Day 3 couldn’t have started any crazier for me. For brief moment in time, I was totally disconnected from the world. I left my cell phone in the cab that dropped me off at the convention center. As soon as I realized that this happened, I accosted another cab driver to help me track him down. He was helpful in getting me in touch with dispatch but also said that people don’t usually get their phones back. That would be devastating. My cell phone has been my primary means of communication here at SXSW. I’ve even learned how to effectively text message people. Though, admittedly, I still have not mastered the T9 word recognition as Jenna can atest. Long story short, thanks to the help of a good friend, a friendly dispatch lady named Dee and the best cab driver in the world I recovered my phone in less than an hour. Too bad that nice tip I left him isn’t a tax write off, but at least I have my phone back.

Finally, the morning panels started off on the right foot. For the first time at this year’s event, I attended a panel of designers that were effective communicators. One thing I learned by day 3 is that you cannot attend a panel based on title alone. Its much more valuable to see if there are recognizable names or companies listed as panelists. Seeing that Jefrey Zeldman and Luke Wroblewski (whom I’ve never seen but adore in written word) were on a panel called Get Unstuck: Move from 1.0 to 2.0 I thought it would be worth the gamble even if I’ve struck out on most of the previous design panels. Moderated by Liz Danzico of Bobulate.com, it turns out this was the model panel I had been looking for for 2 days. Not only were each of the panelists able to articulate their individual points, the conversation was funny and engaging. One thing that Danzico did that I wish I’d seen at other panels was to give everyone in the audience an index card to write questions on. During the last 15 minutes, they collected the cards (over 150 of them) with questions and read 15 of them with no more than a minute for the panelists to respond. This prevented crazy audience members from abusing the microphone and allowed the panel to go through a fair amount of questions. Bravo, Danzico! A couple of interesting points came out of this session.

• Everyone is the design team. In other words, everyone has an opinion on design.
• You set up a wall by referring to yourself as the “design team” (see above)
• Make your team feel loved.
• Road shows to educate company about design can be less effective than just doing great design.
• Consider creating a persona to represent the user when negotiating features and user experience needs.

Soon after, I followed my new method of picking panels by attending one called Convergence Culture: A Conversation with Henry Jenkins whom I didn’t know but Jenkins was being interviewed by Danah Boyd whom I did know and had the utmost respect for. Score, this was another great session. Jenkins dominated the hour and probably could have spoken on topic for another 2 hours. Much of his talk was about the shift of culture from spectators to participants. It covered fandom, politics, morality and more. If you ever have the chance to see Henry Jenkins speak, I highly recommend it. For that matter, Danah Boyd offers amazing insight as well.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty good with the exception of a panel called Bullet Tooth Design led by Andy Clarke and Jason Santa Maria which was a total waste of a half hour. A good presentation needs more than an interesting theme (heists) and slides with good typography. Andy Clarke, I want my half hour back. Another bad one, which was once again a design panel led by designers, was How to Create A Kickass In-house Design Team. This was a total yawn fest even though the topic had all the promise in the world. Thanks to Dan Rather and Luke Wroblewski, the afternoon was not a total wash. Rather’s interview offered an insightful look at how media has changed over the course of his looooooong career. And Luke W. always keeps it real with his talks about design patterns.

Music highlights of the evening included performances by Matt the Electrician, Bob Scheider’s Lonelyland, What Made Milwaukee Famous and VoxTrot. All good stuff.

-Tom

Reposted from design.aim.com.

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