Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

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.

SXSW is one of the very best interactive conferences in the world. We've sent individuals in the past and we've always been HUGE advocates for the conference. This year we decided to submit some ideas. The people at SXSW have created a panel picker so attendees can select what they want to see at the conference. With 1200+ ideas submitted, we want your help! It will be hard to find our ideas with all the others. 

Follow this link to see the 4 Capstrat ideas.  (or read below) You must register to vote. Consider doing so. There are a lot of great ideas out there.

Vote for our friends at Campfire, too. 

For more information about the conference, visit the SXSW site .  

Here's what we submitted: 

Microsites. Macro Risks and Rewards.
Microsites can boost you or burn you. Extend your brand, or dilute it. How can you tame them to serve your needs? Come hear what our marketing, branding and technical experts are reporting from the front lines - and learn how to laser-focus your messaging without getting scorched.

1. What exactly is a microsite and how does it differ from other sites?
   
2. What are 4 good reasons to build one?
   
3. How do you navigate the opportunities and dangers of microsites?
   
4. Does using microsites as part of a broader campaign lead to brand dilution or brand extension?
   
5. When implementing a microsite, how do you reconcile rigid IT process with the need for speed, agility and flexibility?
   
6. What kind of interactions and experiences make a great microsite?
   
7. How are microsites like the replicants in Blade Runner?
   
8. How do you define your audience, message and success for your microsite?
   
9. How do you craft rules to guide microsite projects without stifling creativity?
   
10. What will microsites look like a year from now?

Who Will Check My Email After I Die?
Ever wondered what will happen to your digital existence after you die? E-mail, domain names, social networking content - do you want to leave it behind, -bequeath- it, or delete it? This in-depth discussion will provide technical, philosophical and legal insights on how to articulate your final online wishes.

1. How can I decide what should be done with my social network profiles and other digital assets?
2. How can I ensure sensitive information is deleted or transferred to the correct person?
3. Can I leave my domain name in my will?
4. Whom should I select to execute my digital estate?
5. How can I inform my online friends of my death and share with them my final messages?
6. Can I protect my digital identity from destruction by my descendants or others?
7. Can I transfer my iTunes purchases to somebody else?
8. How can I keep my dirty laundry out of my obituary?
9. Is there a service that can help with this?
10. How can I be sure that big companies (like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft) will respect my wishes?
    

Physical Computing: from I get it to Sold!
The learning curve is steep, but it's over in a flash. Our panelists bring word from the other side: Physical computing works. And sells. Participants in this session will build and keep their own devices from simple chips and inexpensive parts.

1. What is physical computing?
2. Why is it important to me?
3. How do I set up my Wiring or Processing environment?
4. Can artists, architects, designers, etc., benefit from physical computing?
5. Will my clients be interested in physical computing?
6. How can I build my own computer-controlled device?
7. How can I progress from simple devices to really cool gadgets?
8. What are some good resources on the web?
9. What are some good resources that are not on the web?
10. What are some larger applications for this knowledge?

Love in the Cloud: Online-Only Marriages
Could two people really share a life without ever meeting in meatspace? We discuss how online-only marriages could work. What current assumptions and apprehensions will seem quaint tomorrow? What are the barriers, and what answers will technology provide? In a world that's redefining marriage, is this the next logical step?

1. What variables must be in place to have an online only marriage?
2. What new technologies might make this possible?
3. Is anyone doing anything similar to this?
4. What variables constitute a romantic relationship?
5. Is presence or physical interaction a requirement for a fulfilling relationship?
6. Assuming we make a prediction for this, when do we see it happening in the future?
7. What populations could benefit from this ability to have this type of relationship?
8. What are the implications of this for society?
9. What would your mother say? :)
10. What are the detractions for this? - (For example, some inhibitors are: Legal implications, Death - transferable implications, taxes)

Every popular website eventually runs into the same problem: how to scale. In general, you hope for as much traffic as possible when you are developing a new application, but what would happen if you actually got it? Could you keep up with the increase in users, data, bandwidth, servers, and everything else that makes your application go? This panel aims to expose some of the key issues that you will face as your traffic grows, with insight from people with proven track records working on complex, high volume systems. Topics such as load balancing, caching technologies, and database use will be discussed. The end goal is that we would like the audience to leave with a better understanding of the issues that they will face when their applications start to get material amounts of traffic, with the hope that they will be able to better plan for growth.

