South by round up Day 1
The reaction to our Twitter home page take over has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks everyone for their feedback and comments. It was really fun working on it and seeing it in use in real time has sparked off lots of ideas about how we could use something similar as our permanent home page once we’re back home. Somehow we need to find a way of showing our social presence and network on the web, whilst combining the conversations around us.
My favourite tweet about our home page?
Ah, our avatars. Always a source of amusement (or horror) when a new set arrive from our amazing illustrator (Paul Davis). I’ve always felt that their style reflects the Made by Many way – sketching and creating things being a big part of who we are and how we work. However, to clarify, in real life none of us have fascinating skin conditions (@saradotdub), badger strips down out forehead (@bobbyc) or bolts sticking out of our neck (@malbonster).
The SXSW experience
After registration at 11 yesterday I spent the entire day with a goodie bag slung over my shoulder, just like many attendee. I think the first thing we all did was sit down and throw stuff away:
After getting rid of so much junk I was still left with a heavy bag of newspapers and directories to carry around. If we come next year I won’t bother picking up the bag at all – it’s just a hodge podge of sponsor messages that no one is interested in. Straight into the recycling bin. I just wish they hadn’t bothered to print it in the first place.
Sitting in a talk
Watching the rest of the conference crowd in a session is fascinating. We’re all geek boys, so everyone has an iPhone and/or a laptop. This constant connection to the digital world has taken over – no one sits and just listens. Everyone is tweeting, blogging, checking which session they’re going to next, checking which sessions they’re missing out on right now.
It must be a slightly threatening and interesting measure of engagement. No one was truly paying attention to me talking, but I did get a shed load of tweets!
Post match shake down
It sounds from much of Made by Many that we went to quite a varied mix of talks yesterday. Some good, some not so much… However, even the talks that didn’t hit it off became the start of a very interesting debate afterwards. Over a drink of course, this is Austin after all.
The “Passion vs Process” debate was particularly interesting. Some of the MxMers who went were a tad scathing:
The main crux seemed to be that people should focus their careers on their passion. However, no lee way was given for your skill level. Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean that you’re any good at it. (And that certainly isn’t going to bring you happiness!)
This turned into an interesting post match talk about what passions some of us had followed and whether they had worked out or not. For example, one of the MxMers once went to a virtually deserted island to write a novel for 6 months. Others had started off their college years being amazing at sports, to a near pro level, but knew their passion, whilst strong, wasn’t enough to get them through to the final yard line.
At this point the conversation became a wider discussion about skill. Most fascinating of all was hearing @shanerichmond (first passion: music journalism, now the brilliant technology editor of the Daily Telegraph) talking about writer’s block. For him as a journalist it’s rarely an issue – if you’re writing a news story you have facts to report, if you’re writing an comment piece you have your opinion. You never ever start off with a blank page.
As a designer it struck me that at Made by Many we never start off with a blank page either. The way we work and our processes are nearly always intended to lay layer upon layer upon our ideas. That traditional moment of a designer firing up Photoshop for the first time on a project, sitting behind a white screen of empty pixels searching for something to start with rarely happens at MxM. By that stage in the project we have sketches and prototypes to work with. You have the information and service design in your hands – a framework (or in Shane’s case the facts or opinions) to work with.
Not so much a revelation, but fascinating to view our process from the perspective of another profession.
See also:
About the author
Isaac is an interaction designer who understands how to develop a service idea and make it real.
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Comments (3)
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Responses (0)
I like this post, Isaac — amusing snippets, of course, but also a great overview of the day.
I’d like to offer a post-script to your comments on Passion vs Process — and I ought to subtitle said post-script ‘Remember, people are always listening on Twitter’! I woke to find this in my @ tweets, from the facilitator at that very session: “@saradotdub supposed I should be mildly offended, but you are pretty funny….”
Hmm. Nice to know she thinks I am funny, but actually, I think I was a little thoughtless and I felt bad about that. I responded and said we are a tough crowd to please (true) and that her chat had actually kicked off a discussion on whether passion or talent or a combination of both are enough to succeed — the very discussion you reference above.
I think I’ll tell her about your post — clearly her chat inspired a lot of thought, even if some of that inspiration did play out in a roundabout way. And maybe that’s what a lot of the SXSW experience is about — taking in a LOT of stimulus, responding off the cuff there and then, and only later, wading through it and seeing what sticks and what spurs on more conversation, more thought, and even action.
Sara Williams
March 13, 2010
at 10:22 pm
Yes, I certainly was a bit cheeky with some of these tweets at the #passionoverprocess panel. The alternative, of course, would have been to deliver the unvarnished truth. And the truth is that this was one of the worst *sessions* I have ever attended (discl: I missed the first few mins so perhaps I missed the context setting).
I’m all for open formats but it was just too full of vague platitudes & patronising validations. I’m an utter believer in pursuing passion at just about any cost, so I would be mortified if people tagged me a cynic. Far from it. But the talk was devoid of sophistication; no theories, compelling ideas or firm opinions. Just unstructured babble.
But as Isaac points out, the session actually fulfilled the far more difficult objective of provoking discussion long afterwards.
So all’s well that ends well, right?
Justin McMurray
March 13, 2010
at 11:44 pm
Sara: Thanks for pointing me to this….I think.
Justin: Must admit that the unvarnished truth would have been refreshing and likely would have propelled the conversation in an interesting direction. While part of me wonders if the conversation would have been more meaningful to you if you had been there for the introduction, my guess is that it would not have. In the spirit of the “core conversation” format I had hoped to facilitate a discussion among participants rather than present and defend particular theories or opinions. All in all, it sounds like the conversation that transpired on Twitter during the session and over drinks afterward was the one I’d hoped would happen in the room. Of course this raises some interesting questions about facilitating this kind of session and what it takes to tap into that secondary dialog in real time. Maybe you and I should pitch that as a panel discussion next year…
Joan Ball
March 14, 2010
at 7:02 am