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5 x SXSW Presentations Worth Reading

There is a lot to go through from SXSW 2014, so I've trawled SlideShare to find the most interesting presentations, featuring thoughts on Life Lessons, Brainstorming, Content, Persuasive Design and Wearable tech for people with disabilities...

Life Lessons from SXSW: Curated by Ogilvy

"After a bunch of sessions, seminars, and parties, Andrea Hackett of Social@Ogilvy picked up more than just tech and marketing advice. She also got a full dose of the principles some of the best minds around live by. Here are five life lessons taken from a selection of inspirational people who spoke in Austin over the long weekend."


Idea Vomiting: A Creative Brainstorming session

"This presentation concentrates on methods of creative ideation. Harness the creativity of your team, spur brilliant ideas from unlikely sources, use absurdity to ignite your creative genius, discover your best solutions yet."


Top 4 Content Conversations at SXSW 2014

"As brands get even deeper into content marketing, further improvements and challenges emerge. Here were some of the more interesting themes around content at this year's SXSW: Timing, Design, Commerce, and Privacy."


Changing Behaviour through persuasive design

"Whether it's Nike+ reminding you to be more active, Mint judging you for not saving enough money, or Gmail telling you which emails are important, everyday we're interacting with products and services that attempt to modify our behavior. For the most part, we consciously choose to use these products because of their ability to motivate or incentivize change. However, there are an increasing number of websites, apps, and devices that are not behavior changing technologies, but they have begun employing tactics on a micro-level to influence us, generally without our awareness or intent. Through persuasive design, businesses are crafting interfaces to meet their goals – goals that may be at odds with your personal interests as a user. 

A practical presentation for designers, product managers, marketers, and researchers who want to leverage the power of user persuasion in their products, as well as consumers who want to better understand how their attitudes and usage behaviors are being manipulated though persuasive design."


SXSW 2014 | Wearable Tech: Game Changer for People with Disabilities?

"Media and agencies are plagued with tunnel vision. They are stuck thinking about mundane use cases for wearables like Glass that are reminiscent of first phase mobile apps. 

Wake up. Wearable tech has the potential for more impact than what brands are talking about. Let’s instead explore more complex use cases and look into how wearable tech can drastically improve lives of people with disabilities or special needs. 

In this session we will explore how Glass and other wearables can unlock new possibilities for people with vision issues, hearing issues, or decreased mobility of their limbs. We’ll share real users’ stories, explore how wearable tech may address their needs, and look at what’s possible today versus looking into the future."

Are Emoticons the Future of Language?

"In the digital age, we increasingly use written language in place of face to face chat or phone calls. But the advantages email, chat, and text give us in speed come with limitations in communicating emotional tone. Enter emoticons and emojis. Not just a playful supplement to language, these new tools allow for complexity in tone and emotion never before possible in written language, as well as provide new opportunities for creative expression. Rapidly spreading throughout culture, emoticons and emojis fill a void in written language that few realized we so desperately needed."

Featuring: 
Ben Zimmer, Linguist & Lexicographer http://benzimmer.com/
Mitchell Stephens, Prof. of Journalism, NYUhttp://journalism.nyu.edu/faculty/mit...
Fred Benenson, Creator of "Emoji Dick" http://www.emojidick.com/

The New IKEA BRÅKIG Collection

I was lucky enough to discover the New IKEA BRÅKIG Collection today a day after it was launched at IKEA, so I have just bought half of it before it sells out. It's just so gorgeous and is almost like a modern Festival of Britain collection.

"BRÅKIG (meaning rebellious) is the result of close cooperation between IKEA and the creative collective ArtRebels.The BRÅKIG collection is all about well-designed, functional furniture and interior design details that make no excuses. Quite the reverse. The collection comprises about thirty products and has everything from clever storage solutions and small sized furniture to textiles, china and wallpaper, not to mention new versions of several familiar friends. Influences from Danish design and a love of Copenhagen are shown in the choice of techniques, materials and design. Natural materials such as plywood and pine are coordinated with misty pastels and sharp, graphic designs." Source

Read article on the Art Rebels website here

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

I loved this animation as a kid, it's still great now...

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics is a book written and illustrated by Norton Juster, first published by Random House in 1963. The story was inspired by Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, in which the protagonist visits a one-dimensional universe called Lineland, where women are dots and men are lines.

In 1965, famed animator Chuck Jones and the MGM Animation/Visual Arts studio adapted The Dot and the Line into a 10-minute animated short film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, narrated by Robert Morley. The Dot and the Line won the 1965 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. It was entered into the Short Film Palme d'Or competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. (Source: Wikipedia)