming car alarm. Went out at 8am and wondered around a suburb of Austin for an hour and three quaters looking for a UK to US adapter so that I could phone my girlfriend and use my laptop. Failed (honestly, there is nowhere in Austin sells them). As starts to days go, mine wasn't the best.

Thankfully I've been doing a lot of research into happiness recently and came across the work of Gretchen Rubin, whose work has helped me deal with mornings like this. A blogger and author of The Happiness Project, Gretchen doesn't break much new ground in the subject but her tips have helped, whilst some of my own efforts have echoed what she says in her book. Gretchen deals in lists such as her 12 Personal Commandments and 4 Splendid Truths.

• First: To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
• Second: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• Third: The days are long, but the years are short.
• Fourth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.

The third of these interest me most as it reminds me so much of something my mother once said that had a massive impact on my life. 'The days are long but the years are short' refers to how Rubin deals with the day to day trials and tribulations of bringing up small children whilst remaining happy. My mum once told me to enjoy my time as a father because 'You only get to borrow your children for a few years'. As a father of kids in their late teens it's fair to say that I'm near the end of those 'few years'.

This concept helped me focus on creating moments of happiness to share with my children. During these moments I make a point of telling them how happy I am. The difference it makes saying something rather than just thinking something is incredible. It has 2 positive outcomes. First it's is my way of leaving virtual markers that I can go back to at times like this morning when I need to drag myself from a negative place back to a positive state of mind. By reaching back to any of those markers I can flip a mood in seconds. The second thing it does is it shows them how much they make me happy. Our children know we love them but do they really appreciate how their presence makes us happy?

Having just moved from a house to a flat I've had to drastically de-clutter my life... another of her tips for happiness. I was a terrible hoarder but have since found that the outer-order has given me a new inner-calm (interestingly she said that the one thing most of her blog readers do that brings them happiness is to make their beds in the morning). I've also started following her '1 Minute Clutter' rule, which states that if you can do a chore in a minute then do it - don't put it off. Give it a go, happiness in 60 seconds, what have you got to lose?

Check out her talk at Google...

SXSW: Ten Commands for a Digital Age

 

Though Douglas Rushkoff's 'Program Or Be Programmed' got off to a slow start he got there in the end delivering and entertaining argument that unless we take control of the digital worlds we inhabit then we're doomed.

Rushkoff wants us to be aware of the biases of digital media and react to them rather than simply living our lives by a set of predetermined choices set by the applications we use. If we don't our lives will become like a snap-to grid. To do this he set out his Ten Commandments for a Digital Age to ensure we escape the manipulation of applications we use.

 

1. Thou shall not be always on - Resist the temptation to always being on. He claims to have 'thigh vibration syndrome' whereby he constantly thinks his phone is ringing.

2. Thou shall not do from a distance what can be done in person - Powerful global brands become weak at a local level.

3. Exalt the particular - Not everything scales or needs to scale.

4. You may always choose none of the above - Don't tick the gay/straight/married/single boxes. Human beings are more complex than the simple choices

5. Thou shall never be completely right - The internet verses complexities

6. Thou shall not be anonymous - Anonymity has lead to the conversation being well thought out by those who choose to sign in against the hatred spat out by the anonymous

7. Contact is king - Social marketing is an oxymoron.

8. Abstraction - Don't confuse abstract models and the real world.

9. Thou shall not steal - Without a social contract, openness can continue until there is nothing left to give things away.

10. Program or be programmed - We should ask 'What can we make it do?" rather than "What can it do for us?".