Coolhunting and Coolfarming with Social Media
'Coolhunting' was conceived by the author/futurist William Gibson in his novel "Pattern Recognition." 'Cool hunting' is now an active research area at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. If past is any indication, 'coolfarming' can change everything. Jared Diamond (author of "Guns, Germs, and Steels") identified a single catalytic event where civilization increased productivity ten to hundred times - when humanity emerged from hunter gatherer society to agrarian society. Are we soon about to witness an evolution of the same magnitude in the field of innovation? This panel will share insights from the academic research of the mastermind himself, Peter Gloor. We will also hear from corporate leaders where the rubber meets the road, and shed some light on recent acquisitions and emerging opportunities. New head of products at MySpace, CMO of Badoo, and the founder of W4 will provide a balanced view on projecting trends and impact on advertising.
Presenters
Jason Knapp, EVP of Product at Specific Media and Myspace, has spent more than two decades pursuing innovations in digital media and exploring what’s next in advertising. Jason has been a co-founder, advisory board member, or seed investor in more than 14 tech startups, six of which have been successfully acquired to date. His eye towards the future inspires him to invent products that transform how advertisers and consumers interact. Jason created the industry’s first real-time-bidding (RTB) platform to link separate advertiser and publisher systems, which spawned hundreds of startups and has been widely adopted by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
At Specific Media, Jason heads global product efforts. Since Specific Media's acquisition of Myspace in mid 2011, Jason has spent most of his energy building recently and soon-to-be-announced products under the Myspace brand. His team collaborates with global icon Justin Timberlake on the creative direction of Myspace; as well as the development of applications that will impact the future of digital entertainment, including Myspace TV – a social entertainment experience coming soon to Panasonic VIERA Connect-enabled HDTVs.
Jason previously co-founded Strategic Data Corp (SDC), which created the first sophisticated digital ad optimization and serving system. In 2007, SDC was acquired by News Corp. and became the foundation for the Fox Audience Network (FAN), News Corp.'s online advertising unit and the primary monetization arm of Myspace. Jason led creation of the company's core ad serving and optimization system, which grew to serve more than seven billion impressions a day across 2,000 websites.
Jessica leads a team focused on growing Badoo’s diverse user base, enhancing the existing product, and expanding into new markets and languages. As well as contributing to the company’s product strategy and feature development, her team is responsible for business development, brand and marketing strategy, corporate communications, policy, and business analytics.
Jessica has over a decade of experience in the digital space, working in Europe, the US and Asia as an executive. Most recently, she was Google’s Senior Director of Communications & Public Affairs, leading all aspects of external and internal communications strategy for the company in Asia-Pacific. She is also the author of a book, Literary Paris.
Jun's current focus is http://SPRE.AD and http://noos.com.
- SPREAD helps visualize spread of information.
- NOOS is new way to view news and information.
Jun studied mathematics and economics from Cornell and financial enginnering from Columbia. Jun wrote number of patents in areas ranging from multimodal user interface to augmented reality, and spent a brief stint in investment banks and management consulting firms.
He is also the organizer and moderator of SXSW 2012 panel: Coolhunting and Coolfarming with Social Media.
I am happily juggling different hats, studying Collaborative Innovation Networks at MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence, developing the social networking and data visualization software Condor with my startup galaxyadvisors, and occasionally writing books, most recently "Coolfarming - Turn your great idea into the next big thing", Coolhunting - Chasing Down the Next Big Thing" (jointly with Scott Cooper) and "Swarm Creativity – Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks".
www.wickswalker.com
Saturday, March 10
