The Second Difficult Year

Here’s the story of how Andy and Andy’s experimental festival came back for its Second Difficult Year.

At this point, there’s a lot that has already been said about XOXO, not least of which Anil Dash’s pointing out the somewhat awkward juxtaposition of group-hug celebration with a still substantial amount of implicit group-think. But then, there were so many moments during the two-and-a-bit days of XOXO that felt wildly different from and positive compared to other conferences (admittedly, only the other ones I’d attended) that if anything, any criticism of XOXO should, I hope, come across as “yes, and” rather than the all-too-usual “yes, but”.

The first XOXO in 2012 was a one-of-a-kind and intensely personal event. For some, it felt like a gigantic Internet Reunion. There were people I hadn’t seen in years — honestly, it felt like the physical instantiation of the early days of the Eatonweb Blog Directory, when one could know by name everyone on the planet who had a blog. For me, it was as much about rekindling those connections (or meeting those people for the first time) and having everyone in one place, face to face, as it was about the talks. And so last year, it’s probably fair to say that I loved last year’s XOXO because of the attendees more than the talks — and the talks were, for the most part, good.

Much was made of the Andys’ decision to gate and curate the attendees themselves. Not everyone who wanted to would be able to come to XOXO. Not everyone would even be awake when tickets went on sale. And also: no-one wanted XOXO to become what SXSW has become, a concentrate of advertising, marketing and buzzword entrepreneurship so supersaturated that seed-funded startups and social media consultants spontaneously precipitate out of the sky, over the throngs in line for the next big Brand Party.Bluntly, no one wanted to let in the dirty advertising hordes.

So, however you think the process was implemented, the question asked of attendees was simple: what have you made? After all, this was a conference for those who make things.

A Raw Human Being

The thing about XOXO 2013 is this: it felt, at times, unapologetically honest, raw and human. In the genre of “tech conference in the post-web2.0 world”, that’s a pretty surprising development. And on the outside, as a transplanted cynical Brit, I can see how the festival appeared to be one giant west-coast group hug.

There was the moment where Jack Conte spoke about what happened after Pamplemoose hit the big time, about how they’d been seduced by the music industry and then fallen into a multiple-year funk because they couldn’t just produce that one hit song that was going to be good enough. All because of pressure induced by someone else who’d come to them proclaiming Music Industry riches.

There was Cabel Sasser’s admission that the pressure of shipping Coda 2 (the Difficult Second Code Editor-cum-File-Transfer-Utility), combined with the realisation that someday Panic might come to an end, culminated in a messy, painful breakdown, one that he ultimated managed to work through.

There was Max Temkin’s admission — the very first talk of XOXO, before any expectations had been set — that he didn’t know what he was doing. Well, that’s fine, you say. None of us know what we’re doing. We all feel like frauds and imposters who are faking it and just making it up as we go along.

No, Max was saying. That’s not the point. It’s absolutely okay to not know what you’re doing. What’s more important is knowing what you believe in.

Because once you know what you believe in — once you know what your values are — you can easily work out what your strategy is. You can easily work out what your red lines are and what you’re happy to do. And when you know what you’re happy to do — because that supports your values — you know what tactics you’re happy with too.

Values, then strategy, then tactics. Never the other way around. The other way around, if you consider yourself a creative person, leads to, ultimately, a feeling of hollowness.

Then Max showed a Cards Against Humanity wedding proposal.

Like most people who actually have a heart, I have a soft spot for genuine emotion. And that’s where the high point of XOXO started — by showing us a great example of the human result of the things we’re capable of creating. There was a bit of crying.

And with that, after Max had shown a video of Aaron Swartz speaking passionately about freedom on the internet, and quoted David Foster Wallace, the elephant in the room became the disconcerting feeling that the two inspiring people in Max’s talk had committed suicide. It would have been easy for mental illness to remain unspoken over the next forty eight hours, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. The subject wasn’t exactly delved into, but it wasn’t hidden. And that was a first.

Outside the context of the conference, it feels a bit trite or, well, Californian-west-coast-Group-Hug-let’s-all-cry-it-out, but what started to emerge was the recognition that it’s not easy to stand up for what you believe in. And that it’s OK to not be strong enough, certainly not all the time. Which is why, I think, what felt powerful about XOXO was a whole bunch of people, whether they were speakers or attendees who could look at each other and say: I’ve been through something like that.

Admittedly, most of those people on stage (and this may betray my own sensibilities and own frailties) appeared fairly successful. But they also appeared to be saying, in the confines of a 15-20 minute talk to a packed auditorium, that they were pretty much regular people with the same neuroses as anyone else.

