I’m crap at networking, I’m the kind of person who absorbs stuff in so I thought attending this session would give me a few angles on how to get out there at these conferences and not to hang out at the back.

The talk was pretty short — just 15 minutes — but crammed full with useful information. The best piece of advice (and it’s common sense when you think about it — isn’t everthing?) is to simply say hello and take it from there. Thom retold the story about how, the day before, he met a chap who was setting up a focussed social networking start up. He met him simply because the man’s name tag said he was from New York. There had been huge delays in getting down to Austin from New York and so that provided the seed to start the conversation. He finished the whirlwind talk explaining how his daughter had a rare skull disease which was pretty much incurable. Through his network of friends he found himself with the opportunity to speak to a brain surgeon who had developed a new technique which would cure the problem — the only man in the world. It was a poignant moment to finish on and really hit home how a simple “Hello” could change everything.

As he left I decided to put his words into practice and turned to the chap sat next to me. Turned out he was the same man from New York who the speaker had spoken to the day before. We got chatting and he explained his start up project Get Naked. Going against the grain of Facebook and MySpace where bigger is better, his project was to keep the stuff you want to share with your friends to yourself. It wasn’t about having ‘friends’ with those you barely know, It was about sharing and communicating with your closest friends. I liked that — I really dislike the whole “how many friends have you got?” mentality. It was a good chat, I gave him our TAK! promo pack and he gave me his business card. Thom Singer said, one of the most important things to remember when networking is to follow up the meeting afterwards, which I intend to do.

I was on a roll after that and instantly got into the networking mode and shared a beer with a producer of the Austin Chronicle before heading over to the Adobe Lounge to see if I could find Sara Forsberg. Sara works for Adobe and recently asked us if we would be featured in their Design Center project. Unfortunately, she wasn’t at SXSWi but I did end up having a good long talk with other key Adobe staff and again swapped contact details.

This networking thing is easy!

As it turned out, the Q&A with Sara Lacy was a bit of a circus, so I missed out on the hot gossip of SXSWi. If you're wondering what I'm referring too then simply check the link and see what all the fuss is about and watch the video linked above. From what I can gather, she was at times taking centre stage and the audience started to turn on her. Fair enough but from what I can tell, Zuckerberg wasn't the most forthcoming of interviewees and so naturally she became the personality. What do I care though, I wasn't there. Instead, I went to a debate entitled “Logos: Why They're Irrelevant and Can Actually Hurt Your Business” a debate which also became a hot potato.

The general premise of the talk was that the role of the Logo / Logotype brandmark has had it's day. No longer can the Logo carry a company along and you hear very little of the classic 'corporate redesign' jobs which were so common up until a few years ago. The big question was, has the Logo lost it's value in favor of other things like services, navigation and the url?

They stated the Logo's importance in comparison to well designed services, communication, content and usability isn't really that important at all. They questioned whether a good name and url was more important than a good logo mark. The panel raised the question if Logos of the past represented a good sign of trust, then in today's digital climate, is the URL taking that role? After all, many visitors arrive at sites via search engines — a logo free, URL rich process.

Apparently, on average your website will receive 1 new visitor per month for 1.5 seconds. What can you do to make them stay? My opinion then (and now) is that the Logo and site look and feel has a massive influence on that moment. The audience thought this too and the audience began to grill the panel. The panel argued that elements like descriptive navigation are just as important, and I agree completely. Navigation should instantly communicate what is on offer and can really explain a site fast whilst supporting a visual language. I think Zoppa is a great example of everything done right within that first 1.5 seconds.

However, I believe the Logo has an important place in today's service driven digital world and still represents a mark of trust and recognition. For example, in today's online mash-up environments where content merges into a giant data soup. Logo's confirming the content source can at a glance represent source credibility. Many mash-up sites don't offer this simple feature.

The panel and I also agreed that too often clients can get hung up on the Logo at an early stage in the development process when maybe their focus should be on knowing exactly what it is their product's services are. I've met many clients who don't really know what their site should say & do, but they know they want their logo rendered in blue. Perhaps the Logo should develop naturally alongside a website build. Services and content could then help define and shape the Logo rather than the other way round. I will try this approach in the future.

