The 2009 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker (that’s a mouthful) is now available for the public to help voice picks to the selection committee. Viget Labs, the company I work for, has 9 juicy topics ripe for the pickins. I’m hoping to seat a panel to talk about the pre-composition phase of design looking most specifically at web design. The title is “Design Appetizers: The Pre-Composition Phase of Design“. Pre-composition could include design practices like sketching, wireframing, grayboxing, moodboarding, etc. You know… its what you design before you design. Everyone has their own rituals. The hope is to figure out which resonate best with clients both internal and external who may have been expecting a design that looks complete at the onset. As we know, jumping straight to a final composition can often lead directly to the Frankencomp freeway, a treacherous route. Jayna Wallace (AOL) and Kevin Flahaut (404 Creative) have expressed interest in being panelists with room for more.
If this topic or any others interest you, the panel picker is open until the 29th of August to vote for your favorites.
We recently hosted a ‘Design Flash Mob’ at Viget amongst the design team. Here’s a little about the process and some links to some desktop wallpaper designs I did:
Sometimes you need to get a bunch of ideas in a short amount of time. Its not always easy for one person alone (though easier for some than others). Collaboration is key whether it be collectively or individually within a working group of people. Team design is one of the benefits of working in an agency or inhouse studio.
In borrowing from an idea that originally began in partnership with some of my former colleagues, the design team at Viget recently embarked on our first Design Flash Mob (DFM). You may have heard the term ‘flash mob’ to describe wacky collaborative events such as massive pillow fights where a large group of people gather in a single place, fight each other with pillows and leave with a pile of feathers on the ground as a residual reference to the event. The basic steps of these events are as follows:
Plan and promote in advance of the event. What do you hope to accomplish? When and where should this take place?
Gather at the designated time and place.
Act upon on what you set out to do.
Disperse and reflect on the madness.
In the spirit of design synergy we can take these steps and use them to collaborate quickly on things like logo designs, t-shirt ideas or rethinking user experience problems. Plan to do something about a week out. Think ahead about what you might want to create. When the time comes you’ll be ready to jump in and start designing in a rapid but refined way. Take a morning or afternoon to hold the event. At the end, take time to talk about it and share different perspectives on working under pressure.
Another important aspect of a design flash mob is that it should not be treated as a competition. Even if one design is to be chosen it should be a democratic effort including those who played a part in the event. Benefiting the greater good should be the goal. In effect, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
One great place to start with a DFM is to have several people participate in designing desktop wallpapers. They’re simple to design in a short period of time and have no production costs associated with them. This is where we started on our first Viget DFM. The assignment was simple. Take an afternoon (roughly 4 hours) to assemble one or more desktop wallpapers within the given time and include the Viget brand no matter how big or how small. Everything else was left up to the designer’s discretion. Planning ahead was ok but no one was allowed to begin until the start of the event. Additionally, you didn’t have to be a designer to participate. Our design team consists of UX designers, visual designers and production specialists with a wide range of talents and skills. How you work within the guidelines is all that matters.
My Approach
I abandoned my original idea of riffing on The Princess Bride’srodents of unusual size (Viget’s mascot is a ‘lab rat’) when half way into the event I realized there was no way to finish my lofty goals in time. Instead, I put pen to paper and sketched out some line drawings to scan. I was able to use the drawings to create a logo concept and tagline plus use some of the design elements to create brushes within Photoshop (something I had never done before). Just like the art of painting, there ended up being about 3 hours of planning and prep work and about an hour of designing. As a result, I learned something new. Using the scatter technique with the custom brushes brought me to these stylistic designs.
What is it about designers? Who are we and why are we the way we are? Answers to these questions might come in many different forms. Like people in general, no two designers are alike. That being said, my guess is that just about anyone reading this will have an answer in some shape or form that describes someone they know who calls him or herself a designer. I’m not a psychologist nor do I claim to be an expert on defining designers but I can draw upon what I know about myself and offer my thoughts about other designers that I have met over the years.
