South by Southwest 2007 in Review: Panels - Continued (Part 2)

Create a Campaign in an Hour
This potentially-serious panel actually turned out to be a lighthearted-yet-productive hour. Jason Zada from EVB and Todd Purgason from Juxt Interactive headed a panel of creative directors with the single challenge of creating a campaign (based off of any audience-suggested product) in an hour.

Little did we know that the selected product would be the 'Banana Guard' -- a phallic-looking plastic object that "protects" your "banana" from getting "bruised" -- seriously, this is as tongue-in-cheek as it gets. The influx of innuendos had no limits and the audience kept shouting out naughty valuable marketing ideas. In an hour, we got the campaign, along with a happy feeling of accomplishment. </innuendo>

I probably should rethink linking you guys to that site. Nah, go ahead, what can't kill you makes you stronger.

Pervasive Electronic Games
This was certainly an interesting panel. In the panel was Dennis Crowley (founder) of dodgeball, Kevin Slavin from Area/Code and Julian Bleecker from USC. Dennis, the super-competitive type explained some of his awesome experimentation with a GPS, Boost mobile phone, a pedometer and his Nike Plus/iPod kit. He also, amusingly, integrated 8-bit gaming features like Super Mario's mushrooms, stars and turtle shells into physical activities like skiing and walking.

One of the strongest concepts I've heard in a long time is, as one panelist (I believe it was Julian) put it, "there is ambient data all around us waiting to be picked up". That thought in itself is mind boggling when you consider the impact it has on our world today. There literally is data everywhere, around you and in you. It just needs to be realized and applied to activities we take for granted and don't even realize.

The fact that you can not only track yourself in a certain area, but link yourself up to people around you who were in that same area at a certain time for social awareness, for example, is as exciting as it is a little unsettling. There are obviously some privacy concerns, but as long as we don't get paranoid about big brother over our shoulder, we can apply it to amazing applications. I can't wait to see where this is headed!

Now that I think about it, if I had a group of friends that were as competitive as Dennis' friends, I might have kept my physique the way it was when I was a swimmer so many years ago. C'est la vie.

Blogging About Film
I had wanted to attend this for not only our prospective studio clients (I think I can say that), but for my Swiss Reviews movie review project as well. In the panel was the lovely Alison Willmore of IFC, Lance Weiler again from Workbook Project/Head Trauma, Agnes Varnum and a few other reviewers/bloggers.

One of the things I was most interested in learning was how to get access to the studios, screenings, film festivals and directors and being able to do reviews along with the rest of the media before the film came out. Mind you, in today's day and age of blogging, today is too late -- and if you see it on opening day with the rest of the bloggers, your reviews will be lost in obscurity. Alison and Agnes both gave some great suggestions, as well as Lance, who suggested that you need to actually have materials up and accessible before you even approach a studio, director or filmmaker... doing so shows you have initiative and you're just not another freeloader.

Not that freeloading is bad, mind you. As long as you don't overdue it, that is.

That does it for Part 2 of my 4-part review. I'll be posting the next part tomorrow! If you want to see Larissa's take on SXSW, she has also posted her review of the panels.