With Erika Moen’s talk — which, I have to admit, I found difficult to follow at times — what again felt powerful was her story of figuring out her self and finally coming to terms with and becoming comfortable with it. And yes, some of this does sound (at least, from a reserved, British point of view) like a group therapy session, perhaps it was, in a sense.

What Erika was saying, I think, was:

• Look. Things are difficult.
• They’re also confusing.
• A lot of the time, they don’t make sense.
• But sometimes, they all still work out in the end.

And yes, when you reduce it to bullet points you strip out all of the personal context and the meaning and how she was figuring out her sexuality and living abroad and, basically: the humanity.So: don’t do that.Everything is in the nuance.

What made XOXO different this year was that it wasn’t like a traditional tech/startup conference. Because a traditional tech/startup conference is normally (but not always!) a bit like this:

• RAWR, WE’RE AMAZING
• CHECK OUT OUR CASE STUDY
• HERE’S A HOCKEY STICK
• WE’RE CRUSHING IT AWESOMELY
• BUY OUR STUFF

What You Care About

I had a conversation the day after XOXO with a close friend where we were talking about, inevitably, startups and VCs having both been through the wringer.

You see: VCs and investors? They’re in the business of making money. Let me be clear: it is no more complicated than that. They don’t care how the money is made (to a greater or lesser degree). Their job is to take a $ sign and then find out a way to copy-and-paste the fuck out of it so it looks like $$$$$$$$$$$ stamped onto your face forever, scrolling infinitely.

XOXO, on the other hand, is (again, this may sound idealistic, millennial and trite) populated by people who want to create something meaningful. To accomplish that, they need money. Not because they’re selling out, but because we live in a pre-post-scarcity environment that’s resourced constrained and if you live in a civilized country like America and don’t have a job with health insurance, if you get sick, YOU’LL DIE.

We don’t live in Iain M. Banks’ Culture. We don’t have a hedonistic, utopian world where we can all self-actualise to our heart’s content. We live in a world where we need money to live. Maybe not a lot. But still some.

VCs, you see, don’t care about you making something meaningful. They care about copy-and-pasting $s. They are not helping you to make something meaningful. They are helping you because in you, they see a way to multiply money.

There are certainly people who are interested in and passionate about being an entrepreneur. Of building companies. XOXO was — is — about those individuals and groups of people who are interested in creative acts or the structures that enable creative acts.

At that point, it became abundantly clear, if it hadn’t been already, that XOXO was about celebrating people who were making what they were passionate about. It wasn’t a conference about virality or a/b testing to increase conversion or how to optimise your burn rate so that you get a successful Series B funding round.

It was about celebrating people who are making things they’re passionate about. About the things people care about. (Although, I guess there are people who care a lot about correctly performing a/b testing).

With Jack Cheng’s talking about his experience of kickstarting a book and approaching publishers (one response: “I don’t think we’re right for this book. It’s clean, functional and sincere.”), the tone shifted into what, exactly, it was that one wanted to achieve as a creative individual or as an artist.

Again, money raised its head: to confront the unavoidable truth that you require financial stability to do what you want to do. And that to whine about that being unfair is perhaps childish and irresponsible because if you’re serious about your art, then you should be, well, serious about creating the conditions in which you can create your art.

The second part of Jack’s talk was something that ended up being echoed a lot the next day: that we’re unaware of the ways in which we measure success distort us. That they distort all of us because we’re all quite similar when it comes down to it — at least in some form of architecture.

It’s easy to chase the view, the retweet, the like. They give us instantaneous feedback, they’re the variable interval reinforcement schedules that give us the hit of dopamine. But here was another reminder that they’re hollow, that we end up chasing what just happens to be a quantifiable, abstract metric instead of, well, what makes something good or satisfying or even the reason why something is good or satisfying because it is what we want to make.

I’m Not A Creative Person, But

Two particular talks stood out as being prefaced with “I’m not a creative person, but” — those of Julie Uhrman of Ouya and Christina (“I don’t see myself as a creator, I don’t have fully formed ideas bursting from within and I don’t have inner turmoil”) Xu of Breadpig. Of those two it felt like Uhrman’s was discontinuous with the rest of XOXO because at least part of her spiel around the disruptive game console was that it was going to a) be disruptive, b) take out the middlemen and c) restore the large living room TV to its rightful place at the throne of multi-person shared attention and experience.

Christina Xu’s on the other hand appeared to catch the feeling in the room not least of which because of her numerous and savvy comic book references (“Even Batman has Alfred. You don’t have to do it all.”) and no desire (well, none voiced) other than to help creators who’re doing well, who they admire, and who don’t have the ability to ship 17,000 copies of a hardbound book.

All of which is to say that at a festival celebrating independently produced art and technology, at least two talks were about enabling independently produced art and technology. Which is, I think, encouraging.