For one, we designers have egos. We don’t outwardly brag about ourselves too often but we do bear a certain quiet confidence. Understanding this is easier than one might initially think. For many of us, we’ve been told how talented we are from an early stage in life. It doesn’t take much to recognize when someone is creatively gifted in one way or another and its always a nice compliment that someone can offer and feel good about. Once you’ve heard this enough times you begin to believe what others are saying and thus an ego boost begins. You also begin to recognize when someone is being real and is understanding of the true depth to your talent. This becomes a self-realization of sorts. Am I as talented as people say I am? Am I better than what is perceived?
Another interesting character trait is that despite egos designers can be reticent, reserved or known to internalize thoughts. Could this be from our own self recognition that we are a little different from what many would consider normal? After all, if you believe what I said about compliments coming early in life then you’ll also understand how that can begin to isolate or call attention to someone in awkward ways. This begins to become a part of you as you continue to think differently about everything in life.
Designers are good problem solvers. Because we think differently about things, we begin to think up ideas and solutions to everyday problems. Our thoughts aren’t always the most logical or cost effective but a designer can more often than not offer valuable alternatives to more conventional ways of thinking.
Designers are idealists. We know from our problem solving experience that there are always better ways qualitatively of doing things. We believe life can be better, more rewarding and we believe we can help identify ways to achieve such challenging goals. Environmental, ecological and political issues become a part of this. There is always hope and optimism in this regard.
Of course these are generalizations and don’t nearly begin to disect all that is unique about designers. There’s no one square on a Myers-Briggs grid that we can lump a bunch of designers and be right. We’ll find designers all over the grid in a personality test. I simply care to learn more about the peculiarities of design personalities by soliciting some of my own thoughts. You may think differently. Perhaps we can use some findings to share with our colleagues in strategy, development, marketing or other facets of business and life to find better ways of working with designers.
Designer Roles of the Future
The AIGA, in partnership with Adobe, attempts to dig deeper with their recent poll attempting to define the designer of 2015 by capturing predictions from the masses on what designers will be like 7 years from now. The intent seems to be in search of providing helpful guidance to professionals and employers as well as students and scholars to prepare for new ways of thinking about design and what it means to those around us (and of course both the AIGA and Adobe have a watchful eye on the future of design). Focusing on competencies and trends, here are some questions and descriptions of trends the poll asks and suggests:
Competencies: What are the essential competencies expected of individual designers? Trends: What are major trends we see affecting the practice of design? Here are some as defined by the poll:
Expanded Scope: As the scale and complexity of design problems expand, designers must address them at the systems level, even when designing individual components.
Wide and Deep: Designers must be able to draw on experience and knowledge from a broad range of disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities, in order to solve problems in a global, competitive market of products and ideas.
Break Through: Shifting from an information economy to an attention economy (involving communication design, information design, experience design, service design).
Sharing Experiences: Shifting from the idea of customers/users to co-creators (mass customization); rise in transparency of personal and professional lives (social networking, blogging, etc.)
Targeted Messages: Shifting from mass communication to more narrow definitions of audiences (special interest design) requiring designers to understand both differences and likeness in audiences; growing need for reconciliation of tension between globalization and cultural identity.
It is strange to think that as communication becomes more global we’ll also need to think about smaller target audiences. The planet is large and diverse but there are similarities among humanity that while universal become unique among different personalities both by nature and culturally. The AIGA plans to release the results of the poll in June of 2008 (within weeks of this post). I’m sure I’ll be one of many looking to see the findings. Time to put some of those ideals to practice among many problems to solve. Let’s get started.
How would you describe designers you know and what do you see as characteristic of the role of designer in the next 7 years?
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time lately thinking about initial client engagements and how we can better calculate a design that is both in the realm of what is desirable from the intended audience and what will knock the client’s socks off. Its especially difficult for the client who doesn’t know what they want until they see it. Questions that have come to mind include:
How do we learn more about the audience?
How do we know whether or not the client’s idea of audience is correct?
Can we talk to a sample of the audience?
How can we better use personas in the design process?
Are the personas based on real people or they fictitious calculations based on who we think the audience is?
How will we measure the audiences reaction to the design once it is released?
