This year at SXSW Interactive, ImageThink created visual summaries of over a dozen presentations - speakers ranged from Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, Tina Roth Eisenberg of SwissMiss, Phil Libin of Evernote and Matthew Inman of the Oatmeal, to name just a few. This is a visual recap of 6 themes that emerged across the sessions.

1. 6 big ideas from
SXSW Interactive 2013
a VISUAL recap

2. This year at SXSW Interactive, ImageThink
hosted the SXnotes initiative. Over the five
days of this festival of innovation and ideas, we
created over a dozen visual summaries of presen-
tations and panel discussions.
Again and again we heard common themes
echoed across presentations. In the following
slides we’ll share the 6 Big Ideas that emerged for
us, as well as the visual notes from each session
we covered.
We hope they inspire you!

3. #1: Connectivity Burn-out is Growing
One theme that came again and again
was how the giddiness of new apps, smart
phones, and social media platforms has giv-
en way to the realization that these tools
are transforming the way we relate to each
other. We’re overindulging in connection,
and the result is we’re becoming distracted
from bigger ideas and our stress level is on
the rise.

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7. #2: Information overload is making us
stupid and angry
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com and
Douglas Rushkoff both spoke of the per-
ils of too much information. Clay Johnson
warned of the dangers in overly-processed
information. Silver reminded us that at oth-
er points in history when information be-
came more plentiful due to innovation (i.e.
the printing press) conflict also increased.
The more information that is shared, the
more people form opinions and take action.
But the type of information we consume
affect the conclusions we draw. Rushkoff
coined the term fractal-noia for the erro-
neous connections we make from seem-
ingly unrelated information.

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11. #3: Geeks are our future
From cartoonist and keynote speaker, Mat-
thew Inman’s reverence for inventor Nicola
Tesla, to Alexis Ohanian’s cry for more
geeks in office. Ariel Waldman of Science-
HackDay.com spoke wistfully of the hacker-
age of NASA in the 1960’s. Appreciation
and celebration of the geek ethos of curi-
osity, exploration and experimentation was
a thread woven across the festival.

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15. #4: Disruption isn't pretty
Bruce Silver closed the five-day festival with
a dramatic and critical talk during which
he accused the audience of “killing” previ-
ously-lauded types of media. “You have to
eat what you kill,” said Sterling. “Eat your
dead media.” While electric vehicle and
spacecraft pioneer Elon Musk urged entre-
preneurs to “look for disruption,” disrup-
tion also was the driving force behind this
so-called killing. Evernote CEO Phil Libin
urged startups to make value the goal, not
disruption, stating that it should be a side-
effect of success.
©2012 ImageThink, LLC. www.imagethink.net

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19. #5: play around and make stuff
MakerBot founder Bre Pettis, a prime fig-
ure in the Maker Movement, kicked off the
festival, stating that “iteration is the Maker-
Bot way.” Jessica Hagy of thisisindexed.com,
Tina Roth Eisenberg (@SwissMiss) and Ari-
el Waldman all celebrated the creative pro-
cess. The consensus was that play, intuition,
and exploration feed creativity and innova-
tion. Julie Uhrman of Ouya also touched on
the importance of inviting your audience
into your creative process to iterate and
innovate.
©2012 ImageThink, LLC. www.imagethink.net

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23. #6: Make Space & Time
Douglas Rushkoff’s explanation for the
anxiety and franticness of our lives was the
incongruous mapping of what he calls “in-
dustrial time” onto “digital time.” Tina Roth
Eisenberg, the designer behind Creative
Mornings and apps like TeuxDeux, remind-
ed us that wonderful things happen with
an empty mind so we should make time to
think and breathe.
©2012 ImageThink, LLC. www.imagethink.net

24. Like what we do?
Visit imagethink.net/sxnotes for more
about how we captured the ideas at SXSW
Interactive and other ways we’re visualizing
big ideas.
Thanks for viewing!
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