Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I recently presented (and really enjoyed) a core conversation at the 2009 SXSW interactive festival and want to share some thoughts for future conversation facilitators. There is an official core conversation FAQ to read, but I wanted to add some additional flavor to this.

The SXSW core conversation is basically a formalized conversation with moderators. Our experience tells us that you should expect 20-70 people to show up. The rooms have their chairs in either rows or in a circle. The moderators give an intro, then open the conversation up to the audience.

The first thing to know is that a conversation is not a presentation or a panel. Don't try to make it one. Embrace the format; don't fight it. There won't be slides or long presentations. This won't be a question answer session, and you shouldn't be the center of attention.

That's not to say that you can't have other experts in the room. On the contrary. Having knowledgeable people makes the conversation better. Just realize that all the SXSW goers will be there to discuss, not just listen.

Your intro should be short. The life of a good conversation comes in the discussion, not your intro. Use the intro to set the stage and introduce your topic. Say what you want to (and don't want to) talk about, and then try to pull people in. Get them talking.

Beyond that, my co-moderator and I decided on a list of topics, each with a list of questions or thoughts to talk about. But this was only a guide. Really we answered any questions directly asked of us, kept order, and moved the conversation through the topics that we wanted to cover.

Good luck with your conversation!

Not only was SXSW09 an educational experience, it was also an exercise in team building.  No team is as close as the one who plays together.  Naturally, when we showed up at the Interactive Closing Party, hosted by our good friends at Media Temple, the Capstratters couldn't resist a challenge from an on-site mechanical bull. When in Texas, do as the Texans do, right?  Here's how it all went down.

 

Todd Moy makes the following statement:"I'll get on that bull if someone else does."  Enough said.  Laura signs a waiver, grabs a glove and saddles up first for the Capstrat team.

 

Todd's up next.  Yes this is actually Todd Moy on a mechanical bull.  Enjoy this, you might never get to see it again.

There goes Evan, our official time keeper.

 

And John, our winner...at 44 seconds!

 

Virginia our fearless leader, never one to back down from a challenge, finishes up the night strong.

 

After all that hard work, we finished things off with mmmpanadas out of a truck.  I'm so excited I think I'm waving mine at Evan. It was truly an authentic night out in Austin and a great way to end our SXSW09 experience.

 

One of the most perplexing panel discussions I attended at SXSW was “Is Aristotle on Twitter.”  And the answer is most certainly yes.  Here’s one of the many affirmative arguments that the panelists presented.

Aristotle felt that a good rhetorician held an understanding of current and past events along with a strong theoretical knowledge.  They held practical wisdom and could take knowledge of the past and apply it to the current. In order to judge someone’s ability or character, individuals would look to their intuition and decide if they would pay attention to them.

Consider the influential Twitters today.  They give good URL references and insight about them.  They are good filters of information and aid in community deliberation. In the end, they're simply rhetoricians using a different medium and their status is confirmed by their large audience of followers.

So, Aristotle would probably find qualified rhetoricians on Twitter.

As one questioner asked, if Aristotle is on Twitter, then where is Socrates?  A panelist responded, “He’s on Usenet.”  I suppose that’s a panel discussion for another SXSW festival.

Our Capstrat darts were quite a hit at this year's SXSW. Serving as a great conversation starter both for our core conversations as well as for demonstrating Capstrat's thought leadership, our darts were a hit with the young and the old alike. Folks were generally intrigued and we were able to demonstrate that not only were we innovative, but that we also were quirky and fun.

A few spirited dart wars even broke out organically amongst conference goers, making us feel right at home! 

When walking down the street to grab some lunch on Tuesday, the man in the "mmmpanada" truck even had a dart he'd gotten somehow on the streets of Austin. Look at that form! 

Looks like another successful tale of the famous Capstrat dart.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the hype about the Microsoft Surface. While at SXSW I had the opportunity to play around with the Surface and attend a panel about natural user interfaces (NUI). The most well known example today is Apple’s iPhone with interactions like flick to scroll and pinch for zooming. When using the demo, I asked about what new interactions we might see moving beyond those on the iPhone. Unfortunately the demonstrator could only pick on the iPhone and didn’t really provide a direct answer to my question. But, he did show us some possible uses and a few utilities that shed some light on its capabilities.

The Surface uses a set of cameras to detect thousands of touch points simultaneously. It has the capability to discern between fingers, whole hands and specially coded objects placed on the Surface. Not only does it allow for multiple touch points, it can serve several users simultaneously. Virtual objects on the Surface can be moved, sized, rotated and spun while expanding. All of these interactions are performed directly with the human hand and feel almost as natural as interacting with tangible objects.

