Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Jon Lebkowsky is an author, activist, journalist, and blogger who
writes about the future of the Internet, digital culture, media, and
society. He's been associated with various projects and organizations,
including FringeWare, Whole Earth, WorldChanging, Mondo 2000, bOING
bOING, Factsheet Five, the WELL, the Austin Chronicle, EFF-Austin,
Society of Participatory Medicine, Extreme Democracy, Digital
Convergence Initiative, Plutopia Productions, Polycot Consulting,
Social Web Strategies, Solar Austin, Well Aware, and Project VRM. He's
also a web strategist and developer at Polycot Associates.
  

    
Ted Newcomb is a happily retired grandpa, living in Phoenix, AZ.
Digital bon vivant;curating and blogging on digital culture. 10 years
in single's and youth ministry,adjunct professor of philosophy,30 years
in hotel/resort management. Masters degrees in Religion, Theology, and
Philosophy...life long student and co-learner. Most recently involved
with Howard Rheingold and his Rheingold Youniversity. I've been in and
out of the WELL since 1995 and currently spend my time in the Virtual
Communites Conference and Inkwell.vue
  

    
Welcome Jon and thanks for doing this. SXSW is in full swing, the
Interactive portion just having come to a close and the Music portion
ongoing now. What are your reflections on Interactive and your overall
take on the Festival so far?
  

    
SXSW started in 1987 as a quirky event inspired by New York City's New
Music Seminar and festival, but I didn't get involved until 1994, when
the event added Multimedia to the mix. I've been going and involved in
various ways ever since. We were encouraging the producers of
Multimedia to include Internet programming, and my recollection is that
it took 2-3 years for the Multimedia conference to become
Internet-focused. The name changed to SXSW Interactive in 1999. 

Interactive was at that point smaller than Music and Film, and in the
early years of blogging and social software, it became a go-to
conference to people with that focus. I wouldn't say it's ever been a
digital technology conference, though there are always sessions that
are about tech. It's more of a digital culture conference encompassing
a broad range of online scenes, activities, platforms etc.

As such, the conference/festival tends to reflect the state of the
online world in any given year. Following digital convergence, all
media are digital media. Analog has become a quaint exception. Given
that, there's huge interest in all things interactive, and the festival
has become the largest of its kind - in fact there's nothing quite
like it. 

This year Internet has mainstreamed, broadband adoption is high, even
your 90 year old grandmother is liable to have a Facebook account -
probably to track what the kids are doing, but once you're online
you're drawn into any number of scenes and pursuits. Digital culture is
not just culture. Everything has digital implications.

So the interesting thing about SXSW this year was that there wasn't
much new. As a friend was pointing out to me, it was less about hearing
about new cool stuff or jamming in innovative ways, and more about
exposure to the best of the best of technology and culture. The
conference is so huge, it attracts those people, and that creates a
special kind of energy, though not the same as the energy of the
festival when it was smaller, quirkier, more innovative.

And it's a place where everybody shows up, so there are a lot of
people who have working and personal relationships online but never get
to see each other face to face; they can come together here and have
side meetings of some duration, get things done, have a brief but
deeper experience of each other.
  

    
The sheer size and scale of the many talks and events is mind
boggling. There were a few podcasts and live streaming events this
year. Will there be a more virtual way for people to become involved
who cannot be present physically; perhaps a small fee for feeds, both
audio and/or video?
  

    
And what people, topics, or events have stood out for you?
  

    
SXSW is not like the TED conference - it has a lot more content, and
the content is longer form, usually at least an hour. It probably
doesn't make sense to put a lot of the content online. I expect the
conference will continue to be selective about the content it
publishes. Also the real value of the conference is in the experience
of being there. Acknowledging that people prefer active conversation to
passive listening, they've been adding more meetups and core
conversations to the schedule. 

Amber Case on cyborg anthropology and augmented reality, and Jennifer
Pahlka on developing code for government were highlights for me. I
missed him, but friends told me that Stephen Wolfram gave a great talk.
  

    
The reviews for Interactive are just starting to come in. Here's one
from the NYT, by Jenna
Wortham...(http://beta620.nytimes.com/viewer/times-skimmer/)

Seems to echo your observation Jon:

Tech Is No Longer for the Digital Elite: To the dismay of those who
traveled to Austin with high hopes of seeing the next big thing before
everyone else, there wasn't a single standout service that had
attendees in a tizzy.

