40 SPEAKERS - 32 SESSIONS 3 DAYS - 3 KEYNOTES - 1 PASS
HPX Digital was a great addition to the overall Halifax Pop Explosion and showcased the convergence of music and digital technologies. Having delegates mix and mingle during the conference and then get inspired by over 186 musical performances at night was great and the feedback so far has been nothing short of amazing. We are really excited to continue to build the digital side of things for 2013 and have some tricks up our sleeves to make it an even better event.�
Jonny Stevens - Executive Director Halifax Pop Explosion Association
I’ve been thinking about the event that would become HPX Digital since 2011 when Jonny Stevens, who I’d known from my time in the Halifax music scene, approached me and explained that the Halifax Pop Explosion wanted to figure out how it could transform its small, music industry-focused conference into something bigger with a broad technology focus. We talked about what makes events great, the demand in the local community, and how we could take this first year to demonstrate that Halifax can support an integrated tech/marketing/music festival that would be on caliber (if not scale, given the space constraints) with some of the best events we’ve experienced. Halifax has a tech community that is thriving and growing, as demonstrated by successful startups like GoInstant and incredible digital creations like TakeThisLollipop.com, as well as Third Wednesday, DemoCamp, and a host of other events that bring us together. Halifax has what it takes - the first HPX Digital showed that. We have proof of concept, we’ve exposed some incredible visitors (including fantastic speakers like Alexis Ohanian) to a talented, enthusiastic, and accomplished community, and we’ve got a great vision for next year. So spread the word - you’ve just seen Halifax’s signature tech conference be born - it’s a healthy baby and it’s going to grow fast. Thanks for being part of it!
Jeff MacArthur CEO, Konnekt Digital Engagement User Experience & Keynote Curator, HPX Digital
HPX Digital — Smart, Agreeable, Indiosyncratic
by Boyd Neil
After 20 years as a music festival, Halifax Pop Explosion (HPX) this year added its first digital conference — following the lead of SXSW and NXNE. On the experience of this inaugural digital event, at which I was a guest presenter, there should be a second year, and it should stay about the same size with a similar mix of topics. Smart presenters, intelligent questions from the audience (how often do you get that?), agreeable dinners with fellow presenters . . . all together an idiosyncratic amalgam of hard core geek presentations and sentient social analysis with some of what can only be described as quirky ‘performances’ (see below). As with any digital conference, even one that takes place in only two small conference rooms, there were too many new ideas to take in at HPX Digital.
So, here are the four pivotal ideas I will keep until next year: Faris Yakob (@faris) — showman, cultural savant and creative digital analyst — lets us know that Proximity is a Virtue and that marketers should not be marketing to people, but context. Other axiomatic comments: ‘Proximity is influence’, ‘location is a form of media’, ‘geekery is the R+D of humanity’ and ‘think of mobile as the constant now’. Rosie Siman’s (@rosiesiman) presentation called Year of the People, which walks through a quiz about people vs. brands proves (to me anyway) “that people matter more than brands.” Ms Siman’s six trends that matter: storytelling, content curation, entrepreneurialism, transmedia, influence, do good. Digital strategist (with 360i in New York), pop culture
curator, on her website she includes Canada among those places she might like to live for a while: You’re invited! A media artist “working with code as medium and theme: interactive installations, tactical openness as performance” named Kyle McDonald (@ kcimc) made everyone feel like a juvenile coder. Don’t believe me? Take a look at his website, or this description of one of his latest projects: “Blind Self-Portrait 2012 with Matt Mets While the visitor keeps their eyes shut, a moving platform guides a pen in their hand to draw a self-portrait, using computer vision to track their face and generate a line drawing. The result is a machine-aided drawing, a self-portrait you could never draw.”
DAY ONE #HPXdigital Daniel Berkal @danielberkal Kyle Macdonald is amazing! Absolutely cutting edge and terrifyingly creative. Avant garde has a new face. (Literally.) #HPXdigital #HPX
rosie siman @rosiesiman Yes. RT @faris: “Maybe it [art] is less about the thing you are making and more about the discussion you are creating” - @kcimc #hpxdigital
John Atkins @neuro929 @jeffmacarthur great talk about user experience at #hpxdigital site experiences based on a balance between design, content and function.
