Archive: sxsw / what consumes me, bud caddell

Posts Tagged ‘sxsw’

drowning in SXSW panels

18 Aug, 2010 • posts i've written • 6 comments

According to the SXSW Panel picker, there are over 2300 panels to pick from this time around. Good luck sorting through those before the Mayan-predicted end of civilization or the election of Sarah Palin (same thing).

Instead, just let me do it for you. Or at least, let me get you started.

These panels are all BudApproved™ for your voting pleasure:

Better Crowdsourcing: Lessons Learned From the3six5 Project
FTW: Building a Killer Professional and Personal Network
The FIve Elements of Hip-Hop/Content Strategy
Too Many Options: Choosing a Digital Media Platform
Scratch Your Niche! How “Digital Dimensionality” Builds Influence
Genius Steals: Remix Culture IS Culture
The Death of Viral
Second Screen: TV Meets The Web Backchannel
Good News: Apps, Paywalls, Publishers and Content
“Daddy, You Should Tweet That”: Parenting Goes Digital
The Last of the Launch-and-Leave ‘Ems
Writing Workshop with @BettyDraper: Saying It Short
Younger Than Pete Cashmore
People Are Stupid, and How to Fix Them (here’s a sick infograph to go w/ this one)
(MINE) Community Thunderdome – Branded vs Unbranded, You Decide (Mike & I were ranked the 15th best panel last year by attendees … just sayin’)

In all seriousness, these folks (myself included) could really use your vote. Competition is fierce, popularity & ego seem to be winning the day so far, and all of these panels would help make SXSW better. Voting ends soon, so please take a moment or two to flex your clicking finger.

Did I miss your awesomeness? Drop a link and short description in the comments.

web video thunderdome: the presentation

23 Mar, 2010 • posts i've written • 2 comments

If you remember anything from this deck, remember these two things:

The web wasn’t built for advertisers. It’s your internet, not theirs. But they, of course, can earn a place on your internet if you choose to let them. And we choose with our clicks. Every click is a vote to let a brand interact with you or not. Thus the whole voting thing – we want people, especially marketers, to be more conscious of the fact that people choose to interact with brands on the internet.
Stop saying viral videos. Please. Viral assumes the mechanism for distribution is built right in. It’s not. People choose whether or not to spread your content. Viral puts hype ahead of people. For my full thoughts on the blight that is viral, read this full post.

A hearty thanks to everyone that attended our SXSW Interactive panel and participated in voting. A special thanks to the whole Made By Many crew for their support as well. And of course, a big thanks to Mike Arauz for being such an awesome co-presenter.

When SXSW makes our podcast available, we’ll re-upload this presentation so you get the full effect of being there. It was pretty rowdy for 11am on the rainy final morning of the conference.

Be sure to visit WebVideoThunderdome.com to watch all of the popular videos we collected and visit our Delicious page for more background research.

Oh, and the fonts we used were: Public Gothic (free) and Din (not so free). Din was used for all number values and Public Square for all text.

Here’s a full list of the videos presented:

Best Song Parody
Two kings of candy corn, The Muppets and CollegeHumor.com, mash up their unique sensibilities with a pop music classic.

The Muppets – Bohemian Rhapsody (branded)

vs.

CollegeHumor.com – I Gotta Feeling Parody (un-branded)

Best Cute Kid Tricks
Whether they’re computer-animated or not, people around the world can’t tear themselves away from these adorable kids doing amazing things.

Evian Roller Babies (branded)

vs.

Ukelele Boy – I’m Yours (un-branded)

Best Web Video Antidepressent (or The Happy Happy Joy Joy Prize)
Which is more stimulating to our brain’s pleasure center: mind-blowing physical computing or kittens!?

Volkswagen’s Piano stairs – TheFunTheory.com (branded)

vs.

Surprised Kitty (un-branded)

Best Actor
Two videos with amazing, heart-felt, riveting performances; one wants you to buy soap, the other wants you to treat “gingers” with more respect.

Old Spice – The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (branded)

vs.

Gingers Do Have Souls (un-branded)

and finally…

Best Web Video of the Year (or The Grampa, You’re Scaring Me! Award)
Two very odd older gentleman go off their rockers, and the internet was there to capture it on video for our LOL-ing and OMG-ing pleasure.

American Idol – Pants On The Ground (branded)

vs.

Epic Beard Man – AC TRANSIT BUS FIGHT I AM A MOTHERFUCKER (un-branded)

conference attendee field notes

14 Jan, 2010 • posts i've written • 5 comments

Next time you visit a conference, like SXSW for example, take this along to remember fellow attendees by.

Download the hi-res image and PSD at Ge.tt

BTW, if you’re attending SXSW get the details on my panel and RSVP now.

kittens and porn, you’re the winner!

09 Nov, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments

sxsw2010 I ask a lot from my friends on the internet. Read this, vote here, comment there, share that, those sorta things… And a while back, I asked you to vote and comment on a SXSWi Panel that Mike Arauz and I had dreamed up, Kittens and Porn: You Choose the Winner and you actually did, because it was just announced as a panel for the 2010 SXSW Interactive Conference.