That's not bad, in and of itself...we're just seeing develop of the
platforms and services. 

You're right. Like the early, heady days of Comdex and Interop, it's
all about the connections and being there.
  

    
Great visualization of Steve Wolfram's talk via Ogilvy Notes:

http://ogilvynotes.com/49790/455111/sxsw-2012/computation-and-its-impact-on-th
e-future
  

    
A la Monty Python, "what's the buzz"? Or was there one? Seems that as
tech rolls out into social and mobile this is a year for apps, tools,
platforms that enhance everyday user experience. Mundane, but not in
the perjorative sense of the word. Tech coming to flatland.
  

    
If I could have attended I definitely would have caught Jason Lanier's
and Nicholas Thompson's talk 'Is Technology Making our Lives Richer or
Poorer'.

Fortunately, I was able to peek in via Lanyard, Twitter hashtags, and
a nice Storigy by Laurens Vreekamp
(http://storify.com/campodipace/is-technology-making-our-lives-richer-or-poorer
).

One take-away line from Jaron: 
"There are two digital versions of you, the one you see and the
analytics version. You should own both!"

Amen to that! 
  

    
Our own Ed Ward (captward) posts his impressions of SXSW 2012
Interactive on his blog the Ward Report
(http://www.realeyz.tv/en/blog/category/the-ward-report)

... it now appears that SXSW Interactive is outdrawing SXSW Film and
SXSW Music. Not surprising, considering that the ubiquity of the
digital realm is causing the other two to converge with it.
 
Myself, I'm worried about what I do for a living, so I've been
following the Journalism and Online Content track over the past couple
of days, hoping to learn something. I really should know better; the
concern here isn't content as content, but, rather, content as an
object which is manipulated, monetized, and commodified. In other
words, they're not concerned with what it says. And all too often, what
passes for insight seems blindingly obvious, like the kind of stuff
you get from business school which causes "real" academics to scorn
MBAs. Maybe the people who are sharing it don't see it that way, but I
haven't really found much to take home with me yet.
  

    
None of this is to say a great time wasn't had by all.
Todd Watson captures that sentiment in his review on The Internet
Evolution:

There really wasn't any huge new new thing at this year's SXSW... It
was really a lot of the same old thing with a few new ingredients mixed
in. But lingering in the air, there was an optimism and sense of
opportunity that transcended the often selfish inclinations of SXSW
past, one that was more worldly and altruistic in nature.

A spirit that attempted to bring people closer together in small
networks to be able to meet and to get to know one another and to get
things done. I ran into Robert Scoble, the renowned tech blogger whom
I've never before met, and he explained to me on the expo floor that
the big deal of the event was "Highlights," an iOS-based application
that helps do just that, bring people together in the most
serendipitous of ways based on their location and data from their
Facebook graph.

(http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=587&doc_id=240704&f_src
=internetevolution_gnews)
  

    

for some reason i ended up being on a list for 7X7, which is paradigmatic
'10 places to get sushi after midnight' daily 'lifestyle'  newsletter
clearly aimed at consumers in their 20s and 30s in sf. which is why it was
strange to see this, about lack of human interaction at sxsw, today


http://tinyurl.com/75gx976
  

    
Good curation, Ted. And lots to think about and respond to. I'll try
to touch all of your comments…

The two reviews you posted to echo my comment that there was not much
new under the sun this year. You ask about what was buzzing… I did hear
a few people say that this year's theme and "marvel" was
"social-discovery." The one app that seemed to be getting some traction
at the event was Highlight, a smartphone app that tells you when
someone with similar interests and shared friends is near.  Justin Hall
and I were discussing how this is an older, much-discussed concept
that's more doable with the current devices and infrastructure. I said
I wasn't finding it very compelling, and Justin said he couldn't see
using it at SXSW, but might use it in a long overlay at an airport.

I kept wanting to say "self-discovery" instead of social discovery. We
were thinking it might be cooler to focus on self-discovery apps. I
suppose "quantified self" apps fit that category. Which reminds me that
I didn't hear much about health at the conference. 

Very happy to see the visualization of Wolfram's talk, which (as
mentioned) I unfortunately missed. 

I had a very interesting long lunch with Amber Case where we talked
about cyborg evolution. I'd like to see the conference go even deeper
into human extensions and enhancement, which is implicit in many of the
talks and areas of focus.

