For me, trying to choose a favourite talk from Austin’s SXSW interactive festival this week would be like lining up a row of twelve pots of deliciously fruity yoghurt and stating that I was only allowed to have one.
A creative technology blog from the Weapon7 hive mind
by @jeremywillmott
It was more akin to a rock concert than a speech by the 'Nerd of the year' (as GQ sees him).
Thousands of people milled around and took their seats, waiting for Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, to make an appearance.
When he did arrive, the thing that struck me was his normality. I mean that in a good way. Stone seemed just the same as any guy in any startup, web dev company or digital agency.
He's an affable chap, passionate for his subject but not overbearing, eloquent, speaking unscripted, and with many an amusing anecdote up his sleeve.
He mused through a series of benchmark rules that he really values (eg 'Creativity is a renewable resource', 'To succeed spectacularly, be ready to fail spectacularly'), but it was the insights into how Twitter got off the ground that I found most interesting.
Stone chatted about how the idea behind Twitter could be traced back to a specific brainstorming session. Ex-Google employee Stone and others, including Evan Williams and Noah Glass (they were all board members of the podcasting company Odeo, and were trying to come up with a better idea than what they already had) had all paired off to try and come up with new ideas.
Stone paired off with Jack Dorsey, a software architect, who had the notion that there might be something interesting in the communication methods used by taxi companies. Ie short bursts of succinct messages to others in the group.
They bounced the idea around for a while (see an example of one of Dorsey's early sketches below), and then took it back to the others who, interestingly, were a bit nonplussed. 'It's not very fancy,' Stone remembers one of the group remarking. 'Maybe it could use video in some way?'
Anyway, they did get the idea up and running, and knew a good thing when they saw it when it came to settling on a final name.
Jack Dorsey had been quoted as saying: "...We came across the word 'twitter', and it was just perfect. The definition was a short burst of inconsequential information, and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product was."
It was cool to see Biz Stone's excitement as he remembered the tipping point for Twitter, which was here at the SXSW festival in 2007. Only about 5,000 people were using it at the time.
Stone recalled two main instances. One was when he was in the audience listening to a talk, and suddenly people started leaving. He was amazed to discover that someone in another better talk had been tweeting their enthusiasm, which is why people had heard about it and began leaving to go there.
Another moment was when another SXSW attendee was out in Austin at night, and tweeted the bar they were in was far too noisy. No sooner had he sent the sent when loads of people showed up there, thinking the bar must be something good.
It occurred to Stone that it was triggering behaviour reminiscent of flocking birds. Ie a short communication goes out - a tweet - which influences flocking behaviour amongst other members of the wider group.
So, during SXSW 2007 Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets a day to 60,000.
These days Twitter averages around 250 million tweets per day. Which just goes to show what can be possible within just six years.
To me, one of the main things that stands out in all this was the moment when Dorsey and Stone took their concept bs k to their colleagues and were told: "It's not very fancy". I guess genuine utility rarely is. Fancy applications are too of-the-moment and grounded in the technology of the time and can date within weeks, whereas services based on a human behaviour trait don't date.
It probably struck a chord with me, as this has a load in common with what we do at agencies. It's all about simple but persuasive communications, which we're trying to trigger in order to ultimately influence people's behaviour.
And if a simple, insightful notion happens to grow into a $10bn company at the same time?
Well, that'd be nice.
by @JeremyJGarner
by @jeremywillmott
This was an interesting one. Fortuitous. Unexpected. Ambitious. And it really messed with my head.
In fact, within five minutes it quickly began operating beyond the realms of my brain. So I, in turn, started to rely on artificial intelligence to explain to me what was actually happening. And I was happy with that. Stephen Wolfram, distinguished scientist and inventor believes in the power of Computation. That is: any type of calculation. In fact, he believes so strongly in it that, to him, it's the theory behind everything. And who am I to disagree. This is a man who thinks big. Universe-sized, actually. To this suave and energetic science-addict, who looks exactly what you'd expect if you searched for the term 'mad professor' in a picture dictionary, the big themes are the only ones worth pursuing. This is a guy who radiates the obsession of cutting to the very essence of intelligent application of deep data. Whatever in the world - and beyond - it's called on to examine.
