SXSW countdown: three weeks, two days
Plans are still afoot — and are growing more evolved by the day — for our big trip Southwest.
As mentioned the other week, we’re working on a little project to bring our Texan adventure to life for the people back here — our friends, clients and industry colleagues. Our primary aim is to put together something that shows off what we’re up to at SXSW, and does it in real time.
Here’s one of our initial sketches. We think it’s a fun idea, but we also think it might be a slightly formal execution.
Here’s how it works
Each member of the Made by Many crew would have a spot on the page, and those spots would look sort of like Top Trumps cards — as above.
As people do stuff — tweet, blog, take photos and so on — that stuff would show up on their card. We’ll also have a colour system to show whose card is hottest — ie has been updated most recently.
In this example, Mike is the most recent updater (fiery red) and Justin (beige) has clearly been sidetracked by something — a BBQ? The fourth card along would give a preview and link to the latest Made by Many blog post. We would also wrap in Twitter, but we’re still looking at different ways of doing that so that we hit the sweet spot between information and noise.
So what do you think?
Feedback is welcome, with the caveat that this is an initial sketch, so what we deliver in three weeks’ time will be a massively more evolved version of the above.
4 comments
I like this idea, it’s fun and very now!
Thanks Natalie. We’re trying to hit a balance between informative and playful — it’s good to know someone thinks we are on the right track!
I think it’s a very cool idea. It would take it a step further if people following could ask you questions or propose things for you to visit or questions to ask. Maybe we’ll cross paths down in Austin.
Hey Dan, thanks for the feedback.
You’re right — on first glance, this does seem to be a fairly mono-directional communication model: we report what we do, as we do it. Not really the height of co-creation… but bear with.
One of the reasons we’re using Twitter is because it does facilitate open conversations through the @ tweet and the use of hashtags. Sure, it’s easiest to use Twitter as a platform for endless monologues with the occasional shout-out, but as a platform for basic conversations, it’s not the worst thing out there. It’s also open, which we like.
While it’s not in evidence in this sketch, we’re optimistic of enabling all manner of conversational exchanges — taking suggestions, answering questions, asking for ideas — through the magic of Twitter. Obviously the criteria for entry into these conversations is a Twitter handle, but I don’t think that’s too steep a cover.
So the biggie: will it work? Heaven knows. I think so, but the only way to suss it for sure is to test it…
On another note, I’ve seen your site and I’m interested in what you do. Storytelling summit/content chat at SXSW? I’m @saradotdub.