The panel then proceeded to show the infamous Web 2.0 Logo Chart. In my opinion it's a disposable logo graveyard with so many forgettable marks. The panel agreed and asked why couldn't the logotypes in this chart be just simply 12pt Arial. This disregard of the Logo caused quite a stir and personally, as much as I dislike most of the logos in that chart I understand they exist to at the very least resonate with a potential audience. My point here is, if a group of products delivered the same service in the same way, what would then influence the users choice? The logo will always be relevant.

As the talk gathered motion I began to reflect on a project close to my heart, StickerNation. I began to think how StickerNation demonstrated with it's vast image archive how important it is for people to express themselves and bond with an identity. The site featured thousands of personal brand marks created for no other reason than to simply achieve a point of recognition and respect.

Overall it was an interesting talk and myself, the audience and the panel agreed and dis-agreed with many points. Coming away, my conclusion is that brand values and services can't be solved within a single logo. The Logo is be a symbol recognition and a device to help support and resonate with the services on offer. To disregard the Logo completely would be to commit brand suicide.

I'm glad I missed that Facebook Q&A even if I did feel a bit out of the loop on all the gossip in all the bars that night.

I have to say the SXSW on Saturday was a blast. The free beer and meeting so mant interesting, intelligent people was a heady mix.

Yesterday was a little more subdued. I had a pretty sore head for one thing and, also, I thought it was about time to check out some of the panels.

I missed the best one, it seems, which was the horrifc cringe-fest that was Sarah Lacy’s interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. While that was going on, I was sitting in on a panel about given users design freedom in applications.

A couple of things came to mind from this experience:

1. I’m not really that bothered about going to panels.

2. Web designers (especially the guy from Google) have a habit of treating their users in the same way that newspapers treat their readers.

There is this implicit assumption that, however innovative your users may want to be with your product, the creators still know best. It’s a strange ownership thing that I want to understand more about. Is it, perhaps, because deep down we do not provide or create platforms to empower other people, we do it to gain power ourselves?

Another thing that’s been bugging me is the overuse of the term “social media”. It’s certainly the buzzword for this festival. I guess it’s better than the word being “anti-social media” but, in many cases, that might be more apt.

Maybe it’s the product of thousands of voices trying to be heard in one space, but I’ve noticed a lot of people shouting about how “social” their product or job is, without actually seeming to have any social skills themselves. It’s like the loud guy who walks into the bar telling everyone how fun and popular he is but, after about five minutes, you realise he’s just a bit dull.

It occurs to me that by designing something to be interactive does not make it social per se. Social is a more subtle thing, built upon personal relationships, emotions and communication.  I’m not sure where this is going, but I get the feeling that understanding this is pretty key to understanding how journalists should be working with their readers…

On the technology front, I’ve been enjoying using Qik on the Nokia N95. I’m still making some errors with it but I will start to post stuff to the blog today.

I’ll really hate the fact I’m going to have to give the N95 back when I get home. It’s a great tool.

]]> http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/10/shared-in-google-reader-sxsw-interactive-%e2%89%a0-social/feed/ http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/08/we-are-all-feeling-our-way-in-the-digital-world/ http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/08/we-are-all-feeling-our-way-in-the-digital-world/#comments Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:50:08 +0000 Ruth http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/08/we-are-all-feeling-our-way-in-the-digital-world/

As a self-confessed newbie to interactive, this comment by Henry Jenkins at today’s Opening Remarks session at SXSW no doubt had a greater impact on me than the 100s of other live-bloggers sitting around me at the Austin Convention Centre. I came to this event expecting to feel three steps behind most other delegates and prepared to google every other word in each keynote session.

But today couldn’t have been more different. It’s really opened my eyes to the fact that everyone involved in digital is on a learning curve. I doubt that my posts from SXSW will be ground-breaking to those who are already immersed in the digital world. But hopefully they will be an interesting read for those of you, like me, who are just starting to feel their way.

