Newbie tips for SXSW

Ben Silbermann (left) from Pinterest interviewed by Christopher Dixon at SWSWi.

Do: Mentor Sessions
The most secret thing about SXSW is the mentor sessions. It's really too bad since this is a great opportunity to connect with people 'who made it'! The mentor site was quite difficult to find since there was no link on the website, so I had to figure the url out myself. It was a goldmine for a newbie like me and I'm happy that I got to meet people like Lori Schwartz from McCAnn Worldgroup. Such an inspiring person!

Do: The unexpected
I like to plan things, so what I did was to add events that caught my interest to my calendar before the conference. But at the same time I was expecting for all by plans to go up in smoke - and so they did: I got inspired to go to another talk, I met someone interesting and wanted to talk to them instead and I ended up drinking an ice cold beer in the sun with my colleagues meeting a lot of great people.

Cooking Channel Beer Garden with Cynthia and Mads

Do: Learn

Since you're already an expert in your field, don't go to talks within your field. What I experienced, was that I did not learn anything new. Instead you should try and aim for talk about something you want to learn more about.

Do: Meet and greet

For me SXSW is all about networking. I'm from Denmark and don't get to meet up with fellow Community Managers / Social Media Evangelist so often, and SXSW is a great opportunity to meet up with people. Either check out SXSocial before you go or find people on Twitter. Some people you can set up meetings with beforehand and other people you meet at the conference. Make sure to bring a lot of business cards and maybe some freebees.

Do: RSVP
In connection to the interactive conference, there's a lot of parties. To get in to the parties, you have to RSVP to the events. Follow the SXSW Party list on Facebook and Twitter to get updates on official events (if you forget to RSVP you should always try to get in anyway. You can do it!). You wont be able to attend all parties, but choose one that you would really like to attend and go there.

Some of the wristband I got as SXSW.

Don't: Panels
My recommendations is to not attend too many panels. My experience with the panels is that they're very unstructured and often is a chit-chat between the panel participants. Instead you should choose the solo or dual talks.

Don't: Stress
There's a billion guides like this one, but don't stress! Don't over-plan what you want to do and don't think you'll make every talk, every party and meet everyone. Go with the flow and enjoy getting input from the most unexpected sources!

Honors and Awards- a big thank you to the AFOL Community

As Editor In Chief / Community Editor on ReBrick.com I get the privilege to work with a lot of very clever and inspiring people, who all have a thing in common: They share great passion for the LEGO brick as a creative medium. They call themselves AFOLs - Adult Fans Of LEGO.


On ReBrick we currently have a sounding board of 500 people world-wide (AFOLs, social media gurus, teachers, LEGO Employees and more), who co-create the platform with us. The LEGO fans play a huge role in shaping the features of the site as well as giving feedback on the current features. We have a "always in beta" mindset, so the ReBrick Sounding board also help setting the course for which direction the development is going.

Working with these talented people is very inspiring and it makes me work even harder to give them the best experience on ReBrick and making it a platform, that is a valuable tool for the AFOL Community.

ReBrick was selected as an Official Honoree at the 16th Webby Awards in the community category and last night ReBrick won a Danish Internet Award (DIA) as a part of LEGO Groups 360 degree Social Media Integration. I want to thank all the AFOL ReBrick users for making the ReBrick project special - it would not have been possible launching this website without your expertise.

Lars Silberbauer, Head of Social Media @ LEGO Group on Twitter

Pssst: If you would like to be a part of the ReBrick Sounding Board, send me a message on Twitter with your email address and I will get back to you with more information :) Twitter handle: @_Signel

Facebook's awesome LEGO wall

At the Facebook headquarters you'll find this amazing LEGO wall, where the Facebook team can build creations with LEGO bricks.

On the wall there's icons from Facebook like the 'poke', 'like' and 'notification' icon as well as other builds like The Seattle Space Needle, Nyan Cat, a light switch, Super Mario and Nemo together with other cool creations.

I love this idea and hope the employees at Facebook enjoy using the LEGO brick as a medium for being creative and humorous.

You can create your own LEGO wall at home or at your company by sticking some LEGO baseplates to the wall with double sided tape. Let your guests / co-workers create their own models or make your own creations. I'm sure it will be a hit!

Facebook Timeline: The LEGO Group History

Facebook introduced the new Timeline for companies and on the 30th of March The LEGO Group on Facebook revealed the company's timeline.

Timeline is great for a company like LEGO Group because there's so much interesting history.

Facebook timeline starts the LEGO Group story with the famous wooden sign with the LEGO Group motto: "Only the best is good enough".

On Facebook you can take a tour of LEGO Group history. From 1932 up until now you'll find very interesting stories, images and footage from the toy manufacturer.