These are the kinds of questions I’ll be tossing around in coming weeks. In the meantime, here are some great articles from the Viget Blogs:
Well, not literally, but I did change jobs recently. After 4 amazing years at AOL I’ve decided to move on. Its been a week since I left the AIM Product Design Group which included some of the smartest and most talented people I’ve ever worked with. Saying farewell surely didn’t come easy but I know the fine folks back at the ranch will carry on in fine form and I look forward to watching from afar.
Thankfully, the difficulty of leaving has been softened by the warmest of welcomes at my new gig. This week I joined Viget Labs in Falls Church, VA as a Design Director in their North office. They sport a startup atmosphere with an 8 year proven track record and there’s a variety of work in their portfolio including ODEO, Squidoo and newcomer Loladex. I couldn’t be happier with this new opportunity as I believe the size of the company along with the atmosphere and growth potential suit me well. Look for some fine writeups on design from Doug, Erik, Jim, Keith, Peyton, Rob, Samantha and myself on the Viget Inspire blog. Plus there are severalmoreVigetblogs to watch covering a variety of web business topics.
Here are some examples from this past week at Viget Inspire:
We here at the AIM have gone a little sticker crazy lately. Its an easy and arguably smart thing to do. Stickers have legs so to speak. For a relatively small amount, you can get a batch of 500 to 1000 stickers printed in a very short amount of time (less than a week it turns out). You can fit them in your suitcase with ease (unlike a box of T-shirts) and bring them with you to distribute at events like we did recently at SXSW in Austin. You can casually hand them out to people you meet, leave them on a table for people to pick up (or throw away) or stick them around town and document via photography as AIM design team member Justin Kirk did. Seeing them perpetuated on laptops the way we used to for skateboards and surfboards is how the stickers grow legs. We nerds take these back to our cubical farms and ride the ‘geekboards’ all day long meeting after meeting thus exposing others to our super cool way of life manifested as individual expression in the form of a collage of mass-produced stick ons.
Days prior to the event, AOL announced that Open AIM would go even more ‘open’. In doing so, the design team was asked to explore logo options for the program. In the end, it was decided that there were some clever ideas that would make great stickers. And so… stickers we made…
<AIM>
Inspired by Julie Bethke, this design represents the use of an ‘open’ tag with the word AIM inside of it thus implying ‘Open AIM’.
Sticker and mark design by Tom Osborne (me speaking in third person). Mark inspired by Julie Bethke.
Skatewing
By taking a bite out of the traditional AIM bubble (creating an opening in it) a new form takes life. Most people think this looks like a hawk or skatewing. Cool how it takes on different meaning based on your own perspective.
Mark design by John Clarkson. Sticker design by Tom Osborne.
Come On In
Taking a cue from storefront neon signs, this design displays the word ‘Open’ in neon style lettering inside the AIM bubble shape to welcome in people to the Open AIM program.
Sticker and mark design by Tom Osborne.
Pixnay
One of our newest experiences is Pixnay, a vanity competition pitting profile photos in a head to head competition. This project was brilliantly conceived by some talented interns this past summer. Post your photo and take your chances of becoming ‘Hottie of the Day’.
Come see us at the next big conference where we’ll be sure to have some stickers to give away.
Special thanks to Gian Cruz, Alisa Schadt, John Clarkson, Mike Macadaan, David Robinson, Chris Dargis, Greg Cypes, Andy Wick, Robert West and Jill Carillo for ideas and contributions along the way.
Inspired by a DIY mask in the likeness of famed designer, typographer and instructor Wolfgang Weingart the AIM Product Design Team recently banded together to make our own variation of the Weingart mask.
The original Weingart mask was found on Flickr uploaded back in 2005 by laughingmonk.
What originally seemed like a fun little way for one of the gods of typography to watch over our little design team…
soon became a way for us to individually express our status in a way uniquely ‘AIM’. Each person added their own little touch for our first display of these at our inaugural design summit back in December ‘07.
