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SXSW11

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Why questions are more important than answers. I recently heard Google’s Charles Warren tell a story about Irish Spring, a deodorant soap launched by Colgate Palmolive in 1972. With its double green stripe and two deodorants, it took the market by storm, instantly becoming a billion dollar brand and stunning Proctor and Gamble, which was used to dominating the category. What did P & G do? They immediately went to work creating their own green striped soap. Then Min Basadur showed up. The soft-spoken Canadian, creator of the Simplex process and author of The Power of Innovation, asked P & G why they were working on creating another soap with two green stripes inside.

Unsatisfied with an answer that was simply about beating Irish Spring at the green game, Basadur got P & G to think about asking better questions and taught them a process of innovating that starts with “How might we?” That led to a series of How Might We questions. Today, HMW remains a powerful way to start the problem solving process. Idea overload from SxSWi. Clockwise from top left: digital code for music; NY Times Editor Jennifer Preston; with the exceptional Cindy Gallop; Austin at night I’m back today from five days at SxSWi. Unlike the crowd that hangs in the blogger lounge, anxious to peck out a news story about whatever new product or feature or booked gets launched in Austin, I’m usually way to busy to do much more than check-in, post a few updates or share some Instagrams.

Hence the hiatus here. So over the next week I’ll try to share some thoughts and reactions from a week of information overload. SxSW continues to amaze. I have a number of things I want to share and write about, but for starters, here are some random thoughts and sound bites. Journalism’s newest source is Twitter In fact, during a session with Jennifer Preston of the New York Times and Andy Carvin of NPR, reports started to circulate via Twitter that Al Jazeera camera man Ali Hassan Al-Jaber had been killed. Scale is not the most important objective. Conversation, discovery and reputation: tools for navigating the age of abundance « Planning in High Heels.

Contemplating the extraordinary wealth of ideas and inspiration coming out of this year’s South by South West Interactive, it struck me that while they initially seemed disparate (visualizing music libraries, social media and revolution, the path to better crowdsourcing), many of the panels and ideas that excited me most had certain key themes in common. Fundamentally, they all addressed the emerging challenge of our time-how to successfully navigate the age of abundance-an age where there is more information, more content and more connectivity that we could possibly have imagined even a decade ago.

The power of conversation Unsurprisingly, Clay Shirky was first up to tackle this theme, with a characteristically barnstorming take on social media and revolution. His start point was that abundance is a profoundly powerful and disruptive political force-the power of abundance to disrupt is a recurring Shirky preoccupation. Correlating internet access and democracy by Jacob Groshek Like this: Open Story: South by Southwest. Editor’s note:This story is a collaborative effort of CNN and hundreds of iReporters who are taking part in the events of SXSW in Austin, Texas, this week. We’re calling it an Open Story.

It’s our very first one. Let us know what you think in the comments. (And if you have something to add, please send it via iReport!) CNN – The annual SXSW interactive, film and music festival is officially under way in Austin, Texas. It’s the kind of event that attracts early adopters of all stripes together to collectively sort out the future. You might think of it as a massive crystal ball. First up is the interactive festival, which attracts thousands of tech superstars and enthusiasts on the lookout for the next big thing. What you’ll find here on this page is a collection of short updates, photos and videos sent to iReport from people on the ground in Austin. Use the interactive gallery above to follow along in real time. Open Story: South by Southwest. Editor’s note:This story is a collaborative effort of CNN and hundreds of iReporters who are taking part in the events of SXSW in Austin, Texas, this week.

We’re calling it an Open Story. It’s our very first one. Let us know what you think in the comments. (And if you have something to add, please send it via iReport!) CNN – The annual SXSW interactive, film and music festival is officially under way in Austin, Texas. It’s the kind of event that attracts early adopters of all stripes together to collectively sort out the future.

You might think of it as a massive crystal ball. First up is the interactive festival, which attracts thousands of tech superstars and enthusiasts on the lookout for the next big thing. What you’ll find here on this page is a collection of short updates, photos and videos sent to iReport from people on the ground in Austin. Use the interactive gallery above to follow along in real time. SXSW: A Recap » Brad King. 5 Questions x 8 Interesting People x SXSW 2011. By Maria Popova This year, we went to SXSW and decided to ask 8 of the most interesting people we know — including The New York Times’ David Carr, Behance founder Scott Belsky, and Fast Company’s Alissa Walker — 5 questions about technology, innovation and the information economy. We photographed them with their answers and used projeqt, the wonderful storytelling platform we introduced a few months ago, to share their answers. The questions: Go ahead and explore this visual micro-portrait of today’s tech landscape.

We’ve got a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. Share on Tumblr. Marcus Romer's Blog - Made in Argentina originally - but now made in York - stories, thoughts and pictures - about making shows in Buenos Aires and other places too. SXSWi 2011: making tomorrow better than today | Dentsu London. Google's Marissa Mayer Presents. The 13 Things to Take Away from SxSW (Besides a Crippling Hangover) Boulder Digital Works joined the hordes of nerds and hipsters at this year’s SxSW Interactive, and they left with some good memories. On their return to Boulder, they revisited their experiences in Austin and summarized them for all of you unable to attend this year. Here are some quick takeaways from the Interactive section of the conference. The findings have been distilled down to five categories that BDW deemed most relevant to the industry: Social/Mobile, Gamification, New Brand Practices, the Agile Model, and Applied Transmedia.

Retro is the new black Breakfast was my favorite. . – David Slayden, @dlslayden The “Future” of Mobile Marketing: Are We There Yet? PSFK’s Future of Mobile Tagging event – which featured our own Zombies Vs Hippies project – showed some case studies for 2d barcodes in mobile campaigns that were much more compelling than the typical “download an app and scan here and visit our mobile website. . ” – Josh Kadis, @kadisco Get off your Ass and Do Something! Story is King. Ogilvy Notes. William Hertling's Blog: Summary of SXSW Interactive 2011. Here's a summary of key insights from SXSW Interactive 2011. 15 Slides, 3 Writers At 15 Slides, 3 Writers, we learned about three different writers' techniques on the same fifteen twelve topics.

A few key insights: All of the writers favored very simple text editors, such as BBEdit. They didn't want the distractions of a more complex editor.There was a common theme around writing first thing in the morning.If they get stuck, they change context, either by: going away and coming back to it later, going back and working on grammer and structure issues in the earlier part of the writing, or changing colors on the screen to create a new visual context.They proof in a different context: either they print it out, or they publish to the web and read it there, where it just looks different as compared to their editor.

Be Heard: How to Drive Innovation at Big Companies. Hey! Christopher Poole Keynote Address Chris Poole, founder of 4chan, gave a keynote address. Key insights: Gamestorming Gene Kim. SXSWi | Technology. Best startups of SXSW 2011 - a very subjective summary - michuk says. I’ve just arrived home from South by Southwest Interactive. Warsaw seems even more gray and cold after spending 4 days in Austin, Texas… Instead of a regular coverage (“I was there I did that”), I’m going to write about the cool people I met in Austin and their awesome ideas that might soon turn into world’s most desired startup companies. So here come… The Startups in random order! Let’s start with a little company from Helsinki, Finland, set up by Rami Korhonen (@playmysongapp) and his friend Timo Kari.

Those guys came up with a brilliant and crazy idea: they want all the bars in the world to allow their customers to choose the music they play using a virtual iPod-powered jukebox controlled by a mobile client application. I met Sebastian Trepca (@trepca) on a TechCrunch party sponsored by Peel. Another startup that is certainly going to rock is Min.us. Michiel Verberg knows how to make people curious about his startup. Summary SXSW was a great 4-days long party.