James White @Signalnoise Thanks for the great day #HPXdigital. Met some great people, re-united with some friends. Looking forward to tomorrow’s panel at HIGH NOON.
Ian Conrad @porcelainduck
Stacey Mulcahey (@Bitchwhocodes), who unfortunately thinks “her lack of verbal filter and extreme candor (is) just a small part of her womanly charms” is something other than an embarrassing attempt to appear hard ass, has this to say about the responsive web: embrace fluidity in design and function, focus on one content source, think mobile first because it starts with the barebones and works outward, and as a corollary of the last point when it comes to mobile design “Don’t think enabled; think optimized.”
A weird computer thing drew me. Or made me draw myself, or something #HPXDigital
I missed a couple I wanted to take in, including Daniel Berkal’s (@ danielberkal) Project Butterfly and Alex Ohanian’s (@Alexisohanian) closing keynote. I guess HPX will just have to invite us all back.█
“Cultivate your vices.” This guy @kcimc is a Digital Hedonist. I LOVE IT #HPXDigital
Simon Lawrence @SimonBITS #HPXDigital Day 1 my favourite speakers were @bitchwhocodes @faris @kcimc. Connect with them, learn and enjoy my friends :o) #BITS
Stephanie Bergara @labergieberg RT @withoutayard: Don Pitts from @ ATXMusicOffice sharing his city’s lessons w/tech growth via thriving music scene #HPXDigital...
Kyle Racki @kyleracki Listening to a fucking genius speak, Kyle MacDonald, at #HPXdigital
Kendra @halifaxfilmgal
Sylvia @sylviacreamer So @kcimc is killing his #HPXdigital talk. This guy is a hilarious genius!
Harnessing the power of crowdfunding with RocketHub founder Brian Meece
by Lizzy Hill
Brian Meece knows a thing or two about crowdfunding—The speaker at the HPX Digital Conference is the CEO of New York’s RocketHub, one of the world’s largest crowd funding platforms, funneling millions of dollars from supporters to tens of thousands of projects across Canada and the US. Lizzy Hill got a chance to pick his brain about everything ranging from working with the White House to the surprising ways he found success.
If you could offer a piece of advice to the newcomer to crowdfunding, what would it be? Have a clear and concise pitch for your project; have a core group of supporters that can validate the project and show that you’re a legitimate leader; and then have really good rewards to give back in exchange for the financial contributions—stuff that people want, that they can get excited about.
You’ve used crowdfunding yourself as an artist to raise $6,000 for your band, Brian and Silbin (And Friends)—What tactics did you find worked best? What were the most unexpected successes? We found that a lot of successful projects have a sense of momentum once they’ve finished their campaign because everyone in their community is rallying around them wanting them to succeed, not only with the crowdfunding campaign but beyond. So I have an interesting story: one of my rewards for my cd was that for $50, we would “Sargeant Pepper you”—We’d stick your face on the cover of the record. And as a result, somebody who had their face on the cover of the record brought that cd into their workplace. They happened to work at a big tv company and I ended up getting a placement deal for my music, just for having them literally involved in the cover of my record. That’s one example of the community supporting and finding new opportunities for somebody making something happen.
You’ve spoken about meeting with the White House and the potential of working with the US government to use crowdfunding as a model. What exactly are you up to? Rocket Hub has been working with Congress, The SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] and most recently, which was yesterday, we met with the White House on crowdfunding. Basically, the US Government recognizes that crowdfunding is a new form of capital creation, and that it can potentially empower entrepreneurs to start companies, and some of those companies are going to grow and hire people and be good for the US economy. So we’re providing data—we’re providing suggestions on regulatory components for this new law called the Jobs Act that will enable entrepreneurs to open up investments in their endeavors. So instead of somebody crowdfunding and giving c.d.s and T-shirts and coffee mugs in exchange for financial contributions, they’ll be able to give up stock in their companies ... We see the massive potential for a new product that’s built on an investment basis.