It’s never easy to say goodbye but when two members of our design team decided it was their time we made the best of it by doing a collaborative design project. Our way of saying goodbye became a variation of layer tennis where typically two designers send a layered photoshop file back and forth battle it out through design. Instead of doing that we took an additive design process starting with one person and making its way through the team with each person adding their own personal mark to the design. We started with photographs of the team shot by designer/photographer Elsa Kawai. Designers added various things from inside jokes to simple styling. When Kevin Lawver first heard of this he said something to the effect of “that’s not tennis… that’s hackeysack.” And with that, Design Hackeysack was born! A collaborative, addititive design process and the end results are nothing short of amazing as seen in these designs. The sequence shown here isn’t an exact representation of the design from person to person but it does illustrate the concept through the layering found in Photoshop.
Contributing designers include Valli Ravindran, Justin Kirk, John Clarkson, Meghan Cesario, Benjamin Bennett, Lee Costic, Vince Farquharson, Rob Coburn, Gian Cruz, Jody Thomas, Justin Howard, Julie Bethke, Alisa Schadt, Jayna Wallace and myself.
Oh the joys of Austin and the fabled SXSW interactive conference. Several folks from the AIM design team were there expanding our minds (and bellies).
The Panels and Presos
I’ve learned a little about navigating SXSW to find the best panels in my second year. My satisfaction ratio skewed much higher to satisfied this year by following a few simple rules:
Don’t go by the titles of the panels. They are conceived 9 months in advance with provocative titles and often do not fully come together until days before they take place.
Pick panels that include people, companies or products that interest you.
If you don’t know where to go try one of the bigger venues. They’re in big rooms for a reason. The more popular speakers will occupy larger rooms.
I’m not one who likes to carry a laptop faced with the fight for bandwidth and electricity so rather than exhaustive notes on any one topic here’s some bits and pieces from panels, presentations and events that I attended.
SAT MAR 8
10 Things We’ve Learned at 37signals w/ Jason Fried (37signals)
Jason Fried is a great speaker and was quick to answer any question asked. Its no wonder 37 Signals is as successful as they are. A couple of points offered that resonated: ‘make money by helping people make money’, ‘get 3 things done in 1 week rather than 1 thing done in 3 weeks’ and I can’t help but be intrigued by the 37 Signals 4 day work week. (rating: 5 stars)
Worst Website Ever: That’s So Crazy, It Just Might Work w/ Andy Baio (Programmer/Journalis, Waxy.org), Lane Becker (Pres, Get Satisfaction), Jeffery Bennett (Clever Name), Michael Buffington (Cofounder, Grockit Inc), Lia Bulaong (Jarvis Heavy Industr…), David Friedman (Ironic Sans), David Hornik (General Partner, August Capital), Merlin Mann (43 Folders), Katie Spence (Crowd Control, Mule Design Studio), Ben Brown (XOXCO.com)
From a purely entertainment stand point this was the best panel of the week. Several entrepreneurs pitched their wacked ideas for venture capital. Ideas included human generated image descriptions for sight impaired, allowing people to IPO themselves to raise capital, a social networking sight to follow whose sick and how to avoid them. Merlin Mann from 43 Folders took home the prize with his creation titled FlockdUP. This was the perfect way to end day one. (5 stars)
Frog Design / SXSWi Opening Party (8-11pm) (Mexican American)
The green beer was great in concept but hard to acquire and a little on the skunky side. Fortunately Grupo Fantasmo and the fire people made for a good time. (4 stars)
SUN MAR 9
Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs w/ Jared Spool (Founding Principal, User Interface Engin…)
Jared Spool’s presentations rarely disappoint. He used magic tricks to show how user experience and magic are both methods of delight for people. This presentation had more spectacle than substance but it was still enjoyable and the points were easy to digest. All in all a fun way to spend the morning. (4 stars)
Keynote Interview with Mark Zuckerberg w/ Sarah Lacy (Author/Journalist, BusinessWeek/Yahoo!), Mark Zuckerberg (CEO, Facebook Inc)
Oh boy, where to start? Much has been said about this interview. In short, most of Sarah Lacy’s talk centered on her first and then to Mark Zuckerberg. At one point Zuckerberg stated that ‘You have to ask a question’ to get an answer from him. Due to the power of Twitter a mob mentality turned against Lacy’s interview style and the crowd really leaned into her. Lacy certainly brought on the instant feedback but the mob mentality left me feeling awkward. I had to walk out once the audience questions started. Still it was captivating to see what a young entrepreneur had to say. (4 stars)
