Impressions of SXSWi

Visitors from DC share their observations of SXSWi. Anna Tauzin is an alum of TX State and of the sxtxstate.com project. She got a master’s degree from American University after leaving TX State. Anna is the Web and Social Media editor at J-Lab. Sean Connolly is a current grad student in broadcast journalism at American.

Less UI for Seamless Interaction

Lee Brenner, of digital design firm thirteen23, prefaces his main points of a talk about borrowing cinematic techniques when designing software from my favorite director:

“It’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them.” -Jean Luc Godard

How appropriate it is to begin this discussion with a quote from a director who broke so many cinematic rules.  With software, who needs loads of menus that are clicked on only to lead one to more menus?   Why not change drop-down menus and lists, to movable objects one can interact with?

These ideas were demonstrated as Brenner kindly took some extra time after the panel to show how a specific music software is working to do away with as much UI as possible, and making the content itself the UI, using minimal menus with maximum interactivity.

Watch this video to see how Brenner and his teams are working to minimize menus that are clicked on to lead to another source, to the objects being the source.

“We don’t always get things right,” said Brenner, “We’re just exploring solutions.”

And, exploring they are.

The Emotion Engine: Can a Video Game Speak to the Heart?

Many feel video games will never be as emotionally engaging as movies.

But, Peter Molyneux, the creative force behind the Fable series and the seminal god game Populous, thinks much differently. In a conversation with Frank Rose of Wired, Molyneux discussed the potential and future of video games. Molyneux also talked about Fable III and what to expect from the new game. He did not specify when it was coming out, but he did mention it was going to be out very soon.

Molyneux talked about what he believe the future of video games holds. He said, “I recommend anyone who wants to start to see the first glimpses of the future of video games to go out and buy it, but, personally, I could not bring myself to play more than 90 minutes, because the world that was there was so dark and so emotionally involving I felt emotionally beaten up.”

Christopher Grant, editor-in-chief of Joystiq talks about Rose’s and Molyneux’s conversation:

Molyneux talks about projects he has been a part of:

Sextual + Nudie Pics = Digital Violence Among Teens

Taras Wayner and Chloe Gottlieb of R/GA presented Sextual + Nudie Pics = Digital Violence Among Teens at SXSW Interactive 2010.

With the advancement of the digital era many different aspects of communication have changed. Dating and violence among teens has changed dramatically and have crossed mediums. Now teens are faced with violence via texting and social networks.

Acording to Wayner and Gottlieb, nearly half of all teens between the age of 14-24 have been subject to some form of digital abuse. Most teens are exposed to three top abusive behaviors when it comes to dating — textual harassement, sexting and break-ins.

Textual harassement is described as incessant and controlling messages. The second most common abusive behavior, sexting, is not being taken lightly by one of the giant networks in pop culture.

MTV launched the “A Thin Line” campaign to help bring awareness to teens and parents about sexting. According to the campaign, 30% of teens have sent and received nude photos via text messaging. What teens must realize is that once these pictures are passed onto another person, he or she can no longer control who sees these pictures and where they are sent next. Once sexting occurs there is a 12% increase in suicidal thoughts.

The final final form of abusive behavior, break-ins, occurs an obsessed user breaks into another user’s account that he or she is stalking and then uses the personal information found to harass someone verbally.

Wayner and Gottlieb explain that dating among teens has become less formal and more social. What use to be a private thing among two people has now become public. Parents were at one time gatekeepers and were the ones screening phone calls their teens received. Now, teens have direct access to one another by their cell phones and most have unlimited call and data plans and have the ability to adjust parental privacy controls to limit what their parents are able to see.

In this new digital world, how do we educate and prevent teens from being a victim of digital violence? Is it as simple as taking the device away from the teen or is it time to find a new way to empower our teens?

Be Creative (be an expert), Get Paid

“Find out what you’re passionate about,” said Nick Campbell as he opened his SXSWi panel “Be Creative, Get Paid”.  It’s no revelation to hear that in order to be happy, you need to do something you are passionate about.

Campbell's passion explodes through his arm motions.

Passion is something that Nick Campbell possesses. Campbell brought up something that is relevant to all creatives, and that is the fact that the playing field is now completely leveled with access to information and software tools that become so easily available.  I am a photographer, so many of the things Campbell said, I have already encountered.  Thankfully, Campbell chose to open with a topic I understand.

