Don’t miss your flight (or listen to Tim)

The first plane I’ve ever missed was from Austin to San Fran (thanks to Tim).  Unlike in Europe where if you miss a plane you have to buy a new ticket, in the US if you miss your plane they just put you on stand-by for the next flight(s).  What we learnt was that lots of other people are put on stand-by too, which means lots of waiting.  With 8 hours of waiting for airplanes practice under my belt (special thanks to Tim for that) I now consider myself quite an airplane-waiting-expert.  FYI I don’t recommend Austin airport for waiting experiences

Sending emails at 10,000 feet is pretty slow
American Express not only put on free Jay Z gigs at SXSW, but they also give you free wifi on American Airlines.  The trick is the wifi only works at 10,000 feet, and when your flight is only 40 minutes long – as it is between Austin and Dallas – that means you only have a 10 minute window to use the service, which equates to pretty much x1 email download.  Nice idea Amex.

San Francisco airport is the best (and most mediocre) airport in the world
San Francisco’s domestic terminal is possibly the best airport I’ve ever been in.  With it’s white interior, open spaces (with jelly fish sculptures) and selection of *egg chairs*, I was pretty impressed.  In fact, I was so impressed that I decided to get to the airport 4 hours early so I could enjoy it on the way back (to London), only to find that the International terminal wasn’t so good.  Oh well . . .

Stay in Airbnb wherever your can
Airbnb.com is a real travel game-changer.  Since using the service, I’ve stayed in some amazing people’s houses / flats across the world, as a posed to spending endless nights in mediocre business hotels.
The place we stayed in in San Francisco is pretty high on the awesomeness list.  Perched on the hills next to Twin Peaks (of TV series fame) Tim and I stayed at a pretty pimp modernist house with amazing views across San Francisco.  Sadly due to clouds and rain, the view on most days was obscured.  The nighttime view was pretty epic though.

Americans can do trains surprisingly well
I’ve always associated US travel with cars.  However, from my experience travelling out to Silicon Valley from San Francisco opened me up to the joys of American trains – which were surprisingly good.  The Caltrain, which heads up to San Jose from San Fran is a v.cool (and efficient) service, which beats the trek up the freeway any day.

San Fran-ers love their trams
San Francisco has lots of (very steep) hills, so very early on the San Fran-ers (thanks to an Englishman called Halliday) designed a revolutionary tram system.  Most of the old system is now gone, however there are still 5 or so routes you can take around town using the old-style trams.  I now know a fair bit about trams, thanks to the Tram museum I stumbled across.  Impressively the whole old-school system is powered from one set of motors, linked together by an ingenious network of underground cables.

So there you go.  My top business travel tips are: ignore Tim’s advice and trains are good

One of the key aspects of creating a friction free citizen experience is UX design – making the way users interact as easy and engaging as possible.

So it was great to get to listen to Jason Hreha, co-founder of West Coast Behaviour design company Dopamine, who’s a real UX fiend.  He’s what I learnt – which I’m hoping we can embrace more to improve our apps (even more).

The key thing Jason discussed was the *Fogg Behaviour Model* which states that 3 things need to coincide for behaviour to change:

1. Ability: what can someone do on a website
2. Motivation: how you can drive people to do the things you want them to
3. Trigger: when do you get them to do whatever you want them to do

1) ABILITY

When looking at the *ability factors*, the key question is:  *are we asking too much?*:

• Time e.g. proxy for how hard / streamlined the expected experience is.
• Money e.g. payment plans (freemium)
• Physical effort e.g. text.  Is there too much copy?  Twitter is a great example – by limiting copy.
• Mental effort e.g. are we asking for too much information?  Is it difficult to understand?

And following this, the core question is *what is absolutely necessary*, and the key response is to get rid of everything else.  The Power of Simplification rules.

2) MOTIVATION

When it comes motivation there’s two areas to consider 1) motivation driven by the product, and 2) motivation driven in screen.

• Product motivation comes down to the basic questions *does the product provide users with value?*  and *Does the product solve a pain point?*  If you’re not solving a true problem, then app may be treated like a game and once the user’s finished playing there’s no driver to return.  Jason pointed out that in his mind Turntable.fm has this characteristic.
• In-screen motivation comes down to providing constant positive feedback to users, so that they’re constantly rewarded for their behaviour encouraging further interaction and engagement.  A  simple example of this kind of positive feedback are progress charts in surveys (like in Quick Consult).