Wolfram threw himself into demonstrating how computation offers 'a whole new way of looking at the operation of our universe,' believing that 'computation is the most important idea that has emerged in the past century and that it will have profound implications for our future'.
This was a lifelong mission for him. Indeed, one of the things that fascinated him as a wee lad was not throwing buckets of water over next door's dog, or making Molotov cocktails out of Lucozade bottles, but the question: "Can we take all the knowledge that our civilisation has accumulated and use it to answer any question?" With the launch of his knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha, he's probably a step closer to answering the question. Released in 2009, Wolfram Alpha employs 20 million lines of Mathematica code and leverages thousands of data steams, to provide informed answers to specific questions. This is democratising access to all knowledge, Wolfram says - and that's a pretty big-theme quote if ever I heard one. He demoed the tool, using various off-the-cuff questions. Which flights are passing overhead Austin right now? Can you explain the action of a spring pendulum? How far into Shakespeare's Macbeth does the protagonist begin to speak, and for what proportion of the play does he speak? You get the idea. This is combining data in intelligent, insightful ways to provide informed answers. As Wolfram himself said, 'You don't need professors to tell you generic facts. You can find those yourself.' What is more important, he believes, is the application of the data; the combination with which it is used and the end result. Interestingly, he also believes that while the amount of data available to us is very large and measured in petabytes, the different types of data is not. Watching the suave scientist take questions from an orderly line of fans, I puckered my lips into the shape of one of the many tacos I'd eaten for lunch and enjoyed the fact that I'd just gotten a glimpse into the mind of a man who'd dedicated his life to the pursuit of A.I. 'Can we take all the knowledge that our civilisation has accumulated and use it to answer any question?' I'd love to know what Wolfram Alpha would answer to that.
by @JeremyJGarner
Perhaps it was because evening was drawing in and the Austin Amber was beginning to whisper people's names. Or possibly it might have been the collective realisation that SXSW was hitting its stride, with all the debate and banter that goes with it. Whatever. The Sheraton Hotel in Austin was buzzing yesterday. But me? I was in an altogether more introspective mode.
I was watching the Politics of Online News discussion that featured a bunch of panellists ranging from Mary O'Hara from The Guardian to Shira Toeplitz, a Washington DC-based politics reporter for Roll Call ('The Newspaper of Capitol Hill'), and an early follower of Barack Obama's Senate bid way back in 2004. So, this mood of self-reflection. Of introspection. Why? Well, one of my jobs within the role of ECD of an ad agency is to try and look for patterns and themes within things. And, as the journalists debated on the subjects of integrity and ideology, it struck me that, in many ways, there are strong parallels that knit together our professions. No doubt the hacks would be horrified. For instance, when Shira Toeplitz stated that whenever she writes a story, the chance of it generating a lot of hits isn't her main motivating factor, it struck a chord with me. It's really a question of quality versus popularity, and everyone knows the two aren't necessarily naturally interlinked. It's a theme that frequently crops up in advertising - just because something got seen by a lot of people it doesn't automatically mean it was good for the brand. The ongoing life of a written piece of journalistic work, too, has definite commonalities with digital advertising. Some years ago, in the context of pre-digital media, both would exist in a moment of time, rather like a flare that would begin to burn out just as soon as it was ignited - unless enough money was poured into making sure people couldn't but look at it and let it sizzle into their collective conscience.
Now, neither journalism not advertising - depending on the degree of their quality and resonance - disappear into the ether. Both have the power to go forth and proliferate via digital channels, it just depends on whether people want to share them. In effect, both have reached a point in time where their inherent multi-layered points of meaning can be recognised and amplified by individuals.