Professional Explainer Beats Professional Three-Time Internet Guru

Ev’s talk was ultimately disappointing, and mainly in a “Well, I hope not, because if that’s true, that’s incredibly depressing.” By outlining a Grand Unified Theory To Explain The Internet that boiled down to “Figure out what people have always wanted, then find a way to deliver that desire quicker than ever before,” one was left with the inescapable conclusion that what we’d spent the last twenty years on was going to inevitably turn into a series of tubes terminating in strip malls.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, there is a theory that states that this may already have happened.

His exhortation that we perhaps fight against the tendency for the internet and its sublime web of connections to result in an incredibly efficient mechanism for delivering pet food or same-day birth control felt somewhat too little, too late, appearing during what felt like the last sixty seconds of his talk.

Much better, though, was Mike Rugnetta’s talk, wherein he explained the internet and simultaneously blew our minds.

In a tour-de-force that demonstrated his PBS Idea Channel videos were not the product of intricate editing, Mike took the audience through a one-take, as-live deconstruction of fandom on the internet, combined with furries, casually dropping the observation that fandom was not necessarily celebration of the thing, but instead celebration near the thing.

Then, having suggested a new way of looking at fandom (and really, you should check out fandom. It’s totally a thing) and that what made fandom strong wasn’t the connection with the source media but instead, the interpersonal connections between members of that fandom, Mike introduced furries and everything went a bit hyper.

You see, we hit a tipping point when “enough” (or, depending on your degree of nuance, “nearly enough” or “enough for privileged white people in the first world” or “enough for priviliged white men in the first world”) people found themselves on the internet. Because the connection between furries and fandom was this: unlike, say, Community fandom or Night Vale fandom or Batman fandom, the thing about furry fandom is that it has no canonical media. There is no ur-text, nor splintering of ur-texts, that can cause furry fandom holy wars.

Because what started happening with furries, at least, was a wonderful way of demonstrating how the internet has changed how people construct themselves or, more accurately, their selves. Without exposure to the full gamut of humanity, it had been easy to edit and reduce the apprehension of the self to what was perceived as acceptable or normal compared to the rest of the visible population.

What Mike put forward was the idea that, less important than what you actually are (if you believe there is one canonical thing that you, well, are), is instead a more pragmatic view — what are you comfortable doing, or being? And how else, what other way to experience and experiment other than with a medium that allowed people to express their real lives? When we hit that tipping point of enough people, enough access, for some people at least, they began living their real lives on the internet, not just an edited version. And that presentation of millions of real lives, easily findable by anyone, is what’s wonderful about the internet.

Not strip malls.

Too Long; Got To The End Anyway

Look, here’s what XOXO 2013 was like.

It was perhaps the most human tech/art/conference/festival I’ve been to in a while. It may well be because I was with “my people”, but in any event, and even though it might not have gone all the way, XOXO 2013 broke a tonne of taboos.

Speakers addressed, out loud, the cost of striving for their art and aiming for the wrong thing. Attendees filled in the gaps, so what was left unsaid on stage I felt was definitely said in breaks.

It was honest. Perhaps not as honest as some might like, but a damn sight more honest than other gatherings. And it publicly, unashamedly set out its stall to be a good festival,whether that meant providing a space safe from harassment, one in which there was equal representation of gender in attendees and speakers, or addressing agendas or ulterior motives, but also saying: we’ve just started, and it’s our goal to get better.

So it was that rare thing: something positive, and a celebration, and not another excuse to kick anyone when they’re down. That’s why it felt like a group hug. Because sometime, it was one.

Header photograph by Duncan Rawlinson.

XOXO 2013

Here’s something funny: I suffer from clinical depression.

Some of you, who are familiar with my body of work, are already nodding your heads and looking at each other in your coffee shops where you steal your WiFi from and mouthing ‘ooooh, of course, it all makes so much sense’ with all the shock and dismay I imagine you also evinced when I came out online as gay after so many articles about shoes and hair products that, really, how could I not be?

This is a recent diagnosis from a professional therapist to whom I pay $150 a week so that we may sit across from each other in dreaded comfy chairs and he asks, inevitably, “How was your week?” to which I answer, inevitably, “Uuuhhhhmmmm….”

If you’re unfamiliar with what makes it clinical depression versus just, like, sort of bummed out about your coffee tasting slightly off, think of it this way: When one is depressed, it’s like just hearing they cancelled Twin Peaks. When one is clinically depressed, it’s like Twin Peaks is still in its amazing first season when there were dwarves and throwing things for Tibetan insight and coffee and pie and you just heard that they cancelled Twin Peaks every day.

See, that’s how dark my world is.

In a way I guess I have always suffered from it (though it feels far less like ‘suffering’ and far more like ‘slogging’), which may account for my on-going need to be despised and disliked online for everything I do and say.