Does Tomorrow’s World Need Designers? w/ Alonzo Canada (Jump Associates), David Merkoski (Creative Dir, Frog Design Inc), Helen Walters (Editor of Innovation, BusinessWeek.com), Johanna Blakley (Deputy Dir, The Norman Lear Cent…)
Much talk about getting people to empathize with customers through design and moving from a consumer culture to a producer culture. It seemed to be agreed upon that design sensibilities are increasing in first world countries where access to media is prevalent. The answer to the topic question seemed to be yes that tomorrow’s world will need designers but that design sensibilities will be more widespread as time passes and we’ll find more do-it-yourselfers. Note: there was a request from one panelist for Adobe to add messaging and buddy lists to their products. (4 stars)
Data as Art: Musical, Visual Web APIs w/ Peter Kirn (cdm: Create Digital…), Joy Mountford (VP Design Innovation, joymountford.com)
Another perfect way to end the day. The visuals provided by panelist Joy Mountford were stunning. She’s found a way to present data in meaningful ways through visual language. At one point the moderator was asked a question and so taken by the visuals just had to respond with ‘Well, I was just watching the data.” (4 stars)
Geeks Love Bowling
Special thanks to all the sponsors of the Geeks Love Bowling event at the Austin 300 Bowling Lanes. It seemed like a good time was had by all. Thanks to Chris Dargis, Mike Cummings, Greg Cypes, Andy Wick, George Fletcher, Cindy Aserkoff and Greg Keegstra for letting me bowl on their team. Its apparent that we shouldn’t quit our day job anytime soon. We’re pretty good at designing, coding and managing products but bowlers we are not (though Mike Cummings might be an exception). One hilarious moment involved some folks in the lanes to our left who decided to toss the bowling ball into each other’s opposing lanes. Safe to say both of those rolls were gutterballs. (4 stars)
MON MAR 10
The Care and Feeding of Your Startup w/ Stacey Zuniga (Product Strategist, UnWired Nation Inc), Eric Hellweg (Editor & Managing Di, Harvard Business Onl…), Blair Garrou (Managing Dir, DFJ Mercury), Bill Flitter (CEO, Pheedo Inc), Chere Heintzmann (Central/ South Texas, AT&T Wireless), C. Eric Smith (Pres, UnWired Nation Inc)
A couple of takeaways from this panel were ‘if you’re going to fail, fail fast’ and ‘don’t throw out a feature without thinking about where it is going to go’. In other words, iterate rapidly and always plan your next steps thinking about the big picture. (3 stars)
Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! w/ Dave McClure (Master of, 500 Hats), Ted Rheingold (Top Dog, Dogster Inc), Jia Shen (CTO, RockYou), Hiten Shah (Crazy Egg Inc), Todd Vernon (CEO, Lijit Networks, Inc)
When the panelists showed up in pirate garb I wasn’t sure where this one was going to go but I’m a sucka for anything that includes Ted Rheingold. At first the presentation by Dave McClure seemed contrived to the pirate theme but in actuality it was well put toghether and as it turns out the theme worked out nicely as an added benefit. Audience participants were asked to begin questions with ‘AARRR’ and given beads as rewards. One person asked ‘AARRR you gonna post the presentation online?’ and ‘What’s the URRRRL?’ to which the audience erupted in laughter. (4 stars)
Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again? w/ Arun Ranganathan (System Architect), Chris Wilson (Platform Architect, Microsoft), Brendan Eich (CTO, firefox), Charles McCathieNevile (Chief of Standards, Opera)
I went to this panel on recommendation by co-worker Kevin Lawver. Most of the technical discussion went over my head but it was good to see some of the faces behind the browsers. Moderator Arun Ranganathan was among the best prepared and was top notch at shooting from the hip and rolling with the discussion (4 stars on the strengths of Arun Ranganathan)
10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment w/ Bryan Mason (Chief Operating Offi, Adaptive Path), Sarah Nelson (Design Strategist, Adaptive Path)
Like 37 Signals, folks at Adaptive Path rarely disappoint with topical content as was the case in this presentation. At a high level, the bullet points were ‘cross-train the entire team’, ‘rotate creative leadership’, ‘actively turn the corner’, ‘know your roles’, ‘practice, practice, practice’, ‘make your mission explicit’, ‘killing your darlings - if one person says ‘keep it’, it stays’, ‘leadership is a service’, ‘generate products around the group’s creative interests’ and ‘remember your audience’. I loved that they don’t use the term ‘post mortem’ to look back upon a project. Instead they use the term ‘after party’. I love that. Also, I love the idea of avoiding negative feedback by using the ‘keep it’ concept. Silence is better than negative feedback in close working groups. (5 stars)
