Last weekend Mike K. and I attended the first ever SMartCamp, a conference focusing on the social web and its relationship to the arts. It was a good conference with speakers from some of the main players at the intersection of the arts and technology, including Etsy, Threadless, and of course, MoMA. However, there were also quite a few speakers that were new to me. Here were some of the ones that I noted:
Michelle Shildkret: runs the Social Marketing Team for Cake US. In a world where every other person suddenly is an expert in social media, it was refreshing to hear from someone who actually has deep experience and knowledge about the subject.
Nancy Proctor and Titus Bicknell: Spoke eloquently about museums and the increasing role that technology (particularly mobile) is playing within them. Nancy is Head of New Media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and manages MuseumMobile.info.
Yancey Strickler/Kickstarter: I was already familiar with Kickstarter, but Yancey provided one of the more memorable metrics: Kickstarter projects that reach 25% of their funding have a 92% chance of being fully funded. (The insight being that once the 25% mark is reached, their is enough built-in community support to reach the goal).
Art.sy: I missed the presentation of this startup, but like the name implies, looks like an Etsy-type model for artists. Nice.
Jen Bekman/20×200: Again, I was already familiar with 20×200 and Jen Bekman Projects, but this was my first time hearing Jen speak. The clarity of her vision and focus was impressive.
Saul Colt: Not sure if he is actually the smartest man in the world, but surely one of the funniest. Seems to know quite a bit about metrics and communities too.
But that said, perhaps my favorite slide of the entire conference came from artist Natasha Westcoat, whose enthusiasm and honesty was infectious. Here is her advice:
- Be fearless of consequences
- Break all the rules
- Tweet whatever you want
- Try everything
- Learn from all you can
- THEN make a plan
If you’d like a general recap of the conference, then there is a good one at JustJon Online.
Finally, here is a really beautiful short film done for MoMA called I See.