Anyone can purchase a good camera and software for under $1000, watch YouTube videos and be fairly proficient with the tools that were once esoteric and available to a limited population.  Now that the internet has made learning so easy, a mentor is no longer needed, and the price of education has dropped to the price of an internet connection.  “Knowing the tools is not enough,” said Campbell.

So, what’s the solution?  Become an expert.

No epiphany, but sometimes ideas like these need to be beat into people’s heads so they can learn and move forward.

“Learn the hard stuff,” said Campbell.  Campbell explained that knowing the tools is not enough.  Knowing the “how” is not enough.  You need to know the “why”.  In other words, knowing all the buttons in Photoshop, or in whatever design program you are using is something that anyone can learn and use.  However, understanding other aspects of design, such as color theory, typography, art direction, and more is what will help define you as an expert.  Campbell said that the difference that will set you apart is to be able to make “the decisions”.

An executive producer from abroad asks Campbell for advice on dealing with clients

Decision making, and problem solving are what make someone valuable.  This is something I always tell my clients when we begin to discuss logistical issues as we plan the execution of projects.  I say, “Don’t worry.  That’s my job.  You just tell me what you want.  It’s my job to solve any problems and make it work.”

There certainly are a lot of people who can take a photograph, but knowing how to take a photograph that captures and/or communicates the right idea is a skill that takes time to achieve.  This can be applied to any field, and although Campbell used photograph as an example, design is Campbell’s field.  The only way to get better, according to Campbell, is to challenge yourself.

“Deadlines:  make everything happen,” said Campbell.  Campbell said that in order to hone your skills, give yourself small projects and deadlines so that you will create problems to solve, and a time frame in which to complete your task.  So, whatever your field, if you feel like the competition is gaining on you, start assigning yourself new personal projects that will help gain some footing.  Even then, being the best in your field is not enough, according to Campbell.  He suggests that if you are the top dog in your area, go somewhere else where people are better and you have room to grow and learn.

Good luck!  Get to work!

Campbell enthusiastically addresses an instructor for the Austin Art Institute

Pain free design sign-off… for the client

“I think you should change the color”

“I asked, and my Mom thinks the site needs to be more ‘Denzel Washington,’ can we do that?”

I happens. Even after several meetings, drafts and mock-ups, a client’s input can turn a beautiful piece of web designer heaven into a nightmare.

That nightmare can leave many feeling disconnected and ready to quit said Paul Boag, a web strategist from Dorset, England. At last week’s South By Southwest Interactive festival he translated all the “what if’s” into language every designer understood.

Boag gave six client-friendly rules for all designers to follow from idea to realization.

1. Ensure the client understands their role in the process
- The client will identify problems and immediately try to find solutions, ie “Change the color to green.”
- Instead of asking “What do you think?” ask “What do you think about the navigation?” Boag said a common problem is that clients will start coming up with solutions for problems they see.
- Don’t be afraid to ask “why”

2. Have strong methodology
- Lay out your process and include them often and early
- As a result, the client feels in control and engaged

3. Educate them about your decisions
- For example: grids, type white space
- Tell them the logic behind the decisions that are intuitive to you
- This gives them amunition when they take the site back to the rest of the team

4. Ask for specific types of feedback
- How will your users react? How does this meet your business objectives?
- This puts them in comfortable territory

5. Avoid saying no
- Say “Sure, we can do that but lets think that through”

6. Have a successful kickoff meeting.
- This is when you will harness your enthusiasm!

Following these six steps, Boag says you’ll be well on your way to creating your wireframes, moodboards, mock-ups and prototypes.

Watch a short interview with Boag

-Alex Hering

SXSWi newbies

A large portion of our class were thrown into the wonderful (and sometimes chaotic) world of SXSWi for the first time this year. We all had fun, we all networked, and some of us even got caught in panels that we didn’t fully understand.

However most of us learned a few things and came away feeling that given the opportunity, we would love to do it all again next year. Here’s what Lesley Ornelas and Jesse Orona had to say about their experience on the last day of SXSWi.

How to Save Journalism – Interviews with Drew Curtis & Tucker Max

Fark.com is the go to web site for silly news stories. So naturally its creator, Drew Curtis, was the obvious choice to host a panel on “How to Save Journalism” at SXSWi 2010.

Curtis is a funny guy. Actually, he’s really funny. But the panel wasn’t all fun and games. It covered some serious topics – like distribution platforms. One panelist said there’s a lot of good journalism out there, but if you don’t have the platform to deliver it, it’s useless. Will the iPad save journalism? It will definitely create a new revenue stream for news organizations – but no one knows how powerful the impact will really be.

