SXSWi Or Bust: Insider's Report

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An Insider’s Guide

description

Nadia P's notes and musings on her experiences at SXSW Interactive 2009

Transcript of SXSWi Or Bust: Insider's Report

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An Insider’s Guide

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What You’ll Find in this Insider’s Guide

- Five takeaway tips for attending SXSW Interactive

- Notes on the most interesting panels and core conversations Design for the Wisdom of Crowds Twitter for Marketers Guy Kawasaki Interviews Chris Anderson Why NonProfit is the Right Choice for Your Startup

- A big Thank You to my sponsors!

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Five Things to Remember for SXSWi

1. Plan, plan and plan some more Before attending, take the time to do research on the panels and core conversations. Choose some panels by subject, others by speaker, depending on what you want out of a certain panel Always have a back up plan. Sometimes the panels suck. This is when you should walk out (don’t even hesitate, you’re there to learn, not to be polite) and move onto the next panel/conversation

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Five Things to Remember for SXSWi

2. Don’t be shy SXSWi is about meeting new people and making new friends. You’ll find you learn just as much from these folks as you do in the panels (if not more!)

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Five Things to Remember for SXSWi

3. Explore You’re in Austin! See Austin! Eat BBQ at The Salt Lick! Drink a Trudy’s Mexican Martini! You get the idea

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Five Things to Remember for SXSWi

4. Expect the unexpected This will go completely against #1. If interesting opportunities come up, then be flexible, and take advantage of your time in Austin to make it a unique and memorable experience

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Five Things to Remember for SXSWi

5. Keep your phone charger close Phones are essential to meet up, tweet up, check email, text, organize, chat and more. There are outlets all over the Austin Convention Center. Stay hyper-connected by staying plugged and charged

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Notes (aka motionless SXSWi Montage)

Dedicated to the coolest panels and core conversations

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Panel: Design for the Wisdom of Crowds

Speaker - Derek Powazek

Elements of Wise Crowds:1. Diversity – diversity of thought2. Independence – each person in the crowd needs to be able to contribute in their own way, for their own reasons. Avoids groupthink.3. Decentralization – you don’t need to go to your boss for anything, you can just do4. Aggregation

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Design for the Wisdom of Crowds

How to get WoC:1. Small Simple Tasks2. Large, Diverse Groups Design your systems so that they encourage

participation

3. Design for Selfishness Large groups of people will not participate in online unless if they’re getting something out of it

4. Result aggregation FAVRD.COM – they don’t ask the crowd what they like, they just show the data. And that

makes them more successful

5. The Heisenberg Problem in Relation to WoC Ok, so your WoC produces a list and once you surface that to the world, then you’re essentially making a new game and now people only want to play the game, no longer

just good data

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Design for the Wisdom of Crowds

How to get WoC:6. Popularity does NOT have to rule7. Implicit VS Explicit Feedback Explicit = voting and rating Implicit = page views, searches, velocity, interestingness Interestingness = algorithms that can allow

you to monitor

8. Design Matters! - Color & Shape – changing these can change how people interact with your site - Study proved that the colors will influence how people’s congnitive performance will vary

with colors (links to study on DP’s site)

9. Putting it all Together You should see where you input little bits and pieces of WoC into your site in addition to the regular community posts, etc

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Core Conversation: Twitter for Marketers

Ricardo Guerrero – used to tweet for Dell

Morgan Johnston – @jetblue team member

Why multiple accounts vs just one?RG: Lots of accounts for Dell made the most sense since there are so many aspects to the brand (ie small biz, consumer, etc)

MJ: JetBlue thought about multiple accounts and thinks it depends on the industry whether or not you should have multiple accounts

On Direct MessagingRG: Aren’t using it because Dell accounts only follow other Dell accounts

MJ: JetBlue has issued over 3000 direct messages in Twitter versus 536 updates for @jetblue account. LOVES DMing because that’s where MJ can give ppl his personal twitter. “I can have a real convo with

someone through DMing” - More careful about what he says with replies and updates because he views that as being the company more deeply - JetBlue will follow everyone that follows them - Doesn’t think that followers cares about all the personal interactions, they want to know JetBlue

On employees with Twitter accountsMJ: Give tools and resources to your employees so that if they are saying something for you (the company) that they’re saying the right

info

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*Note: This keynote was really awesome. While GK and CA were chatting, two artists were interpreting the interview with visual notes.

GK: How would you monetize Twitter?

CA: Exits include raising more money, exiting, or growing assets. Advertising isn’t the best answer, it’s just not the right time. Have two products - free and premium. Charge companies to join Twitter and get more than the free service for the charge.

GK: I couldn’t leave Twitter if I wanted to... People wouldn’t follow him away from Twitter

CA: This is when adding a premium with a price attached to it can test just how sticky your service or product is. It tests loyalty.

GK: Which is harder, to achieve popularity or to monetize that popularity?

CA: Every person needs to figure out their individual mix. Could a publisher represent you in another form than books? - Labels are bad managers - You may want to align interests of author and publisher

Keynote: Guy Kawasaki Interviews Chris Anderson

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CA:EXAMPLES OF FREE:Wall Drugs Store – Example of free. They gave away ice water and that would make people stop by and pick up water and then these people would buy

everything else

Zappos – Tony “gives away” shipping

Problem with free = Guilt

“The penny gap” – there is a HUGE difference between one penny and zeroIf people value stuff they pay for, then does that mean that they don’t value stuff they don’t pay for? - This is the difference btwn the digital and non-digital world - There’s no such thing as “waste” in digital, it’s encouraged - We instinctively recognize the btwn economics of bits and economics

Guy Kawasaki Interviews Chris Anderson

Will this new generation ever pay for online?CA: You’re get basic free, but pay for something better

CA: There’s NO excuse for sucking. And if they suck then we’ll stop talking about them. Does anyone think less of Facebook because it’s free? No. We think in terms of utility

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Tony Shawcross & Deb Lastowka Deproduction

*Note: This core convo was intense! It did NOT stay on subject and turned into a heated battle on the topic of non-profits versus social entrepreneurship. It was all over the place and I did my best to type as fast as possible. Here’s the juicy stuff:

Nonprofits & social entrepreneurship:Audience: Nonprofit does not allow you to sell your company, social entrepreneurship does.

TS: You can earn the money that you want to make with nonprofits. Why would you be a social entrepreneur if you want a nonprofit?

Audience: People have a hard choice – nonprofit vs social entrepreneurship.

TS: Nonprofit means you don’t have to pay taxes. This is a major benefit over social entrepreneurship

Audience: Companies are supposed to increase shareholders wealth which may not be money, it may be something more abstract. Become a full-fledged nonprofit

Core Convo: Why NonProfit is the Right Choice for your Startup

Hybrid nonprofit strategy:- Mixing social entrepreneurship with nonprofit. - Making a deal with a corporation to have a relationship with a nonprofit.

Random Tidbits of Nonprofit Truth:Stacey Monk (Epic Change)- structure of a corporation requires them to maximize profits, which creates externalities that make communities absorb costs. Nonprofits can consider greater good

Stacey Monk - Trust, ability to access volunteers, in-kind donations, grant eligibility are competitive advantages that make nonprofits make sense

Kit Cooper (Quality of Life Project)- Nonprofits could be good leverage in terms of advertising and marketing and getting your startup out there

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And Last But Not Least...

As you can see I learned a lot, saw a lot, and had a lot of fun. I wanted to dedicate a quick slide to everyone that helped me get to SXSW.

THANK YOU!