Building Portable Social Networks w/ Jeremy Keith (Clearleft Ltd), Chris Messina (CEO, Citizen Agency), Leslie Chicoine (Experience Designer, Get Satisfaction), Joseph Smarr (Chief Platform Archi, Plaxo Inc), David Recordon (Open Platforms Tech, Six Apart Ltd)
There were some brilliant people on this panel but nearing the end of the day my notes are sparse at best. Much of the discussion centered around what are ‘friends’ on the web and how do you take them from place to place if that is what you want to do. (4 stars)
TUES MAR 11
Using Entertainment to Create Effective Mobile Advertising w/ Adam Zbar (CEO, Zannel Inc), Lathan Hodge (Co-Founder, Rapstation), Eric Eller (SVP Prod/Mktg, Millennial Media)
I walked in on this one late but it was a topic that seemed to have good resonance with my job. While most examples involved campaigns having to do with the entertainment industry which is probably the easiest to be successful at in the mobile space. One of my favorite examples involved a campaign with Public Enemy at the previous year’s SXSW conference where Flava Flav asked audience participants to send a text to a certain number. After the concert participant received a phone call from the band in response plus free ringtones and wallpapers (if my notes serve me correctly). Additionally, once the music festival started I met 2 other people who seemed to be trying to make a play in this market. There might be something here. I like the idea of fans getting involved and getting something in return be it free ringtones, wallpapers, mp3s or discounts. (3 stars)
Peas in a Pod: Advertising, Monetization and Social Media w/ Tim Kendall (Product Manager, Facebook), Ellen McGirt (Sr Writer, Fast Company), Kent Nichols (Ask A Ninja), Seth Goldstein (CEO, Socialmedia Networks)
This was unexpectedly one of the more entertaining panels largely due to the banter of the panelists primarily between Kent Nichols (Ask A Ninja) and Tim Kendall (Facebook). In one takeaway it was interesting to hear Kendall compare Facebook to television in that ‘Facebook is the network, apps are the shows and the ads are the commercials’. Also, it was said that tradition brands like ‘Proctor and Gamble’ like solutions that are scalable hence their hunger for display advertising. (4 stars)
How Piracy Will Save the Music Industry w/ Jason Schwartz (Prod Mgr, Angelsoft), Randy Saaf (CEO, MediaDefender Inc)
A good panel largely due to the controversy it stirred. Most of the room turned on Randy Saaf with his company’s practice of seeding torrent sites with tracks from bands that were recorded over or sub par recordings. Also the practice of adding ads to cover art did not gain much love. At one point the room erupted in applause as audience participant Doug March spoke on behalf of the consumer. On the other hand, the room had listening ears for Jason Schwartz’s ideas. One that gained my attention was a data service for artists and promoters to offer info on where songs are being downloaded from and at what frequency. Using this data, bands could better plan their tours even down to the better venues thus providing a cost saving factor. (3 stars)
The Trials and Tribulations of Using Music Online w/ Richard Bengloff (Pres, A2IM), Rusty Hodge (GM, Soma FM), Chris MacDonald (Founder, IndieFeed Networks/L…), Elise Nordling (Marketing Services M, IODA), Brian Zisk (C0-Founder/Tech Dir, Future of Music Coal…)
I think the primary reason I attended this session was to find out to what extent posting mp3s was a disservice to musicians and their bands. If you listen to the lawyers and label reps it sounds like they don’t like it so much. But I still wonder, doesn’t posting a track or two only help certain artists gain notice and exposure. I can understand how posting an entire album is wrong and blatant stealing but it seems that even with some light permissioning from the artists or their representatives that you’re only doing them a favor. Let the mix tape live on! (3 stars)
Taking Over the World: the Flickr Way w/ Simon Batistoni (Flickr/Yahoo! Inc)
In all honesty, this was probably a good presentation but I had already cashed in my listening chips. I learned a little about localization and internationalization but lost the mental capacity to focus quickly. Plus, GBV Hoot Night was on my mind by this time. Props to Simon Batistoni who packed the room in this closing event. My apologies for checking out. (3 stars)
The Team
A great time was spent with current and past members of the AIM design team. Some interesting things happened watching the fire dancers at the Frog party. There was a moment of concern when one of the girl dancers had her shirt catch on fire. Another involved a male in the audience taking up the spinning torches. At one point a burning ember made its way towards us flying through the sky. Sitting on the ground in front of me were Valli Ravindran, Shadia Ahmed, Ari Kushimoto and Elsa Kawai who made me crack up when they overdramatically screamed and ran to avoid the burning ember that was still at least 10 feet away. I have to admit, I took a few steps back as well. We all shared a laugh.