I recommend you to check out 1953 where the first LEGO Bricks was introduced, 1959 with a black/white image of Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, 1960: Image of the Toy production in Billund, Denmark, 1978 where LEGO Space was introduced, 1986 where LEGO Group introduced the LEGO TECHNIC Computer Control, 1998 was the year The LEGO Group introduced the MINDSTORMS Robot and the year after, where the first LEGO Star Wars set came out.

But I recommend you to go start exploring yourself - I'm sure it will bring back childhood memories.

The Facebook team with Lars Silberbauer's lead did a great job with the timeline and you can check it out (and like LEGO) at Facebook.com/LEGOGROUP

Google Maps 8 bit for Nintendo is awesome

I just love this spoof from Google: The Google Maps for NES - an 8 bit map for your Nintendo Entertainment System.

Check out this video - it brings back memories from when I was a kid and spent hours in the local youth club playing Nintendo and chewing Hubba Bubba gum or sucking on a candy ring (and who don't remember chocolate cigarets - how politically incorrect ;o).

Anyways, back to the 8 bit map - it's awesome! Go to google.com/maps and push the 'Quest' button in the upper right corner to try it out.

Google Maps - push the button in the upper right side to try out the 8 bit experience

My street in 8 bit from Google Maps Street View

And Google kept going on, some of the other April Fool jokes are:

• Google Really Advanced Search

• Google Racing

Google and Nascar teaming up in making a self-diven car that can reach 200 mph

• Chrome Multitask Mode

• Google Weather Control

For those of you who doesn't like the weather where you live - just change it! With Google Weather Control.

Read more Google April 1st jokes on TheNextWeb.com

ReBrick nominated at Danish Internet Awards

ReBrick, a social media platform for all LEGO enthusiasts and the platform I'm Editor in Chief for, is nominated for a Danish Internet Award.

Screen dump from ReBrick

The website is nominated in 2 categories:
Social Media Category: ReBrick is mentioned as a part of the LEGO Group 360° social media integration
"Consumer Goods" Category: ReBrick

My colleagues from the LEGO Group who made Life Of George, an appcessory for iPhone, is nominated in the "Consumer Goods" category too (they're actually nominated in 3 categories!!). So it is going to be exciting to see who is going to win. The winner gets the right to brag, so I hope it's going to be ReBrick, since I'm carpooling with the guys from Life Of George.

Cross your fingers! Follow updates regarding Danish Internet Awards on Twitter: #DIA12dk

The Invisible Children: Kony 2012 campaign

If you haven't already heard about the Koni 2012 campaign / Invisible Children you should spend the next 30 minutes watching this amazing video. Here we have a man with a mission and I'm impressed with how passionate he is with this cause and the fantastic work he has put in to this cause: To remove a military leader in Uganda: Joseph Kony - to make this dictator visible and to make the children he abducted for his child army visible.

On the webpage Kony2012.com you can currently download the action kit and print out posters yourself before you hit the streets on April 20th 2012, donate some cash or take time and write the most influential culture and policymakers in America.

Remember, there's similar stories from other parts of the world. Remember not to forget other charity campaigns. Give your support to the causes you believe in and donate your time or money to charity - both global and local.

Great marketing initiatives at SXSW

The South By South West (SXSW) conference is full of interesting marketing initiatives. Here are some of my favorite initiatives from this year:

LEGO MINDSTORMS Hackathon.
You take a LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot and then you hack it! At the MINDSTORMS hackathon you build a robot and steer it with your android tablet on a obstacle course. For the second time Google and LEGO MINDSTORMS had a hackathon at SXSW and it was a huge success again this year. Google had literally rented a whole street where all the fun was going down and the Hackathon was held at a packed Developers House. The hackathon was live-streamed on Youtube and had over a million viewers at one time. Check out the event in Wired Geekdad.

LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots getting built

Hootsuite bus
We've all seen a bus wrapped in foil advertising something, but the Hootsuite shuttle bus was something special. Check it out - what a awesome creation. Out of the box! ... Yes, that a huge own on top of the bus!

 

Amex discounts
Who doesn't like a good discount? I most certainly do and I had plenty of opportunities to get 10 % off my purchases at the shops in Austin during SXSWi. Amex promoted their new Twitter-based discount program by giving 10 percent off in local shops when using an American Express card. Furthermore Jay-Z performed for all American Express holders with a SXSW Badge - unfortunately I did not hear about this event in time to get a ticket - that would've been sweet!

LEGO Life of George wins SXSW award

I was lucky to attend the 2012 South By South West (SXSW) Interactive Awards together with my colleagues Cynthia Bodin and Troels Andersen - two of the people behind the wonderful and fun app Life of George.

Photo by Timothy Courtney.

The app won the 2012 SXSW Interactive Awards in the "Amusement" category. George himself is a bit shy and didn't have the opportunity to be there himself, so Cynthia, Troels and Ronin (from IQ) was accepting the award on behalf of George. "If a cloud can be anything, can anything be a cloud?"

