(Credit:
BLog92y)
Social media strategist Shannon Paul, who works with the NHL Detroit Red Wings, said many good things on a SXSW panel this Sunday, but the one thing that stuck with me most was her assertion that brands need to become more “human” in order to connect with their audiences. She wasn’t referring to personifying a brand through a human face (be it an average employee or a charismatic leader), but rather to exhibiting ‘branded’ behavior that is truly human. What does that mean? What is the most human trait of all human traits? Shannon Paul posits it’s vulnerability.
I find that idea compelling. Vulnerability encompasses anxiety, volatility, and inconsistency, and it also implies the ability to make mistakes (and admit them). Or, to encapsulate all of the above: it means having a distinct weakness. Chances are that business strategists will advise you to hide, compensate for, or mitigate this weakness (while exploiting that of others), but that kind of thinking no longer holds relevance for the social web. If you want to be a social brand, you have to be a vulnerable brand. The possibility of a “slip of the tongue” and the exposure to possible brand attacks increase exponentially when brands let their guard down on the web – but that’s valuable. No one wants to be friends with Mr. Perfect. Vulnerability makes you likable. It is the prerequisite for empathy, and if understood as an asset and not a deficit, it can flourish under the magnifying glass of social media transparency. Examples? Zappos’ decision to let every employee blog; Comcast’s having ordinary company engineers go on message boards to answer customer questions; and of course every brand that is using Twitter for what it is best suited for – ostentatiously public personal conversations. Remember: Personality – brand personality – comes from being personal.
Is your brand vulnerable? Does it have a distinct weakness, an Achilles' heel? Take it and turn into an asset by making everyone aware of it. Expose yourself and you will get exposure. On the web as in real life your most recognized weakness is your biggest strength.
(Credit:
Rohdesign)
Designer Mike Rohde attended several panels at SXSW Interactive last week and created 34 pages of sketchnotes for them in real-time, captured in a Moleskine sketchbook:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rohdesign/sets/72157604109069527/
And here's his post about them with a little more detail:
http://www.rohdesign.com/weblog/archives/002768.html
What I like about this unique format of panel transcripts is that it shows how rich those on-stage conversations actually were. Sometimes you find yourself in the audience, passive and wondering if the discussion on-stage is really all that meaningful to you. Well, it is -- as long as you engage and translate what's being said into another creative act.
Or as someone pointed out on one of last year's SXSW panels: "I write it down not to remember it later. I write it down to remember it now."
Blood Sweat and Tears: Great Design Hurts
John Gruber (Daring Fireball) and Michael Lopp (Apple), made the case for cultivating discomfort as a designer: "Are you willing to be an asshole?" We took a trip back through the iconic designs (like IBM) of Paul Rand and examined the allure of the Apple logo (whether rainbow-striped or white, what makes it sexy is the bite. It's original sin.). What stood out to me here, however, was discussion of emotion as a physical thing; just a limbic response, a bunch of bouncing chemicals. Because that leads to...
From Frustration to Elation: Getting Emotional by Design
Dan Rubin (Black Seagull/Sidebar Creative), Eris Stassi (Interaction Designer, Apple) and Didier Hilhorst (Interaction Designer, Ideo) shared a saccharine PowerPoint full of hearts and talk about how good design should elicit a response like good sex. Bad design (like ATM machines) can be like a bad, abusive relationship. Essentially: Emotion is essential to good design. (Just keep the limbic system from above in mind).
Does Tomorrow's World Need Designers?
Frog Creative Director David Merkoski took the stage with Alonzo Canada (Jump Associates), and Helen Walters (Editor of Innovation & Design, BusinessWeek.com) for a panel moderated by Johanna Blakley (Deputy Director, The Norman Lear Center). Here we fast-forwarded to a debatably near future--into the realm of the new singularity--because it's not a matter of when it will happen, it's a matter of thinking about it now; and that doesn't just mean watching The Matrix again.
The panel posited that all the caring and emotion we put into design could lead to the negation of emotion when we create machines that are smart enough to design themselves. But will machines be good designers (and who decides what good means)? Is emotion smart? And then there's the nurture or nourishment question: Will our relationship to the machines/systems be that of pets or food? While this might all be uncomfortable to think about, humor was still alive and well. As Merkoski put it, "There had to be a beeper before there was a cell phone. . . We might just be the beeper." So since we're getting sci-fi, here's to the pseudo-scientific:
A General Theory of Creative Relativity
The captivating Jim Coudal ("Big Cheese", Coudal Partners), launched into his theory (which essentially serves as a window into the Coudal Partners process), whereby e=mc2 means e (your energy/effort) is equivalent to m (the mass of information available to you) times c (the flash of inspiration), squared (the power of enthusiasm/belief). Or something approximate to that. Coudal showed this video from Steve Delahoyde's (Coudal) series called "Regrets." Essentially, it's a highly creative video about the ability to balance e, m and c, and a desire to hold on to the power of enthusiasm.
