I learn what I want to learn at the moment and haven't learned yet
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2025 9:58 am
With the 5th and final day, SXSW Interactive is over. Today themes were discussed such as gamefication by Stephen Anderson, politics and online democracy, education in 2025, social psychology, progressive museums and the devigners and deselopers.
Real Tech Rockstars: Engineers or Designers?
The founder of mint.com Aron Patzer, and his then designer Jason Putorti talked about the origins of mint.com and about the role of designers and engineers. Mint.com is often mentioned at SXSW because, unlike many successful online services, it pays attention to form and user experience. Mint.com is an online service where you can keep track of your income and expenses, (automatically) categorize them and then receive advice about a better credit card and other services (mint.com earns its money with lead generation). The service is comparable to the Dutch Yunoo.nl , Tim from ING or the recent financial diary of ABN AMRO.
Although the discussion was about the rockstar on the team (the designer or the developer?), the audience is eager to hear the success story of the company that was launched in 2007 with a starting capital of USD 750,000 and sold to Intuit (owner of financial application Quicken) in late 2009 for USD 170 million.
At Mint, the developer, or engineer , as Aron calls himself, was clearly in the lead. Only after 4 programmers were employed, someone was hired for marketing, namely Jason. According to Aron, it is not about whether your service looks slick, as long as you have either a unique service or a lot of reach. In the latter case, you can be downright ugly like eBay, Google or Craigslist. He does not deny the power of design, but states that the basis should simply be a good and preferably unique product, or at least have unique features. Jason has made an important contribution to mint.com. The service distinguishes itself in its simplicity. When Mint removed 30% of its unused functions, the net promoter score increased substantially.
The question of who is the Rockstar did not really get an answer. Jason was just employed by Aron and the latter is of course the Rockstar. It did become clear that it is a team sport and that self-design does not have to be a bad approach. If you listen too much to your users, you get too many features that no one ultimately uses.
Education 2025: school is out, forever!
Jillian Darwish ( Institute for the Future ) and Erika Gregory ( Knowledgeworks.com ) will host this session. The most important innovations in education in the next 10 years will not come from traditional organizations. The government is faced with a complex question: how can we make bottom-up developments in education work together with traditional top-down policymaking as it is now organized?
Because many of these bottom-up developments are internet-driven, Education is a topic that comes up a lot at SXSW, not least because the state of education in the USA is not great.
The session is hosted by Knowledgeworks and The Institute For The saudi arabia phone number list Future. The session starts with a role-play between the two speakers, who pretend to be teenagers, and give their perspective on education. One in 2011 (A), the other in 2025 (B). A few excerpts:
A “I learn what is offered, now even on the iPad”
A “My teacher is in the classroom. He lives around the corner from me, by the way”
B “My mentor lives in Houston. In the summer, that is…”
A “I have 30 classmates in the classroom”
B “Isn't that very busy? I have 234,122 classmates, worldwide, that is”
A “My classmates are all about 16 years old”
B “What a coincidence: they're all the same age! My classmates are aged 8 to 75”
A “We have computers at school, but the phone has to be turned off, which is stupid”
B “My smartphone is my remote control for life: my school is in there!”
A “I always have to say who I am and what I have and have not learned when I go somewhere”
B “I have an RFID chip in my finger, just like everyone else. Super handy!”
We brainstorm with the audience – tightly led by the ladies – on the basis of 10 aspects of education, in which a necessary paradigm shift is always named. It would take too long to explain that here, but a nice illustration of the teacher of the future can be found here on Vimeo.
And yes, Gamification is again a frequently heard concept here. One of the comments is that education must have an intrinsic motivation, because winning points and badges will not lead to sustainable results here.
Real Tech Rockstars: Engineers or Designers?
The founder of mint.com Aron Patzer, and his then designer Jason Putorti talked about the origins of mint.com and about the role of designers and engineers. Mint.com is often mentioned at SXSW because, unlike many successful online services, it pays attention to form and user experience. Mint.com is an online service where you can keep track of your income and expenses, (automatically) categorize them and then receive advice about a better credit card and other services (mint.com earns its money with lead generation). The service is comparable to the Dutch Yunoo.nl , Tim from ING or the recent financial diary of ABN AMRO.
Although the discussion was about the rockstar on the team (the designer or the developer?), the audience is eager to hear the success story of the company that was launched in 2007 with a starting capital of USD 750,000 and sold to Intuit (owner of financial application Quicken) in late 2009 for USD 170 million.
At Mint, the developer, or engineer , as Aron calls himself, was clearly in the lead. Only after 4 programmers were employed, someone was hired for marketing, namely Jason. According to Aron, it is not about whether your service looks slick, as long as you have either a unique service or a lot of reach. In the latter case, you can be downright ugly like eBay, Google or Craigslist. He does not deny the power of design, but states that the basis should simply be a good and preferably unique product, or at least have unique features. Jason has made an important contribution to mint.com. The service distinguishes itself in its simplicity. When Mint removed 30% of its unused functions, the net promoter score increased substantially.
The question of who is the Rockstar did not really get an answer. Jason was just employed by Aron and the latter is of course the Rockstar. It did become clear that it is a team sport and that self-design does not have to be a bad approach. If you listen too much to your users, you get too many features that no one ultimately uses.
Education 2025: school is out, forever!
Jillian Darwish ( Institute for the Future ) and Erika Gregory ( Knowledgeworks.com ) will host this session. The most important innovations in education in the next 10 years will not come from traditional organizations. The government is faced with a complex question: how can we make bottom-up developments in education work together with traditional top-down policymaking as it is now organized?
Because many of these bottom-up developments are internet-driven, Education is a topic that comes up a lot at SXSW, not least because the state of education in the USA is not great.
The session is hosted by Knowledgeworks and The Institute For The saudi arabia phone number list Future. The session starts with a role-play between the two speakers, who pretend to be teenagers, and give their perspective on education. One in 2011 (A), the other in 2025 (B). A few excerpts:
A “I learn what is offered, now even on the iPad”
A “My teacher is in the classroom. He lives around the corner from me, by the way”
B “My mentor lives in Houston. In the summer, that is…”
A “I have 30 classmates in the classroom”
B “Isn't that very busy? I have 234,122 classmates, worldwide, that is”
A “My classmates are all about 16 years old”
B “What a coincidence: they're all the same age! My classmates are aged 8 to 75”
A “We have computers at school, but the phone has to be turned off, which is stupid”
B “My smartphone is my remote control for life: my school is in there!”
A “I always have to say who I am and what I have and have not learned when I go somewhere”
B “I have an RFID chip in my finger, just like everyone else. Super handy!”
We brainstorm with the audience – tightly led by the ladies – on the basis of 10 aspects of education, in which a necessary paradigm shift is always named. It would take too long to explain that here, but a nice illustration of the teacher of the future can be found here on Vimeo.
And yes, Gamification is again a frequently heard concept here. One of the comments is that education must have an intrinsic motivation, because winning points and badges will not lead to sustainable results here.