Another moment (of discovery) happened at dinner one night. Of the four of us sharing food, it turned out that each of us had a musical past. Ben Bennett started by saying he was in a band called the ‘Isthmus Doobies’ as a young teen. Justin Kirk followed by telling us about his punk band called ‘Brown Monster’. I came clean with my experience as lead singer of the ‘Cajun Runts’ for an ever so brief time in college. And the most decorated musician in the bunch turned out to be Jayna Wallace of ‘The Wallace Family Band’ whose accolades include being selected as ‘The Most Musical Family of 1996 by The Ohio Federation of Music Club’. I later ran into ex-AOLer Jason Garber (Mixx) who added his time in ‘Mir’ to the list.
The Food
Anyone whose ever been to Austin knows that its an oasis of food. Its no surprise that their BBQ and Mexican food are among the world’s best. Some places I had the pleasure of leaving table scraps at include Flemings, Boiling Pot, Maudies Too, Ironworks, Malaga and Stubbs.
The Music
What would SXSW be like without a little music even before the big music event starts. With a little research you can find a ton of great acts that aren’t listed in the official SXSWi list. Adventurous attendees included Andrew Wilson (Discovery), Jayna Wallace, Jason Garber (Mixx) and Doug March (Revolution Health) who joined me at various times to check out a bevy of artists including James McMurtry @ Momo’s, The Smithereens @ La Zona Rosa, Matt the Electrician and Bob Schneider @ Saxon Pub, Guided by Voices Hoot Night including Joy Cook @ Club Deville, Two Cow Garage, Glossary, Grand Champeen and The Drams @ Beerland.
Walking around the Consumer Electronics show provides many surprises and delights. From gadgets, software and hardware to just about anything thought up by mankind CES has it all. Just a short walk through one of the halls revealed a massaging computer mouse, a heart rate monitor for dummies, a motorized and rideable beverage cooler, an automatic gutter cleaner, a touchless trash can and an air guitar belt buckle.
Here are some highlights among things I saw at CES:
AOL
I’ll start with some cool updates from my own company. AOL is announcing enhancements to BlueString and Xdrive. A Facebook application called “My Memory Gallery” will allow consumers to access and use BlueString. Xdrive is announcing an updated user interface to be released to beta early this year. Both of those are being built with Adobe® Flex™. AOL blog Switched.com has announced a branded web mail experience and contest to win a Nintendo Wii™ or Amazon Kindle™.
Sling Media
You can’t miss Sling’s booth in the Sands/Venetion conference hall. Its right at the entrance and their exhibit design is gorgeous and inviting. At times the design looks a little too close to campaigns we’ve seen from Target and Coca-cola but it seems that they’re truly trying to make it their own so a little forgiveness is warranted. Sling’s main product has been the Slingbox which is a product that allows you to access your home television from PC’s and mobile devices. There’s plenty to talk about regarding Sling but I’ll focus on a couple of things that stood out to me. Sling is clearly interested in making a play in web content via a site called Sling.com. A demonstration showed the ability to create clips from television shows by using a product called SlingPlayer and then the ability to share the clip with friends via email. Friends would then click on a link that brings you to a pages revealing the clip accompanied by a rich cobrand for the show and network and finally allows people to comment on the clip and find related content. The advertising opportunities here seem endless. An additional announcement was that they would soon support Blackberry access.
