Funding Innovation: A Post SXSWi 2010 Briefing Call

Monday, April 5, 2010

Listen to audio from the call:

Speakers: Helen Brunner (Quixote Foundation / Media and Democracy Fund), John Schwartz (Instructional Telecommunications Foundation) and Sarah Masters (Hartley Film Foundation)

See “Suggested Panels and Keynotes” at the end of notes for some of the best of SXSWi 2010.

1) Overview of SXSWi – Helen Brunner

Despite the high level of commercialism, SXSWi is worth attending to experience firsthand the technologies and cutting-edge issues that funders need to be aware of and involved in.  It’s important to see the volume of cultural shifting taking place in terms of technology, computing, privacy and digital convergence.

SXSWi is about marketing and commercialism and how technology is changing our interactions with society and ourselves.  It can be overwhelming in this way.  Panels and people focused on positive social change do exist at SXSWi but can be difficult to find amidst the barrage of marketing, both direct and experiential.

The Trade Fair had numerous programs on display that helped clients comply with new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules without obviously disclosing sponsored messages and advertising connections to users.

Three themes stood out at his year’s conference:

• Crowd sourcing – using the wisdom of the crowd to identify and address social issues.  Examples include the Community Funded Reporting panel, which discussed www.spot.us using crowd sourcing to identify local news stories and pay for the coverage.  Beth Kanter’s panel “Crowd Sourcing Innovative Social Change” used a live Twitter feed to track and aggregate the comments and questions and present them to the panelists in real time.

• The future of influence – is becoming increasingly bound with advertising.  Huffington Post’s Chief Technology Officer, Paul Berry, discussed sponsored comments coming soon on Huffington Post during the panel “The Future of Influence.” Influence is increasingly a commercial venture about getting people to buy a product or respond to advertising.

• Geolocation – Large numbers of attendees were using geolocation services, generally two at one time (FourSquare and Gowalla).  These applications push at new boundaries of hyper-targeted marketing that responds to both your everyday activities as well as a user’s whereabouts.  Interestingly privacy was touched on as an underlying issue overall but not prominently because of the marketing and commercial focus.

2) SXSWi vs. NetSquared – John Schwartz

Conferences like SXSWi and NetSquared help the staff and boards of organizations John Schwartz runs learn from one another, build collaborative opportunities and improve the level of sophistication in evaluating grants.

NetSquared is by its nature more focused on social change and attracts the “better angels” of new media.  Participants vote on worthwhile projects at the conference and funders often support programs based on the votes.

SXSWi is totally marketing oriented, as Helen discussed.  It is overwhelming, particularly during your first year, but puts social impact efforts in perspective.  SXSWi highlights any technology that can better track, analyze and target customers.  Privacy issues are not compatible with the march to know everything about everyone.

Note: The film “Erasing David” focuses on privacy in the digital age and was presented at the SXSW Film Festival.  A GFEM screening is in the works for June 8, 2010 in advance of the GFEM/MDF funder meeting in NYC (June 9-10, 2010).  More information can be found here.

SXSWi starkly displays the “rush of the new”: new uses of technologies that are often created for the wrong reasons.  The challenge for funders is to keep up and be fluent with emerging technologies that are rapidly changing our culture.

SXSWi shows how much social change is happening, even if it’s not the social change we want.  Good people and interesting sessions are at SXSWi – though difficult to find given the crush of consumerism.

3) SXSWi and the impact on grantmaking – Sarah Masters

SXSWi helps frame new and emerging technologies that impact grantmaking at the Hartley Film Foundation.  Film distribution is in flux and documentary filmmakers need the foundation to know how to maximize impact in distribution and outreach on multiple platforms – from streaming films online to downloading films for sale and rental.

SXSWi helps funders educate themselves on cutting edge technologies that grantees are grappling with.  It helped answer questions the foundation is facing about domestic and international distribution and helped clarify the need for further self-education.

Panels such as Douglas Rushkoff’s keynote "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for the Digital Age" helped look at issues of scale, which are critical for distribution models.

GFEM delegation breakfasts were helpful to hear both about panels and sessions attendees were going to as well as what funders are doing related to all these convergence-related issues.

4) Comments from GFEM Funder Delegates about the conference

Jane Brown, Robert Deutsch Foundation – The quality of sessions vary tremendously and this year social change sessions were jammed into small spaces, often with overflow crowds.  Space allocations need to be addressed.

Bill O’Brien, National Endowment for the Arts – Philanthropy has an important role to play in supporting emerging platforms and art forms that can’t be supported by the commercial model.  The commercial interest and altruistic focus on behalf of the arts both have roles.  Gaming projects that have civic value, for example, should be supported in order to allow these platforms to flourish outside the traditional commercial realm.

Alyce Myatt, Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media – Crowd sourcing as a means of problem solving has been effective.  Several projects have been presented in the past at SXSWi and NetSquared and are being used internationally for conflict resolution, crisis mapping and water resources.  Ushahidi and Appfrica are two examples.

5) Suggested Panels and Keynotes:

Community Funded Reporting / David Cohn / Spot.Us

How to Spark a Movement in the 21st Century / Scott Heiferman / Meet up

Crowd Sourcing Innovative Social Change / Beth Kanter, Kari Saratovsky / Case Foundation

How the Other Half Lives - Touring the Digital Divide / Jessamyn West, rural librarian / Metafilter

Influence and Innovate: Transforming Media Education / Tyson Evans / New York Times

Will Kiva Kill Your Nonprofit? / Ruth Ann Renaud / Opportunity International

Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for the Digital Age / Douglas Rushkoff’s keynote

The Future of Influence / Paul Berry / Huffington Post

Valerie Casey Keynote

Dana Boyd Keynote

Africa 3.0 / TMS Ruge / Project Diaspora

The Future of Context / Jay Rosen / New York University

Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies / David Carr / New York Times

Creative Commons, Open Innovation and World Peace / Joi Ito

Monkeys With Internet Access: Sharing, Human Nature and Digital Data / Clay Shirky

The SXSW YouTube Channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/sxsw.  Through the Spring / Summer / Fall, SXSW Interactive is going to post many of the sessions from all of the festivals here: http://sxsw.com/interactive/news/videos_and_podcasts.