Are we thinking about the right things?

Posted at 2:20 PM on August 17, 2011 by Michael Olson (5 Comments)
Filed under: Life

That blob above is a map of SXSW 2012 panel topics. You can see a full screen version here that allows you to zoom in and poke around in greater detail. Matt Biddulph is the smart guy behind the graphic.

The annual interactive, music and film fest in Austin has become a pretty big deal to folks that like to gaze into their own navels, but it is also an important gauge of where were are going as a culture.

Here's a big question for you. What do we need to be thinking more about as a society and what is occupying too much of our precious time?

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Comments (5)

Population control (we’ll have to come up with a more pleasing term for it) is a subject politicians wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. However, it is a subject worth discussing now. I fear that by the time we do discuss this subject we’ll already be at the point of having too many puppies (Primus reference)……

Something that is discussed way too much? Anything Kardashian related I would say.

Posted by andy | August 17, 2011 3:37 PM

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Holy smokes Matt! You are a smart guy.
Those are some social object maps if I ever saw social object maps. I can see that you are a deep digger. Infact I think you have dug all the way to the othe side of the globe. I don't know that I could ever possibly be as good of a mapper/grapher.

see:
http://www.freemaptools.com/tunnel-to-other-side-of-the-earth.htm

Our polar opposite lies in the southern portion of the Indian Ocean ;)

If I am understaning your mapping correctly there are some major goings-on between the rest of the world and London, New York, Paris and San Fran.

Focus on survival that includes everyone
Focus less on Viking Stadiums

Could one of your object maps figure out how the military is able to employ their force and then convert that to a civilian plan?

Posted by lucy | August 17, 2011 4:48 PM

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I keep hearing more and more people referring to population growth as an issues, but if you really dig into to the numbers, its a much less major issue now than it was when books like the population bomb was written nearly 40 years ago. About 10-15 years ago, acceleration of population growth peaked, and growth has been slowing down since. That is to say, population is still growing, but the trend looks like growth will hit a plateau relatively soon. The reason? Development. As economic development has brought improved public health to many regions, population growth has slowed down. Countries like Mexico, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, that 30 years ago were seen as big parts of a population bomb, are now growing at much more manageable rates and growth continues to slow. The big issue that remains is not population, per se, but energy use, and there the big culprits remain Europe and North America, with China catching up, but still a long way off on a per-capita basis. Essentially, the fight for sustainability is in the court of the developed world, and their ability to invent more sustainable technology.

Posted by Matthew Hauck | August 17, 2011 4:49 PM

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I'm urgently sad to see that advertising/marketing/branding popped far larger (aka far more attention paid) than greater good, education, business & start ups, work & happiness, gov't and technology and international issues. I'd be depressed that social media popped larger than those too, but instead I'll choose to believe the discussion is thoughtful and about social's role in Arab Spring, Wisconsin, London, etc, rather than whatever last week's secret emerging category-killer is that replaces SEO and G+ and Web 3.0.

So uh, no, I basically do not think we're thinking about the right things at all.

And yeah, I do think SXSW should be both for the funs and the ol' dang serious. Ol' dang serious social and political change emerges faster when it emerges from the funs.

Posted by MFK | August 17, 2011 8:44 PM

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//If I am understaning your mapping correctly there are some major goings-on between the rest of the world and London, New York, Paris and San Fran.

Come to think of it, your social object mapping tool could become a weapon if it got into the wrong hands, but then again most of our technology ends up being used as a weapon anyway.

ie:contagium

Posted by lucy | August 19, 2011 2:59 PM

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