That’s really what this is all about, my continual though stuttering output of words, words and more words to an invisible audience whom I will probably never meet nor need to please. I can sit here in relative safety with this beautiful brushed-aluminum contrivance before me and push my mushy fingers at the mushy keys and the shit stuck inside my head comes out here.

You, of course, are never forced to read it, and I’m certain that makes us both happy — or whatever I do that masquerades as happiness and looks like I’m smiling rather than grimacing and looking for someplace to hide.

In a sense, it’s somewhat of a relief to realize I am mentally unbalanced. I had always suspected that to be the case, and to have clinical proof of it makes me feel oddly comforted.

But.

Clinical depression is no way to live. In fact, it’s often how one dies. I’ve come close a couple of times but never really summoned up the, what, courage? Not courage. Cowardice? Shame? Horror? Whatever it is, I’ve never scooped enough of it into the soup bowl of everyday living to down a bottle of pills or shotgun my head off or go to the White House and behave irrationally so that the police are forced to gun me down like a character in Grand Theft Auto.

Making it through life, or maybe this dream that we’re all sharing (though why we’d all agree to put the Kardashians and the state of Florida in this dream — often at the same time — I have no idea), is sometimes challenging. I am more often cowering in my apartment than accepting that party invitation you issued to me and others online and I had to come up with the lamest excuse imaginable or maybe just lie and say I was going to attend, getting dressed up and flossing and shellacking my hair into place only to look at myself in the mirror and watch my own lips move like someone else looking back at me from a better, prettier world than this one as I tell myself that I’m not going anywhere, don’t be foolish, who wants to see you like this, anyway?

But.

I am in therapy, as I mentioned. Or back in it, since the first time didn’t seem to take, determined to get better, whatever that means, because from the bottom of this hole things don’t look all that much like I want to be a part of them. Congress and Syria and bankers getting away with ruining everyone’s lives and Russia being an asshole and on and on and on. Really, how do any of you actually have kids?

I don’t know how to do that, turns out. Not the making kids part, which becomes pretty obvious fairly early in life (though I had decided that I didn’t want to introduce more little human lives into this place that I don’t see as being particularly supportive of them), but rather the digging my way out of the cesspool and into the bright, shiny daylight.

I am trying, and one way I thought it might work would be to take a trip from my safe, shit-sidewalked, homeless-filled, douchebag-breeding environment of San Francisco and go to a magical place filled with happy people doing exactly what they always wanted to in hopes that it might rub off on me somehow like a leaking plastic bag at the bottom of the lunchbox.

I went to XOXO.

I miss writing. I used to do it a lot and enjoyed spilling the words trapped inside the darkness of my head into glowing pixels on someone else’s screen. Truth be told, since we’re being honest here, you and me, I also enjoyed the attention. Maybe that’s because I couldn’t handle it in real life, the part where people like you and want to be with you and understand you and still like you having understood you. Maybe that’s because I’m an egotist and need to be stroked intellectually since people touching me physically often makes me flinch.

Either way, I miss it, and can’t pinpoint why I no longer do it with the regularity and exhausting amount that I used to do. I tell myself the following at different times:

1. I hate repeating myself and I think I’ve told you all the stories I have.
2. Who the fuck cares?
3. It won’t be the same because that was the birth of the web and it was something magical and special and we’ll never repeat that now and who wants to project more vomit out there into the vast nothingness anyway? Fuck facebook. Fuck Twitter. Fuck everything.

Those all seemed like good reasons (excuses (reasons)) to me.

But.

I have no passion. None. For anything or anyone. I lost it somewhere. Or it abandoned me, which amounts to the same thing. And one needs passion, I believe. It doesn’t matter what it’s for as long as one has it. Passion fuels the fire to keep going. Passion is the thing that gives life to love, and power to dreams, and pushes us on when nothing and no one else will.

I wanted passion back. So I figured that if I surrounded myself with it — with people fired up with it in a variety of ways — that simply by some emotional osmosis I would soak it in like a dry sponge tossed into an ocean. Even if I could not — would not — personally engage with the people pumping out passion, there would be just so fucking much of it that I’d have to rediscover it, wouldn’t I? The passion to do, to make, to feel, just to fucking feel something other than this dark worthlessness.

That’s why I went to XOXO. That’s what I was looking for. Escape from my darkness by becoming a passion sponge.

That’s just the introduction, by the way. And now you’re groaning and looking at your bookmarks because, “Really? You’re that concerned about us knowing your secret inner turmoil which, c’mon now, anyone who knows you or who’s read anything you’re written in, like, forever can smell your secret turmoil like a dog fart in a space capsule.”

