South by South West is by far one of our favourite interactive conferences to attend. We love it so much, that the Stitch Media staff submitted 8 proposals for panels at SXSW Interactive 2011. Each proposed panel is as unique as our team; highlighting our various interests and experiences.
The community is invited to rate the programming proposals via the SXSW Panel Picker. To vote for one of our panels, click the corresponding link as listed below.
How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live
Evan Jones
Game design motivates us through incremental, measurable progress towards a tangible goal but is this the way real life works? Is the progress bar’s ubiquity in technology starting to affect the way we measure progress in meatspace? This panel will reach far across time and space to look at the story of progress bars, why they hypnotize us and what we need to do – slay the beast once and for all, or throw ourselves into its partially-complete embrace…
Wanted: A New Breed of Talent
Victoria Ha
Looking at successful digital shops around the globe, this panel will offer insight into building your dream team! With an evolving industry mixed with creative & technical talent, each shop have their own little tips and tricks to recruiting and spotting potential. The digital media world creates diverse and engaging projects which some of these shops have garnered award winning praise. But how do they do it? The success of the work comes from the success of the people behind it. It’s a new breed of talent that requires a creative tactic!
BEST OF THE WORST: Making Bad Videos Good
Stephan MacLeod
This panel will bring together experts in the field of re-purposing unintentionally funny videos and examine how the Internet has made it possible to spread these obscure gems to the masses.
We will look at how online communities and blogs like Videogum have become virtual water coolers for discussing underground videos and how Youtube is exposing found footage to the mainstream.
The panel will discuss how this new iteration of VHS devotees can make a living by taking clips from discarded VHS tapes and re-purpose them into comedic gold. In addition, we will address the legal repercussions of doing so.
The Thousand Wang Challenge: Chatroulette As A Game
Stephan MacLeod
The unpredictable nature of this Chatroulette has unlocked creative new ways for people to interact with each other online and has turned the site into a game for performance artists. The randomness of interactions on the site have opened it up as a venue for improvisational music, comedy and fun games that range from counting the number of penises in a “thousand wang challenge” to simply making users turn their heads sideways. This panel of Chatroulette performance artists will explain how to harness the crazy power of random video chats to create unique and endearing experiences. It will examine the mechanics behind the site that invites you to “play” its ambiguous game. And the panelists will demonstrate live some of the fun that can be had on Chatroulette. “Next” this panel and you lose.
Pump Up the Volume: Soundscapes That Work
Dana Herlihey
Developing and designing a successful soundscape for interactive productions can often be a usability nightmare. After years of ear-bleeding midi background tracks used on restaurant and night club websites, it seems the average user has been trained to hit the mute button as soon as a site starts to emit any audio. However, the world of film and video games has taught us that sound is an incredibly important part of creating an immersive experience. This places both interactive producers and sound designers in an interesting conundrum – how does one design a soundscape that won’t annoy or offend their users? How do we change user behaviour and expectations? And better yet, when should you just turn the sound off all together?
Message Board Justice: The Other Side of Trolls
Colin Busby
To be honest, the internet is scary as shit. Well not the internet itself of course, but the people who use it. Trolls. But for all the damage the internet can cause a poor innocent victim, it can come down on you with the wrath of a thousand angry Just Beiber fans if you wrong the world. We’ve seen the online outcry over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the campaign of Sarah Palin, Glen Beck (did you know he raped and murdered a girl in 1990?), other good examples. See the thing is, trolls are generally some of the smartest people on the planet. Some of the most genius, creative minds that go underused or under appreciated end up online, on message boards… anonymous. They are intelligent, well read, well informed, and usually political. They are the modern day version of hippies, fighting for truth, the end of corruption—or sometimes just for the lulz.
Everything Old is New Again
Michael Schaus
In it’s early stages, the social media revolution is long on context and short on content, and we’re seeing more and more people combing the development lines of legacy content and technology and dropping them into the present. Are we recycling the past for a quick campy laugh? Or are we recreating meaning in the present in the pursuit of something new and innovative. Probably both, and what’s the difference between the two?
Party Like It’s 1999
Travis Bartel
This panel is an honest conversation about the new revenue model philosophy that appears to be permeating the technology industry. This new philosophy is: come up with a good enough hook and the money will follow. Whereas the traditional revenue model is: make darn sure you know what you’re going to sell, how much, and to whom.