Here’s a video that shows the possibilities of the Microsoft Surface. I’m looking forward to seeing more and more natural interactions come about as this technology grows.

This panel at SXSW09 opened with the etymology of the word "gossip" – which stems from "God" and "kin" in Old English.  Apparently, back in the day, the "gossips" were the women who attended other women's childbirths or who stood by at baptisms.  They considered themselves kin because they attended "the birth of new things."  Gossip only morphed into a negative term in Elizabethan times.  

Now, where does social media come into play with gossip?

This panel made the inference that social media has its roots in gossip and being connected.  It was suggested that social media has become a more formalized version of what women have always done, formed social networks.

This was one of the more theoretical panels I visited at SXSW, but some interesting questions related to social media did come out of it.

1. Do you need to feel safe before you can be yourself on the web?  Or is the act of being yourself what makes the web feel safe to you?
2. Through the use of social media and increased transparency, are we starting to accept our imperfections more? 

I attended an interesting panel at SXSW09 on what teens want in a web site. Unfortunately there were not many tangible strategies offered that audience members could take home and implement from this panel.  However, it was interesting to hear teens talk freely about how they use the web in general.  Since there wasn't an abundance of specific leaning to take back with me, a few interesting comments are paraphrased below for your knowledge and/or enjoyment.

1. "It's funny to see my teachers on Facebook; it shows you that they are really people too."
2. "Me and all my friends use MySpace and not Facebook, its way cooler."
3. "Us high school kids have so much drama in our lives.  It's like, why am I not in your top 20 friends on MySpace? That's rough."
4. "I use Wikipedia most of the time for my research papers."
5. "Internet explorer?  Ew please, I only use Firefox." 
   
6. "Me and my friends all just looooove Facebook Mafia Wars! (Cough, Cord.)"
7. "Wait, an RSS what?  What happened?"

Augmented reality, or the combination of virtual reality and live footage, is on the cutting edge of interactive experiences today. At SXSW John and I attended a panel that discussed the emerging trends in mobile technology. While AR was once confined to the desktop computer with a connected camera, today's mobile phone technology has placed the capability right in our pockets.

Here is an example of an augmented reality pet on an iPhone. Notice how the user is able to interact with the pet by touching the iPhone screen.

You might be thinking that this technology is only for play, but check out this example of using the iPhone's built-in GPS receiver for navigation. While the video is a bit unclear, notice the navigation path overlaid on the current image of the road ahead.

Other applications of this technology include everything from tactical military devices to advertising. Have any ideas for how this might be used for clients? Add a comment and let’s talk.

Austin may be known for being weird, but the South By Southwest Interactive conference filled the city with thousands of the most connected, iPhone wielding, Twittering, Mac using early adopters on Earth.

The producers of the conference tried to stock the schedule with a wide array of topics, but Twitter and social media were the topics du jour. In the middle of the day tweets with the #sxsw hash tag are being posted so fast that it would be easier to drink from a fire hose.

Apparently wired is the new weird, in case you missed the memo.

At SXSW09, I attended a very informative panel entitled “Building Strong Online Communities."  Jam packed with useful information for running your own successful communities, I’ve distilled some of the most relevant “don'ts" for us to remember as we create and continue to foster existing communities here at Capstrat.

• Don't troll your users too much, it sets the wrong tone.
  
• Don't "over listen" to your community when something on the site changes. If users freak out with change, give it two weeks. Any lash back was likely stemming from a lack of warning about change, not about your community in general.
  
• In terms of moderating for quality, resist the urge to remove posts that you think don't "forward the discussion". If they are of poor quality, they will find their way down to the bottom organically.
  
• Don't ridicule and/or flame people, no matter what their actions are; don't cross over into that vindictive place. This can often be a challenge when you're overwhelmed with negative feedback and in the heat of the moment. Don't let yourself get sucked into the negativity. Take a break and come back before taking further action, if you need to.

Try looking at it from this perspective.

• Running your community is sort of like throwing a party at your home. It's your house. You hope all your friends start coming over, have a lot of fun at the party, and invite all their friends.
  
• Now, having said that, it's still a party. Someone is probably going to spill a beer or two on your carpet before the night's over; you have to know that going in.  No use in crying over spilt beer.  At the end of the day, it's you're house and you're responsible for fostering an environment where your friends and family want to continue to gather in the future.