Passion is a fickle beast. Sometimes it carries you forward, pushing you to things you didn’t think were possible. Sometimes it runs away with you, dragging you behind while you struggle to control it. And sometimes it disappears so quietly that you never even realize it left. Before HPXDigital, I had lost my passion. I didn’t realize it, but I was bored by what I was doing, going through the motions without real drive, and for someone intent on a career in design, that is a truly dangerous thing. After three days of kickass speakers, interesting people, and new ideas I felt an energy whose absence had gone almost unnoticed. Something had changed. I felt excited, animated, riding a high that one week later is still going strong. I learned a lot of things from HPXDigital. I now understand better how to connect with audiences and promote myself. I’ve learned how giving things away for free can make you far richer in the long run. I’ve made some new friends and developed opportunities I didn’t even realize were open to me. But most importantly, I fucking love what I do, and it’s not slipping away again.
- Sebastian Tory-Pratt
We came, we saw, we tweeted.
by Ryan Patey
Going to any conference, especially
you add the conference mothership, the
those that last more than a day, is a
Halifax Pop Explosion music festival,
lot like a Choose Your Own Adventure
into the mix, you’ve got quite a few
Book (or an Adventure of Your Own
days where my iPhone battery ran out
Choosing, depending on whether or not
well before I called it a night.
you own the copyright to the previous). Of course, when it comes to a digital conference or most things tech-related these days, it’s more like a Tweet/ Instagram Your Own Adventure. Sadly, it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but you can take that up with the owners of those copyrights, if you feel so inclined.
Luckily, I did manage to catch a bunch of things from JAC’s adventure. Starting from the moment we all hopped in a Jeep to meet with a client in PEI, and right up until the closing party, I added small bits of data to the thing Peter Mansbridge referred to as “Internet”, and more folks commonly call “home” now. Whether it was the
As the Copy Editor for JAC, a fully
fog on the bridge while surrounded
integrated digital agency based in St.
by nothing but water or our fearless
John’s, NL, and one of the key sponsors
leader dropping the f-bomb (Flash)
of the HPX Digital conference, it
during his panel on the future of the
became my duty to let the world know we
web, the folks at home followed our
were here, and there, and there, and
adventure of our own choosing. Or they
over there as it happened. On a daily
were laughing at that cat in the box
basis, that’s not so hard, but when
from Japan. You can’t win them all,
DAY TWO #HPXdigital right? Of course, for those of us who were there, we all know it was probably the moments that could not be captured in 140 characters or processed through a vintage filter that really made the conference interesting. Things like the idealism of simply giving it all away,
Seb Tory-Pratt @yellinglouder So many ideas bouncing around my head. #hpxdigital is doing its job.
Leo Dell’Anno @Usualsuspectguy I was just introduced to the Email Game http://emailga.me/ During Amber Macs presentation! #HPXDigital I am so playing this!!!!
the simple, yet complex, mantra of just
John Arnold @migrantp
going out there and doing something
Andrew Burke, he’s so hot right now! @ajlburke #HPXDigital pic.twitter.com/aotinVcL
if you’re passionate about it, and the number of memes in Alexis’ final keynote are just too big to summarize well. Hell, even the feeling I had when two people walked past me talking about how funny the JAC ads were couldn’t
Lara Killian @larakillian Using lots of video content to support her points, @rosiesiman trying to prove that people are more interesting than brands #HPXDigital
really be posted online properly.
Amanda Wenek @AmandaWenek
Although, I sure did try to recreate
‘The Dark Knight’ world wide scavenger hunt (http://Vimeo.com/6303664 ) is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. #hpxdigital
it the next day when I met up with the team! Sure, the whole conference could have been streamed live around the world from a camera in the palm of someone’s hand, if they were stoic enough to stay
Destination Hfx @meethalifax Also loving all the great quotes & tweets from @HPXDigital #Conference! Lots of learning going on in #Halifax. #HPXDigital2012 #meethfx
still for that long. We could even each
Ashwin Kutty @WeUsThemInc
write our own summary in far more than
“Catvertising” - new age advertising, the next phenomenon by @mavylala of thetweetsofjohn @HPXDigital #HPXDigital
140 characters to try and get across what our individual experience was like, but I still think something would
rosie siman @rosiesiman
be missing: real life.