3.TRIGGER

The basic reality is that people are probably going to forget your product / app, so you need to provide triggers to remind them to interact with it.  A basic example of this is sending emails.  Jason pointed out that there are 2 main triggers, onsite triggers and offsite triggers.

• Onsite triggers are mainly based around calls to action (CTA).  Calls to actions may have varied levels of ability thresholds – an example of a high threshold trigger is asking people to *make a post*;  an example of a low threshold trigger is asking someone to heart / like something.
• Offsite triggers are mainly based around *push messaging*  like emails and text messages.  So for example, you may provide users with the ability to sign up for weekly email alerts.  Jason pointed out that ensuring you provide ways to opt out and control this messaging, then you won’t disengage a user.

So there you go.  Some simple tips on how to improve UX design for your app courtesy of the nice people at SXSW.

So, flying to work is fairly epic in itself, but mix that with the fact that the runway is the sea, I got to ride alongside the pilot in the cockpit (every boy’s dream!) and the pilot’s playing jazz to keep himself (and me) chilled whilst flying through some epicly sea-soupy weather at 300 feet (which is frisking low BTW) – then all this tots up to be off-the-scale-awesome

Here’s some snippets of my sea-plane adventures from earlier today . . .

We board the plane at the end of a pier (obviously)

I get to ride up front with the pilot (whoop!)

The pilot turns on the jazz, and we reduce our height from 1500 feet to 300 feet to keep below the cloud

We approach a murky and rainy Vancouver

After we land, the pilot proudly shows me his calming jazz CD that got us safely home

Parked up, we all head home to a wet downtown Vancouver

MONDAY 6th – Squeaky Hill Quiz Show

#1 Squeaky Hill Features rounds such as the Practical Fag Break Round, the News Round Round, the Write A Film Synopsis Round, the Physical Challenge Round (A race to Tesco for a pork based product) and of course the obligatory Stone, Scissors Paper Sudden Death Tournament Challenge Round. Free entry from 8pm!

TUESDAY 7th – Lunchtime concert – danilo oliveira (trumpet) and maya soltan (piano)

#1 A bite size lunchtime concert at the Colston Hall with the Royal Academy of Music’s Danilo Oliveira (Trumpet) and Maya Soltan (Piano). From 1pm £5 a ticket.

WEDNESDAY 8th – Animation awards

#1 This is your chance to vote for your favourites in the British Animation Awards 2012! Three programmes containing a mix of animated shorts, music videos and commercials (including two from Bristol!) offer a chance to see the cream of the last two year’s animation films on the big screen. Starts 6pm. Watershed, 60 mins £7.20 adult ticket.

THURSDAY 9th – Digital Bristol

#1 DigitalBristol is a community for people in Bristol & the surrounding areas who want to stay up-to-date with the ever changing digital landscape. This month’s speaker is Giles Colborne, Managing Director at cxpartners. This talk will show you how asking the right questions can help plan and design better user experiences, how to measure the return on investment of delight and how to understand where to focus your design effort and product development. 9 – 6 pm at Horts Bristol.

FRIDAY 10th – Lunchtime Talk & Digital Training

#1 Lunchtime Talk: ‘Design fiction’ describes ways of using storytelling techniques, especially in the form of video, to make speculative design ideas feel real. The explores how technology designers employ design fictions as a form of prototyping but also highlights how these ideas frequently bleed into cinema and popular fiction. PM studio, 1pm free.

#2 Advanced Social Media and Digital Marketing Training
Learn how to create conversion funnels within a strategic digital plan, understand how to personalise and customise Google Analytics and how to write engaging content for customers that optimises website and social networking to stimulate conversations and prospects. From £195 at Bristol Business College.

SATURDAY 11th – Record Fair

#1 Record fair – 1000s of LPs, singles and CDs, from rare collectibles to re-releases, from funk to punk, you’ll find it here!

MONDAY 23rd – Cinebabies and Quiz

#1 Cinebabies- Coriolanus: Cinebabies is a weekly daytime screening which allows parents to bring their babies (as long as their under 12 months) safe in the knowledge that they won’t bother other cinema goers.  Coriolanus marks Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut with this Shakespeare adaptation.  Starts at 11am at the Watershed.