It’s my struggle, okay? The struggle to be understood when I don’t even understand myself. I don’t understand you. I don’t understand people. People who fall in love so easily and people who follow their dreams and then, against all the odds and demons and landmines, actually find them. People leading lives of seeming ease and happiness.

I don’t understand you, but for some reason I ache for you to understand me, then maybe you can explain me to me and we’ll both be in the same time zone.

That was the aside. I do that a lot. Rambling dissertations leading nowhere. I think I learned that in college. This is another aside explaining the former one. This one is now over.

It was constantly threatening to rain in Portland. The skies were murky grey like used dishwater, the wind was pushing things around like a high school bully. The first day was deemed “Social,” a word that usually makes me want to run screaming in the other direction.

It’s important (for me) to note that I don’t not like people. People I like fine. I don’t like me. So I enter situations like this determined not to meet people who I am convinced will then also not like me, and we will all not like me at the same time in the same place.

Is that rational? Do people hate me the moment they meet me? Usually, no, they do not. But why take that chance, am I right? Who’s with me on this one? Cool, let’s all go someplace in separate cars and agree never to see each other again.

I’m super uncomfortable in crowds of any sort, and particularly in crowds where I know less than half of the people in those crowds. Here I was in a crowd of hundreds and I personally knew much less than half of them. My goal in these situations is to try to disappear and not make an impact on any of them, stay out of their way, try not to talk to them and become human wallpaper. As a 6-foot, 1-inch 240-pound man with a fairly large grey beard and the grace of an alcoholic elephant on a bender, that’s sometimes a challenge. I often dress in dark clothing in order to camouflage myself as a moving wall, perhaps designed by Alessi to appear to be vaguely man-shaped. Still, I give it my all, I keep my head down, my mouth shut, and hug the real wall as if it were my mother’s teat.

But then I need to go back and revisit one of my goals in coming to Portland in the first place — passion sponging. Easy to stay a dry sponge if you never approach the ocean. So with heart in my throat and sweat in my palms, I found a chair near the back and began to listen to stories.

As Derek Powazek taught me, the world and its people are made of stories. One does not stand up before a crowd of other people and spout random words connected into sentence facsimiles and expect to connect. One tells stories. So I listened to the stories of others finding the pathways to passion and success.

I teared up a few times on Saturday. Passion does that to people. Passion and onions. We heard from one of the guys, Max Temkin, behind Cards Against Humanity, or as I like to call it, That Game Where You Find Out Why You Like Your Friends. He told the story of the making of the game and used two examples of passionate people, Aaron Swartz and David Foster Wallace who were so passionate about the things that they were passionate about that they killed themselves.

Which, yeah, not what I was hoping for. I mean, that wasn’t my only takeaway from that one but, Jesus.

Saturday proceeded along these lines as I strained to recognize kindred spirits and inspiration in the talks we were given. I’m not sure what I was looking for, but I wasn’t finding it.

I hasten to say that this wasn’t because the talks were bad, because they weren’t. One or two were…awkward, from my perspective. But you’re never going to like every donut in the box.

Admittedly, I am also reticent to be critical of any aspect of the conference since it feels more like being invited over to someone’s living room to enjoy a light repast whilst discussing important matters and decisions with people you like and would like to be around more, except why would you be invited over there when all you keep thinking about is, “I hope I do not fart too loudly when using the public facilities, for people will think badly of me and my farts.”

Saturday night, like Friday night, was made up of opposing forces of social gathering. On top was a film festival, and underneath that was a tabletop gaming frenzy. Friday was an either-or of music versus live-action gaming (not, I hasten to add, any form of LARPing, though I would’ve LOVED that SO MUCH it HURTS).

As you can imagine, if you’ve been paying attention at all (and I can only assume you haven’t if you’ve managed to get this far because I have literally stopped writing this article twice now and decided it’s just not worth it only to come back here and keep typing because I am the web’s Sally Field and you’re the Academy) deciding which large group of people I’d rather not be in is a bit of a challenge, but luckily no one was going to be paying any attention to me, anyway.

Darkness is helpful in both a literal and figurative sense to me, so watching movies is great. Except when for some odd reason people in the audience start imagining they’re watching movies in their own living rooms and start having conversations out loud like the movie they’ve come to see is interfering in the fun they’re having. Which happened.

But whatever.

People.

Did I enjoy XOXO? Yes, I certainly did. Did it provide what I wanted?

No.

But let’s be frank, or really let’s be anyone but me for a moment and reflect on the impossibility of a conference of any sort helping me get through this period of life I like to refer to as “life.”

A conference is a place to go to learn things. A conference can also inspire and charm and influence. I left XOXO feeling more or less like I arrived, meaning that what was happening and being proposed (which in my head was ‘you can do this, too; we have the tools, we have the technology, we have the crowd-funding’) had little to do with my problems (I am uninspired and passionless). The people on stage, for the most part, had stories of success and finding happiness in doing what they wanted to do, except for….

