Rubberband Wound

And just like that, SXSW is done. I only got to attend 3 panels today, grabbed my bags, and grabbed a cab to Austin-Bergstrom.

Anyway, here’re the highlights from the panels I did attend.

1000 – Customer Service is the New Marketing

• Communications – offer many channels because people are comfortable with different methods
  • - forums
  • - knowledge base
  • - email
• Allow users a way to communicate with each other and with you
• The role of the apology – saying that you’re sorry has become acceptable – not worrying about the legal liabilities as much now.
• Now, if you screw up and don’t fess up to it, people will blog about it and it could become a second screw up.
• When you make a mistake, do whatever you can to make it right.
• Make sure you’re hiring the right people when you’re interviewing – they need to fit the culture, have the same attitudes.
• Involve all employees in customer service.

1130 – Design Aesthetics of the Indie Developer

• It’s a level playing field for mind share and bit – anyone can get their ideas and thoughts out there.
• It’s a small world – you can find whatever you need in terms of people and resources.
• "Great design speaks to you, it has something to say" – Alain de Botton, "Architecture of Happiness".
• iPod giggle – the first time someone uses an iPod, and they laugh a little as they understand it.
• Great design is cutting down on your ideas, to the things that are necesary and important.
• Independent developers are building for users, not business – they’re designing for themselves.
• Anything that ends up being successful usually started as a problem that was obsessing the developer – it’s something you can’t stop thinking about.
• Self-motivation is the most important thing to working at home.
• Hard part is knowing when to stop, when to call it a day.
• How do you manage the risk of the decisions you make?
  • If you’re really worried about it, you should probably wait. You’ll feel pretty comfortable about it when the time is right.
• "I don’t want to make money for the sake of money, I want to make money so I can make more pictures." – Walt Disney
• Style is very important – figure out how it’s going to work before you start going in to the code
• "Follow your tangents"
• First try to get people using something, before you try to get people to pay for it.
• Pay attention to the things that annoy you in software
• Pricing:
  • Your instincts on pricing are probably wrong, because you want to under price and make people happy.
  • If nobody complains that it’s way too expensive, then it’s probably underpriced. People always want more
  • Look at the pricing of other indie developers who are succeeding.
  • If your product is cheap, people think it will be cheap.
  • Nobody will complain if you cut the price, tons of people will complain if you raise the price.
  • Don’t promise free upgrades for life.

1400 – Will Wright Keynote

• He was wired, on a caffeine buzz.
• Stories are very straightforward, always the same. Games can be different for everyone.
• Game appeal is agency – can I do it?
• Film appeal is empathy – what will happen?
• Much more, but my notes are so disjointed. I’d recommend reading Kotaku’s coverage, it’s amazingly thorough.