Enjoy.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg talks to BusinessWeek's Sarah Lacy at SXSW.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)Chelsea Holden Baker, of frog design, says better planning and a different design choice could have changed the outcome during the now-infamous 2008 SXSW keynote discussion between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and reporter Sarah Lacy.
Here is Chelsea's blog on the matter from Tuesday:
If you have any interest in South by Southwest and/or the blogosphere, then you've probably seen something on the infamous train-wreck-of-an-interview, aka the SXSW keynote discussion with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and journalist Sarah Lacy. (In this metaphor Zuckerberg is the Little Engine That Could and Lacy is the conductor that derailed the train). Forty-five minutes into it, the crowd wrestled control of the mikes, cutting short Lacy's interview to ask their own questions.
Recaps can be found elsewhere, but there are two interesting things to think about in the aftermath of this mob-jacking. One is how Twittering can amplify a crowd's reaction, and how it could make future keynotes better. The other is how bad design can change the outcome on a stage.
What was amazing, from the point of view of someone in the room, and someone who was following the live chat on Meebo, was that if Lacy had had a laptop she could have seen the crowd revolt coming. Or rather, she could have changed her questions, style, even body language (so many comments about hair twirling!) so that it wouldn't have happened.
Yes, there is much speculation about Facebook's PR interest in an event like this, and yes, Zuckerman has a reputation for tight lips and short answers. But this is a scenario where an old-school back-and-forth is a dated approach. In the end it didn't serve anyone--Zuckerberg (he came off "nice," but not exciting), Lacy, or the audience. The audience had a parallel conversation online, which at least with the Meebo strain, is archived in perpetuity. A lot of it was snarky, but the sentiments, and some of the questions raised there, were important.
Twittering (on Twitter and elsewhere) pushed people to act out; it accelerated interruption. People who did not like the way the interview was going had assurance that the crowd was with them; and it intensified those feelings. In traditional passive audience situations, for every person who acts out, the ratio of those who wanted to but didn't, is probably much higher. Instead, because people knew that not only the people sitting next to them, but also those in all four corners of the room had the same gripes--or pointed out new ones--many people acted out. As Lacy said, what we got was "Digg-style mob-rule." Essentially: Twittering lowers the threshold for lash-out. Of course, the positive spin on this is that at next year's SXSW, people on panels could (should) get to see feedback and respond accordingly.
Secondly, early on in the Meebo chat, there were comments about Lacy's posture and body language. To this I say: Don't blame Lacy, blame bad design. Zuckerberg and Lacy both had club chairs. You have two options with that kind of seat: Zuckerberg chose to perch on the edge, sitting very upright, looking a bit eager and uptight. Lacy chose the traditional club chair posture: Lean back, cross your legs, and keep one arm up as if you're smoking a cigarette in the wood-paneled library at the Fair Oaks Golf Course.
One user in the Meebo chat, dango3kyoudai, said: "Watching her sit sprawled back in her chair just turns me off in some way; a metaphor for journalistic sloth." While I'm not sure what the best interview chair is, this certainly isn't it. Lacy's posture was the first turn-off. Unfortunately, much of what came from her mouth amplified an initial bad reaction to what was perceived as flirtatious (however unfair that is), overly-casual/intimate nonverbal signals.
A nice Bertoia-style stool would be great: There's only one way to sit in them. And yes, it may be uncomfortable for an hour, but so was what we witnessed. There's no reason why Lacy shouldn't have had a clue the audience wasn't with her until 40 minutes into the discussion.
Lessons for next year's keynotes: Provide a peek at what's happening on Meebo/Twitter (edited by a third party, and read on handheld device), and high chairs for the pair of presenters.
Clips of audience responding to the stage:
(Credit:
SXSW)
It's freezing in Austin (39 degrees last night....) but nonetheless SXSW Interactive is about to kick off today. There is no doubt that the conference is hitting the mainstream this year (with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as keynote speaker and most of the big high-tech players participating). The program, which is notoriously hard to navigate, has grown even more in terms of depth and breadth.
SXSW has therefore teamed up with Microsoft and frog design to create a rich, interactive online community hub that facilitates real-time conversations around conference events while also providing an easy-to-us panel calendar. The Silverlight-based application features premium content from SXSW Interactive, including video clips from keynotes and panels, as well as user-generated videos, Flickr images, and social networking content. At the same time, aggregators from Technorati and del.icio.us comb the Internet for relevant information, keeping the site dynamic.
