Category: Somewhat Interesting Things

  • Dadtalk

    I am very honored to have participated in the latest Dads.Co podcast with Aussie and super-nice-guy Murray Galbraith. I could have rambled on with Murray for hours, but fortunately he kept me in check at about 45 minutes. You can subscribe and listen via iTunes.

    Some of the topics we discussed: SXSW, The Tour De France, Apostrophe Industries (my new consulting company), Rock That Font, The American Analog Set, littleBits, Sparkfun, Adafruit, Austin’s Pixelwood Derby, Knight Rider, The Internet of Things, Google buying Nest Labs and the future of your connected home.

  • A Chapter Ends, Another Begins

    Today is my last day in the SXSW office.

    After 14 years, I’ve decided to open a new chapter in my life and embark on an unknown adventure.

    I first heard mention of SXSW as an aspiring musician in my early 20s. During my only experience busking on 6th street on a particularly warm Saturday, I was courted by an LA-based producer who explained there was a music industry conference and festival going on. He repeated the name of the event three times before it stuck: South by Southwest.

    He had never heard of my then-favorite-band Guided by Voices, a fact I used as a good excuse to not send him any kind of demo. I knew in my heart it wasn’t the right opportunity, but I now know that I let the fear of failure get the best of me. This was around the time that Andrew Kenny brought me into the American Analog Set family, and I am indebted to him for those years that I toured with the band. I saw the country. I shook hands with many of my musical influences and heroes. I went about my youthful ways.

    A couple of years later, while finishing up in the Communications / New Media program at UT Austin, a teaching assistant recommended that I volunteer for the Interactive component of SXSW. His name is Dr. Wei Yeh (who joined the SXSW staff full-time in 2010). He and others in the department exposed me to the fast-evolving digital world — inspiring me to put down my guitar and pick up code. My new rock’n’roll.

    I volunteered for SXSW Interactive in March 2000, where I first met my future director, mentor and friend Hugh Forrest. Thanks to a strong recommendation from Wei, in November of that year I was hired to coordinate what was then known as the SXSW Web Awards. Back then the event attracted hundreds of registrants instead of the thousands it draws today. The Interactive team at the time was just Hugh, Jason McVearry and me (pictured above on a trip to the Webbys in 2001).

    Those days were quite a struggle for SXSW Interactive. Few understood the value of a generalist tech event that focused on creativity, whose identity was at the intersection of industries and somewhat lost in the bursting of the dot-com bubble. And no one at the company was all that concerned with what we were doing either. We operated like a skunkworks of sorts, throwing ideas and strategies against the wall to see what stuck. Experimentation and iteration. Rinse and repeat. That 2001-2005 period helped us develop the processes and brains to grow the event into what it is today.

    So many wonderful memories. Too many treasured experiences to share here.

    I’m proud of what I’ve helped build at SXSW Interactive, and the role it plays as a community platform. The Internet IRL. But more than anything, I’m proud of the team at SXSW. I’m eternally grateful to my soon-to-be former cohorts for all that we have experienced and learned together. It’s been one hell of a ride, and they already know that we will remain family. I’m also forever thankful to founder Roland Swenson and Hugh for their caring guidance over the years. They’ve seen me through the ups and downs.

    What am I up to next? Honestly, I’m not really sure.

    My son starts kindergarden this fall, so I plan to spend as much time with him as possible until the first day of school. I plan to go on more bike rides, clear my thoughts, remove a decade of stress from my body, and figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

    Otherwise, I’m keeping my eyes and ears open to new opportunities, possibilities, futures — as well as doing some consulting in the short-term.

    Now is the time for new efforts and fresh challenges. To cast away any fear of failure that once sabotaged the musician in me. To accept the range of wild emotions that I am feeling in this moment.

    The future is wide open. And right now, that’s the best feeling of all.

  • Smart People & Smart Cities

    I’m honored to head to Milan next week to speak at Wired’s Smart People & Smart Cities event. It’s shaping up to be fantastic with an intriguing lineup of speakers, a hackathon involving Audi / Enel / D-Share, a dance at the Museum of Science and Technology, workshops for families and much more. The hashtag to participate on Twitter or follow the action from home is #smartwired14.

    The current title of my talk is: “SXSW & Austin: The Internet IRL.” I’m excited to share some little-known facts about the evolution of SXSW and event design, some of Austin’s iconic street art, and what I see as playing the most important role in the future of cities.