Kevin Rose - Founder - Diggnation /Digg Inc
Cal Henderson - Badass MC - Flickr
Joe Stump - Lead Architect - Digg.com Inc
Chris Lea - Media Temple
Garett Camp - StumbleUpon
Matt Mullenweg - Founding Dev - Automattic /WordPress

Should I buy or rent space? Media Temple (and other hosting companies) have more hardware available than any of their customers. When you get customers that develop something bad (on accident) and you get a lot of traffic, no amount of hardware is going to protect that site or the others on the box from crashing.

If you need something specialized to your application, and it will affect others, the vendor is not going to do it. Scalability requires specification and customability. Architectures are different because each company is different. This allows for customized problems, digg and flickr have totally different problems.

Some of the panelists think buying boxes is not scalable and would rather keep renting space.

YOu may be having database scalabilty issues and going from 10 MySQL instances to Oracle. The easiest ways to solve problems is to through money at it. The more MySQL databases you ahve the more likely you are going to have one down. You have to make sure you partition the data as you build.

My SQL Proxy project - imbed lua language. You talk to the proxy and the proxy knows what to do.

Scalability of teams must be considered. You generally have to add more structure to the team when you have several developers. There is always one dissenting opnion when you have 7 developers. The perfect number of developers working on a single project seems to be between 3-6. You can almost always get consensus with that number.

Documenting code is essential. It takes a lot of time for everyone to explain and get up to speed when you don't.

Recommend coding in a wiki so that each developer can easily work on the code. You must complete cross-training, you have to have two people learn something at the same time.

You can't do check-ins on a ticket unless you actually own it (Panelist recommends using Trac - which we use at Capstrat).

They mentioned that most developers are anti-agile or anti-scrum processes (Thoughts on this?? Our developers love team development with everyone working on one project for a period of time.)

Every company is different, at WordPress, the employees are 100% remote. There is talk of having some location redundancy and requiring those int he same area get together once a week to discuss issues and company ideas.

When you are trying to be scalable, the bottleneck will never be your language. It is always your database or your file storage or access. (As Cal Henderson from Flickr said:Flickrs first issue was they ran out of disk space (hmm), but there are ways you can figure this out with a tiny bit of foresight.)

Why do users form relationships with some products over others? What makes people develop feelings for software (good and bad)? We'll show practical ways to make your application more appealing to your users avoid creating abusive relationships, and discuss what it means to practice responsible design, including:

• Recognizing your audience's emotional attachment.
  
• Understanding how (and when) to think about the emotional elements of your product/design.
  
• Ways to improve your process so you can avoid creating "abusive" products.

Dan Rubin Black Seagull /Sidebar Creative
Eris Stassi Interaction Designer, Apple
Didier Hilhorst Interaction Designer, IDEO

Aichaku - Word that is an attachment to a product - word in Japan. Love you feel towards a product, not a person. Many products evoke an emotional response, but we are not always aware of it. First impressions are key in this arena. They work with products and people. You have to think about the experience from the very first second people interact with it. 10 hour installs are not good. Communicate with your consumers.

We think about emotional attachments with people all the time. Communication is key. Good communication starts a great relationship. We can't go to therapy with our products. Good products will be a step ahead, just like a person. People and products predicting experiences in a good way.

8 emotions

1. Trust
   
2. Commitment
   
3. Forgiveness
4. Respect
5. Jealousy
6. Deception
7. Blame
8. Stubborn

The intial reaction is always, is it hot or not. Trust and commitment come later. Jewelry is about commitment. Driving a Prius is a commitment to the environment because the car is butt ugly. Your best friend pisses you off a lot, but they are still your best friend. So you can make mistakes in the product experience, but you have to get most of it right. If it doesn't you have a bad relationship. Big difference between forgiveness and allowing for stupidity.

