Overview
SXSW Rocks
Some things we learnt for a Bristol festival
When it didn't (rock)
Keep Austin weird
10 top things - Saturday 8 March
The scale of things
We're here
Business sessions
10 Tips For Managing a Creative Environment
Growing Pains
5 things (well, lots actually) elite designers should stop saying
How to create a great design team
Gaming and mobile sessions
Games a more effective way to learn stuff
How Can Games Be Used For Teaching?
Engineering happiness: Jane McGonigal
Big Market - casual games for girls
World's Top ARG Producers Sit Around The Table
Goodbye Tiny Screen?
A Big future for Alternate Reality Games
Words of wisdom from 37 signals
Are you geocurious?
Other
Phizzpop - a digital design showdown
Postsecret
SXSW Awards
ARG wins award
Random
Trackstick - track your location
http://sched.org
SXSW reading list
Supported by South West Regional Development Agency, UKTI and Continental Airlines.
Welcome to the South by South West Interactive Festival scribbles and thoughts of Mike Bennett of Bristol Media, Benjamin Hostler of Beef, Hazel Grian of Licorice Media, Andy Parkhouse of Team Rubber and Clare Reddington of iShed.
Our mission? To head to Austin, Texas and research new business opportunities, spot emerging digital trends and explore what Bristol can learn from one of the biggest international conferences and festivals of the year.
Whilst balancing a cup of tea on my new cheese baby I got to thinking about what we experienced and learnt during our trip.
SXSW truly is a great conference/festival/party. From the spot on organisation, great facility (Austin Conference Centre is really, really, really big) and the varied presentations and keynotes all made this a memorable and inspiring event.
And that’s without mentioning the parties, the swag, the free drinks, the deep fried cheese, Austin, Austinites, people swooning at my British accent… (they were all good).
Whilst I didn’t come back with any concrete new business opportunities per se, I did meet a lot of people and collect a lot of contact details some of which might prove useful others not so much. But I’m not sure if these things are about new business (although I’m sure it happens), I think they’re about sharing ideas and opinion, learning new techniques, feeling part of a global industry and getting inspired.
One of the best things I went to was a small round table discussion on the problems of running a small agency, growing the business, wearing multiple hats and getting the right talent. These are all problems Beef faces almost daily and a chance to discuss these issues and hear about solutions others had found was just great. It reaffirmed my confidence in what we’re doing.
The keynote by Frank Warren of PostSecret was inspiring and slightly bizarre as parts of it bordered on Jerry Springer / TV Evangelism, but it reminded a lot of people (I hope) that the web isn’t just a tech playground, it can be a platform for art and that a great idea is more important than an API.
Although I missed the first half, the PhizzPop design challenge was also a highlight - the ideas on show were one thing (there was some really great stuff in there) but it was more useful (for me) to see some of the biggest agencies in the world actually pitch a concept before a panel (albeit in possibly the wrongest environment, a bar). Lots learnt.
The awards were also a highlight, and it was fantastic that Preloaded took the Best In Show. Well done guys.
There was so much on offer I could waffle on for ages, but I won’t.
So could we do this in Bristol? Yes, I believe we could. Ok, we don’t have a massive conference centre but we do have the Watershed, L-Shed, Arnolfini, Pervasive Media Lab and @Bristol all central and within walking distance of one another. We have bars a-plenty, hotels a-plenty. Everything you need.
But most importantly we have Bristol. Like Austin isn’t NYC or LA, Bristol isn’t London. We’re different. And that’s a good thing.
Bristol needs to kick itself into action and be the home of the European version of SXSW before other localities beat us to it. And Bristol needs to make a mark on next years SXSW.
Who’s up for it?
Still suffering from jetlag and an overload of cheese (Texas is not a vegetarian heaven) I thought I would scribble down some points about the Festival.
Dan Taylor sums up it up in nine words: “Wi-Fi, Queue, MacBook, Shiner Bock, Twitter, Walking, Ribs, Lacygate.”
Replace ribs with cheese and I pretty much concur.
Reasons why SXSX rocks:
Festival organisation
From picking up of badges to the non-intrusive badge checkpoints around the huge convention centre, the Festival was well organised, staff were friendly and things just worked. No small feat when you consider the 6000 delegates.
The interactive playpen
Some creative relief in the foyer of the centre - the most lego you have ever seen under one roof. Delegates were invited to make something, photo it and tag it interactiveplaypen for the chance to win prizes. In fact just about everywhere you walked during the festival was a chance to win something (usually an iphone).
