X|Media|Lab Auckland

Local brains have been buzzing this weekend as the X|Media|Lab moved their festival of ideas to Auckland. Seventeen international mentors, keynote speakers, plus seventeen projects teams met at the Viaduct Harbour to share their knowledge, experiences and pathways to success. 

This is my third X|Media|Lab to date, though the record holder is Dale Herigstad with six under his belt. I had an inspiring time listening to the diverse keynote speakers from across the globe, and learning about the innovative digital media projects chosen for the Lab workshops. My brain had a full blown information hangover by the end of the weekend, but it was well worth it.

I arrived early for the keynote conference day on Friday so that I could set up my laptop as a live twitter workstation to cover the conference for The Big Idea. Twitter has become an excellent way to follow conference speeches if you know which 'hashtag' to follow. Logically enough the hashtag for the day was #xmedialab. You can follow my stream on the Big Idea's Twitter feed, as well as read tweets from others in the audience. The point of the public keynote day is to expose these great speakers to as many people as possible, so it was wonderful that the Lab organisers were actively encouraging the audience to share their thoughts during the keynotes through twitter.

There was some great live blogging from Missing Link during the keynote speeches, and the Idealog TV team were filming interviews with some of the mentors during the breaks. Watch clips with Tim Chang, Principal of Norwest Venture Partners in Silicon Valley, Vishal Gondal, 'God in Chief' at IndiaGames, Eric Kearley of TVNZ 6 & 7,  Juliette Powell, social media expert and author of 33 Million People in the Room, Susan Bonds of 42 Entertainment, Parmesh Shahani of Verve Magazine, and an interview with one of the directors of X|Media|Lab, Megan Elliott. More clips of the keynotes will be appearing soon at the X|Media|Lab TV Channel and also here at the Big Idea soon on our TBI TV Channel.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the keynotes which were on the subject of 'Commercialising Ideas':

"Giant collaborative groups aka the hive mind have the power to do many wonderful things" Susan Bonds

"Break the rules and have fun with what you are doing. There are so many 'protective layers' in big companies." Adrian Sexton

"What works are films deeply rooted in the local. Try and create stuff that is very very You." Parmesh Shahani

"New things often come from a downturn." Dale Herigstad

"Don't get too tied to one incarnation of your Big idea." Doug Whatley

"Look at opportunities to co-create together." Juliette Powell

"Survival is the new growth. VCs invest in teams not ideas." Tim Chang

"Trust is the social media currency." Patrick McFie

"Now is the perfect time to plow the field and sow the seeds of innovation." Richard Cardran

For the seventeen project teams the rest of the weekend was the chance to spend an hour one-on-one with each of the mentors. Though the keynote conference is open and sharing encouraged, the weekend labs are a closed space for project teams to get the best advice possible in a private, trusted environment. The weekend kicked off with short presentations from each of the teams, and then the teams booked slots with the mentors whose experience most matched their needs. I was delighted to be invited to mentor some of the projects teams, as it is such an immensely rewarding experience. Projects ranged from games, virtual art displays, multi-touch interfaces to socially enterprising communities, and educational software.

What makes the X|Media|Labs so successful is that they are structured differently to the average conference. The open keynote day is a wonderful chance for ideas to flow freely with no boring panels, or time wasting questions from the audience. The mix of disciplines, industries and personalities work well for cross disciplinary innovation, and every opportunity is taken to create networking opportunities through the Labs and over the weekend.

The one thing I will take from this X|Media|Lab is that the recession has levelled the playing field for small creative teams, and now is a great time for launching and growing Your Big Ideas!

Links:

Read Q&As with the X|Media|Lab Mentors

Commercialising Ideas

Microblogs & Tweets

Tales from the Twitterverse

Audio: Listen to the podcast of Helen Baxer talking about the X|Media|Lab live tweets, on 'Virtual World', Radio New Zealand, National.