#2 Watershed Film Quiz- This quiz will include audio and visual rounds.  IMDb have also donated special prizes as well as donating some of their own team to partake in the quiz!  Starts at 8pm, £2.50 per person.

TUESDAY 24th – Animation and App training

#1 CineMe Animation Workshop- Joseph Wallace, a Bristol based film and theatre director will be presenting a 2 hour workshop introducing the art of stop-motion and puppet animation.  Takes place at the Green Room in the Tobacco Factory, starts at 8pm.  Tickets, £7.50.

#2 Mobile Apps Training Course- Tailored to designers and web developers, ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ for this workshop on designing apps for iPhones and Androids. Places are limited to 12 participants, 9-5.30pm at the Pervasive Media Studio.

WEDNESDAY 25th – Artist’s and Digital talks

#1 Free Artists Talk: Jen Southern and Laura Sillars will provide a live demonstration of the new audio visual installation, Polyrhythmia. Participants are invited to take a ‘Space Metronome’ on a journey and as they move, they hear the rhythm of the speed that they are travelling. Starts at 6pm at the Watershed.

#2 The Beauty of Digital: New technologies, old aesthetics and where the two meet, following on from Polyrhythmia, a panel of Digital creatives will share their experiences of where the old and the new meet in the digital modern age.  Promising to be a lively and thought-provoking celebration of the creative possibilities of new technologies.  Free event but must be booked in advance!  Starts at 7.30pm at the Watershed.

THURSDAY 26th – Albert, Eco filmmaking and Slapstick

#1 Think Future Now – TV, Film and Albert:  ThinkFutureNow is designed to produce a cultural change within creative companies in Bristol to help them become more sustainable, work smarter and reduce their environmental footprint.

This event is the perfect opportunity to learn about initiatives on sustainable TV and filmmaking and Albert (the BBC’s friendly carbon calculator). Guest speakers include Emma Peddie  (BBC Sustainability team), Melanie Dicks (Greenshoot), Marina Traversari & Duncan Haskell (Icon Films) and Matt Golding (Team Rubber). 6.30 – 8 pm with drinks afterwards, FREE at BBC Bristol.

#2 Bristol’s Slapstick Festival: returning for it’s 8th year and it’s bigger and better than ever. This year’s special guests include writer, performer and television personality Griff Rhys Jones, Monty Python’s Terry Jones and Ian Lavender (Private Pike) from Dad’s Army. January 26th – 29th with various venues and prices.

FRIDAY 27th – Winter Cider festival and Bristol place making

#1 Bristol Winter Cider Festival: A sell out last year! On offer will be over 100 ciders and perries as well as hog roast rolls and cheese platters. Somerset’s premier Wurzels tribute band The Mangledwurzels will be playing a full show at all three sessions to help you drink up thy cider. Brunel’s Passenger Shed £7.00 in advance.

#2 Pervasive Media Studio Lunchtime Talk – Bristol’s placemaker: Serial entrepreneur Mike Bennett has spent his professional life starting and running businesses such as e3, Goldbrick House & Bristol Media. Last year he became Bristol’s Place Making Director. His biggest project to date was See No Evil and he’s currently plotting a whole host of new ideas for 2012. In his talk he will be unpicking what it means to be a place maker and how the studio and wider community can get involved in shaping the city. 1 – 2pm FREE

SUNDAY 29th – Funny Stuff

#1 TumbleWeed Comedy Club is a brand spanking new comedy club at the Big Chill that aims to promote fresh and exciting new talent from this city and beyond. Go along, grab a sofa and warm yourself by the fire….or give the microphone a go.

#2 Omid Djalili: The multi-award winning stand-up, international film star, and acclaimed writer/producer goes back on the road for the first time in 3 ½ years with his brand new show. Colston Hall 8pm, £19 a ticket.

TUESDAY – Sister Act and Spoken Word

#1 Sister Act If anyone remembers Sinbad from Brookside, this won’t disappoint! Failing that, it looks like it could be good fun. Tickets available for a number of dates, starting at £18.50.

