Content from SXSW Interactive 2013
- "...the common theme at all of these sessions in March in Austin are the values of innovation, creativity and inspiration."
- Click here to find an archive of audio recordings of 2013 SXSW Interactive Festival sessions.
- Click here to find an archive of video recordings of 2013 SXSW Interactive Festival sessions.
- reoccurring themes listed at end of entry
Workshops
- "We teach design thinking at
the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, aka “the d.school.”
Our process is user-centered and prototype-driven. As a bootcamp
participant, you will be part of a small multidisciplinary team and work
through a hands-on creative challenge from start to finish. You will gain
a strong grasp of the key tenets of design thinking and be able to execute
them within your organization."
- Bootcamp Bootleg is an introductory
experience to design thinking.
- Empathy is important- first you
figure our need then figure out solution.
- Needs=What
- Insights = Why
- Synthesize
- User------>Need--->Insight
- Persona-->What--->Why
- Ask "How might
we......"
- During Brainstorm (flaring/diverging process)
- ask How?
- defer judgement
- Use Yes AND statements
- be visual
- be collaborative
- build on others ideas
- during Design (focusing/converging process)
- choose an idea
- prototype (quick prototype, less
emotional investment)
- fail early
- fail often
- create experiences
- prototype, and have users
actually go though experiences
- vote on most innovative, most
likely to delight
- go though multiple cycles
quickly, rather then spending a long time on one cycle
- process is iterative
- If you already think you have a
solution going in, you might not be addressing actual needs, less likely
to innovate.
- Design Thinking for Educators
- Creative Listening "I’m convinced that creative breakthroughs and innovative solutions require creative listening. Unfortunately, it’s an all-too-rare skill in many organizations. In fact, just the opposite happens. When someone shares a “crazy idea,” the instinct is to cite all the reasons why it wouldn’t work—shutting it down with a “No, but” response. Imagine how much untapped potential could be released into the world if more of us opened our minds—and ears—and responded with a “Yes, and” to wild-eyed outliers like Jorge Ordon." via
- Social culture integrated across departments
- When people interact, collaborate, sparks innovation
- Failure is not an F word, have after action review.
- How does you organization react to failure?
- Social Media is collaborative, need buy in from everyone (curation approach).
- Inspire sessions, group training session.
Presentations
- he created things that mattered, f
- "Now, Jim Henson was always a willing participant in the marketplace, and as Malcolm Gladwell points out in The Tipping Point, Grover began as an IBM spokesman. Which is certainly true, and Rowlf the Dog did films for corporate meetings. He sold typewriters door-to-door in Henson’s early “meeting films,” a peculiar subgenre of the commercial designed for business-to-business sales pitches. It’s all there on YouTube. Gladwell argues that "Sesame Street" was an extension of these commercials, but he’s got it the wrong way around. It’s the commercials that embody the ethos of "Sesame Street." I laughed—forcefully, involuntarily and out loud—at one reel in which a character was shot at point blank because he said he didn’t use the product. Later, I couldn’t even remember the product’s name. These works are not just making a buck for the buck’s sake. There’s a willfulness in them, a refusal to ever place the market’s demands above one’s own values." via
- hired really well (Frank Oz, Steve
Whitmire, etc). Muppets are a group project.
- eclectic, created business
presentations, ads, children's television based on academic
research.
- "He owned a business, but his business rested on the ideas the idealists were shouting—brotherhood, joy, and love."
- On Muppets & Merchandise: How Jim Henson Turned His Art into a Business
- Make Art, Make Money, and Believe the Beard: What Jim Henson Teaches Us about Bridging Creative Integrity and Commercial Success
- "Scientists, inventors, and teachers all in some way resemble Henson in that they are professions of “the gift,” of working for the benefit of others."
- failed often, learned from each
failure
- failed 1974 Muppet Show pilot, he
retooled it.
- Constant state of evolution
- Voluntarily ended The Muppet Show
(peak-end rule) moved on to experimental films, Dark Crystal, etc.
- Minimum + Viable = beta
product
- Coat + ping pong balls =
Kermit
- principles of hacking, make what
you need.
- iterate, iterate, iterate
- Design principles
- Good Experiences are invisible,
you do not see all the work that goes into a production
- go through experience, do
usability testing
- visual thinking, prototype,
sketch
- storyboard - graphic organizer
that tells a story
- do what is necessary to convey
your message
- sketch-->wireframe-->design
- Technology is a means not an end.
- Paul Valerio, 10x10 Method series ,
- Baratunde Thurston Cultivated Wit
- Create innovative services that
engage people.
- Innovation & Comedy are not random, but they are also not linear, nor are they run on certainty.
- Business run on process and certainty.
- What's So Funny About Innovation?
- 1. Know Your Audience, Then
Ignore Their Advice
- know the room, know the context
- familiarity tests well
- 2. Data Does Not Replace
Insight
- more data ≠ more truth (Nate Silver)
- algorithms can't solve for
poetry, magic, jokes, insight, but data does make it easier to pretend
to have insight.
- 3. Keep It Fresh
- audience likes familiarity, but
that prevents innovation. (Louie C.K)
- Improv keeps it new every time,
also builds trust between group.
- 4. Develop Your Own Point of
View
- audience does not always know
what they want until they see it, risk of too much research.
- what is your metric for
success?