I started this morning at a session on ‘What teens want online & on their phones’. My first thought was, I doubt teens are going to confess what they really want in front of a room full of adults. But with the enviable confidence that seems ingrained in so many Americans, a panel of 7 young people spoke about their relationship with the web and answered questions, primarily from an army of marketeers (no surprises there.)

The session wasn’t hugely enlightening , but it did underline a few interesting points. It seems that even young people are experiancing social networking fatigue, and although sites like Facebook and MySpace are still seen as a necessity- as one panellist said ‘It’s not my life’.

The panel were asked how they engage with factual content on the web, good causes and news. It was a real eye-opener to learn that they all got their news and factual information through YouTube and Wikipedia, and not one of the panel had visited a traditional news site, such as CNN. One even mentioned that she learns about what goes on in the world through The Onion, a satirical news site. That raises a lot of questions about the news that is being consumed by young people and the value of current news sources for future generations.

One panellist, a young teenager, had her MySpace page invaded by a hacker and was sent a number of, in her words, inappropriate videos. I found it surprising that this wasn’t picked up during the panel discussion, or addressed by any of the audience in their questions. They were mostly too concerned with finding out how they could encourage young people to buy Pop Tarts and watch the Disney Channel.  

Despite working in marketing myself, I left feeling a little depressed, so was glad to get an injection of positivity during the Opening Remarks session with Henry Jenkins and Steven Johnson. It really blew away some of my prejudices and brought home the benefits of collective intelligence, particularly for young people. The web is there to inspire and help young people to create, not just to consume. I won’t bother to repeat the session here as it will all be available on the SXSW site, but its well worth a listen. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

]]> http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/08/we-are-all-feeling-our-way-in-the-digital-world/feed/ http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/04/shared-in-google-reader-remove-poketalking-about-%e2%80%9cfacebook%e2%80%9d-is-strictly-prohibited-on/ http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/04/shared-in-google-reader-remove-poketalking-about-%e2%80%9cfacebook%e2%80%9d-is-strictly-prohibited-on/#comments Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:43:30 +0000 Stef http://www.sxswm.com/2008/03/04/shared-in-google-reader-remove-poketalking-about-%e2%80%9cfacebook%e2%80%9d-is-strictly-prohibited-on/

remove poke

Talking about “Facebook” is strictly prohibited on these premises.

It appears that RealNetworks may be looking to purchase Scrabulous, the much-loved Scrabble clone that was the favorite app amongst Facebook employess mere months ago.

According to a comment made by Om Malik of GigaOM (in response to a New York Times story published today), RealNetworks seems to be offering the impression that it wants to take a stab at bringing some form of Scrabble - an officially-sanction version, of course - online. Om has thus determined that the company may then in fact be looking to purchase the ready-made app (turned Facebook sensation) assembled last year by two brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, located in Calcutta, India.

Though Bill Hankes, VP of Corporate Communications at RealNetworks, has only sent some coy emails to Mr Malik vaguely hinting at the possibility of a Scrabulous purchase, it would certainly give RealNetworks a quick-and-easy entry into the social gaming scene on the Web and a surefire hit right from the get-go. It would certainly win them some major Brownie points with Facebook users, all of whom were forced to endure the take-down of the network-version of the game. The resulting backlash from Facebookers was fairly intense, and even inspired the establishment of a protest group and even the production of a mocking music video.

At this point, the subliminal revelation by RealNetworks carries with it strong notes of rumorism and conjecture, but it certainly looks like there may be an ounce of truth to it. Hold on Scrabulous fans. Your game may soon return back to its former glory.

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If you think LinkedIn is for kids and Facebook is for grandkids, perhaps you should consider Financial Times’ new social network, aimed at top level execs who can afford 1700 pounds (3,340 dollars) per year, because that’s how much (at the very least) membership costs.

The details about the network itself are sparse; it’s being described as a forum with a ‘user-friendly, simple, efficient and secure system’ for online networking. I’m guessing that the high price point will mostly…