"A product (person) that can correct our mistakes as they happens gains our trust." -Maeda

This quote is about the person or product that has your back. The person that is not waiting for you to make a mistake, they are helping you prevent the mistake from happening.

If we create bad products, the fault is human, but there is redemption.

---I am not sure how this supports the argument - but her points were interesting. --- There are products that have redfined themselves. The Prius issues early on. Netflix put control in our hands and redeemed the postal industry. Flexcar - urban cities thinking about ownership and how you can use a car. Method's house cleaning products prove you don't have to use harsh products to get things clean.

Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you don't want to use a product, why would anyone else?

4 things to consider Experience of Flow - feeling in control, clear goal of what you are going and how you are doing it. Map the story out and tell it to someone. Start role-playing.

Memory Recall - Memories are strong emotional attachments. Photographs remind you of something. In applications this happens as well. Tastes, smells, audio, visuals - things that take you back to a time and place.

Symbolic Meaning - The ability to feel better, it encourages our sense of self. Products that we think help define who we are.

Tactile Experience - Product and indistrial design people think about this on a regular basis.

This panel will be of interest to anyone working for a start-up or preparing to launch a new brand. The title is sensational, but the message is simple - it's about prioritization. You have to prioritize your focus and not put too much emphasis on your brand. Focus on what makes you stand out and make sure you get a good URL!! 

There's one word you should utter to the next client who asks you to design a logo: 'No.' Once the backbone of a brand's identity, logos have moved to the 'relatively unimportant' end of the 'important stuff' spectrum. This panel will explain how and why logos became irrelevant and will discuss how to break this news to your clients...and what the heck you do first on a design project if it isn't the logo.

The three takeaways:

-- The ways that logos limit a brand
-- The fact that sometimes, no logo is better than a logo
-- How to explain this to clients who can't imagine it.

Bryan Zmijewski Chief Instigator, LuckyOliver.com
Jeremy Britton Partner, Zurb Inc
Christina Wodtke LinkedIn
Luke Wroblewski Sr Principal, Yahoo! Inc

Make sure you understand the difference between a Logo and Logotype. Logo creation can distract you when you are trying to get a business started.

The costs of creating a logo:

1. printing/money
2. time
3. momentum

Industrial Revolution (manufactured goods were most important) to Information Age (URL is most important): In the industrial revolution, people started putting logos on things like soap to differentiate the product from another once the wrapper is off.

Now there are companies like LogoWorks.com that will make a logo for $25. Lots of times those logos turn out okay. Right now, people are paying a lot of money for URLs. If you can not get the URL you want, you will consider changing your name. Originally, logos were signature, but now they have been undermined by copycats. URL has been supplanting the quality of truth.

Early on, having a findable site is more important. Consistency is important, but it is a lot easier to be consistent when you start small.

Many times terms are used as identifiers, with variants on spellings (flickr.com) or strange combinations (Lucky Oliver).

You have 1.6 seconds a month with each person to make an impression on your customer online. Many times, it may be easier to remember the query string to get to the site, than remember the logo.

In start-up mode, every hour you spend working on something is an hour you spend not working on something else. The message is more important. Do you have time to work on the logo? When you are trying to build a company in 6 months how important is it to build the mark?

The icon does not come to play as much as it used to. You don't think about the Twitter logo, you think about the number you send messages to (40404). Is having a Yahoo logo on content important? Well-organized visual and structure seem to be more important. Does it seem professional? Is the logomark going to take it to the professional level. If so, you may need it. With phishing the link is more important than the mark.

Brand has overshadowed LOGO. You can't just have a Web site that is brochure-ware. It's about engaging customers and getting them to interact with you, not just about putting up a form.

Frank Warren

This was a heartwarming presentation. Frank shared a lot of secrets that have not been published on his blog or in any of the 4 books. As the world expert in secrets he had some interesting insights. I don't really have a lot of notes from this session, but I encourage you to pick up a book or read his blog. Some of the secrets are funny. Some sad. Some give you hope. Frank has done a lot with suicide prevention agencies and is quick to credit the Web community for money gathered for these agencies in times of need. 

• Sometimes the secrets we think we keep are undermining us.
• We can make decisions to tell our secrets or change based on the secrets we carry. This can change our lives forever.
• The panel was complete with a marriage proposal at the end (she said yes). 

