J2D3

SXSW > day 2

This is really the morning of day four but I want to stop a second and think back to Saturday.  I got a fairly early start and headed to the “AJAX and Flash Mistakes: Lessons Learned Building SlideShare” presentation and took these notes:

• google gears - check it out
• don’t use unaltered google analytics to track AJAX stuff.  It’s really more for the Web 1.0 world… tracking pageviews very nicely but there are issues when your page doesn’t change because you’re making requests to web services that are altering your DOM with javascript and the like.  The beta version is integrating “events” which will help to address this issue.  Anyway - analytics are incredibly important, so whatever you use make sure it’s measuring the right things accurately, not just counting pageviews.
• Consider frequency of use, size of the data returned, and time to load when deciding whether or not to prefetch data.
• Only content objects should go in s3, not .swf files or other parts of the site framework.
• Be sure to provide both old school standard forms at fixed urls as well as AJAX modules.  This makes it easy to communicate a simple URL to users to explain where to go to do a particular thing, rather than trying to describe where on the page to navigate to and what series of links to click to perform some specific fuction within your app.

Next, I went to the meeting, Core Conversation: Flat World? Secret Strategies, Tips and Tools, where I took in these points about effectively managing a globally distributed team.  These notes are not well organized or thorough, but here’s what I got:

• Learn from collectivist cultures:
  • High frequency, low duration communications are preferred over the traditional Western-style infrequent, long-lasting meetings.
  • Whole person relationships matter… for instance, a work related task is not really complete unless the relationship is maintained.
• Frequent communications are “low duration,” in that a manager may simply ask for an update, “are there any exceptions to the plan?”
• Similar to the way that computers communicate, frequent, simple handshaking in order to verify availability and the successful transfer of small sized data packets is preferred to long lasting infrequent meetings, where language barriers can creep up and create inefficiencies as well as animosity and generalized communication breakdown.
•  Be conscious of language, culture, and hierarchy in communications.  Remember the value of maintaing whole-person relationships with members rather than isolating the “work” and ignoring other aspects.
• Careful with phrasing… Avoid passive voice, and try not to say things that may come off as accusatory or personally critical.  Don’t say “why did u do a instead of b” because it seems to imply a criticism of the person more than of the work.
• The communication plan is as important as budget and timeline.
• Develop a shared common vocabulary for discussing the project at hand.
• In email communications, make sure to always provide 1. context, 2. status, and 3. next steps

Next, I enjoyed the keynote address of Stephen Johnson and Henry Jenkins who discussed the tranformative effects of the rapid and ongoing adoption of Internet technology by youth culture, among other things.  There was mention of Jenkin’s role in Harry Potter.

By this time I needed food and went to 6th Street.  I was getting tired of the Internet stuff and wanted to relax and watch a film, so I saw The Lost Coast.  I enjoyed it, the music was beautiful, and it was all shot in San Francisco and Northern California, but the story was really cliche: two guys who fooled around with each other in high school are reunited on Halloween in SF.  One is “straight” and about to get married, the other is gay now and still hasn’t gotten past his hope that something might still happen between him and his old friend.  The two guys, along with the gay guy’s roommate (and high school girlfriend), and another gay friend (possibly ex-boyfriend) spend a long random night that bleeds into the morning and everyone learns to let go of the past and grow up a bit.  Frankly it got boring around 1/2 way through.

I tried to catch the documentary, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008), but I was too late.  Luckily it will play again later this week.  The director, Alex Gibney, also made the documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, which also I still need to see.  Since I was at the theater where Bi the Way was going to play I waited around and saw that.  I thought it was sophomoric and totally unfocused.  It was supposed to be an exploration of the changing perceptions about gay identity in youth culture now, (how the kids don’t want to be boxed in to labels, etc.)  It was a road trip documentary, and as such looked like a great deal of fun to make.  It featured (for some reason) Jonathan Couette’s son, Josh, who frankly stole the show.  I want to watch a whole movie about that kid.  I think he’s a genius and will be tremendously successful with whatever he decides to do with his life.  I went to the party for the film afterwards which was held at Austin’s “Enchanted Forest,” a kind of burning man in the woods right in the middle of the city.  Met a few drunk girls and saw some interesting art, but suddenly it was 4am and I so I headed on back to the hotel.

Like I said, it’s really day 4.  I’m in this presentation about International Mobile issues, and no one has touched on the idea of targeted advertising via SMS… *UNTIL JUST RIGHT NOW.*  I was considering asking a question / making a comment to bring this issue up and now one of the panelists just went over a system implemented in Africa called “Call Me,” where a user sends a free SMS to another that says “call me,” and that message includes an ad.  Another panelist just mentioned “Blink,” in the Netherlands, a free ad supported carrier aimed at 18-24 year olds.  I’ll have to check these out.  Now there is some discussion of airtime as currency… <eg>…