Final Thoughts on SXSWi2008

I had a great time attending my first SXSWi conference! As you can tell from the notes I’ve been posting the past few days, there was a lot to do at this conference. Here are my final thoughts about the conference, the sessions, and why I think everyone reading my blog should attend SXSWi 2009! [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 4: Closing Remarks

Title: Alternate Realities
Speaker: Jane McGonigal
Showed “The Lost Ring” - video preview of a game - you can find hundreds of screenshots of this video in flickr, looking for hidden clues
She focused on the game designer’s perspective on the future of happiness
Question - are you in the happiness business?
Our primary product soon will be happiness… (think [...]

SXSWi 2008, Day 4: Life After the iPhone

I thought this session was supposed to be about this (from the SXSW summary of the panel):
“The iPhone may be the most disruptive technology of this decade. The countless ubiquitous computing tools available to User Experience professionals mean convenience and usability headaches. With boundaries blurring between web and mobile, how will the UX discipline change? [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 3: Pimp Your Non-Profit

Moderator said agencies don’t like to work with non-profits - because we’re passionate about what we do. How funny.
Work with management to make sure the important stuff is written into job descriptions, or it won’t get done - extremely important!
Reproducible - if you create a cool techie thing and then leave - can someone else [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 3: Frank Warren’s Keynote

Frank Warren does the PostSecret blog
Starting off with a video Frank made of some of the secrets from his site - nicely done
He put some postcards in the back of the room - here’s one secret that was filled out: “My large company sent me here to steal ideas from start-ups - I’m pretending to [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 3: Social Networking and your Brand

Coolness - they’re taking questions during the presentation using twitter - twitter.com/snayb4sxsw - great use of twitter!
panelists:
Paul Boag, Jina Bolton, Mark Norman Francis, Steve Ganz, Steve Smith
Defining social networking
it’s something we’ve done forever - even before the web
ways to use personal brand
not just logos and letterhead
your brand is simply the promise of an experience
ways to [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 3: The Art of Self Branding

artofselfbranding.com
branding yourself
no restrictions, very personal, organic
Brands are built upon what other people are saying about you - not what you are saying about yourself
Dang… didn’t save, and lost a couple of notes.
Speaker is comparing Mint and Wesabe in terms of branding. Mint wins, hands down. One example - names. Both are financial services companies - [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 2: Tools for Enchantment: 20 Ways to Woo Users

Kathy Sierra’s session, as you can expect was great. She’s a talented speaker, and has good stuff to say. She did, however, assume that most people in the audience had heard lots of her presentations in the past - so she went really fast, and at some of the points below simply said “you’ve heard [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 2: Mark Zuckerberg Keynote

aside - I was in the overflow room, and was dosing off… so not too many notes. The more interesting thing would have been to be in the big room - apparently there was lots of booing, hooting, and hollering over the interview (mainly the interviewer’s fault, from all the tweets I’ve read). More news [...]

SXSWi2008, Day 2: Social Network Coups: The Users are Revolting!

Panelists: Jessamyn West, Gina Trapani, Jessica Dzwigalski, Annalee Newitz
[aside] - I came to hear/see Jessamyn, who completely rocks! But the panel was good, too.
Newitz:
three kinds of user revolts:

anarchist-style pranks
grassroots protests
op-ed/open letter from high-profile users

Discussed some Digg revolts:

paying people to Digg your page
the HD code thing

Dzwigalski (Jessica Linden):

Griefers - tax revolt in July 2003
CopyBot protest, Nov [...]

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