When I was sitting in the passenger lounge in Houston, waiting for a

connecting flight to Austin, a guy sitting beside me turned to me and said, “so why are you going to SXSW?”

I fumbled in my response, and was thankful his phone rang. I didn’t really know how to comfortably answer his question because

I didn’t know what to expect from the event

It wasn’t until I was 30,000 feet above some U.S state on my way back home from the

conference that I realized the real take-away and reason why I would go back again

what you expect from and why you go to SXSW (in my Venn Diagram opinion)

!

Craziness in the overlap Racing your favourite Web

Celebrity across downtown Austin in a bike cab at 1am, minutes after your colleague convinced you to

take a bike tour through the shadiest neighbourhood in the city

People Inspiration

Ideas

People. Inspiration. Ideas

Back to the Craziness in the overlap for a second Meet Joseph Jaffe. The guy we decided to race in a bike cab at 1am

Key takeaway: SXSW is more enjoyable as a shared social experience with others, rather than as an anti-social mission. People

Observation: our gadgets make it easier for us to be “digitally social” at events, while at the same time more physically anti-social

•  A colleague that was with us down at SXSW made a remark early on in the conference about the number of people being completely absorbed in their iPhone, iPad or bad microsoft product.

•  What was perceived as anti-social behaviour at first, wasn’t entirely true.

•  What these gadget absorbed people were doing was actually being “digitally social” - transmitting and communicating with their digital network what they heard during sessions - while focusing less on their physical environment and people around them.

•  Should we be trying harder to strike a balance?

Pic repurposed from Dave Vieser’s blog post on Experience Matters http://tinyurl.com/5usdsdt

Observation: those with shared social experiences at SXSW tended to have a more positive view of the event…we are social beings by nature

•  Before I flew down to SXSW, I heard two main types of comments from people when I told them I was attending the event: they either raved about it, or they said it was crap.

•  At first I thought these swings in views were a result of the speaker content, but that turned out to be incorrect. What had a larger influence on your positive view of the event was whether you attended with others, or made the effort to interact with people while down there.

•  Those who seemed to have a sub-par time attended solo and didn’t interact with others in their physical environment, or had a fire at their opening night party (we collectively feel sorry for you Sapient)

The group messaging tool my group used at SXSW

Benefits of attending SXSW with others, or at least attempting to interact with others in your physical environment while down there

The benefits: •  Friends or new acquaintances can save you seats at

packed events (thanks Richard!)

•  You’ll save those in your digital social network from update overloads by taking a breather from twitter and communicating with people around you

•  While waiting for a a speaker to start, you’ll be able to bounce ideas off interesting people and jump into stimulating conversations

•  You won’t end up like the Forever Alone guy

4Chan’s Forever Alone guy

Key takeaway: SXSW is more enjoyable as a shared social experience with others, rather than as an anti-social mission. People

Key takeaway: you’ll be more inspired by balancing out talks that cover your profession (vertical learning) with those that have nothing to do with it

Inspiration

•  Millions of years of royalty free R&D embedded in nature holds the answers to many of today’s human centered design challenges

•  A slime mold helped the Japanese transportation agency develop the quickest and most efficient bullet train for the Tokyo rail system

•  The UK government are looking at creating a financial regulatory system that mimics the way the human immune system works

•  Nissan are experimenting with a group of autonomous cars that replicate a school of fish (which never collide)

What I learned from a talk on Biomimicry

= Hotel design

inspiration in Kenya

What I learned from a talk on the “humanization of business”

•  It’s the little things that matter, and which often have the bigger impact (look at the customer relationship beyond the dollars and cents)

•  You should aim for the emotional center when thanking your customers for their business, and go beyond the transactional radius of your relationship with them

•  Gary V thinks the Old Spice campaign is the greatest example of what NOT to do when it comes to the humanization of business (push vs. talked) =

Focusing on the little things

What I learned from a talk on designing ideas, not objects

•  The designer and storyteller always need to work together

•  Products needs to be more than just a “thing”. They need to be built off relevant ideas, and the story needs to be driven throughout the entire proposition in an authentic way

•  Turn back to why you or your client are in business. Why did you start in the first place? Ask yourself if your customers would shed any tears if you were gone tomorrow?

•  You cannot control your brand, you can only influence it

= Designing ideas, not

objects

Key takeaway: the speakers and panels will intellectually stimulate you. Always have something to write ideas on Ideas

Ideas will emerge from your head at any moment. Make sure you have something to write them down on

•  Ideas can emerge at any moment.

•  That saying is even more prevalent when down at SXSW, where the speakers, people and random conversations serve as catalysts for ideas (napkin worthy or not)

•  Always be prepared. Make sure you have something to write them down on with you at all times. You don’t want to end up like me and use poor quality airplane napkins

An idea from Richard Tseng and I, manifested itself into a rough sketch on an airplane napkin on

the way back from SXSW

that’s what I took away from SXSW 2011

!

Craziness in the overlap Racing your favourite Web

Celebrity across downtown Austin in a bike cab at 1am, minutes after your colleague convinced you to

take a bike tour through the shadiest neighbourhood in the city

People Inspiration

Ideas

People. Inspiration. Ideas

and if I ran into that same guy at the airport next year,

that’s what I would tell him

Thank You

Johnathan Bonnell @digitalinfant

Account Planner Critical Mass