As our Twitter followers probably know, we had the opportunity to attend the annual PSFK Conference last Friday. (The 2012 edition of the annual event shares its name with PSFK's first print magazine, "Need to Know," which was distributed at the event.) Featuring some two dozen artists, entrepreneurs, trendspotters, technologists and media personalities, the conference served up a broadly informative and inspirational mix of content, and, as always with the day-long series of talks and presentations, the profusion of ideas quickly precluded the possibility of stopping to reflect on them. (Lunch, of course, provides just enough respite to catch up with other attendees and speakers.)
While we await the forthcoming videos of the talks from PSFK, we've compiled our notes (mostly from the pre-caffeine-crash morning session, for better or worse) with a few finessed caricatures for flavor, plus photos and all of our Tweets for good measure.
Photos by Glen Jackson-Taylor; text and illustrations by yours truly
Jonathan Harris
-Jonathan Harris
Artist Jonathan Harris of Cowbird recounted his chronicle from Brooklyn-based art star to peripatetic soulseeker and back again. Over the past half decade, his artwork has come to address the possibility of translating meaningful real-life experiences into digital media, using photos, video and spoken word as a means of capturing and preserving the essence of those stories.
-Robert Kirkpatrick
Robert Kirkpatrick of UN Global Pulse started with the premise that the Internet has become a veritable 'nervous system' of the digital world over as individuals intentionally and unknowingly generate massive amounts of data every minute of every hour of every day. His company is looking to harvest this raw data in order to identify patterns in real time, specifically to meet the needs of the increasingly-connected second and third world.
Graham Hill demos the foldable "ThinBike," which he developed with Schindelhauer Bikes
As founder of Treehugger, Graham Hill knows a thing or two about, say, reducing one's carbon footprint; his latest venture, Life Edited, started with his concern with reducing what might be called an 'urban footprint.' As the name of his new company implies, Hill has taken Dieter Rams' maxim "less, but better" to heart as an approach to maximizing space and utility through design.
Simon Collins of Parsons the New School for Design
Steve Clayton
-Steve Clayton
Steve Clayton of Microsoft shared several projects from their Lab-like space, Next, including a particularly gasp-worthy desktop videochat peripheral in Illumishare, as well as the "Wearable multitouch projector," a new platform for augmented reality.
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