XMediaLab 2011: A summary in tweets...

XMediaLab is internationally renowned for bringing innovative ideas, people, and projects to the world, and Friday's session in Sydney, as part of the Vivid Festival, was no exception.

Guy and I arrived with only moments to sip down a hot coffee and head into The Opera House Studio for the start of the three-day event. After introductions and welcomes, the Global Ideas Summit kicked off and the #xmedialab was going off with a steady stream of takeouts, funny remarks and commentary on all the presentations.

And... we're off! The presentations started with a rare insight into the world of venture capitalist investments with a great keynote from one of Silicon Valley's top VC's, Tim Chang. @dministry Could listen to @timechange for hours, fascinating insights into what VCs are looking to invest in.

Tim Chang's 'What's Hot' and 'What's Not' of Silicon Valley investment trends was interesting to hear; the summary being that augmented reality 1.0 and social media are out, and service based apps are the go with the investment market focused on mobile. @H_Suarez Mobile now about cloud based services rather than a phone in your pocket - apps as service, device as service, network as service

After discussing the importance of not only getting a great idea together, but getting it made and out there, he left the audience with a great thought about the old 'Content is King' adage: @Lady_Montagu "Content is king, but distribution is God Almighty!" Tim Chang, VC

John Tarnoff, who looked suspiciously like Ted Danson made us feel all warm and fuzzy with an inspirational talk about the importance of building communities: @bhowarth An audience is a group that will stand by and watch u fail - a community ... will jump in and help u succeed @johntarnoff

Kei Shimada opened our eyes to a world of weird and wacky mobile trends from Japan, as well as some great 'did you knows': @neerav Japan switching off their 2G mobile networks next year. practically everyone is already using 3G, 3.5G and 3.9G, @ozgamer McDonalds have 20m subscribers with 50% daily users to their Japan mobile coupon service (started back in 2005)

Zhuang Yan showed us the output from his from Beijing creative company, Crystal CG, and Christopher Tannner looked at cloud-based mobile developments. Eric Zho, Executive Producer of China Idol, the most watched TV show in the history of television, made us rethink branded-entertainment, @xmedialab Eric Zho is suggesting to create a character (like in Desperate Housewives) associated with a brand to integrate brand seamlessly ... and the position of women in modern-day China (thanks for the sweeping female generalizations!).

Andy Ellwood from Gowalla stressed the integration of mobile in everyday life, light_girl2 @andyellwood - 90% of smartphone owners have their phones within 3ft of them 24/7 and the rise of a new 'social era' of internet... @greerynagle @andyellwood We are moving into the social era of the Internet where relationships are key

Samuel Seow presented us with an entertaining, but not particularly exhaustive, summary on Digital IP law.
@neerav Current #xmedialab speaker lawyer Samuel Seow is entertaining about copyright and intellectual property, who knew that could be possible!, @sebchan Waiting for this Copyright discussion to mention public domain, fair use, fair dealing, education etc

After lunch, Martyn Ware (Heaven 17, The Human League) wowed us with examples of his audio work; visions of immersive experiences include sensory experiments with 3D sound and its applications in autism treatment. Collective 'Wows' were heard around the room when he presented his RedBull Soundclash project and then urged us to get him back to Sydney soon. @DrTNitins Martyn Ware: fully immersive environments/experiences are the future. Would love to experience this at Vivid next year!, @nativeshell martyn ware recreating a soundscape in the colloseum. Awesome. Time travel with sound.

Mike Hawley had an audience of people jealous of, well pretty much his whole life. He showed us snaps from his travels round the world in his role with MIT's GO expeditions, and his involvement in the first iterations of many of the technologies that are now integral to daily life including GPS and location tracking systems. Inspiring everyone to push boundaries, he left us on a poignant note: JimBobBillBoyce Mike Hawley: the future may require not so much having a new idea as to stop having an old idea

The overall mood of the day was turned on its head when Dr. Vesna Petresin-Robert took the stage and her hypnotic presenting style induced a trance-like state. Some commented that she didn't make much sense, but they could've just been distracted by her hallucinogenic visual projections. jarodgreen Rubedo! This is awesome! But why do I feel like we'll be served kool-aid at the end of this presentation? Others remarked on her likeness to a sci-fi villain, and some took the opportunity for a nap.

The final session of the afternoon was jam-packed. After Sey Min's shoes caused a stir, DrTNitins So looking forward to this presentation by Sey Min but am totally distracted by her ultra cool shoes! and she demonstrated how beautiful data could be, Dr. William Cooper from Informitv shared his thoughts about television @paulwallbank: Dr William Cooper's 20 predictions on the future of TV can be found at bit.ly/6JWCol

Dorothy K. Gordon treated us to an insight into mobile and digital consumer behavior in Africa. Director-General at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, she certainly put the relative size of Australian audiences into perspective.

When all were exhausted and felt like no more information could possibly enter their head that day, the Scandanivian rockstar of the game world, Orvar Safstrom took the stage. Orvar waxed lyrical on the popularity of games, the smarts of George Lucas and weighed the pluses and pitfalls of a World of Warcraft theme park and how gaming will effect our family holidays. An entertaining end to the day, his thoughts on gamification and its incorporation into real life left us agreeing with this final comment: @xmedialab Orvar Safstrom: reality is the worst game ever.