South By Texas State

John Slabyk, Obama for America’s Art Director and Scott Thomas, the campaign’s New Media Design Director were the panelists for Designing Change in America. Both men were introduced to the campaign in a quick meeting. The campaign said they wanted to take advantage of both print and web platforms. They said they knew they would be working on tighter, faster deadlines than ever before — and have a smaller budget. Slabyk and Thomas said they had to get things out fast. Sometimes they wouldn’t see the final design until it debuted on CNN. It was interesting to hear about the process. They couldn’t do brand standards or test anything out. One of them said it was “like building an airplane while in flight”.

Slabyk and Thomas said they had to deal with a lot of people outside the new media department. They had to convince a lot of people that design was important. They said they used imagery from the past to convey the historical atmosphere of the Obama campaign. They used content to get an emotional response from constituents.

Both men discussed the importance of the campaign. They understood the magnitude of the event — they said designers usually design things that are temporary but this time, they would be designing history. Slabyk and Thomas said they were aware of the fact that their designs would be plastered across American classrooms.

Some of the design issues they ran into were establishing consistency and balance. They wanted to use the same colors throughout the campaign. They used a constant shad of blue and changed the original typeface. The first Obama for America posters didn’t have a balanced type face. They used gotham, requiem and liberation typefaces for the final design. This gave it a more consistent look. Slabyk and Thomas started with Requiem and thickened it out. They used the “m” in Obama as the fulcrum of the design.

Overall, the panel was great. It was interesting to see how the Obama for America logo morphed over time.

Marin and I attended the Using GPS & Location to Enhance Social Networking panel at SXSW. The panelists included Tom Marchioro — Location-based specialist with Garmin, Daniel Gilmartin — Marketing VP with ULocate Communications, Thor Johnson — SVP Media Markets at GyPSii, Brightkite’s founder Martin May, Bryan Jones — CEO at Mobile Blasts and John Adams with Twitter operations.

Adams said microblogging is making an impact around the world with companies communicating in real time. He said location and keyword searches are important. He also said it’s important that different services work with multiple devices. Adams said Twitter doesn’t reveal location data if users choose to keep it private. He hopes that Twitter can offer more location-based services in the future.

Gilmartin works to implement GPS in mobile devices. He believes location is the ultimate contextual experience. He says you take your devices with you wherever you go. Johnson said location is part of the social graph. He said there is a proxy for time, mood, etc. Jones is looking into real world hyperlocal information. You would be able to find out where your friends are, what venues are located near you, etc. He said this would be more helpful than using IM or Email.

May said Brightkites mission is to bring people together around places. They do this by making location an integral part of what you set your status to. May said hashtags would be used to find information by topic or location. Ad hoc social graphs can be created all over the place.

An interesting stat that came out of the panel is that last year 1.9 trillion texts were sent worldwide.

They talked about how interoperability is an admirable goal. Each company would like to work with other networks. The challenge, they said, is that the social graphs are different. They said that people on Twitter follow different people than those on Facebook or Brightkite. They also said that privacy would have to be guaranteed across the board. The panel also said that a “precedence model” would have be set forward – and they don’t know if one is emerging.

The panelists said that GPS could enhance social networking. There are many things that can be done with location. We can connect to those physically around us. It also changes how data is used.

As the fourth day of SXSWi drew to a closing, an inspiring group of panelists boosted a crowded room of listeners to discuss “How To Become A Part of the New Social Captial.”  We were joined by Navarrow Wright (President and CEO, Globalgrind.com), Wayne Sutton (CEO, Wayne-sutton.com), James Andrews (VP, Ketchum Interactive), Theda Sandiford (CEO, Theda Dotcom LLC), and Angela Benton (Publisher and Founder, Black Web 2.0). The panel started of by defining the term digital urbanite: people who use technology to level what the panel called “hustle”. Sutton gave the example of using BrightKite which allows people to connect with people in their area and follow their location.  What does social capital mean?  Having good content, a solid brand, consistency, and a dedicated community are components that create social capital.

Sandiford jokingly labeled herself as a “wino” and started a wine tasting group awhile back. She spread the word concerning wine events through blog posts, Twitter, radio, and other networks which resulted in a membership of nearly 1200 people.  She tickled the audience by saying “Now I can drink for free, my dream came true!”

Andrews discussed his association with Jane Fonda and her appreciation for social media. He told her to add commentary through Twitter and blog posts during the Academy Awards, and people loved it. There are ways to help shape personalities through branding and creating social media capital. Sutton live streamed one of the SXSWi keynote speakers, posted within five minutes, and conducted Twitter conversations during the discussion.  As a result there were 4,000 visitors, which led to new relationships and created opportunities to build social capital. He “hustled” and didn’t waste time.

“The key is to build with social capital, not real capital,” said Wright. He said if you take an idea and use the tools that are accessible, the opportunity to create something real is at your fingertips. If a person is transparent and passionate on the Web, money will come to you. Well-known people and celebrities succeed in social media by actually engaging with their fans. Gary Vaynerchuk was used as an example, who started as a wine maker from Jersey who had a lot to say and distributed his content correctly.

The panel also touched on the concept of community. There is a need to bring offline and online communities together, and it is importang  meeting people you are connecting with locally and globally, and attending events like “Tweet-ups.” Sandiford highlighted her personal interest in Tweet Deck and how it allows her to make contacts immediately and as a result cuts down on in-box overflow.

“There is a lot of noise involved with social networking, but in between the distractions exists good conversation,” said Andrews. “There is real interaction happening.”

Here is a brief clip of their panel discussion.