Well, I’m not gonna name names because that’s not in the spirit of the festivities. We’re supposed to group-hug everyone, I guess, even when they’re assholes.

I‘m still looking for passion in this world. Passion for anything. Anything at all. I would like to care again. I would like to find something important. Something worth it. Worth doing. Worth living for.

Another day in paradise.

a few days in portland at the xoxofest

I had the pleasure of attending the xoxo fest last week.

In answering the three questions required to attend: “What do you do?, What are you working on right now? and What’s something you made that you’re proud of?”, I could point to something I made recently that I am proud of and was able to answer honestly and point to work that I’ve done.

But still yet, the impostor syndrome that emerged as a theme over the course of xoxo was a nearly constant companion sitting on my shoulder. I did my best to shrug off this little brain gnawing beast with private mental pep talks (I make stuff! I illustrate things! I am creative!), but in a large airy room full of many of the internet’s major web luminaries whose faces and work I’m so familiar with and who I pretty universally admire: the beast sort of left me with a case of paralyzing shyness. I didn’t mingle and meet and greet as much as I’d hoped to, though I did make some new friends, saw some old friends and met some fantastic goats.

I didn’t get to attend every speaker’s session but of the ones I did see, Molly Crabapple’s resonated with me on a personal level. Molly spoke of the need for freedom in creating art and how getting better at any craft requires the luxury of time.

She spoke the often unsaid truth at events and gatherings like this: money is the basic catalyst that allows for the freedom and time to create. When your primary concern is finding/keeping a job to pay the bills, then you’re just too worn out from working so hard to make ends meet to focus on improving your craft.

As someone whose father was killed when I was an infant and who more or less had to provide for myself and figure life out on my own from an early age, the things she said were things I’ve reflected on so many times. I’m not sure what the answer is to the inherent unfairness of this situation and of course there are exceptions to this, but I’m glad she talked about it and I doubt it was easy to do so.

I’ve had some recent revelations in my family-of-origin story that highlight on a micro-level how class differences can shape attitudes toward people, how they can determine a life and shape a personality, for better or worse. I’m still grappling with the pain of these truths but I realize that I should do something with this narrative because it’s a pretty unbelievable story and because I can. That is one thing I have not always been able to say: because I can.

Before she even gave her talk, I realized that I had met Vi Hart at a fourth of july party a few months back in well, July.

I saw her at the hotel, and confirmed that she had been ‘the eagle masked one’ and took a polaroid of her.

She struck me as pretty fearless when she showed up at a party in an eagle mask, and this was confirmed by her talk, which was more of an ongoing performance piece than a linear monologue. I admire how she is so unabashedly herself and can sort of see her as being the heir to the Laurie Anderson performance art throne.

Being around all of the xoxo positive, euphoric energy soaked up some of my hard won negativity and helped me to feel like I am capable of achieving some successes, and even capable of defining for myself what success means. That certainly does mean having some financial reward for my hours spent working, but it also means more than just that. I’ve read some pieces suggesting that xoxo was perhaps a little light in the area of criticism. While I agree that this is legitimate, I really appreciated the inclusive feeling of xoxo. This introvert would have probably hidden in the hotel for the entire weekend had the atmosphere been more critique slanted. Andy’s closing words for xoxo were ‘go out and make things, and maybe we’ll do this again next year, make me proud’. I’m hoping to do that.

Contemplating the end of your business

The documentary “Shut Up and Play The Hits” opens with an interview between the writer Chuck Klosterman and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy. The documentary captures the band’s final days and last concert at Madison Square Gardens.

Klosterman asks Murphy “When you start a band do you imagine how it will end?”

This kept going through my mind as Cabel Sasser from Panic, presented an incredibly raw and emotional talk at XOXO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZXWdR7RzV8

Cabel described a period where he suffered debilitating anxiety over contemplating the end of Panic. He tried to come to terms with how his business would end.

When we start businesses, most of us don’t think about how it will end. But at some point we are faced with the mortality of the thing we’ve created and we all deal with it differently.

Asking how it will end is simultaneously healthy and unhealthy for a business owner. Having a defined point on the horizon for your business is healthy, future obsessing is not.

In the 90's there was no shortage of companies that would look at Microsoft’s roadmap and pick a spot 2 years out, they would then build a product that was a feature on the roadmap. Their hope was that when Microsoft hit that part of the roadmap, Microsoft would decide it was better to acquire the feature than build it. If Microsoft didn’t they would shutter the company and pick another spot 2 years out and try again.

These people had a clear site of the ending at the beginning.

I’ve always contended that my goal with Teehan+Lax was to build a company that I want to come work at everyday, until I don’t.

