PSFK Conference – NYC Battery Park

photo by Dave Pinter

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend a conference put on by trend forecasting company PSFK. The conference is described as:

Tailored for creative professionals, strategists and the media, we will host 12 lectures and panels on topics that include arts & culture, design, digital & mobile technology, marketing & advertising, sustainability, social media and publishing.

The all day conference had a unique setup that I’ve never seen before. Each presentation was held in the same room, back to back, and lasted about 20 minutes long. This is just enough time to introduce an idea and whet my appetite, but not long enough to answer any questions or provide much insight.

The most prevalent threads throughout the conference were sustainability, community and transparency. The different talks focused on inviting users to become a part of the process: engage them and allow them to participate. Be honest, open and upfront about what services you offer and what your users should expect. Examples given ranged from health care to entertainment.

photo by Dave Pinter

The standout speaker of the day was definitely Kevin Slavin of Area/Code. His talk was how mobile technologies don’t recognize boundaries. One of his thoughts that I quickly latched onto was making objects social. That is giving objects a gravity that attracts people. Photos are just objects, but when we use Flickr our photos pull different people together in ways that were not previously possible. The photos themselves ascertain a certain gravitational pull. Delicious did the same with bookmarks. The idea that inordinate objects could, in that sense, come to life and communicate is really interesting and he had lots of real world examples to provide.

One of the talks that I felt fell short was by Edward Felsenthal from the online news source, The Daily Beast. Perhaps I came in with too many preconceived notions about the collapse of the newspaper industry. Felsenthal, former editor of the Wall St. Journal, thought that print journalism is doing just fine. He mentioned that he thinks there are for more similarities than difference between print and online. He talked mostly about the frantic pace at which online news is published and consumed. He talked very little of the online business models, advertising revenue or the community gathering aspect of online media.

The conference was overall a fun experience but I do not feel that much was gained from it. The 100 or so attendees were mostly creative or manager types from all of the NYC agencies you’d expect, so the networking opportunities were nothing to take note of. The talks were on interesting enough topics, but I wish they could have been more in-depth and educational. Perhaps in the future they could have tracts going on simultaneously in different rooms and give the attendees the options to customize their schedule.