Interesting, too, is the rise of citizen journalism versus the experience, sensitivity (or not, depending on which news organisation they're working for) and judgement of the seasoned journalist. Citizen journalists, just as someone putting together a YouTube film in their bedroom, may have the advantage of the niche view as opposed to the generic, but surely in a world of fragmented media the ability to piece together the big picture and determine where things fit into the wider journey has to count for something. I could go on. But won't. Because I'm in the next talk. It's about Wolfram Alpha and Stephen Wolfram's theory of computation - the theory of everything. Incidentally, there's one last common theme that I think unites the journalist and advertising creative: the question of whether an algorithm could ever replace them. Ah that's ludicrous! But then I would say that wouldn't I? Perhaps Stephen Wolfram and his 20million lines of Mathematica code and its own brand of artificial intelligence with Wolfram Alpha, might be well-placed to tackle it? But that's another story. Coming soon...
by @JeremyJGarner
This was one of those SXSW talks that caught me by surprise.
'Find out how Silicon Valley is inspiring the government and enterprise sectors,' trumpeted the literature. Discover 'what you can learn from lean giants'. The talk was at the Hilton and the room was hot. Fidgety. Slightly tetchy. Some people were a tiny bit sweaty. The person on the next row ahead was tweeting whilst leaning forward so that a generous portion of his buttocks were hanging out of his trousers. It was an inauspicious start. Then the talk got underway and the two speakers were introduced. Macon Philips, Director of Digital Strategy for The White House, and Todd Park, who was recently made Chief Technology Officer for the US Dept of Health and Human services.
Park's back story is interesting. The founder of a start up that had gone public in 2007 to the tune of north of a billion dollars, Park had been tempted back from retirement in a classic case of national duty and The Call To Serve The Nation being too irresistible to refuse. Park duly cancelled his family's move to California and made the trip to Washington DC.
Whilst Park rattled through a case study about data being shared openly to inspire entrepreneurship and intelligent and useful application, it quickly became apparent about what was at the core of the man's undeniable magnetism as a presenter of work: an unbounded, infectious enthusiasm. He paced around the stage on an impromptu basis, and every thirty seconds his arms would fly upwards, as if squatting an army of invisible mosquitos. Mr Park, it appeared, was a master of throwing shapes. And the audience loved it. He didn't sit down for the entire time. Neither did Macon Philips. This in itself was impressive, especially after the previous day's lacklustre design talk that could have taken place in any coffee shop in this, or any other, town. These guys had energy in droves, an absolute passion for their subject. This was important because, when you think about it, all these talks at SXSW are pitches. Yeah they're billed as discussions, but it's always interesting to note in some talks the steady trickle of people heading out the door with their bags. If you're pitching your subject at an event as big as SXSW where there's literally hundreds of other talks in competition with yours, then you'd better throw a little theatre in for good measure. Park continued with his subject of the power of data being leveraged by innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, and, even on the final slide, gave a nod towards inclusiveness and crowd sourcing. "If any of you guys have any ideas that you'd like to contribute, then here's my email address so you can contact me directly," he said. And before you go thinking that this should be a no-brainer, remember that this was the government talking here. Sure bro, if you got an idea on how to make this country a little better well hey, give us a holler. It takes a lot of confidence to say that. And a lot of trust from your audience to pull it off. Needless to say, Park had both. And, when he wrapped up the speech, large sections of the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Check that. A standing ovation. And this is meant to be a crowd of data-loving, technology-driven, social media-fuelled geeks. Show me the money, say the technorati. Oh what no money? Then show me the passion instead. 'Cus if Todd Park and the US government's selling that, then I'm buying.
by @JeremyJGarner
With my mind still buzzing from useful tips on how to hack my brain (covered by JW here: http://7make.posterous.com/hacking-your-brain-to-make-you-better-sxsw-20 ) I wandered into the next talk on today's busy agenda - SoLoMo redefined: The future of Social Mobile Local
The panel was comprised of @Chrismessina @Mg @Kveton and @Jkrohrs who discussed the future of Social Local Mobile from their perspective, as members of the startup community.