Jeff Webber, the editor of USAToday.com, said it pains him that journalists beat themselves up as much as they do. Another panelist, Kelly McBride from Poynter, said professional journalism may be dying, but journalism is not. She took comfort in the fact that we are reading more news content than ever before.

But enough about journalism and its pending (or not) death… Drew Curtis has long been a favorite of mine so it was great to hear how sharp he is on this topic. Then, throw in the fact that I got to meet the great Tucker Max, author of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. He’s a friend of Curtis’ and was hanging out in the crowd. I talked to both after the panel, which was one of the biggest thrills in my life. A quick note – Curtis and Max both cuss in these interviews, so if you’re offended by curse words please do not watch. And I want to find the person who closed the curtains in the middle of the interview with Max…

(If you’ve never read Tucker’s story about the Austin Embassy Suites, you can find it here. But do not read it if you’re easily offended. I repeat – do not read it if you’re easily offended.)

And here is the interview with Curtis. It was a big honor to interview both of these guys.

The Effects of Twitter on News

More than any other social media, Twitter has had a profound effect on news. I personally was most looking forward to the SXSWi core conversation about this very topic. It didn’t disappoint and it’s a conversation every news director should be having with his or her newsroom.

This particular discussion featured some heavy hitters in the world of social media: GQ’s Ana Marie Cox, Brian Stelter of the NY Times and Brian Dresher of USA Today. They covered Twitter policies, Twitter branding and reaching out to readers or viewers via Twitter.

“Twitter is the two-way street that other things have not been like,” said Cox.

The panel agreed that Twitter has improved reporting. Stelter said it allows reporters to tap into the audience and, in turn, the audience helps with the story. The NY Times is allowed to use Twitter as a resource to find people for a particular story, however they are asked to do so in moderation.

Another topic that has been an issue of debate in newsrooms around the country is personal tweeting from a company account. Dresher said USA Today has a blogging policy which covers Twitter, since it is a micro-blogging site. Cox and Stelter said journalists just need to be careful and not go too far with personal tweets. They joked that it’s okay to way up early in the morning and delete a few things from the night before – before anyone else sees them.

The final key point was that Twitter allows journalists to represent the company brand. It allows them to interact with the community, build a fan base for their news organization and, in turn, engage a personal brand as well. It’s a win-win if newsrooms and journalists can carry it out correctly.

This core conversation was only 20 minutes long, but I feel it was the best 20 minutes of the entire SXSWi conference. This is a key topic to be discussed in newsrooms around the country. They can no longer afford to continue falling behind the curve.

Don’t Get Sued: A Guide for Content Creators

If rule number one for content creators is to make amazing content, then rule number two is don’t get sued!  Josh Sussman, counsel for CollegeHumor, Koethi Zan, counsel for MTV and Luke Paglia, counsel for American-Eagle marketing all spoke about legal issues the content creators need to understand.

The panelists were quick to point out that this was not an advice session and that a little bit of law knowledge is a dangerous thing!  They spent their time discussing aspects of the law, how it effects their clients and possible pitfalls for content creators.  Their first recommendation was to find your own counsel!! There are lawyers who do pro-bono work and there is a great website to find those lawyers.

While that may be the best ”advice” of the panel, they did discuss Fair Use and Copyright law.  Fair Use is a difficult beast to corral.   If you don’t know the Fair Use doctrine, this will help!  There are questions a content creator can ask to determine if they are within the parameters of Fair Use: How much of the original are you copying?  Are you supplanting the market?  Is the use transformative? 

However, the Fair Use doctrine is incredibly vague.  The quote that was thrown out by the panel was that “Fair Use is nothing but the right to hire an attorney!” When Fair Use cases go to litigation, the court rulings are always different and it is all based on individual interpretations of the law.  One of the panelists said that the only way one would know if they interpreted the law correctly, is if they actually go to court AND win. 

Besides the great discussion about the Fair Use doctrine, the panelists discussed using release forms.  Their biggest point was that a producer should never lie to make someone sign a release form.  Lying creates a claim of fraudulent inducement.  Nine times out of 10, a producer does not need to lie to get people on television.  People want to be on television!  They also stressed to not be shy about asking for a release.  A release can potentially save a ton of money, headaches and stress further into the process.

Overall, I thought this panel was fantastic.  As a content creator, I learned much more about the law and about the vagueness of the law.  I also learned too much about Jersey Shore.  Trust me, you don’t even want to know!