Barring a disastrous financial event (knock wood), we (the partners) will get to control the end of this business. There may come a day where I don’t want to come to work at Teehan+Lax anymore or as the Breakfast guys say “our exit strategy is retirement”.

I think about the end.

When things are frustrating and work isn’t fun.

I think about the end.

When the work isn’t as good as I think it could be.

I think about the end.

When I can’t see what’s next.

I think about the end.

But I come to a similar conclusion that Cabel did… maybe this is the best time of our lives. Maybe we just push forward, shifting and adjusting, pursuing the things that make us happy.

The end will come but I can’t worry about that now.

How does this end? was originally published in XOXO Festival on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I am the Gatekeeper

This weekend Portland hosted the 2nd iteration of the XOXO Conference. My first experience was nothing short of spectacular. I had fun, I met amazing people, I witnessed creativity and genius.I grew as designer and a person.

It started, with an act of kindness.

I showed up waaaay too early on Friday. I grabbed a coffee and the ridiculously amazing conference swag and sat down at a table in the YU Market. Folks in pink XOXO volunteer shirts whirled around, frantically setting up tables and chairs, building things, and making this thing happen. I felt like I should get up and help but decided staying out of the way was the best course of action.

As I was pondering this an attendee set up his MacBook Air and bag at a newly completed table. A bearded volunteer saw this and rushed over. The table had just been painted. With immense empathy and caring this volunteer helped make sure the gear was not damaged. With so much last minute prep going on, it was incredible to see someone just stop everything to genuinely care for someone. This moment defined the tone of the conference.

Later on, when I saw that volunteer get up on stage with Andy Baio and talk about starting XOXO, things became even more clear. MacBook Air Rescuing Superhero Andy McMillan and Andy told us the origin story of XOXO. The founding principles of collaboration, making things, and openness. At the end of the opening remarks they challenged everyone there to find someone standing alone and make a friend.

Every attendee made good on that challenge.

Passionate People, Obsessed with Making Things

There were so many amazing speakers and events I could go on and on. The Arcade & Tabletop events blew my mind and let me tell creators like Shaun Inman (a design hero) about it over a beer. Vi Hart was a whirlwind of inspiration. Down in the market, listening to Chris McClelland exuberantly explain the Brewbot system was a delight.

I feel blessed to have the opportunity to share with these people. It made me think hard about my own work and what I am doing. These same conversations also made me realize that it’s okay to do that. Everyone does.

It’s important to look at people who have “made it” and know they are human, just like you are.

Gatekeepers, “The MAN”, and Phoneys

The common thread in the talks was the concept of bypassing obstacles. Go around the gatekeepers, ignore The Man, and ditch the phoneys and find out who you really are.

There were varying interpretations on the thread. Molly Crabapple’s perspective came from the Occupy Movement and New York’s art scene. She struck out against the privileged with a Kickstarter funded art series.

Her perspective was juxtaposed with Ev Williams. His sheltered existence was connected to the rest of the world by the internet. He shared the simple idea that every tweet, like, post, share, retweet, mention, fave was a connection. Instead of a world where the rich kids are somehow aliens from another world, Ev proffered that we are humans who have simple desires and that the Internet provides simple convenience. Do that simple thing and people will want it.

He also shared his Internet PowerPak video. Evidently, Andy Baio has a copy. Maybe next year we’ll all see it on Twitter.

Jack Cheng spoke about J.D. Salinger’s distaste for the publishing world and the phonies that judged his work. I loved Catcher in the Rye as a teenager. Just as Salinger used his writing to get himself through WWII, I used his writing to get through high school. Salinger couldn’t accept the idea that publishing a book could be so difficult so he never published again. Jack Cheng couldn’t either so he published with Kickstarter.

Christina Xu flipped all this Salingerian angst on it’s head with the simple idea that publishers can serve artists rather than the other way around. She shared the story of James Erwin. A post on Reddit got him a movie deal. But like Salinger, his break wasn’t all good news. He lost creative control. Christina’s Breadpig shop is helping people like Erwin create through Kickstarter but also provide publishing support and guidance.

This rhythm of ideas left me asking questions about where I am going and what I am doing. I decided to be an artist in high school. My parents, teachers, and community supported me. I grew up in Portland after all.

So who is my gatekeeper? Who is my “The Man”? I found out who at XOXO.

I Am My Own Personal El Guapo

In a way, all of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be *the actual* El Guapo!
—Steve Martin, as Lucky Day in The Three Amigos

I came in to XOXO having enjoyed my share of success in this little town. I didn’t rise up against privilege like Molly. I didn’t strike out from the middle of nowhere like Ev. Just like Lucky Day, I just did what I wanted to and everyone around me supported it. Not to take this whole Three Amigos metaphor too far, but it wasn’t until I wandered in to XOXO that I learned what it meant to really make something.