This panel will be interesting for anyone that is looking to validate their approach to building relationships with clients. It includes a couple of case studies by interesting people.

'Conversation' & 'community', yes, yes. Of course. Given. But how, exactly? Do you want people to find out about and play with your awesome Web stuff without being skeevy about it? Serious about including your users in the long-term creation and evolution of your products? Together, we'll divine the best ways to unmarket and create self-replicating awesomeness.

Chris Heuer Partner, The Conversation Group
Tara Hunt Co-Founder, Citizen Agency
Jeremiah Owyang Forrester
Deborah Schultz Founder/Chief Catalyst, deborahschultz.com
David Parmet Owner, Marketing Begins At Home LLC
Hugh MacLeod Grand Pooh-Bah, gapingvoid.com

This panel had nerd humor. Lots of it. :)

Good marketing doesn't even feel like marketing. It's all about product development, customer service and marketing together. You have to get in the trenches to understand it. Some of the panelists feel marketing was created for mediocre projects.

Online community best practices: Panelists feel online embassies with brand ambassadors are the best way of approaching (YAY, Scandinavian Child!!!). With these communities, you are valuing the participants and sharing information with them that you are not sharing with the general public.

One panelist, who is selling her intellectual property, mentioned that the more insight she gave away, the more she was sought after.

When engaging bloggers to blog about wine they sent them the product. These users were selected because they seemed like they may be interested. They told the bloggers they could say the product was crap if they wanted. If they wanted to mention it, they could, but they didn't have to. They told the bloggers it was fine if they didn't care, The started noticing impromtu geek dinners, They started sending the wine to the parties. The conversations that were sparked were more interesting than the wine, but it was still interesting.

They started noticing that conversations were starting around the social objects. Networks evolve around those objects (like iPhones). People start making social gestures, they beget social objects, beget social markers. Phone geeks will have to start with the iPhone conversation for reference and credibility. As a marketer, you have to remember that you don't own the community.

The future of the economy is free. Giving away something for free helps make relationships. Get out of the ivory tower stop pushing stuff at people. Attend conferences and start network-weaving. Cool stuff happens when community A and B meet.

(Lots of talks about start-ups this year.) When you are a small or midsize company, dont put up a FAQ. Instead, bring in people to ask questions and then answer them online. Bring in customers. This can come out of your marketing or customer service budget. Start with the people that love you to find ambassadors.

They stated that really great brands don't have big ideas. they have lots of little small ones (Starbucks, NetFlix, etc.).

How can we visualize the city of the future and create more interactive steps that lead to sustainability? How can we use technical simulations and games to build understanding of the resource-balanced world? What's the connection between an emerging Global Sustainable Society and video games?

Jon Lebkowsky Principal , Social Web Strategies
Dawn Danby Aylanto
Jamais Cascio World-Builder-in-Chief, Open the Future
Joel Greenberg Writer, podaddies.com
Pliny Fisk Co-Director , CMPBS

When Visualizing different kinds of systems a weather map is a good example. Maps have changed a lot over the past 5 years. There are many new sophisticated toold for data visualization. A weather map from 5 years ago was simple. But a map from the 1950s was mind boggling simple. All data is digital now and can be represented as data. Sustainability is a data issue.

As a consumer, it is important to do your ecological impact. This data will give you something to work with.

We don't have a lot of time to solve global warming issues. Any data that can help us visualize and understand our impact will help. When looking at data that displays carbon cycles, pollen or how birds patterns are changing, it is easy to get overwhelmed. Many times the data show us the impact, but not how to be sustainable.

Environmentalists need to think about how can we pull information threads to show things that don't freak people out. You need to have personal feedback when you are interacting with things so that you know what your impact is.

When driving a car, we generally optimize the experience for speed and time, not fuel efficiency, so when people get a new Prius, they are bummed cause they are not getting more than 35 miles per gallon.

If you keep your car maintained and drive an appropriate speed, you will see results. The car does its best to provide feedback.

You can use video games and demos to create items and see the impact.