#2 Henry Rollins: The Long March US punk-rock icon Henry Rollins takes to the spoken word providing us with political commentary, personal anecdote and ‘some of the most provocative chit-chat around’. Tickets £19.50, Doors 7pm.

WEDNESDAY – Short Films

#1 Cineme 9, Short Film Extravaganza Cineme 9 will be screening over 25 short films at the Hen & Chicken. Seems extremely good value for money with tickets being priced at £5, they can be purchased in advance or on the night. Starts at 8pm.

THURSDAY – Being Green and Girl Geeks

#1 – Energy Policy in 2012 hosted by Bristol City Council at the Council House. Organised by Forum for the Future of Bristol Green Capital and West of England Carbon Challenge members, a panel of experts will be answering key questions about what’s going to happen to our planet in 2012. 4-6pm.

#2- Girl Geek Event #12. Infineon technologies are both sponsoring this event and providing pizza! Pizza aside, Dr Constance Fleuriot, a Research Associate at the Digital Cultures Research Centre will be speaking. Any female PhD students are also invited to talk about their work. This event is free as always and takes place in Stoke Gifford (close to Bristol Parkway). Starts at 6.30pm.

FRIDAY – Lunchtime Talk and Social Media.

#1 – Precious Cargo an application for Mesh Mobs. Another lunchtime talk by Pervasive Media Studios, this time the talk is on 3G and smart phones and the influence these forms of media can have on crowds. Basically a very clever theory about mesh forming. Starts at 1pm.

#2- CIPR Breakfast Briefing and Social Media ‘Getting Social Strategically’Register early for this session covering the importance of a social media strategy, the basics of developing one and how this fits with the traditional marketing mix. Starts early at 7.45 am at Horizon House, £5 for members and £10 for non-members.

SATURDAY – Script Writing and Picnics

#1- Script Boot Camp- Do something productive with your weekend like write a script….or learn how to write one anyway. Lessons in the art of structure, character and dialogue will have you fighting fit to enter into the Scriptwriting world! Quite pricey at £95 so I guess you have to be pretty serious about script writing, taking place at the Watershed. Starts at 10am.

#2- Free Indoor Picnic at Trinity Centre- monster making, origami, book swapping- just some of the fun events at Trinity this weekend… whilst picnicking. Remember to bring a picnic and blanket. Starts at 12pm.

#1 For starters….. Half price food ALL DAY at Vodka Revs! Forget about any post-christmas diet and head down there!

#2 Full Moon Orchestra- Anyone can join in with this special event at the Arnolfini whether you bring along your musical instrument or simply your voice or a dance move.  It’s a spontaneous event and free to join!  Starts at 7pm.

#3 January Skillswap: Linux- Nicolas Alpi, Amias Channner and James Moverley will be talking about how to use Linux, both as an everyday operating system and as a web server.  This will be the first Skillswap at Pervasive Media Studio’s new location in the Watershed and is FREE!  Starts at 8pm.

TUESDAY- Lets nurture our ideas

#1 Nurturing Ideas: how you can lead a marketing organisation to greater success. A massive success in Bath, Mark Baptist (Director of Pace Change Management) will be telling us all how to effectively generate ideas, create consensus and deliver change. Starts at 5.30pm, free entry at the Clifton Club (22 The Mall, Clifton).

WEDNESDAY- Make a Dress!

#1 Dress Making Event: this sounds very exciting for all those looking to navigate their way around a sewing machine! Takes place at the Prince of Waterloo in Winford at 6.30pm AND all proceeds go to the Harvey Hext charity (Price TBC).

THURSDAY- Get Digital

#1 Digital Bristol- Digital Strategy for boosting your business online. Keeping us up to date with all things digital, these free monthly networking events attract the best digital knowledge, expertise and businesses in the region! Starts 18.30, venue TBC, free entry.

FRIDAY- Lunchtime talk and acoustic weekend

#1 Bristol Acoustic Music Festival (hosted by Jelli Records). This three-day acoustic festival at St Georges celebrates the breadth and diversity of Bristol’s unplugged music scene. £7 for a day ticket.

#2 Lunchtime Talk: Integrating Pervasive Technologies with Cinematic and Immersive Theatre. A free talk by Mason Robinson and Lukus Robbins, performance artists from Dartington college of Arts/ University College Falmouth. An interesting way to break up your day- the talk will explain how they have been researching and developing a narrative exploration through performance and installation amongst other things!

