Yesterday I attended the Dachis Group’s annual Social Business Summit in Austin, Texas. I was quite intrigued with the all-star lineup of speakers that included Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, Bonin Bough with Kraft Foods and David Armano of Edelman Digital to name a few. The summit did not disappoint. I loved the format of Read More...

Today I attended  a presentation that was probably the most useful of any I attended at this year’s SXSWi, “Marrying for Money: The ROI of Relationship.” It’s the kind of topic that can clear a room and honestly, there should have been more people at this one.  However Jen van der Meer of the Dachis Read More...

One of the more interesting research projects I’ve encountered at SXSWi hasn’t been in a panel or featured speaker series or even a hallway discussion, I experienced it in the line at Starbucks. While waiting in the always long line at Starbucks across from the Convention Center, I was asked to fill out a 17 question Read More...

Yep, the term “trend” is on its way out and it’s being replaced by the meme according to the guys at Rocket Boom who created  http://knowyourmeme.com  They spend every day tracking memes and identifying what really makes a meme sticky. So what are memes exactly? They are organic approaches to culture that have a life of their own. They Read More...

I love it when other disciplines face the same issues that I do as a planner.  In the Games User Research panel led by Marina Kobayashi, the panelists discussed at length how to find the right people for research studies and what makes for good research. For Games User Research, the right study participants are Read More...

Reprising their popular panel from last year, Ed Hunsinger, John Adams, Amber Osborne and Scott Beale set the record straight on how to avoid being a tech douchebag at this year’s conference.  They dropped the following gems on us. Words to live by… – Don’t be a pitch! Avoid the sales pitch drive by shooting with flying business cards. Read More...

While at a recent planning department meeting, the discussion turned to predictions for 2011. I had been on vacation  and came back to the office totally blank. I couldn’t think of a single trend so I thought about what I did over my holiday break. And for me, that was some serious shopping. In the Read More...