So I went to SXSW this year, this time as an attendee with 9 other work colleagues. I had so much fun with them, ate so much good food, saw Common talk about the creative process, went to concerts and sang along to songs many of us grew up with…
Here’s some notes I captured from the interactive sessions I attended. It is always enjoyable learning about new industries and technologies that I would otherwise never be exposed to on a regular basis. The future is already among us- we just have to leverage it.
–
How to Focus
Becky Simpson, Adobe Creative Resident
#1 Set Priority
Starting somewhere now is better than later. You need to start somewhere.
How about doing one thing every day or one thing for one month? She gave an example about how her whole project of writing a book took off in the fraction of the time it took to do it.
#2 Accountability
#chipperthings
Give it a time limit (i.e. 100 days of getting it started, 100 days of making)
Re-use things as necessary, follow inspiration while you have it.
Tools: Adobe Capture vectorizes photos
Repetition is wonderful. In the words of Weeknd: “I can’t feel my face when I’m with you, but I love it, but I love it…” Those lyrics repeat over and over again, and everyone loves that song!
It it’s not fun, then you’re doing it wrong.
Measure by progress, not by comparison.
Creativity is a bottomless pie!
Follow your enthusiasm.
–
The End of Average
Todd Ross
There is no such thing as an average cell or average performance or human being.
We often design for what the AVERAGE is. We use averages for benchmarking.
We are in desperate need of creativity and innovation. Jaggedness, Context, Pathways ?? We are all multi-dimensional.
Standardized tests = short amount of time. Give a little more time on solving problems, build better slid institutions.
–
Human Machine Interfaces as Future of Work
J. Underkoffler, Oblong Industries
We all do work via digital UI.
We extrapolate information via UI
Apple Mac: everyone had access to calculations and real time pixels
Command Line GUI: anyone could order the machine to do something
Enable feedback loop via UI.. Room would figure out how to play chess. We can teach software about space and time. Merge physical and digital world.
Shadows: affect physical movement.
Wind simulation- de-abstract pixels, lighting up the motor part, position in space, relation to physical objects
G-SPEAK: lighting up the whole wall, universal, collaboration, abstract, navigation in 3D space
Gestural language
Medical imaging
Distributed Everything: Leap and Kinect, boundarylessness, teach software about space and time
Bi-directional glyphs
Collaborative UI
Live in the past, present, future
Causality: understand what might happen
Cinema as i/o: people and pixels
Tamper: gestural commands to rewind, play, fast forward movies
Compose film with bits of film pieces
Devices get smaller and smaller
Pixels real, consensual comprehension
Access in way: gestalt view rotate it around
VR, AR, RR (real reality) ex. Evolution of a quail’s heart example
UI should be the exoskeleton that we can slip into.
Mezzanine product: We will work this way in the future.
–
Make Epic Sh*t
Regina Dugan, VP Engineering, Advanced Technology and Projects
@googleATAP
Regina started with examples of “innovation,” such as advertisements, articles, books, and fad diets. She pointed out that the language of innovation is the same: bringing new products to market.
If we really want innovation, is has to be way of life.
In innovation, taking big risks drive results way more often than smaller risks.
“I’m not a scientist, I’m an inventor.” -Edison
Pasteur’s Quadrants: The upper right is where all the epic shit happens and the lower left is just shitty in an epic way. When scientists and product compromise, they are in the quadrant of quiet desperation. When they tried to reduce risk, people don’t feel passionate or have fire in their bellies.
Examples: For wearables, functionality has to get SIMPLE. If it doesn’t have value to me, I will take it off my wrist.
Google Soli: captures human hand. Virtual controls in context. Direct mapping of hand. Mico-gesture sensors.
Jacquard: garment industry. Uses things we’re already wearing such as conductive yarn. Simple gestures like tapping and swiping and activate something like silencing phone calls or sending a text message. The project recently partnered with Levi’s to bring smart fabrics to consumers. Levi’s and Jacquard (15%).
Next gen mobile: ARA = modular phone = made up of pieces, choose parts that matter the most to you (i.e. swap out camera for extra battery life).
Google Spotlight Stories: developing stories unique to small screens.
Youtube.com/gss
We must choose to live in the vulnerability of fear. That is the only way you can make epic shit. Failure itself is not what keeps us trying to make epic stuff. Fear of failure is the problem. Failure is the inevitable part of doing something hard… something epic.
“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” -Christopher Reeve
–
Daring Greatly
Brene Brown
Brene gave such an inspirational talk and it resonated so well with an audience full of young creative technologists.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly …” -Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizen In A Republic”
If you’re brave with life and work, you’re going to go down. No doubt.
Choose to fall. This stuff is worth getting hurt over.
Choose courage over comfort. Vulnerability = show up = courage.