SATURDAY- Films

#1 London Short Film Festival- Best Film Festival in the world says The Guardian! LSFF is an annual event that presents the best in UK short film-making talent. For a couple of weeks in January, London’s best independent cinemas and venues are taken over showcasing some amazing short films. Oh, and they throw in a bunch of live music and parties too! Some tickets left, various prices and availability.

SUNDAY – Girl Geek

#1 Girl Geeks vs Wikimeet event – A hands-on editing event, at the University of Bristol.

This event will run from 1pm until 5pm on Sunday 15th January. Experienced Wikipedians will be on hand to help you explore how to edit Wikipedia, so please bring a laptop with you. It is also Wikipedia’s birthday on the 15th January so Wikipedia will be providing the nibbles and hopefully another fabulous Wikipedia cake.

And that’s it for what’s happening this week! #2!

TUESDAY – The Hoff is Here

#1 Peter Pan launches at Bristol Hippodrome today, starring David Hasselhoff as Captain Hook. It’s only on till the 8^th of Jan so if you want to go, I’d get in quick – I received tickets to this yesterday as my first Christmas present – hooray!

WEDNESDAY – #Kittencamp Christmas Party – no other events need be mentioned!

#1 KittenCamp comes to Bristol for a spectacular Christmas party from 6.30 pm onwards in the party room at The Big Chill Bar.

Special guest speakers, fancy dress, monthly-mega-meme-mix, drinks and monster-musical-memes-mixer - with FREE beers provided courtesy of the Viral Ad Network (www.ViralAdNetwork.net).

THURSDAY – Moomins and pies

#1 Pieminister PIES! The final event from Bristol Festival of ideas and what a grand finale it is!

Tristan Hogg and Jon Simon, founders of Pieminister share their success story, their pies (yes free samples!) and some Christmas drinks in their talk: Pieminister: A Pie for All Seasons… Excellent after work event in my opinion, 6.30 pm onwards at Cabot Circus. Free but you need to reserve a place.

#2 Moomins night at the cube – Yes this is how it sounds.

Spend an evening in the Moomin Valley with audio visual treats and Moomin-inspired food and drink in the bar – Free from 8pm.

FRIDAY – Hounded, Bloggers’ Christmas Party & Lunchtime deception

#1 Hounded – SlingShot have unleashed their latest thrilling chase game and I am SO excited about this! So after surviving the zombie apocalypse (or not in our case) and the creatures that lurk in the shadows.. You now have to survive as a fox being hounded down by huntsman equipped with REAL dogs. Ahhh!

Mulled wine and snacks can be found at St Nick’s after the event to help you recover – YES! £13 From 7pm Thursday and Friday – We’re playing Friday if anyone wants to join!

#1 MyStreetChic.com – is hosting a Bloggers’ Christmas Party and Fashion Show.

If you’re a fashion or beauty blogger keen to meet other bloggers then head over to their Christmas party and fashion show at 7pm in Java. Tickets are £5 each but for that you get a goodie bag, a MyStreetChic.com cocktail, plus free entry to the club after the event.

#3 Pervasive Media Studio Lunchtime Talk: Mystery Design, Physical Deception
and Attention Control – 1pm.

Do something interesting with your lunch break, like go and see Stuart Nolan giving a talk on his expertise in sleight-of hand, hypnosis, cold reading, psychological illusion, memory skills, and street performance. Learn how he’s applied these techniques to new areas; researching how teenagers respond to the mysterious in new technologies, how organisations are regularly deceived by the language of strategy documents, and how the art of attention control can be used in visual design, media production and sport coaching.

SATURDAY – Made in Bristol Gift Fair – From 10am

#1 Locally created gifts are spread over three floors of Colston Hall’s foyer space, to create a unique shopping extravaganza with a lively and festive atmosphere. Over 100 carefully selected creatives will be offering their affordable and original designer items.

SUNDAY – Comedy at the Chill

#1 Tumbleweed Comedy Club is a brand spanking new comedy club at the Big Chill bar. Seems to be an ‘open-mic’ event, which could prove very interesting…Taking place upstairs in the Study room.

And that’s it for what’s happening this week? #1!