I’m looking forward to next year’s
sitting in #hpxdigital session on ‘what makes ideas stick’ with @mavylala who works at john street, an agency i’m kinda obsessed with. awsm.
conference. I suspect JAC will be
Gwyneth Dunsford @gwynduns
For this reason, and many others,
present in some way, maybe not with a nose-picking, problem solving zombie for a spokesmodel, but we’ll be there. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of us has tried to check-in for it on Foursquare already. █
.@mayvlala is sharing successful campaigns she has worked on. This one for Stanfields underwear is amazing http://bit.ly/XtkMpC #HPXDigital
HPX Digital @HPXDigital Giving client real time metrics allows you to react @mavylala #HPXDigital2012
“It’s less about the thing you are making and more about the conversation you are creating” ~ How to Give Everything Away by Kyle McDonald, HPXDigital 2012 The HPXdigital lounge was a “pop-up Hub” experience. The Hub’s intention was to support a meaningful experience by hosting a welcoming lounge area and visualizing interesting content. In the spirit of digital creation we invited together a mixed team of creative people to produce a zine of the three days (brainchild of Rob MacArthur) as well as share content via social media and film. It was GREAT to work with Alex from Local Connections Halifax and Sebastian who wove together rich content for the zine. Iain Keith brought his illustration talent to the fore by creating visual session reflections, which we really love. It was also a pleasure to work with Riley Lamarche again, a local filmmaker, to get some B roll currently being distilled in an effort to capture the first HPXDigital experience! We love characters and enjoyed people who came through the lounge like Rob Daily of Daily Unsigned in LA. Rob came up with the concept of doing funky photo takes from the “Lively” chair provided by Office Interiors as a giveaway for participants. Make sure you think of Office Interiors the next time you need some nice office fixings, they were a great partner. We enjoyed hearing about ideaBOOST, connecting with Leonardo, as well as meeting Brian Reece from @RocketHub. Good times, great connections. Please drop in at the Hub anytime at 1673 Barrington, 2nd Floor, Halifax, NS. “I have finite time and resources, we get more back from each other by sharing and create limitless possibilities” ~ How to Give Everything Away by Kyle McDonald, HPXDigital 2012
- Joanne MacRae & Tracy Boyer Hosts of the Digital Lounge
DAY THREE #HPXdigital James White @Signalnoise I take the stage today at #HPXdigital for my DESIGN RENEGADE presentation. High noon. Stories, art, rock n’ roll. Possible laughs.
Kendra @halifaxfilmgal It’s top o’ the morning at #HPXDigital, @ rockethub is going to talk abt crowdfunding and he just called Halifax gorgeous.
Boyd Neil @BoydNeil Great few days @ #HPXDigital. Smart speakers + super programming ... Sorry I have to leave early. See you at SXSWi in March!
thehubHALIFAX @thehubHALIFAX The Network is about Depth, Width and Touch. Depth is important, social validation. @ rockethub #HPXdigital http://ow.ly/i/12sXU
Jason Wong @jasonlwong @hpxdigital came prepared wearing my hipster thick rimmed glasses. Fitting right in today!
Daniel Arndt @dantrimental “There is no ‘finished’ in software, only points along the way.” just realised I’ve never finished anything... #HPXdigital
Connections Hfx @ConnectionsHFX @schutzsmith This guy, this is an amazing guy. #HPXDigital He knows what he’s doing.
Extreme Group @ExtremeGroup Our #FF this week goes to our friends down the hall at @karmagaming and @dystillr. And to @hpxdigital for a great conference.
Riccardo Giraldi @giraz #HPXDigital @RedPaperHearts “Experiences, not possessions lead to greater happiness” pic.twitter.com/Y7jY03Se
Jesse_C_Scott @Jesse_C_Scott Goodbye @HPXDigital ! Thanks for the good times... Hope to see you again next year!