Many and varied
From the scale and subject matter of the events to the people attending, this wasn’t just about linux programmers and uber geeks, but featured a wealth of informative and varied sessions and people.
Austin
It’s weird and friendly with great bars. Like Bristol only with sunshine.
Free transport
I didn’t actually use it, but the Festival puts on free buses and our hotel had a shuttle running to the convention centre. This city takes the festival seriously, and so it should, film and interactive alone delivered $16.8 million to the local economy in 2007 and participants’ average daily spending was $264.
Many parties and much swag
From the free LED flashies at the Google party to a tiny card holder from moo, everywhere you went you could fill your boots with free stickers, postcards and magazines. Plus every evening had a jam-packed schedule of parties that went on through the night.
Geo-curiousness and ARGs
The hot topics at the Festival were mobile, creativity, collaboration and ARGs. Which was nice as not only is this where iShed is putting energy, they are also unique strengths of Bristol. Whilst we all learnt a lot, we also realised how ahead of the game we are in many ways. The Festival opens for panel ideas in June, and we will defintely be getting our thinking caps on.
Geek stuff
Use of sched to plan where you wanted to be (vital with so many concurrent events), use of meebo to check whether everyone else in the room was also confused by the crap performance artists, and great free wifi.
Web Awards
Compered by Eugene Mirman with askaninja, the awards took place in a MASSIVE room in the Hilton, were funny, mercifully short and Brits won overall.
Finally…
Silly dancing in a redneck cowboy bar (that was actually only me and Hazel) and first class upgrades: I saw Juno, Lars and the Real girl and Margot at the Wedding, ate much nice food and managed a sleep. Can I ever fly economy again? Thank you continental.
Managing a creative environment is tough. Creativity can be an intensely personal, time consuming and elusive process. It is made even tougher (sometimes) by clients, budgets and large teams.
The guys from Adaptive Path interviewed organisations where the creativity has to thrive inside a very defined and time sensitive environment where there has to be a well oiled team dynamic else things will fail - these included theatre, professional kitchens, script writing and orchestras.
From the responses they got they found a lot of commonalities, Adaptive Path have tried to integrate these into their own processes to great success (according to them).
1. Cross-train the entire team.
People should have focus and specialisms, but even a basic grounding in all the discplines will help others respect decisions that are made.
2. Rotate Creative Leadership.
Keep team dynamics fresh by changing the hierarchy project to project.
3. Actively Turn Corners.
Free thinking and brain storming time is, of course, important - but cap the amount of time and move on to the next phase. If new ideas come further down the line, document them but don’t allow them into the project as it may lose momentum and focus.
4. Know Your Roles.
Make sure each team member understands their role and it’s part in the bigger picture. And trust each other to deliver.
5. Practice, Practice, Practice.
Once you find processes that work, use them at every opportunity - stressful situations or working under tight timescales will be easier to deal with.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t change the processes, use R&D projects to try out and practice new process ideas until they are second nature.
6. Make your mission explicit.
Ensure all members of the team know and understand the overriding goals of a project.
7. Kill your darlings.
When selecting which ideas and concepts to run with - check all of them against the criteria they must meet. If one doesn’t meet them, then don’t use it - no matter how much you think it would be fun to do, or groundbreaking, or interesting. Save it for ‘phase 2’ or another project.
Be sure that your review process is systemic and respectful.
8. Leadership is a service.
Represent the team. Listen before you talk.
9. Try to generate projects around group interests.
Tricky to do all of the time, but if the team has a vested interest a successful outcome is more likely.
10. Remember the audience.
Always ask yourself ‘are we doing this for us or the client or because the audience needs it?’
They tagged on an eleventh too:
11. Celebrate Failure.
It’s okay. It’s inevitable in the creative process. Learn and move on.
You can’t move forward if you don’t take risks, so embrace the fact that they might fail. It’s no one in particulars fault. So don’t try and place blame.
I decided to take a look today at a series of business related ‘core conversations’ (a format where 4/5 different panel talks/debates take place in a large room, a bit like “Open Space”). Subjects included “Growing Pains”, ”Start-up Management”, to “Keeping your team motivated, productive and happy and “When to Sell Up”.
So many choices…
Core Conversation - “Growing pains - Your Web Company’s Getting Big” As your web company has grown, do you have a bunch of headaches you never imagined? Let’s talk about problems and find some solutions.
I thought that I could probably contribute more to this one than any of the others and it’s also a topic that I really want Bristol Media to focus on this year as it seems to be one of the subjects that keeps cropping up again and again from speaking to a lot the other Bristol digital agencies.
