Tag: sxsw17

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Context: The key to personalization

Everytime we come to the Internet for help, we’re a different person.

Dr. Jon Roberts, Chief Innovation Officer at About.com, presented observations from 20 years of user behavior and interaction with over 35 Million posts. I wrote about that presentation in an earlier post.

It’s your context… what’s going on in the world right now… that is more reflective of what you need, than the last 6 months of your browsing history. 

Continue reading “Context: The key to personalization”

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What about.com can tell us about millennials

At the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Dr. Jon Roberts gave us a peak into observations and lessons from over 20 years of user searches. You can read about that in my last post.

As he looks for trends, he realizes that they may lead to overgeneralizations. “I care about individuals in real life, I don’t care about them in my data analysis”.

Demographically, he broke down some interesting observations about millennials, based on the searches and questions they are asking. Continue reading “What about.com can tell us about millennials”

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What about.com has learned from 20 years of watching us

About.com launched 20 years ago. While they predate Google’s Pagerank, they show up as a top source for about 30% of all questions asked on Google in the U.S. That gives them a unique view at what America is concerned about. Dr. Jon Roberts, the Chief Innovation Officer at about.com, believes he is able to see the heartbeat of the nation, in the way we ask questions. He broke it down at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival.

“Studying the data underpinning the Internet is as weird and fascinating as studying the universe.”, says Roberts. He worked to condense massive amounts of data, from over 35 Million posts, to some simple data visualization. In doing so, About.com was able to learn some interesting things from the deep to the … well… not so deep. Continue reading “What about.com has learned from 20 years of watching us”

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Pearls of wisdom from @garyvee

Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) is a South by Southwest regular, and his sessions still pack a ballroom. At SxSW 2017, Vaynerchuk’s session was a 100% Q&A format. The format lent itself less to a blog post recap, and more to a collection of quotable moments and takeaways. Here are a few that I walked away with, and a few more from the Twitterverse:

  • Gary is skeptical about the hype around consumer VR. “Consumer VR is still a long ways off”.
  • Add value by making things more simple. We like to build complicated, but shouldn’t.
  • “99.999% of companies compete in a commodities market. That is why I am obsessed with brand”.
  • “The more you can act like a media company and less like an advertiser, the more effective you will be with your message”
  • The people who care less about what other people think of them are the people who will do best in life
  • Creativity… not math… will set good interactive apart.
  • We are pushing too much young talent towards entrepreneurship. We need the talents of the best CFOs and Project Managers too
  • Negative people are the loudest, and happy people are clamming up. Be happy and loud. Let that be the difference!

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Mountain-top Honesty

Cory Richards’ journey to the top of the mountain, took him to some of his lowest places. The National Geographic photographer  suffered PTSD after a near death experience with an avalanche. This led to some dark journeys through alcoholism, marital issues, and job loss.

In a keynote address during the 2017 South by Southwest Interactive festival, Richards shared his story and touched on the role social media played in his journey. At his lowest points, he saw the perfect lives of those around him play out on social media. “There seems to be a hunger for the authentic”, Richards observed. “Through social [media], we are comparing our insides to everyone else’s outsides”.

We are comparing our insides to everyone else’s outsides

For Richards, the answer to this disconnect is honesty “We need honesty, and we need to demand honesty from those around us. The truth matters, and we need to demand it”.

It is through empathy that we find each other. When we find each other, we can work together.

Honesty and empathy are what the church should be good at. Increasingly, it is what the world is longing for.

It is our honesty that can show the world what we have been saved FROM. It is our empathy that gives us the grace to help others.

How do I show up, honestly, in the world today?

https://twitter.com/nathantwright/status/840296647116640256

 

(Photo: Morguefile)