Thanks to everyone that rated the page and thanks to these people that left a comment:
– Rick Liebling
– Adam Abu-Nab
– Blake Robinson
– Nora Geiss
– Shari Doherty
– Heli Rajasalo
– Ken Yeung
– Carmel Hagen

There are lots of humbling names on the list of announced panels (Hugh MacLeod, Dave Armano, Perry Chen, etc); now Mike and I have to make sure our panel is ten-times more entertaining and interesting than anything they’ve got planned.

I promise it will be a raucous good time and I hope to see you there.

Thanks again!

5 themes from sxsw

25 Mar, 2009 • posts i've written • 3 comments

SxSW Interactive ended a week ago and I’m still recovering. It was great being back in Austin and it was especially awesome meeting people IRL I only knew from the internet. My panel, on location based mobile advertising, went well. Sam from Loopt is incredibly knowledgeable about the space, and aside from my ‘brands have to relearn how to earn customers’ shtick, I think the attendees got a great dose of knowledge from him. A special thanks to Shari Doherty (of Loopt) for asking me to join the panel, and to Hugh Forrest (of SxSW) for running such a smooth and efficient conference.

In truth, there are two conferences at work at SxSW Interactive – the one with the panels, and the one with the parties. I attended the panels. I’d like to share a few common themes I heard while I was there…

1) Brands court communities, they do not create them. I caught the Henry Jenkins double feature and was toting his eight part series on Spreadable Media during the conference, and this was a powerful message. Even highly successful media properties draw their viewership from an amalgamation of clustered communities. If you really want to be successful, you’ll recognize this and mine those communities to better understand how they operate and the culture that ties them together. While at SxSW, Henry did a quick podcast that’s worth your time.

2) The journey is the thing that matters. Jim Coudal moderated a great panel on how to involve people in your process, not just the end product. (I’m a Coudal superfan – I was taking notes in a Field Notes prototype book I got at their SEED conference) Filmmaker Gary Hustwit of Helvetica fame talked a good deal about opening up the experience of making his films, and telling the story of its creation, to his audience. For example, Gary sells posters for his films before he even begins making them. He sells the idea first and in turn generates the capital to make it. People like to dream about stuff that doesn’t exist yet; and the idea of it is usually the sexiest part.

3) Help people use their brains. Brendan Dawes sat on Coudal’s panel too, and showed off DoodleBuzz, a news powered experience he built. The interface intentionally leaves you hanging until you gather the courage to try something different, in this case doodle. Gary Hustwit also talked about how his editor tries to ensure his films are 15 seconds ahead of the audience. Lost does this. Apple is really good at this, too. Ultimately, you have to juggle the risk for reward; the payoff for participation is critical.

4) Long is the untapped market. Every conversation about advertising and marketing (good or bad) revolved around flashes in the pan. Maybe being the douchebags we are, that’s all we pay close attention to, but it seems like there’s an awesome opportunity for a brand to make waves by being committed to long term, always-on, engagement.

5) Location awareness is in. A day or so before my panel, this post about 4 new or updated location aware mobile apps dropped. Pepsi (a client) built their Zeitgeist twitter visualization with a keen understanding that most people at SxSW use Twitter to broadcast location as much as their actions or feelings. Uwe Hook, the moderator of our panel maybe put it best, (I’m approximating) “it used to be ‘what are you doing?’ now it’s ‘where are doing what?’” All in all, it was a great build for our panel, I heard there was a line out the door, and the super spectacular folks that joined us were engaged and asked some phenomenal questions. (anyone that attended, you are the wind beneath my wings)

mad men on twitter at sxsw

02 Mar, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments

So, my desk mate Mike and I are headed to SXSW in just a few days. He leans over and says, “Hey, there’s a mad men on twitter panel, why aren’t you on that?” Normally, Mike is a lunatic, and he’s not to be trusted. But sadly, there is a panel being run by Carri Bugbee (Peggy Olson and Shorty award winner). But, nope, I wasn’t asked to to discuss being a mad men character on twitter, or writing that report (that was covered by Henry Jenkins, and NYMag), or even about my feelings towards the future of fan and brand engagement.

Nope, you can’t file into a room to hear me speak on that panel. You’ll just have to come right up to me and have an old school one on one conversation about it. I’d love to see not just me speak about it, how about Paul Isakson? He was Don Draper! Or Rick Leibling? He played multiple characters. Maybe we can get Henry himself or Josh Green and others to circle up and chat. How’s Tuesday the 17th around 2pm?

I kid. I kid.

just putting it out there

24 Feb, 2009 • posts i've written • 3 comments

I need new experiences to stay creative. I need to talk to new people, with new ideas, new challenges, and new questions.

I’m speaking at SXSWi on a panel entitled, Location, Location, Location: The Future of Mobile Advertising on Tuesday, March 17th at 3:30pm. I know many of my readers, friends, and followers are attending SXSW, and I think it would be a terrible waste of time if we didn’t meet up in person. I’ll be flying in late in the evening of March 12th, and out on the 18th. Leave me a comment here, or find me on your favorite network, and let’s connect and make sure we grab a beer in Austin.

Speaking of speaking, I’d love to do more of that. Right now I get the odd request here and there, but if you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to change the world. Give me an opportunity to come spread my gospel. I’m also just nice and cuddly, too.