Two guys chaired the discussion, Allen Mandelsohn who runs a biggish digital design agency called Plank Design http://www.plankdesign.com/en/ and C. Eric Smith who was founder of a rapid growth software house called UnWired Nation.
About 100 of us had gathered around the table, the majority business owners with between 10 – 100 staff so the context of the main conversation was based around ‘you’ as the founding entrepreneur wanting to take your business to the next level and the challenges that you were likely to face!
Here are the edited highlights:
Recruitment – No.1 headache for all businesses – especially in the digital space. You’re growing which mean the teams going to get bigger.
Finding really good people is hard and you’ll probably get it wrong – lots. But when ‘rockstars’ (explanation below) do walk through the door for interview – make sure you hire them. Pay over the odds if they’re really good, it’s better they’re within your company than have them go to your competitors for just £5k more!
Rockstars – definition: the guys you employ that will make your business famous! Designers, developers, producers – whoever. Keep them happy, look after them but don’t let them rule the roost.
Recruiting Managers and Senior Peopel - you probably wont find another ‘you’ – so stop looking! In other words someone who lives, breaths and sleeps the business in the same way you do. Don’t be too disheartened if you can’t find your clone – as they’d be running a business – not working for one! And besides two entrepreneurs with similar characteristics working within the same business will usually end in tears. It’s your vision, you started it and are driving it so find ‘managers’ and senior staff who compliment your skills and can help turn your vision into reality.
Recruit people that are better than you - A start up entrepreneurs aim should be to make him/herself redundant! Controversial – but you have to put the ego to one side and realise that if your ‘baby’ is going to grow you need to surround yourself with good people. People who probably know more about your sector and have deeper industry knowledge than you do. Don’t be threatened by this, embrace it and feel proud that they want to be part of your vision.
Staff and Share Schemes - You’ve launched, your excited and you want people to be part of it all – a word of warning!
Incentivising staff is important in any business but as you grow it can be problematic and actually end up pissing staff off so plan carefully and don’t rush into anything.
Usually when you start a business you offer shares to the founding members. This is a great way to make them feel part of what they’re growing and to take ownership in moving the business forward.
We’re not Google - structure the equity deals very carefully and always manage expectations from day one about the potential exit value. In otherwords make sure staff know that the chances of them walking away with millions in their back pocket is, probably highly unlikely and they can’t ‘cash them in’ until the company is sold. If your in agency land – even when you do sell, chanses are they’ll probably not (after tax) equate to a life changing amounts. So, they’re in it for the long game and if they’re lucky they might pay off a wedge of their mortgage but probably not buy them that ‘house in the Hamptons’ or (local reference) the 7 bedroom pad in Clifton Village.
Get it right from the start because unpicking it later – hurts. Don’t give it away. Offering shares is easy and is usually a way to compensate not being able to pay market salaries/packages at the beginning. After 4 solid years of 16 hour days and weekends when you’ve worked your socks of to build value you’ll might wish you hadn’t given 10% to the guy that ‘hasn’t really done anything’ other than ‘turn up’.
Also beware that if they’re ‘proper shares’ (not phantom schemes) they come with voting rights and minority shareholders can influence the direction of your company which can be dangerous especially if you want to exit and sell, but Mr.2% doesn’t because he thinks that of he holds out he’ll get more in his back pocket.
Core Conversations - James Reffell, Design Director at Yahoo brought a collection of big printouts of designers he’d taken in his studio looking very “designer-y” and had the audience, about 60 people, come up with stereotype phrases like “I am the designer and I said the design is right” and “well it works fine in safari”. James tapped into his LinkedIn contacts to get contributions from his network to inspire his talk and seed the discussion.
It worked well and reminded me of an old creative director we used to employ… ;o)
The top ‘no-no’ quotes were:
“Trust Me”
“I did the best I could - there’s only so much you do with…”
“Is all of this stuff really necessary? If we could just get rid of {insert name of essential feature} the design would work SO much better.”
“Yeah but…I am a creative”
“Just tell me what you want and I’ll make that.”
Well you never told me it was supposed to look REALLY good!”
“That will never work”
“This project doesn’t have enough budget to do what I need to achieve”
“That maybe the case but the he client’s still wrong”
“This isn’t really a ‘creative environment’ for you to get the best out of me/my team”
“Your database doesn’t work with my design”…..
“We need our own department and room to work in with lots of books”
“But you need to understand my brain works in a different way to yours”
“That’s technical and I don’t really need to understand how it works”
Edited highlights:
How measure success?