There were a lot of activist and government technology people and
discussions at the conference, but I think there's still confusion
about civic applications of technology. Given that confusion, it was
good that Jennifer Pahlka's talk was clear about some of the
opportunities. Some bits that I tweeted: "We're fighting the slow
crumbling of our will to do things together - with a geek army!" "We
have built an amazing consumer Internet, now we can build the citizens'
Internet." "We're getting pretty good at enabling collective action
with technology." "What is the notion of government? Get rid of baggage
and consider that government is what we do together."

You mention content as content as "an object which is manipulated,
monetized, and commodified." Bruce Sterling said at lunch, and later
that day in his talk, that the people who use various only platforms
(Facebook, Twitter, Google's various products, etc.) are not customers
or users, they're products. They create the content for each other, and
their attention is sold to advertisers. Think of the implications.

There are a lot of parties at SXSW, many with free food and booze, and
they tend to be pretty terrible. Example: we went to the PBS Sherlock
Holmes party thinking it had to be a cool event, given how much we like
the contemporary re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes and the quality of
the new series. But it was just awful, generic, pedestrian. Very loud
thump-thump techno throbbing as people lined up for marginal and sparse
Texas BBQ. The creators of the series spoke for five minutes, were
clearly uncomfortable with the scene, just wanted to go to bed.

I mean, why would you serve *Texas BBQ* at a Sherlock Holmes event? No
imagination at all. At an event that's all about creativity and
culture, this was a terrible gaffe.

Re people eschewing human interaction and focusing on their phones,
the 7X7SF post… that's just clueless. What do they think people are
doing with those phones? They're socially interating with other humans.
  

    
(Waving at Paulina)
  

    
hey, just being the transmedium here!
oddly i just got off the phone with a friend who is a longtime
futurist/branding/advertising/technologist/researcher type-guy ---
and he reported to -me- that he was hearing from the marketing and ad people
that they feel sxsw is -over-, and that the future is now at CES.

which is redonk, but there you go
  

    
Well, sure, the future for marketing and ad people is always at
marketing events. SXSW has always been more of a cultural event; the
marketing and ad people who show up are just an annoyance (though
sometimes amusing). Also CES has about seven times more people
attending, so there's more "potential impressions." 
  

    
Speaking of attendance...this year's numbers are impressive. You've
been involved for a long time, what's it like to produce a Festival
like this? I imagine the team is already starting on next year's
production and probably outlining 2014.
  

    
I'm going with the reactionaries at 7x7. The whole purpose of being at
a thing like this is talking with others, sharing ideas, and the heat
of live interaction which, unlike staring zombie-like into a screen,
can make quantum leaps happen in the right company. All of these apps
I'm seeing here do nothing but alienate people from F2F interaction.
Not a good idea. 

That blog post I did made some fun of Glomper, except that I found out
what it does today, and, well, Bruce was right. I wish I'd seen his
speech -- totally spaced on it.
  

    
As to Paulina's friend's comment that SXSW is "over". I doubt that
very much. There were more than 3200 panel proposals for this year's
Interactive, of which about 400 were chosen. As per everyone's
comments, there is something quite unique about SXSW from any of the
trade shows.

I imagine this year will be a maturing one for all things 'social' and
next year's SXSW will be a time for reflection and re-direction a la
Bruce's prescient remarks.
  

    
Ed, I loved the humor in your blog.

<The whole purpose of being at
a thing like this is talking with others, sharing ideas, and the heat
of live interaction which, unlike staring zombie-like into a screen,
can make quantum leaps happen in the right company.>

Any 'quantum leaps' this year, or is it too early?
  

    
Hell, there weren't any in the journalism track of Interactive, and
there sure aren't gonna be any in the music part. I'm pretty sure I'll
get through this year without seeing any showcasing music, but maybe
not: I might go see Gary Lucas play his soundtrack to "Tonight I Will
Possess Your Corpse," just because I like the name of the movie. But
maybe not. 

I found out too late that I won two tickets to the Springsteen secret
concert. Damn, a month's rent from scalping just fell through my
fingers!
  

    
Storify wins top SXSW award for Social Media. And no wonder, check out
some of the 1000 stories filed:

http://storify.com/topics/sxsw-2012
  

    
And Chelsea Stark, via Mashable, came up with wonderful visualizations
of the top Panels:

http://mashable.com/2012/03/12/sxsw-2012-illustrated-panels/#53365Emotional-Eq
uations-to-Connect-with-Your-Customers