Kathy Sierra has been attending conferences for 20 years, but speaking at them only for the past few. In the following passage from her blog, she describes why so many of us climb aboard cramped airplanes for hours on end to gather in a central real-life place. The most underrated benefit of the face-to-face effect of conferences is INSPIRATION. For me, the single biggest reason to attend an event like SXSW is the …
Gimmicks Don’t Sell Beer
Stuart Elliott lets us in on a new interactive campaign meant to sell "the world's most refreshing beer." Coors Light is planning an interactive initiative, scheduled to start in mid-April, that promotes 4:53 p.m. as the new 5 o’clock. At 4:53 p.m. local time on weekdays, the Coors Light brand symbol, an old-fashioned train called the Silver Bullet, will race across entertainment, news and sports Web sites that are …
Where Creative Comes From
The official SXSW site is offering several podcasts from the Interactive Conference last week. One I feel good about recommending here is Rob Weychert and Jason Santa Maria's talk on "Design Inspiration." Sketch of the panel by Varick Rosete Jason is Creative Director at Happy Cog Studios in Philadelphia. Rob is an Art Director there. …
No Keys? No Worries.
Nissan wants African-American consumers, ages 28 to 38, who live in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington to drive its new Altima. So they hired True, an agency that specializes in attracting the attention of that audience. According to The New York Times, True's campaign to promote a push-button ignition system on the 2007 Nissan Altima sedan begins this week and continues through …
The Value of Tolerance
In February, John Amaechi spoke about his homosexuality on ESPN's Outside the Lines program. He also released a book, Man in the Middle, published by ESPN Books, which discusses his career and life as a closeted professional athlete. Amaechi is the first NBA player to speak publicly about being gay. Now, according to The New York Times, he has an endorsement deal as a result. The journeyman center for such teams as …
Painting Airports Green
Dutch beer brand, Heineken, is rolling out airport bars on five continents, according to The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.). In recent years, a range of consumer goods makers have tried creating a "brand experience" in retail outlets to exert more control over how their products are presented to buyers. In 1992, Nike Inc. moved beyond its Oregon base to launch an elaborate "Niketown" flagship store in Chicago. …
The Noble Wiki
According to Wikipedia, Crowdsourcing is a neologism for a business model that depends on work being done outside the traditional company walls: while outsourcing is typically performed by lower paid professionals, crowdsourcing relies on a combination of volunteers and low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate R&D. The term was coined by Wired magazine writer …
LonelyGirl Kicking “Herself”
Tim Gideon of PC Magazine wrote an article about a SXSW panel I walked out on yesterday--"What Does the Future Hold for Video on the Internet?" Before I vacated the room, I did hear this exchange, and upon reflection believe it's worth repeating here. Kent Nichols, from Ask A Ninja, pointed out that most "user-generated" sites like MySpace own all the uploaded content and can do whatever they want with it, including …