- 5. Create a Story Around the
Material
- 6. Even Friendly Audiences Need
to Be Won Over
- 7. Don’t Expect Everyone to Get
It
- have goals but not
expectations
- 8. You Can’t Test Your Way to a
Decision
- Standup, test by doing,
iterative,
- Too much data can result in
confusing brand
- Quantitative data is good for
identifying patterns
- “A “DEO, or the “Design Executive Officer”, is a hybrid of a strategic business executive and a creative, problem solver who places design and creativity at the center of their organization.”
- DEO treats everyone =
- Focus on people, be empathic, be accessible.
- Recognizes importance of design.
- Design is an active verb à change, ideate, innovate
- Groups need to ideate together
- Be open to change, accept failures
- Design thinking = iterate àprototype àtestàfailàrepeat
- Catalyst for transformation, champions creative work culture.
- Build space where people can self-organize and collaborate.
- Make surfaces writable
- We not me, collaborative.
- System thinkers (non-linear)
- Get just enough research to build a hypothesis
- Feedback loops, always beta
- Types of DEOs
o
The Artistic DEO “Be Bold”
o
The Maker DEO “Be
Ambitious”
o
The Hacker DEO “Be
imaginative”
o
The Strategic DEO “Be
Strong”
o
The Founder DEO “Be
Persuasive
o
The Starter DEO “Be Brave”
- DJ methodology of learning ßcreative learning process/experiences ß DJ set ≈ writing a research paper
- Too much information, need to manage that complexity, new methodology for learning.
- tech gives you access to so much information it can be overwhelming
- tech can mediate that experience (but over reliance on tech to make judgments can be a danger)
- Quotes= samples àmash up
- DJs improvise, but that improvisation requires planning and knowledge of database.
- Remix (Lawrence Lessig) is an act of synthesis.
- Navas Regressive remix Vs Navas Regenerative Remix
- Regenerative Remix Does new work
- Regenerative Remix Does not allegorize
- Regenerative Remix Characterized by constant updating, creates new value though synthesis
- Imagineàcreateàplayàshareàreflectàimagineà…
- Sampler: conceptual constructions for creating regenerative remixes of content, remixes identify formal or conceptual connections
- Idea that limits facilitate serendipity
- limits can engender creativity & innovations
- Concern: we invest computational data with power to make meaning (stats, big data, metrics like grades badges, testing) . We value data that is machine readable, what about information that is machine readable?
- data that is machine readable Vs Critical thinking (difficult to quantify, more holistic)
- Argument: sampling and mixing creates human readable meaning. Deep learning requires deep synthesis.
- Education should be designed to make meaning, but it is designed for machine readability.
- Cultural studies approach to teaching fictions/technology
- Science fiction portrays today tomorrow
- In Utopian/Dystopian fiction,writers/designers engage in design thinking (SciFi World building), extrapolate today out to tomorrow and examine issue of unintended consequences.
- dystopia you start with object
- Utopia you start with concept
- Speculative design: start with today --> project into future-->world building--> infuse with absurdity and satire
- use technology to interrogate texts, not to mediate experience. challenge apparatus by counter program
- information design confers false authority, it is its' own legitimizing force.
- form ≠ content
- theory<-->practice
- technology<-->humanities
- technology is neither good or bad, it is a tool.
Why We STILL Love the Honey Badger
- people respond to information presented in authentic, distinctive voice.
Talks/Keynotes
- Clash of equals --> Better arguments = better policy outcomes
- Find your voice
- Art not formed in vacuum or tornado
- Futurist: everything is temporary. Tech appears, disappears.
- Those who live by disruption die by disruption
- only industries not experiencing disruption surrounded by law to keep disruption out (finance, health, law, military, prisons)
- interesting ≠ good
- technology is neither good or bad, it is a tool.
- "the realities of disruption -- that disruption leads to destruction. Our wonderful things destroy other wonderful things. The future composts the past. We roast the 20th century over our bonfire, let's not shamefully pretend that we did it by accident. Let's eat our kill."
- click here for full text
Reoccurring themes
- Design thinking: important, not an add on, needs to be integrated into the process from the start
- "Design in its most effective form is a process, an action, a verb not a noun. A protocol for solving problems and discovering new opportunities"
- “It’s not an ‘either/or,’ it’s an ‘and.’"
- You can be serious and play.”
- Groups spark innovation "The big thing about design thinking is it allows people to build on the ideas of others. Instead of just having that one thread. You think about it, I come up with an idea, and then somebody from somewhere else says, ‘Oh that makes me think we should do this and then we could do that.’ And then you get to a place that you just can’t get to in one mind."
- Need to interact with users, focus on needs (not solutions, will close off brainstorming innovation)
- Always beta, quick prototyping
- need to cycle through ideas quickly, accept failure, learn from it, move on.
- Comedy principals
- have a POV, read the room, know context. Have a narrative/story.
- What is your passion?
- In innovation and comedy, non-linear thinking important, but not how business are run, they are linear.
- This is why incorporating design thinking, brainstorming, effective interdisciplinary group work is important.
- Innovation/disruption: need to constantly evolve.
- recognize technology as a tool, neither good or evil.
- Data is just a tool, only measures what it is designed to measure, can't capture intangibles (critical thinking, comedy, magic).
- More data ≠ more truth. Can research yourself into standstill.