People will often put you down. Forget them! If you’re not in the arena, I’m not interested in your feedback. Again, if you’re brave enough, often enough, you’re going to go down.
Speaking truth = never a weakness. The tenacious and the curious will get back up and go at it even harder.
There is zero creativity without FAILURE. All great writers start with a shitty first draft. When you own your story, you get to decide how it ends.
We want to be authors of our own lives. Failure is an imperfect word. Fall and get back up!
–
Technology Driven Accessible Transportation Apps
Mohammed Yousuf + Panel
How can we move ourselves and things better?
Connected vehicles and infrastructure
ATTRI - accessible transportation
Some stats: 56.7 million, 19% of population with disabilities
Rise in autism = 1 in 150
Veterans = 21.4 million
There are more people in the world with disabilities than the population of China
Some innovative ideas…
Personal mobility = navigate through indoors and outdoors
Wayfinding, assistive technolgoeis, auto/robotics, data integration
Pre-trip concierge and virtualization
Shared use = automation and robotics
Safe intersection crossings
“Best way to predict your future is to create it.” - Abe Lincoln
Findly app? Urban mobility? [Not sure what was heard here]
Educate people about apps for transport
What can we focus on? How to move things from point A to point B or move things to people
Drones for packaging, mail, groceries
Inclusive on how to design.. We are taught to design for consumers, not for everyone. 😔
Shake the world in a way that’s inclusive. Make sure design is intentional to be inclusive.
–
Chinese Technology Revolution
Thomas Crampton
Thomas is a digital strategist at Ogilvy so this talk primarily focused on marketing and social media in Asia markets. What I found most interesting and appealing was the fact that China seems to way ahead in the game in leveraging social media networks to multi-task on things that shouldn’t need a separate app or service.
- Congestion as driver. In Indonesia, everyone was on Friendster. FB switched Indonesia to FB via the Blackberry app. Adoption levels were huge.
- Culture as driver. In Taiwan, people love casual gaming. FarmVille got more people on FB. Plurk is a free social networking app that writes in Chinese, messages up to 210 characters. It is very much like Twitter. Asia has WeChat, Line, Kakao all in the messenging innovation space. FB Messenger is playing catch up.
- Diaspora: How to get or grow traffic along Atlantic Ocean?
- Apparently by tugging at emotional strings after watching this British Airways ad about visiting your mum. What a great (guilt trip?) way to reach out to India. - Isolation as driver. In China, there are full copycats of FB, Twitter, Weibo, knockoff Groupon, etc. bc the real sites are all blocked. LinkedIn is not blocked in China, and in fact has been helping their economy by connecting other business professionals. There is PATRIOTIC PENCHANT there. Money drives social - check out this red envelope gif
- In China, social engagement is off the charts, but users very fickle. They are quick to switch to another product. Here is an infographic of a lot of the social media companies that are direct copycats of western companies.
- Everyone in China is using WeChat so marketers are leveraging it as much as they can to use it in communicating their products or services.
- Shake Shake: connects people who happen to be shaking their smartphones at the same time. It is a really quick way to swap contact details.
- Two Way Walkie Talkie app: allows any number of users to talk to each other instantly. You just press and hold and speak. Voice communication is best in China and Taiwan bc it takes more time to type Chinese.
- Payments: money transfer at restaurants, share the bill immediately. WeChat has become a mobile social CRM platform. Relationship between company and client has become more seamless. 27 cities are using WeChat as an air quality monitor, and it can catch people with traffic fines. HK Airlines is using WeChat to check in to their flights. Some cities are selling cars via WeChat.
–
Why People Crave Touch
Sampanes, Obrist, Israr
Mid-air touch? Can we feel without touching? Turns out, yes, we can.
- We are biologically driven to touch and feel the world around us. Touch has deep impact on human behavior. Touch informs, excite, and humanizes.
- We can’t cuddle with iPhones and laptops. How do we bring tactile sensations back? How can we overcome physical limitations in a digital world?
- We can use motor in the phone: When it vibrates, how strong and how long.
- Feel pressure, shapes, electricity, vibration, higher frequency = more tense, lower frequency = calm.
- In VR, we are often missing feedback. People often want to reach out and feel things.
- Mid-air touch = When testing with users, they can describe attributes as if they were really feeling that thing. With strong visual and audio sensation, you get feedback from the user itself.
- Look at what you’re trying to accomplish, What technologies do I have available to me? Find the right integration to stimulate. Haptic stimulus: perhaps it’s changing the shape of the object, changing the frequency or pressure, etc.
- VR headset for people who aren’t able to move around themselves? Integrate haptics (i.e. bone conduction)
- Emotional control: For aggravated people, if they feel something much slower, it will calm them down.
- Healthcare: Smart shoes can send data to doctors and patients. Haptic feedback can be used for remote surgeries.
