Last Thursday I spent a fantastic day at PSFK's conference in New York (thanks again for the kind invite Piers). Piers and the crew always put on a good show and this was no exception. Really good pick and mix selection of speakers and panels, and a great chance to meet up with some old friends who I get to see far too infrequently - hello Paul, Noah, Domenico and Ben in particular.
The great thing is everyone seems to have their personal favorite bits of the day. Here are mine:
1. A great demonstration of reinvention of the tired, bloated healthcare industry. Richard Fine of Help Remedies put some elegant simplicity back into the dull world of medication (think method in the drug cabinet) and Jay and Sean from hellohealth showed how their using technology as a platform to create a better relationship between patients and doctors, as well as cutting out the disincentives created by insurance middlemen.
2. Celestine Arnold (wish I could find a link) gave a brilliantly impassioned talk on the ghost in the machine, or how mutlicultural society is so badly portrayed in video games (it makes the ad industry look positively progressive). May have something to do with the fact that despite non-White groups having a higher penetration of video game playing, 98% of game designers are white.
3. Kevin Slavin of area/code gave a great talk packed full of examples of what mobile really means. It's not just people talking to people, but stuff and objects talking to people. Like the fantastic botanicalls which our house desperately needs. He also shared Project Blinkenlights which is fantastic hacking culture on a massive public scale..
4. The panel on agencies and IP/new models had some good discussion about why the industry needs to rethink what it makes and how it gets paid. Carl Johnson of Anomaly succinctly summed up the problem as time remuneration which makes crap ideas worth the same as good ideas. There's clearly progress here, but a hell of a long way to go.
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