MARKETING AND MEDIA AND KEYNOTES… OH MY! (HPX REDUX) by
Leslie Fleming
Music and technology work pretty nicely together. These days it seems like you rarely have one without the other, and this has certainly been true for me over the last week as I’ve been participating in Halifax Pop Explosion (HPX) and HPX Digital (the associated media/marketing/tech conference). I’ve been emceeing (that word does not look right to me at all… emcee’ing… mcing… um… being an emcee) and helping out with some of the social media for the conference and it has been great. I’ve met some awesome people involved in the tech and media industries here in Halifax, and the cream of the crop in the tech/digital/media scene from all over North America. So I’m highjacking my own (oft-neglected) music blog to write a post about the digital media world and the superstars of this conference. Every single presenter I saw was fantastic (which is usually not the case at 3-day conferences), but I’ve narrowed down my top 6. 1) Kyle McDonald (@kcimc): Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Why didn’t I know about him before? McDonald is a media artist from Brooklyn who blew my damn mind with his presentation on giving everything away. Over the course of one hour Kyle demonstrated a selection of his wild, wonderful and jawdropping projects using 3D projections. He exists in the most fantastic of spaces where art and technology collide and the the results are nothing short of magnificent. When the robot overloads take over, I definitely want this guy on my team. 2) Boyd Neil (@BoydNeil): This man has 100% more street cred than 99.99% of all people in the tech industry. He started his presentation with a photo of his younger self being hauled off by the police for political protesting. Aside from being an expert who gives and takes exactly zero bullshit, he is an excellent speaker and his discussion of online activisim/slactivism was really well done. The crux of his talk was that if online activism isn’t accomplishing anything, it’s not the fault of the so-called “slacktivists” but the fault of the organizers who haven’t been successful in motivating people to actually act on behalf of a cause. He got the wheels in my head spinning. 3) Saul Colt (@saulcolt): Um Saul… if you ever read this – I want to be friends with you and I don’t care if you’re awkward in small groups (his words, not mine). Who wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who selfidentifies as “the smartest man in the world”? I have never seen or met anyone like Saul before in my life. He is a genius in the most mad-scientist/magician sense of the word. His presentation on marketing to customers (who don’t want to be marketed to) was beyond hilarious and extremely useful for anyone who
has ever been in the situation of having to do a lot with a little. This was the first time in the history of my life that I have ever wished that a slide show would go on longer. 4) Amber Mac (@ambermac): When someone has 80k+ twitter followers and 500k+ facebook subscribers, there is a chance that they might not be very down to earth. This is not the case at all with Amber Mac. After delivering a fantastic presentation on the 7 steps to social media success for entrepreneurs, Amber mingled with attendees and showed why she’s been crowned one of Canada’s top social media experts. Seeing her talk and learning about her success was a real inspiration for all the women in the audience (like me) and I’m sure the men too! 5) Daniel Berkal (@danielberkal): Berkal is a VP at the Palmerston Group in Toronto and had the audience completely engaged with his talk on sociable butterflies and the difference between the people who are truly social, accessible and influential in real life versus the hyperconnectors who appear to be social in the online space, but don’t truly “connect” with many people in the real world. I would highly recommend downloading his presentation and reading it, because it’s fascinating on a personal level AND applicable to businesses and branding. 6) Alexis Ohanian (@alexisohanian): the co-founder of Reddit and Hipmunk, investor in 50+ companies, defender of the internet – Ohanian is so articulate and wellspoken, so successful, and so normal. His keynote address highlighted his wonderful story-telling ability and endeared him to everyone in the room. He was fun and interesting, and handled some difficult questions like a pro. Also, this happened: Excuse me while I geek out for a bit… Anyway, my tech side has been completely indulged during the day in the presence of some amazing industry experts and my music-lover side has been in sweet sweet melodious heaven as I got to take in some awesome acts by night. It was a fantastic 3 days and I can’t wait to take part again next year.█
Ian Keith Murray
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