- HoloLens on space shuttle…
–
Finding a Job in an Automated Future
Robbie Allen, Dennis Mortensen
- In the 20th century, we started seeing automation of repetitive jobs, and increase in demand for intellectual jobs.
- The new trend: Humans + Software > Software
- Robbie Allen says to get future-proof = become an entrepreneur. “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” -Alan Kay
- Dennis Mortensen talks about his company, x.ai, which is an AI that acts as your personal assistant. When you hire a human personal assistant, you have to pay for their salary, health benefits, etc. They provide a machine that is much cheaper and less prone to error. Also, personal assistants are typically seen in the C-level, executive, higher ups. They’ve democratized the idea of having a personal assistant. All it does is schedules meetings. They refer to it as HER, not IT.
- Apps that never speak to each other = broken. In the future, Mortensen predicts there will be intelligent marketplace where agents speak to each other.
- The future of human innovation = problem solving = managing pieces of software. Software used to be very complicated, but now it’s very accessible. Conceptual problem solving = someone is training the software to do something.
- There will be jobs like AI Interaction Designer, creating the tone of “Amy” the AI software.
How do you create an agent? - Role of creativity is safe in the future. Never stop creating.
- Robbie Allen is a dad and he has set up an “After School Fund,” encouraging his daughter to start a business or go to college, one or the other!
All that said, people will still pay premiums for tactic, physical, non-digital stuff (i.e. staying at a hotel where there are people greeting you with handshakes instead of a hotel with check-in kiosks, or take the example of weddings: people will pay for letterpress, paper invitations, etc.).
–
How Self Driving Cars Will Remake Cities
Sevel Oz, Continental Intelligence
Doug Newcomb, C3 Group
- P2P rideshare = not the future anymore. It’s here!
- We are starting to collaborate. We are creating the next generation of cities.
- 20 years ago, AOL was at SXSW. We had no idea that Internet connectivity would change our lives forever.
We will look back and say, wow, really? People were driving all the time?! Mobility is changing.
Challenges for society and automtiive industry
~90 hours in traffic
~33,000 fatalities in the US
~53,000 fatalities due to traffic air pollution
At peak traffic, we only use about 8% of the roads. Waste of resources and infrastructure!
Connectedness of vehicles and internet means more time the internet! We can trade traffic for Internet time. Imagine instead of spending 3 hours of commuting every day, that’s 3 hours of more online sales (i.e. you’re in the car, you’re thinking of buying flowers for your wife’s bday, you tell yourself you’ll do it later when you get home. You can do so WHILE you’re in the car thinking about it at that exact time- order it online, get other errands done)
Urbanization: We will have 37 megacities by 2025.
There will be software integration with hardware. Predictive technology is better than reactive tech.
Digitalization of access, comm, transport for healthy, secure, productive lives.
Automated vehicles will be possible for everyone bc people are already stitching together software.
New age of accessible automotive - we don’t know if it will be owned or shared, but we know there will be access.
MAPS software are the most important in making this work.
Uber is a data analytics company, they just happen to have a ride share service.
Visual range is only 300 meters. Is that enough? Dynamic e-horizon = vehicle looks around the corner, should make intelligent decisions. Can see it in snow, rain, etc.
We shouldn’t have to own a car. In the future, we speculate driving is a very expensive luxury.
What is mission critical? Image, pattern, recognition
Mentality of Fleet management = if I could have access to 20 cars, I would have an Uber service right now!
–
Human UI: Next Era of Interaction Design
Greg Carley, Dir of Product Strategy, Chaotic Moon
Best UI is no UI (zero UI, invisible UI)
Human expectations are shifting
Explicit becomes implicit
Human UI: combo of body language and human senses to naturally communicate with machines around us.
Body language remains = vital way in which we transmit meaning and emphasis.
Hand gestures can be recognized.
Gaming has already been doing it: gestures, intent, face time/speed.
Skeletal gestures.
Speaking with our bodies can eliminate friction points.
Soon, we will become less tolerant of delays..
Funny: Children asking Alexa to see if they can get out of time out. Lets the software regulate what duration of time they should stay in time out!
Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste (inputs)
UI screens (outputs)
Examples:
Wearable bike helmets with sensors to help you navigate
Underwear to mask smells
Nest Protect: always smelling for CO2, etc. listens to voice commands, has a built in light to alert/notify you
Pill to internally map our bodies
Dimension is detected from mouth first
Taste profiles. New combo= same protein
IBM Watson: Measuring mood of an event… Built survey experience for which table had the best food
iPad to ask Watson (voice to text, text to voice)
Digital examination (data visualization)
Network data in action = show emotions, openness, outgoing, reserved.. You can see the alcohol effects throughout the evening!!