No, we didn’t get to go to SXSWi, but WK planner Graeme Douglas did, and here’s some stuff he chatted to me about:
Dorkbot – He says they’re a collection of wonderful stories of pointless but fascinating experiments and toys that use electricity (in the broadest sense of the word). “People doing strange things with electricity”.
They say: “Dorkbot is a monthly meeting of artists (sound / image / movement / whatever), designers, engineers, students and other interested parties from the new york area who are involved in the creation of electronic art (in the broadest sense of the term.)”
For example, a best man locking a wedding present inside a lovely old wooden box which will only unlock if the to-be-married couple can work out which GPS location has some meaning for them… “You are 50.3 miles away from your destination” the lock tells you. “You have 49 more tries” is the ominous follow up message. The lock will be closed permenantly if they dont work it out in time! I like the GPS element that recognizes when something is at the correct location before it activates itself. Check out dorkbot.
Predictably Irrational is a book of learnings about behavioural economics, by Dan Ariely. Fascinating stuff I’m going to learn about shortly.
Worth considering how restaurant menus are manipulating our decisions. Even as an ad-man myself, I’m surprised at how much thought goes into these. Makes sense, of course – it’s advertising at its most brutal – buy the most profitable dish whilst ultimately delivering satisfaction to the extent of multiple repeat purchases and Word of Mouth. Great articles at the New York Times and at Wired that are worth reading.
Discussing the “foolishness” of digital collectivism (Wikipedia, crowdsourcing etc) and how super-aggregation leads to nothingness at best, but is potentially dangerous too.
“The larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods.”
Further anti-crowdsourcing thoughts can be found by reading You Are Not A Gadget – the full manfesto inspired by the above.
Worth reading to get a contrasting point of view on The Wisdom of Crowds or Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody – both books to be read (or watch below) for sure.
For more Mindshare thoughts on SXSWi, check out our man Alastair Cotteril’s Top Ten talks from his visit.
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