Overview

Jane McGonigal   Creative Dir,   Avant Game

This was a very interesting lecture. Jane McGonigal specializes in both alternate reality gaming and futurism. She was a very dynamic, smart and funny speaker. Unfortunately, I had to leave before it was over in order to catch my plane home. But, here is what I heard before I left.

She believes that there has been a strong movement over the last decade to focus on our quality of life and happiness. She showed numerous measurements from magazines, TV and newspapers focusing on "happiness". Measurements around things like "The 10 Best Places to Live", "How to achieve work/life balance", even a Canadian Measurement of Happiness (those Canadians). With everything being what it is today, she believes that our measure of success is more of a measure of happiness. After much research, she found these 4 beliefs to define happiness:

01 You like what you do

02 You are good at what you do

03 You like the people around you

04 You feel like you are a part of something bigger than yourself 

For her, the ultimate happy engine can be found in gaming. But before you dismiss this, consider the numbers of people who are flocking to gaming. And she's not just talking about 13 year old boys shooting each other in Call of Duty. It's across the entire population with all ages, both sexes, and all cultures. It's a global mass exodus to virtual worlds/games. But why are all of these people immersing themselves in multi-player alternate reality games? Because it makes them happy.

Look at the list again, and you can see how they fit together. She shared this quote from a study, "For many gamers today, in terms of perceived quality of life, virtuality is beating reality." Additionally, she spoke about how the environment is so much friendlier for being creative. Gamers can try to achieve a goal and fail 99 times out of a hundred in order to learn how to accomplish the goal that 1 time. Failing/dying/crashing is not punished. It's encouraged. It is how you learn quickly. And when you suceed, you get immediate feedback/rewards. Gamers will also help each other to learn/accomplish a goal. Better instruction, feedback, and community. All things that we would desire in the real world.

Which brings us to her point. What if we tried to take the learnings from gaming environments and apply them to the real world. She showed examples of this happening. Chore Wars is a site that allows you to be rewarded and competitive by accomplishing your chores. For a parent trying to get this behavior learned by his child, this could be a great way to make it happen. She also shared an experiment in an office workplace that set up virtual payments for employees accomplishing tasks. Go to a meeting - 25 points. Read an important memo - 10 points. Publish a report - 50 points. Sounds funny, but they were able to track patterns and people in the company. They could see who seemed to be the most needed, productive, and collaborative. People also started to use the economy to their benefit, "I won't attend a meeting for less than 35 credits." While she wasn't promoting this as an office solution, she was very interested in how it changed the dynamics of the office workflow and the learning gained by the experiment. 

She also looked harder at skills that people need to succeed in life, both at work and personally. She created a list of skills like, collaboration, ability to inspire others, communication, talent sourcing, etc. If these were achievements needed to be gained or skills that one could be identified by, imagine how one could uses gaming to improve or gain these needed skills. Especially in an environment where failing is encouraged for rapid learning. The top award winner from SXSWi'08 was a game whose aim was to teach the world what life would be like without oil. It's pretty obvious why this is important in today's landscape. The rapid learning through this game not only provided a safe place to see the world fail without oil, but also allowed participants to see how they can live happily without a dependence on it. And it did change many people's lives. Pretty powerful.

Unfortunately, I had to pack it up and head to the airport. I wish I could have heard the remainder of her lecture. I found her talk to be enlightening. "The best way to change the future is to play with it first."

Chris Noessel   Senior Consultant,  Cooper

Nathan Shedroff   Program Chair of MBA in Design Strategy,  CCA

Overview

This was such a well done discussion about the connection of user interfaces relationship to current beliefs in technology.  I believe they will be publishing the presentation for all to see. If I find it, I will share it.

The presentation went through the history of SciFi films and how technologies were shown. From one of the original movies about sending explorers to the moon in a giant bullet shot out of a giant gun to X-men 2 and how a topographic map was created using  a "pin box" like those you would place your hand behind at a museum store. The discussion led to our desire to anthropomorphise our computers (make them human-like). From Microsoft Bob and Clippie to every android ever created. We tend to want to embed a sense of being more human-like in our tools for a better comfort level and usefulness. Too often, it is just done wrongly. Sometimes all you need is sound to work (R2D2, Star Trek "Computer", KITT from Knight Rider). It can also be captured in a behavior (1-click from Amazon). And as a representation (The Matrix - Oracle).

The odd thing is that the more we make something like a human, the more we don't trust it. We start to have a belief that it is human, but it isn't quite right as a human.

They then moved over into design paradigms. Having constraints ease our learning curves. Example: the weapon made up of 4 stones and the 5th element in The Fifth Element. It should be important that the interface understands the emotional state of the user. Mashing buttons in anger or despair should not create a response. In Star Wars the way people were shown with holograms indicated the group's belief in hierarchy. Jedi's were all shown at equal sizes. The Empire had the Emperor shown much larger that Darth Vader, and so on down the line. They then talked about the gestural interface of Minority Report and all of the challenges that would have. It is make evident when Tom Cruise turns to shake hands with a visitor and he accidentally clears his screen. Using gestures for this kind of work could also get hugely tiring.

They concluded with the belief that watching science fiction is good for your career.

Here is where the presentation can be found: http://nathan.com/thoughts/ 

MakeItSo.pdf (15.92 mb)

Well, I'm learning the hard way that blogging takes commitment. I've been at the conference attending lectures, meeting new people, old friends and speaking on a panel. When am I supposed to sit down and write? I'm taking some time this morning on the last day to play catch up. I've seen, heard and experienced some really great discussions. I'll try to blast them out before Michael Eisner goes on this morning.