Check it out: http://pulse.sxsw.com
(Credit:
SXSW)
Next weekend, just a couple of days after the dust of the primary campaigns will have settled, national media attention will return to Texas as Austin is turning into party central for the annual South by Southwest Festival (SXSW, March 7-16). SXSW Interactive, added in 1994 to the music festival, has evolved into one of the most influential tech conferences in the country and beyond. While somewhat geeky in its first years, SXSW Interactive is now considered a must-attend venue for big tech players (Google, Microsoft, Seagate, etc. all have a strong presence at the show), start-ups, creative agencies, software developers, futurists, designers, artists, media, and bloggers alike, all of whom are chasing the next big digital thing. A key contributing factor for SXSW's success may have been that the initially narrow meaning of "interactive" has expanded its relevance to more industries, media, and platforms over the past few years and now serves as the modus operandi of all business, no matter how creative or digital it is. With its more solid business underpinning, SXSW Interactive has overtaken both the Push conference in Minneapolis and Wired's Nextfest in terms of relevance and commercial success.
The Soul of the Machine
Yet despite its explosive growth (16,000 overall attendees are expected in Austin this year), "South By," as conference goers dub it, has done a good job evading all attempts to be easily categorized. The interactive part, in particular, has somehow managed to remain its cutting edge. It still offers a wildly eclectic bazaar of topics, trends, opinions, and applications, and one can truly say that all of the tech conferences out there it is the one best positioned to explore "the soul of the machine."
The organization is professional but there is still a lot of room for the unexpected, below-the-line, grassroots eccentricity that gives the conference its special flavor. A big part of this can be attributed to Austin, which has emerged as a thriving hub for creative people and embeds SXSW in the kind of community fabric that doesn't tolerate any over-spin or sell-out. The organizers have also made a point to add many community elements to the event: web 2.0 for web 2.0sters, if you will. For example, this year, they pioneered a "panel picker" that allowed users to vote on submitted panel proposals and essentially democratized the entire programming. I'm not entirely sure if this is the best application for the "wisdom of crowds" since there is a real danger that the panel selection turns into a popularity contest or an easy target for PR professionals and speaker bureaus. I, for my part, am old-fashioned and prefer conference programs to be curated by a curator, simply because it is otherwise daunting to ensure the right balance between diversity and cohesion. Anyway, it's too early to tell -- we'll see how it turns out.
In addition to the panel picker, SXSW has teamed up with Microsoft and frog design to create a rich, interactive online community hub for the conference. The application features premium content from SXSW Interactive, including video clips from keynotes and panels, as well as user-generated videos, Flickr images, and social networking content. At the same time, aggregators from Technorati and del.icio.us comb the Internet for relevant information, keeping the site dynamic.
But not everything at SXSW will be user-driven. In fact, some of the program highlights were carefully chosen: Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, will give the keynote on March 9. Other keynotes include Frank Warren (March 10) and Jane McGonigal (March 11). Opening Remarks (March 8) will be delivered by Henry Jenkins and Steven Johnson, and Michael Eisner, former head of Disney, will be interviewed in a special session on March 11.
Searching for the Killer App
As eyeballs wander towards Austin, it will be interesting to see which digital innovations this year's conference will bring. Google's Dodgeball blew up at SXSW Interactive in 2006, and last year, a hitherto unknown service called Twitter enabled attendees to chat about panels in real-time and in public, and as instant as the format was its proliferation in the blogosphere: Twitter became the app de jour at SXSW and then, quickly, the rage of all digerati.
So who will be this year's Twitter? Practically speaking: Meebo. The instant messaging service is the official sponsor for live chat at SXSW 2008 and has stepped into Twitter's footsteps, which is kind of ironic. Meebo as Me-too. And philosophically speaking? Who knows. It seems safe to place a few bets on models around the new "Digital Green." The conference will be hosting five panels devoted exclusively to sustainability issues (five more than in previous years, if you're counting), among them "10 Ways to Green-ify Your Digital Life" and "Green Software -- Really?" Another big topic will be how gaming, virtual worlds, mobile and contextual web will converge (yes, convergence is resilient!) in the "Age of Engage," including discussions on OpenID and hardware mash-ups ("the long tail of gadgets"). And then there are interesting sociological tangents such as "Sexual Privacy Online," "Self-Branding," or the existential question for the attention junkie: "Do You Have to Disappear Completely to Get Things Done?" The most exciting domain for disruptive innovation right now is probably news (which, as we know, is broken), and several panels will discuss the future of Internet radio, Internet TV, as well as crowdsourced, hyper-localized models of news production and aggregation.
Or maybe, after five days of "geekspasm" and partying, ReadWriteWeb's prediction may come to pass: "The killer app in Austin might just be beer."
Links
We will report from SXSW Interactive on this blog, but in the meantime here are a few helpful links to get you in the mood:
Official SXSW Festival Site: http://www.sxsw.com
Interactive SXSW Schedule/Calendar: http://sched.org/
Official SXSW Live Chat: http://www.meebo.com/sxsw
SXSW Insider Guide: http://sxsw.ning.com/
SXSW Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SXSW-Festival/7826953993?ref=s
Unofficial Weblog: http://sxswbaby.com
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