Archive for March, 2008

So, I’m bouncing around Startup Weekend Boulder2 all weekend streaming, tweeting, recording & hosting as much social media as we can usefully create. There is a method to the madness. We want to bring anyone in the world into the Startup Weekend experience and let them actually engage with the live event and share their ideas.

It’s taking the lifecasting model, applying it to a live event, and incuding one hell of a return-path. We want the “audience” to actually become “remote participants.” Heck, our virtual team has even asked for their own project for the weekend already

Please check out www.mediacasters.tv for the full story.

I’ll post more thoughtfully later on what I think (hope?) the significance of this experiment might be…

Graphic Recordings of the SXSW keynotes
Did you notice the woman at the front left of hall A during the keynotes, working in pastels and marker on a giant sheet of paper to diagram the talks as the unfolded?

Sunni Brown is an information design expert who creates Graphic Recordings of live events through her business BrightSpot Information Design. She graphically recorded each of the keynotes at SXSW (surprisingly, there’s no messiness or blood on the Zuckerburg one). You can follow the work here:

• Jane McGonigal
• Frank Warren
• Zuckerberg
• Harry Jenkins and Steven Johnson

Staring at the completed Facebook one, (reproduced in closeup above) I had a hard time believing it was not sketched out in advance and the lines and visuals filled in as the talk progressed. But with the interview format, she had to make it all up on the fly. I haven’t checked closely yet to see

This is amazing work. Both that she can convert concepts to visuals so quickly and effectively and in the clarity and energy of the results.

I rely on “shared items” feeds in my RSS reader. I “subscribe” to hundreds more feeds than I can follow and a firehose of ideas pours through every day. Shared items allow friends to highlight the “best of” their reading experiences and stream out little personal “highlight reels” from all the material they happen to read.

When friends share what’s exceptional, the river of incoming information is concentrated into a manageable stream. I miss alot, but I also get more value in less time. Honestly, I *like* how the “social media echo chamber” bounces good stuff to the surface to get shared much more widely.

South by So Much
Crammed with panels, parties and thousands of smart, creative people, South by Southwest Interactive festival (SXSWi for the under-140 crowd) was both wonderful and (for me, almost totally) overwhelming.

Speaking with Clarence (@DYKC), CC Chapman (@cc_chapman), Steve Hall (@adrants) and others at the airport, I kept feeling disappointed about people and things I’d missed.

Shared Items Metaphor for Events
Instead of feeling sad, why not consider storytelling part of the event? What if the videos and blog posts and photos and podcasts and personal recollections now pouring from my friends and contacts are as much a part of attending SXSW as actually showing up at a panel? Nobody can absorb all the best ideas, consume all the content, meet all the people or attend all the parties. Life just doesn’t scale. And to try is to spread ourselves too shallow and thin.

Though I know from stories told that I missed important things, by seeking out what my friends noticed and took away from the experience I’m extending the depth and breadth of being there. Of *course* you can’t do it all yourself. Do your part well. Dive deep, absorb, process and reflect. Then, make it a priority to engage and exchange stories with with others who did theirs.

Your knowledge and experience is not as firsthand that way. The experience is (literally) socially mediated. Stuff will be lost in translation, sure. But tackling a conference like that head on and trying to do it all spills plenty of the good stuff too.

Comments
Tell us what YOU did a great job absorbing/learning/discovering at SXSW. Better yet, give us a link to your blog posts, media and other ideas…

UPDATE
Some gems seen on Twitter:

• SXSW Blogger Beatbox
• SXSW Sketches

As a shortcut for checking out recaps, here are some readymade Google search links:

• SXSW Recap 2008
• SXSW podcasts 2008