Thanks to everyone for being patient.

This panel brings together thought leaders in advertising and design to debate on the question of whether analytics kills or cultivates great design.

Gaston Legorburu   CCO/CMO,   Sapient

Clement Mok   Instigator,   clementmok.com

Jeffrey Veen   Design Mgr,   Google

Gary Koepke   Co-Founder & Exec Creative Dir,   Modernista

This panel was wonderfully entertaining. Led by Clement Mok, the panel discussed what role analytics should play in design. Jeffrey Veen was on one end of the spectrum with a sizable background in creating and visualizing analytics.  While Gary Koepke was on the other being from a more branding focused advertising background. Here are some of the highlights:

Data can inform you of what is working or not working, but it can't tell you what to do.

Data is great at helping you optimize, refine, incrimentally improve and even  provide inspiration for a new approach. But it tis not the idea in itself.

Be careful of believing in it so much that it won't allow for change. (Amazon)

Bad clients will use it as a crutch instead of using common sense.

The future of measurement will likely show innovation in reading social networks. Not just numbers of visitors, but consideration and affiniity.

Additionally, these animated panelist had some really wonder quotes:

On speaking about Cadillac's new posiitoning, "Between a BMW, a Lexus, and a Cadillac, which one has a gun in the glovebox?" -Koepke 

On traditional advertising, "...we'll cram these messages down their throats, and they'll shit money." -Veen

On the belief in measurement analytics, "It's a measured respect." -Koepke

Fun. Lively. Good way to end the day. Yesterday. 

Everyone is a Design Critic. Overview

Jason Santa Maria   Creative Director,  Happy Cog

Rob Weychert   Designer,   robweychert.com

Arrived a little late to this one, but these guys basicaly provided some perspective on managing criticism while working with the client. Lot's a basics. Lot's of healthy learning for this audience. 

Here are a few pointers:

. Stay positive and confident. The client loses faith in you if you appear defeated.

. Be considerate to everything you hear, but follow up with your honest recommendation.

. Avoid the Frankenstien Monster. Try to not let the client cobble bits and pieces of designs together. Explain how designs work holistically. 

. Do you research. Know your subject and your solution.

This part was more of a comedy act... 

Top 5 Client Questions? 

05 My Unqualified Friend has different ideas

04 Purple is my favorite color. Why don't we use that?

03 We need more stuff above the fold.

02 There is so much empty space. Can't you fill that?

01 Can't you make the logo bigger?

All of the responses are professional ways to say, "No."  

After meeting with the client, you should: 

Evaluate. Spend time considering your response to feedback.

Document. Capture the meeting discussion and share it with the client. No confusion.

Follow Up. Talk to the client about the feedback and tell them what you are doing about it.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat 

Most all of this seems like a given for us, but it's good to know how we all struggle with difficult criticism of our work. I need a coffee now.

First session this morning. 10 am. 

Design is in the Detail. Overview

Naz Hamid. Weightshift. Chicago.

www.nzrn.com

www.weightshift.com/

www.gapersblock.com/ 

Naz so far is an entertaining individual with a small, private practice in Chicago, but I'm waiting to see where he is going with this talk. He seems to have a more intuitive approach to design focusing on satisfying the client more than being concerned about the audience. Most of what he is talking about is his approach to design rather than how to make the little details matter. But he is a good designer whose work is tight. After showing a number of things that he sees as examples of good design with details (cycling jacket, salt/pepper shaker, designer food, etc.), he is going to share how he approaches creating this kind of design with websites.

Here are the rules he follows:

01 Experiment

02 Choices

03 Stay Consistent

04 Completeness

05 Step In. Step Out. Step Back: Balance.

06 Be Your Own Critic

07 Complexity in Simplicity: Less is More.

08 Obsession is Healthy

And lastly, 

Thoughts, Breakthroughs & Revelations

Don't start immediately. Let it brew a bit. Take some time to think before you design.

Of course, many of his assignments allow him to take a delayed aproach. He knows that this isn't always the case for the work we do. 

It's good to hear how others work.  His success speaks for itself.

Well, it's SXSW time in Austin again. The city is buzzing with activity and excitment over all of the people who are here and what new ideas may be learned. And then there is all of the music and film festival goers easily identified with their camera equipment and guitar cases. The interactive ones are wearing backpacks with their laptops in them. It's an exciting start of the day with beautiful weather, eventhough it's colder than usual here for March.

Last night was the opening party at a club called Six. It hit capacity within 15 minutes and the line snaked around the corner and down the block. I opted for a different plan after I recognized that wasn't going to happen. Oddly, I ran into Phil Torrone on the corner. Phil is a friend of mine, a former colleague at Fallon, and the Senior Editor of MAKE Magazine. He was also a keynote speaker at last year's event where he spoke about making amazing things with software and hardware from a hacker, or craftsman, point-of-view. People used to fix their household products when they broke, and you could with a wrench and a soldering iron. His magazine promotes a more hands-on approach to computing today. He also demonstrated a device that blocks out all wireless and mobile connections, basically shutting down the room full of computers and phones for 15 minutes. Could this be fun at a Starbucks? Yes. Is it illegal? Yes. But it was quite the show stopper.

This year will hopefully be equally exciting. I am participating in a panel discussion about the future of web agencies that Microsoft is sponsoring. I'm looking forward to a good discussion. Garrick Schmitt from Razorfish is on the panel, and he was also on the panel with Paul Dain at MIX. 

I hope to be a disciplined blogger updating the site with each panel discussion I attend. Thomas Tafuto, ECD from Dallas, will also be joining me in sharing our learnings. We will try to make it worth the read. Off to breakfast.