It can help you determine the best way to plan things. Using the games and simulations as tools for change. We are changing the language that we use when we talk about the tools.

Look at consumption of items in each phase. Am I using more water than my neighbor?

Discovery Channel has released EarthLive - interactive version of the globe with erosion of deserts and info about what scientists are doing.

Web service APIs not only have to work, but they must also appeal to developers' high expectations. It's not enough to expose their data; if you don't offer powerful functionality, provide clean documentation, and maintain reliable service, they'll invest their time elsewhere. On this panel, developers from leading web applications share their best practices for building developer-friendly web service APIs.

Avi Bryant CEO , Dabble DB
Leah Culver Founder/Developer , Pownce
Carl Mercier CEO , defensio.com
Ari Steinberg Engineering Manager , Facebook
Ben Vinegar Web Dev , FreshBooks

h1. Building Developer-Friendly Web Service APIs

h2. Formats

* Request & Response
    * DabbleDB: CSV, JSONz
        * Meant for non developers

* Defensio: XML, YAML (Post)
    * Don't currently us JSON
    * Take a lot of care when developing

* Facebook: XML, FQL, JSON
    * A version of JSON is very easy to work with
    * Extremely popular

* Pownce: XML, JSON (REST)
    * Developed in Python
    * Developed Data Structure first, then the API

h3. Benefits

* Brings in Developers

* FQL
    * Request VS response model
    * Browered from SQL previously
    * Made it easier to update and more
    * 40% of their API calls

* People often build libraries on top

* Makes it quicker and easier

h2. Authentication

* DabbleDB: HTTP Basic Auth, URL token
* Defensio: URL token
* Facebook: OAuth-Style
* Pownce: HTTP Basic Auth, OAuth
* Really important to do properly
* Important to think about how they are used
    * Desktop Client
    * Web Client or Widget

* SSL is the best, but very slow
* Token based the best after SSL
* Authentication Method - Dependent on how important the DATA is

h2. Change

* Worst thing for 3rd party developers, makes it hard to progress
* Version API, one of the best ways
* If just adding fields not as big a deal, but overhauls make it a pain
* Being transparent is really important, and helps the 3rd party
* Be ready to support the API almost indefinitely, or deal with pissed off customers
* Also warn them ahead of time if you kill an API, give a couple warnings * When building a new version or piece to an API, start Documentation right away

h2. Performance

* Dependent on what you are requesting and types of Data to request
* it's something that depends on it usage, 3rd party developers should think about how its being used and requested during their dev
* Caching can be very helpful
* API service VS. Web Server request can be different
* Be ready for things to be hit in ebbs and flows
* Think about the tools and how they work (ie. Merb vs. Rails :Defensio)
* Monitor vs. Limit Requests if you start to become a large service
* Be willing to help 3rd party dev if you see they have inefficient processes, usually it gets cleared up pretty quickly

h2. Community

* One of the Most important things you can do
* Helps grow the services
* Staff your customer support
* have Customer Support and Developers work closely and communicate
* It becomes and Incentive to use your service/product
* Showcasing good 3rd party apps REALLY helps your service/product
* Helping debug their code when they are having massive problems helps make them love and spread the word about your service
* IRC channels are a great way to be there
* Hiring from this community can be a great way to help build your team

h2. Q&A

* Make the API easy to use
* Make sure its the right thing for the users VS. sticking hardcore to a standard
* Client Library developers can be helpful in understanding how its used
* You should be your own API user
* Build different levels of your API in you app so that you can use it and build you own app
* Emulating your competitors can really help you start out and build your business, just make sure it fits and makes sense
* Having a Developer Sandbox for an API can be helpful for your debugging and the 3rd party app users
* Biggest issue besides Scaling
    * Giving Incentives

Meeting a lot of people so far. Ran into Bryan Zmijewski (from high school) and his coworker Jeremy.  Asked Steven Johnson to sign my book with a silver AIGA marker - I think the marker sort of threw him off. Met a couple of guys (Ian and Christian) from Deep Focus and got an update on a great friend that recently left the agency.

I had a delicious dinner and mojitos at Dona Emilias.  I have to be careful or I will eat every meal at Dona Emilias.