VENN SXSW / CONTAGIOUS & ALBION LONDON
9 March 2010
Hannah Yelin and Sam Ashken are two senior planners from Albion, London who have set themselves an impressive (and somewhat daunting) task...
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... To capture and condense all the key points from the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival covering the music, film and emerging technology industries and create 'something' that is both credible and entertaining.
For them, that means each talk will be dissected and summarised into a single word which at the end of the day will become a part of a Venn diagram charting all of the big ideas from that day. Their journey will be documented and captured on film, their blog, twitter and t-shirts (yes, t-shirts) and most importantly back to Contagious HQ in real-time that can be accessed on www.contagiousmagazine.com.
We had a couple of questions for them before they set off on their epic journey.
How feasible is it going to be to condense a massive meeting of minds into a single word?
Hannah: Well, it won't be easy. There's going to be a lot of complex ideas flying around. Understanding them is tricky enough. Remembering them and synopsisizing them will be challenging. Condensing them down to one word will take the level of lexical precision hitherto unknown to us. As planners, our careers to date have been building up to this moment. Condensing things down to their essence is what we do every day. So we're the people to do it. In theory it should be feasible. We hope so, otherwise we're all fur coat and no knickers.
Sam: Sorting wheat and chaff is something that planners are supposed to be good at. Plus there will be multiple Venns covering the whole event, rounded off with a final Venn. So we have a little more latitude. Plus, it's fine if people disagree - we are trying to kick start conversations, not pretend we have the final word on SXSWi.
How are you going to do it?
H: By charting the best of what we come across in Venn diagrams. We love a bit of data visualisation. Call it congenital geekiness. With Venns we can identify the relationships between different ideas. But of course there are way more talks than we could ever attend. Which means we have that all important excuse to accost unsuspecting South by South Westers with our microphone and get them to help us condense what they've seen into one sentence. Sam will largely be hiding behind the camera, I will mostly be harassing people. I'm looking forward to going around with that microphone so bad. It'll be like a cross between the conch from Lord of the Flies and Annika Rice...hold on, I feel another Venn coming on.
What is it that draws you to the humble Venn diagram?
S: Who's saying it's humble?! I have to credit Hannah as the idea of venning SXSWi was hers. It gives Albion's presence there a memorable, somewhat own-able, suitably planner-ly focus.
H: The combination of logical deduction and creative leaps it takes to make one. And they look super cool. Y'know, kind of maths sexy. Or is that just me?
Are there any presentations in particular you're looking forward to?
H: Hell yes. Because of the way prospective panels are put to a public vote to see which should go ahead, they all compete to have the coolest, most attention-grabbing names. So when you browse the seemingly endless list it's easy to get over excited. There's one called 'Big Brother in Your Brain: Neuroscience & Marketing' which I think will be creepy and fascinating in equal measure. And there's one called 'A History of the Button', which if you ask me is pretty high concept. I could go on and on. It's going to be ace.
S: I'm a sucker for a good name so am particularly excited about 'Selling Your Milk When the Cow is Free' and 'Nooks & Grannies: Exploring Older Niches Online'.
For those of you lucky enough to be heading along to SXSWi, make sure you get in touch with the newest member of the Contagious family, Nick Parish our North American Editor on nick@contagiousmagazine.com or on @paryshnikov.
Contact Hannah or Sam here;
#vennsxsw
@vennsxsw
@HannahYelin
@samashken
http://www.albionlondon.com/vennsxsw
http://sxsw.com
For them, that means each talk will be dissected and summarised into a single word which at the end of the day will become a part of a Venn diagram charting all of the big ideas from that day. Their journey will be documented and captured on film, their blog, twitter and t-shirts (yes, t-shirts) and most importantly back to Contagious HQ in real-time that can be accessed on www.contagiousmagazine.com.
We had a couple of questions for them before they set off on their epic journey.
How feasible is it going to be to condense a massive meeting of minds into a single word?
Hannah: Well, it won't be easy. There's going to be a lot of complex ideas flying around. Understanding them is tricky enough. Remembering them and synopsisizing them will be challenging. Condensing them down to one word will take the level of lexical precision hitherto unknown to us. As planners, our careers to date have been building up to this moment. Condensing things down to their essence is what we do every day. So we're the people to do it. In theory it should be feasible. We hope so, otherwise we're all fur coat and no knickers.
Sam: Sorting wheat and chaff is something that planners are supposed to be good at. Plus there will be multiple Venns covering the whole event, rounded off with a final Venn. So we have a little more latitude. Plus, it's fine if people disagree - we are trying to kick start conversations, not pretend we have the final word on SXSWi.
How are you going to do it?
H: By charting the best of what we come across in Venn diagrams. We love a bit of data visualisation. Call it congenital geekiness. With Venns we can identify the relationships between different ideas. But of course there are way more talks than we could ever attend. Which means we have that all important excuse to accost unsuspecting South by South Westers with our microphone and get them to help us condense what they've seen into one sentence. Sam will largely be hiding behind the camera, I will mostly be harassing people. I'm looking forward to going around with that microphone so bad. It'll be like a cross between the conch from Lord of the Flies and Annika Rice...hold on, I feel another Venn coming on.
What is it that draws you to the humble Venn diagram?
S: Who's saying it's humble?! I have to credit Hannah as the idea of venning SXSWi was hers. It gives Albion's presence there a memorable, somewhat own-able, suitably planner-ly focus.
H: The combination of logical deduction and creative leaps it takes to make one. And they look super cool. Y'know, kind of maths sexy. Or is that just me?
Are there any presentations in particular you're looking forward to?
H: Hell yes. Because of the way prospective panels are put to a public vote to see which should go ahead, they all compete to have the coolest, most attention-grabbing names. So when you browse the seemingly endless list it's easy to get over excited. There's one called 'Big Brother in Your Brain: Neuroscience & Marketing' which I think will be creepy and fascinating in equal measure. And there's one called 'A History of the Button', which if you ask me is pretty high concept. I could go on and on. It's going to be ace.
S: I'm a sucker for a good name so am particularly excited about 'Selling Your Milk When the Cow is Free' and 'Nooks & Grannies: Exploring Older Niches Online'.
For those of you lucky enough to be heading along to SXSWi, make sure you get in touch with the newest member of the Contagious family, Nick Parish our North American Editor on nick@contagiousmagazine.com or on @paryshnikov.
Contact Hannah or Sam here;
#vennsxsw
@vennsxsw
@HannahYelin
@samashken
http://www.albionlondon.com/vennsxsw
http://sxsw.com
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Neil
Can't wait to see some of these Venn's guys, we'll all be following your every step via Twitter.