Movie clip by Mads Mommsen

Remember to follow George on Facebook - he's so awesome.

My interest in Pinterest

One of my favorite addictions at the moment is Pinterest - the social bookmarking service or a virtual pinboard, where you can add links and keep your stash of wonderful "stuff" from all over the world wide web. It's works exactly like ReBrick, where I'm Editor (except off course: ReBrick is limited too all the awe-inspiring content with LEGO bricks).

Pinterest Logo from Pinterest.com

Back to Pinterest. I've used it for a while now and except for minor bugs and glitches, the site works great. I do wish, there was some kind of tagging system. All pins are listed together in one big pile of mess and it's difficult to find the good stuff.

An example: I'm looking for inspiration to my upcoming wedding and want to find some inspiration for a vintage wedding dress circa 1920. I can search for it but the result is way too overwhelming if I search for 'vintage weeding dress' and very limited if I search for 1920 wedding dress.

I don't think tags will solve the problem of mess, but it will make it a lot easier to find the right stuff. I've started to use a lot of keywords when bookmarking.

I really love that the site is so easy to use and it's a great 'experience' with smooth sign up process and very easy to use pin button.

Other similar services are
We Heart it
Zootool
Fancy

Here's a few tips on good bookmarking etiquette:

Bookmark from the root
When you pin something from Pinterest, make sure to go the article instead of the blog roll or the front page of a website.

Do not hotlink
Hotlink or inline linking is when you link to the image - and not the webpage. There's several reasons why you should not do that - see wikipedia for more info. Some websites (like ReBrick) makes it impossible to hotlink, but Pinterest does not offer that service yet.

Credit the original source
Pinterest does now refer to the source - they haven't always done that. If you use a similar service, make sure to credit the original source.

Pin from websites with a 'Pin button'
There's been a lot of writing about copyright on Pinterest. If you want to make sure, that you don't violate somebody's copyright, I recommend that you only bookmark things from websites with a 'Pin button'.

 

My SXSW Schedule

Like most of the population working with interactive 'stuff' I'll be traveling to SXSW Interactive this week (and don't try to rob my house - my big buff boyfriend will be home!)

Logo image source: SXSW.com

If you'd like to check out my schedule, visit schedule.sxsw.com/2012/user_events/user_52095. As you might notice I have double booked because I only use the schedule as a guide and will be very, very disappointed if my plans aren't going to be totally changed into 'having no plans and just go with the flow'.

I've booked myself some Mentor Sessions at SXSW too and I'm very very excited to meet up with Lori Schwartz, Erin Kanaley-Famularo, Morgan Missen and Shawn Fanning. I'm also planning to arrange some casual meetings with other online community managers - that would be very cool!

I've signed up for quite a few parties but the one I'm looking forward to is the Mashable SXSWi House 2012. I'm also looking forward to getting some Texan BBQ with my colleagues from the LEGO Group in Friday night. And last but not least: meeting some inspiring women in tech at the BeautyBarX. As mentioned before, I don't want to plan a lot, but since you need to sign up for most events in advance I do it to make sure to get in, if we end up at that party.

I use these resources to find the interesting parties at SXSW:
Twitter: @SXSWPartyList
Facebook: facebook.com/SXSWPartyList
Eventbrite: search for Austin


Are you going to SXSW?

Highlight of Highlight - new iPhone app

I tried out the new app for iPhone – Highlight – today.

My first thought is that it is very user friendly and a good user experience.

The app will take you through the setup of Highlight – first give an intro to what highlight is: an app that will notify you if your friends are nearby but also to connect you to new people in your area you might find interesting (hmm, might take a while for it here in small town Aarhus…).

Then you’re asked to invite some friends – unfortunately you have to send them a text message – costly if you and your friends are not on wifi – cool if you are!

When you’ve gone through the intro, you’re asked to close down the app and go have some fun IRL – which is kind of cool. Especially for us geeks, who are not quite sure what the real life really is (fortunately the app have suggestions like “play kickball or form a dance crew”).

In order to use the app you need to turn on notifications – I really don’t like that.

Update 16/3 2012: You get a notification everytime someone with the same interests as you are in the area. The interests data are pulled from Facebook pages you have 'liked'. After I had been using it for a day I got a message from someone I didn't know. The message function works like a chat, so you can only send short messages - like sms messages. I don't know how valuable this app really is. Yes, it's nice to meet new people, but it's kind of over my limits to chat with some random person.

I talked the Lori Schwartz about it at SXSW and she is using Banjo - a similar app. She was chatting with an interesting Social Media 'celebrity' about a talk at the conference and thought it was very useful. I understand that it's great to get in contact with people you have something academically in common with, so I would use this app as a business networking tool and not an app for random chit chat.

What do you think about Highlight / Banjo?