6 big ideas from sxsw interactive: a visual recap

6 big ideas fromSXSW Interactive 2013a VISUAL recap

This year at SXSW Interactive, ImageThinkhosted the SXnotes initiative. Over the fivedays of this festival of innovation and ideas, wecreated over a dozen visual summaries of presen-tations and panel discussions.Again and again we heard common themesechoed across presentations. In the followingslides well share the 6 Big Ideas that emerged forus, as well as the visual notes from each sessionwe covered.We hope they inspire you!

#1: Connectivity Burn-out is GrowingOne theme that came again and againwas how the giddiness of new apps, smartphones, and social media platforms has giv-en way to the realization that these toolsare transforming the way we relate to eachother. Were overindulging in connection,and the result is were becoming distractedfrom bigger ideas and our stress level is onthe rise.

2012 ImageThink, LLC. www.imagethink.net

#2: Information overload is making usstupid and angryNate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com andDouglas Rushkoff both spoke of the per-ils of too much information. Clay Johnsonwarned of the dangers in overly-processedinformation. Silver reminded us that at oth-er points in history when information be-came more plentiful due to innovation (i.e.the printing press) conflict also increased.The more information that is shared, themore people form opinions and take action.But the type of information we consumeaffect the conclusions we draw. Rushkoffcoined the term fractal-noia for the erro-neous connections we make from seem-ingly unrelated information.

#3: Geeks are our futureFrom cartoonist and keynote speaker, Mat-thew Inmans reverence for inventor NicolaTesla, to Alexis Ohanians cry for moregeeks in office. Ariel Waldman of Science-HackDay.com spoke wistfully of the hacker-age of NASA in the 1960s. Appreciationand celebration of the geek ethos of curi-osity, exploration and experimentation wasa thread woven across the festival.

#4: Disruption isnt prettyBruce Silver closed the five-day festival witha dramatic and critical talk during whichhe accused the audience of killing previ-ously-lauded types of media. You have toeat what you kill, said Sterling. Eat yourdead media. While electric vehicle andspacecraft pioneer Elon Musk urged entre-preneurs to look for disruption, disrup-tion also was the driving force behind thisso-called killing. Evernote CEO Phil Libinurged startups to make value the goal, notdisruption, stating that it should be a side-effect of success. 2012 ImageThink, LLC. www.imagethink.net

#5: play around and make stuffMakerBot founder Bre Pettis, a prime fig-ure in the Maker Movement, kicked off thefestival, stating that iteration is the Maker-Bot way. Jessica Hagy of thisisindexed.com,Tina Roth Eisenberg (@SwissMiss) and Ari-el Waldman all celebrated the creative pro-cess. The consensus was that play, intuition,and exploration feed creativity and innova-tion. Julie Uhrman of Ouya also touched onthe importance of inviting your audienceinto your creative process to iterate andinnovate. 2012 ImageThink, LLC. www.imagethink.net

#6: Make Space & TimeDouglas Rushkoffs explanation for theanxiety and franticness of our lives was theincongruous mapping of what he calls in-dustrial time onto digital time. Tina RothEisenberg, the designer behind CreativeMornings and apps like TeuxDeux, remind-ed us that wonderful things happen withan empty mind so we should make time tothink and breathe. 2012 ImageThink, LLC. www.imagethink.net

Like what we do? Visit imagethink.net/sxnotes for more about how we captured the ideas at SXSW Interactive and other ways were visualizing big ideas. Thanks for viewing!imagethink.net (347) 735-9620 [email protected]