  • Intersections

    My personal resolution for 2014 is to be less concerned with following trends, and instead focus on working towards sustainable changes in my life. I’m betting the year 2014 will include some big transformations and challenges (not to mention turning “the big four zero” later this year).

    With the above resolution in mind, I was honored to once again present at Eurosonic Noorderslag in January and participate in the BUMA Music Meets Tech jury.

    While developing my keynote, I decided to incorporate my resolution into my talk at Eurosonic. Instead of just sharing emerging trends, I looked at industry changes through a framework of intersections between different sectors and what ultimately would have significant impact in 2014. As history indicates, once consumers get creative with a developing technology, it starts to really take off in surprising ways.

    My slides (4.5MB PDF) showcased a number of topics of interest including 3D printing, micro-controllers, DIY Internet of Things, wearables, augmented reality, personalized medicine, citizen science and more.

  • Hackers, Makers, Creators Unite

    Of the many official micro-events within SXSW Interactive, I’m personally very intrigued with SXSW Create presented by Autodesk — as it goes directly to the heart of what makes SXSW so special.
    (more…)

  • Building Playgrounds

    It seems everyone is talking about hackathons these days — and for good reason. Providing a more open infrastructure for a community to create new relationships and develop ideas is valuable. It’s very efficient from an event producer’s perspective. If the conditions are just right, some really amazing products and experiences can come from such events.

    Heck, it even sounds like fun.

    But while hackathons sound very easy to pull off — creating just the right environment to foster a productive experience can be difficult.
    (more…)

  • heading to the netherlands

    Just a quick announcement regarding an upcoming speaking engagement…

    Eurosonic Noorderslag I’m honored to be heading to The Netherlands for the first time in January to kick off the Interactive programming at Eurosonic Noorderslag.

    Eurosonic Noorderslag is proud to present the first keynote speaker for the Interactive part of the conference: Shawn Michael O’Keefe, South by Southwest, Inc, Interactive Festival Producer. In the second weekend of January, O’Keefe will give his opinion on the emergence and future of music tech businesses in the music sector.

    Very much looking forward to it.

  • a video is worth ten thousand words

    Just thought I would share this video overview of SXSW, as it does a wonderful job of explaining a very complex event.

    (Disclaimer: I work on this wild beast of an event.)

  • across the pond

    Just a quick note that I’m in Europe this week speaking at a few conferences…

    The first will be a 20-minute presentation and Q&A on next-generation crowd-sourcing tomorrow at Futur en Seine. (My first experience building a presentation with Prezi, which we used for the SXSW Interactive Awards in March — and so far I only have very nice things to say about it.)

    Presentation in Prezi

    Building Collaboration Frameworks for Success
    From design competitions to raising capital to event programming, the innovative and controversial concept of crowd-sourcing is impacting all sectors of digital industry. Learn how to avoid exploitsourcing and appropriately build a collaboration framework for your community that leads to success for all parties involved.

    Next up will be a trip to Germany for c/o Pop and the C’n’B convention. There will be a SXSW-focused panel and reception on Thursday evening, then I’m honored to be joining a group of conference organizers on Friday for a panel session called “International Networks III: Conferences – Networked Out?”

    So if you find yourself in Paris or Cologne, stop on by and say hello (or “Bonjour” or “Guten Tag” as the case may be.)

    Now to put the finishing touches on that presentation.

  • somewhat recently

    This is the time of year when, for better or worse, almost all my time and energy is focused on planning SXSW — which I dare remind myself is only three weeks away. In an effort to better archive my activities, I wanted to take a moment and share some recent media before my brain turns to complete mush…

    » My “Who Gives A *!%# About Typography?” rant at Ignite Austin about Rock That Font.

    » An archive of my January 24th appearance on The Brian Lehrer Show in NYC.

    » A brief article I put together for TalentZoo titled, “Look Into the Future With Collaborative Frameworks” — inspired by my panel session at the MTO Summit in D.C. with Toby Daniels and Michelle Bruno.

    » An archive of my live chat with cohort Kelly Krause and Omar Gallaga from The Austin American-Statesman about SXSW Interactive.

    » And finally, I have a new post up on Rock That Font about The Hold Steady’s latest effort, Heaven is Whenever. Thanks to nicest-guy-in-Austin Christian Helms for sharing a bit about his creative process.

    More soon. I promise.