iRobot
Known for the little robot that automatically vacuums your carpet, the Roomba, iRobot is showing a few new and interesting products. The first is the Scooba that is designed to clean hard surface floors. Another is the Verro which is a pool cleaning robot similar to automatic pool cleaning devices we’ve seen in the past. The most interesting of the bunch is the Looj a gutter cleaning robot. Its loud and seems more difficult to use than the demonstration but I’ve never seen anything like it and its potential seems enormous. Nobody likes cleaning gutters.
Guitar Hero™ Air Guitar Rocker™ by Jada
This product was bound to be created after the popularity of Guitar Hero in the past year. Thankfully, it comes via a toy company named Jada Toys. Its simply a motion activated air guitar player consisting of a blazing rock n’ roll styled belt buckle, a guitar pic with a sensor and a miniature amplifier that attaches to your belt allowing you to rock out where ever you are. The presenters were having a blast in their booth. Conference attendees were invited to where a Slash-inspired wig and Elvis-inspired sunglasses and play to your heart’s content. The speed of strumming the wireless guitar pic controls the speed in which the music is played. The Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker will be available in March and is expected to retail at $29.99.
Bigger & Thinner
In talking with some folks, it sounds like plasma and LCD displays have been getting bigger and bigger and each year its a contest to see who can prototype the biggest. One that I witnessed was a 150″ plasma display by Panasonic. I’m telling you, this one’s not going through any standard size doorways and a photograph doesn’t begin to do it justice. It’s BIG! Another trend by most of the manufacturers is to see who can now build the thinnest. Allegedly, the thinnest at the show was equivalent to 3 credit cards stacked on top of each other. I’m betting that next year the competition will include the lightest display.
Jypsi
One of the great things about CES is that you just never know what you’ll stumble upon. As I was approaching the Sony booth, I couldn’t help but notice how good the sound was on their displays. As I got nearer I couldn’t mistake the sound of live music and not only was the quality good but the music was fantastic. Further exploration revealed a band of hip young up and coming musicians who call themselves Jypsi. They hail from Nashville and soon should arrive in a town near you. From what I can gather, the four main musicians are members of the same family. You’ll hear Lillie Mae (fiddle, vocals), Frank (guitar, vocals), Scarlett (mandolin) and Amber-Dawn (fiddle, vocals) harmonizing through most of the tracks though Lillie Mae and Frank seem to alternate most of the lead vocals. They were also accompanied by a drummer and bassist who seem to be unavailable in their online bio. Their first radio single is “I Don’t Love You Like That” and their sound is somewhere found in bluegrass, country and pop. Hopefully they’ll soon be in a town near you as you’ll want to check them out for sure.
Pimp My Ride
Another trend seemed to be extravagant automobiles. Imagine MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” on steroids. Bigger, louder, shinier are all words to describe the cars seen in the show. There seems to be no limits on how many video display monitors a car can have and where they can be installed. I’m not kidding. I saw one in a wheel well another in a fender and every head rest seems to need one. Apparently, all a car needs is a second seat and everything else is reserved for multimedia and mega sound systems. The one with the spinning amps was my favorite.
The 2009 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker (that’s a mouthful) is now available for the public to help voice picks to the selection committee. Viget Labs, the company I work for, has 9 juicy topics ripe for the pickins. I’m hoping to seat a panel to talk about the pre-composition phase of design looking most specifically at web design. The title is “Design Appetizers: The Pre-Composition Phase of Design“. Pre-composition could include design practices like sketching, wireframing, grayboxing, moodboarding, etc. You know… its what you design before you design. Everyone has their own rituals. The hope is to figure out which resonate best with clients both internal and external who may have been expecting a design that looks complete at the onset. As we know, jumping straight to a final composition can often lead directly to the Frankencomp freeway, a treacherous route. Jayna Wallace (AOL) and Kevin Flahaut (404 Creative) have expressed interest in being panelists with room for more. 
