SXSW Interactive: Saturday Highlights - Social Entertainment, SUPER movie, and Diversity

A combination of hungover veterans and bright-eyed newcomers swarmed the Austin Convention Center Saturday morning for day 2 of SXSW Interactive. Another blustery day was met with excitement as more panel discussions and networking loomed ahead. Kicking off with The Last Broadcast: Entertainment is Social the panel was comprised of Intel employees as well as other smaller tech companies. The discussion fluidly switched topics from branding to current trends to implementations. The first key takeaway: Don't wash all negative comments on Facebook/Twitter/etc away. Reason why: they give your fans a chance to stick up for you, and you can interact with naysayers now so that they don't badmouth you for the rest of their lives.

The panel touched on games as a new way of integrating branding - either into an existing game, or creating one based on the brand. Interestingly, ratings of live shows have been increasing of late - mostly due to the fact that people can "co-view" shows through social media like Twitter. Case in point: how many people at the SXSW panels are on Twitter or Facebook discussing the panel while listening to it in real-time?! One of the panelists predicted the creation of a social network crawl along the bottom of our televisions, as well as a way to synch up multiple DVRs so that people can watch pre-recorded programs together "live". The programming and social communication has to co-exist because people need something common to discuss.

Next we took a walk on the lighter side with the SUPER Q&A. Although Ellen Paige couldn't make it, Rainn Wilson (playing the superhero), and director James Gunn entertained the capacity crowd with witty and enlightening insight into what all went into getting this movie made. Turns out that not a lot of financing was available in 2008 when Gunn and Wilson went shopping to find backing for the script. It was also difficult to get people to buy into the concept: a dark, violent Tarentino-esque film with a romantic comedy touch. This risky mix is embodied in the movie's tagline: "Shut up crime!" The movie is decidedly not for everyone; Gunn commented that part of Hollywood's problem is that most films are trying to appeal to everyone, which is only successful for a small handful of films such as Iron Man. Liv Tyler's involvement ended up being the catalyst for financing, as well as the inclusion of a Cheap Trick song for free. The soundtrack seems to be a high-point of the film as well, since Gunn had several songs that he actually wrote the script around. Kevin Bacon as the anti-hero rounds out the stellar cast. All in all, it was abundantly clear how much this film meant to Gunn and Wilson, and if the crowd in the Q&A was any indication, it should be widely well received when it opens nationwide April 1.

The Diversity & Inclusion mini-panels include speakers on many widely ranging topics. Joe Gerstandadt spoke about cognitive diversity and how important it is to have generative relationships that create something together that the individual parts do not have. While it is more difficult to work with people that are wired differently than ourselves, the tendency towards increased good decisions, problem solving and innovation is unparalleled. Makes sense in all kinds of situations.

To unwind after all the intellectual stimulus, we checked out the AMD after party at The Parish, featuring the musical stylings of White Ghost Shivers. Living up to the tagline of truly entertaining "bawdville", the band served as the perfect dropback to all kinds of social networking and business card trading.

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