On Sunday, stories from Jonathan Coulton, Cabel, and Tim Schafer brought tears to my eyes. Each one had a part of their story that echoes mine. Especially, Cabel. He shared something personal and painful. At times, I felt as if he was telling us he was done, that he’d had enough. Then he hit the low part. He described the pressure of shipping Coda 2. It forced him to ask himself what the end of Panic would be like.

He’s a Beaverton-boy like me and his “cliche” story of his moment of crisis wasn’t cliche. It’s Jon Coulton’s story. It’s my story.

When you hear these people tell their stories you realize that they are humans just like you. They all had their battles. Hell, they all still have battles. Do the gatekeepers have their own battles? Who does The Man have to fight? This is what I learned:

We are the gatekeepers.

We choose to follow the path or make or own. We choose to fight The Man or go around him. We choose to go through the gate, drive around, or destroy it altogether.

Will I quit my job? Finally make that app, or that other app, or that other app? Move to Australia?

No, yes, and no… well, maybe New Zealand.They say it is just like Portland without the rest of the United States. Sounds nice. No matter what I do, I will do so knowing who the gatekeepers are. The bad ones and the good ones (they exist) and the one in the mirror. I leave XOXO with eyes wide open to the potential around me. I don’t know exactly what I will do next (besides get those ideas shipped) but I know the path I will take. And I know it will be my own path. And I will also know this:

Whatever I do, there will be a community of incredible people who went to XOXO who know me and who have been there before.

Thanks to Andy & Andy and all the people who made XOXO. I hope this post makes you want to do it again and again.

On scaling XOXO, why we’re surveying our attendees, and sponsors as patrons.

XOXO was perfect. At least for me, it was perfect. For one weekend in the middle of September, a few square blocks of Southeast Portland were home to hundreds of interesting, hardworking people. They’d all come together to hear stories from other interesting, hardworking people, who were using the internet to do what they love independently. The sun was shining, the beer was flowing, the food carts dishing out sandwiches and ice cream, and everyone was having a great time.

XOXO had a couple other things going for it too. First, because it was about coming together to celebrate independent makers, because it had happened through a transaction of trust on Kickstarter, and because of its incredibly silly name (for which Baio can take the blame), it was entirely devoid of cynicism. This thing was about a fundamental shift in how we create. It was about people using that freedom to do what they love and to be financially independent doing it. It was about possibility, hope, and celebrating success. Cynicism didn’t need to be left at the door, because it didn’t even buy a ticket.

Second, because we were entirely funded through selling out on Kickstarter, because we were new, and because we were deliberately small, we had almost no interest in sponsors, nor did sponsors have any interest in us. This gave us the time to understand what “sponsorship” would eventually mean to XOXO, and what our reaction would be when these people eventually came knocking on our door.

And so, after a weekend of sunshine and beer and food and the lack of cynicism and sponsors, the first XOXO was declared a rousing success. Everyone left Portland feeling euphoric. They tweeted and blogged about their euphoria, and how refreshing and inspirational and life-changing it had all been, then the press wrote articles about everyone’s euphoric tweeting and blogging, and we watched the conversations with a smile, proud for having created something that meant so much to so many.

(As an aside, it’s worth taking a moment again to say that we remain both absolutely blown away and incredibly humbled by this reaction. We worked hard to make sure everyone enjoyed themselves, but the sheer amount of love and appreciation that has poured out of last year, we couldn’t have possibly anticipated. So if you contributed to that, thank you.)

Of course, success isn’t all sunshine and ice cream. While the days and weeks following XOXO brought a lot of kind words and talk of new projects and collaborations, it also led to a lot questions about the future of the event, and how we would manage our newfound popularity, demand, and reputation.

Bigger can be better

What we saw immediately in the conversations that followed was the sheer number of people who would have fit right in at XOXO, but we just didn’t have space for. It was clear to us that if we were doing this thing again, demand was definitely going to exceed 400 people. We wanted to find a way to grow, to have more independent makers and interesting, hardworking people come join us, but without risking the intimacy and serendipity that had played such a significant part in making the first year a success.

Our solution: the XOXO Festival pass. This year, we’re expanding our fringe lineup into a full-blown festival — four days of things to do, watch, play, eat and drink in venues around Portland, and we’re bundling it all into its own separate pass. This allows us to scale our wildly popular social events, add new ideas to the schedule, involve even more independent artists, and, most importantly, give you a great reason to travel to Portland for the weekend, even if you can’t make it to the conference.

Just a few questions

What we also saw in the conversation that followed last year’s XOXO was a lot of frustration. Those frustrated with being caught in the deafening shouting match of competing marketing efforts at other events were excited to hear of a place where that apparently didn’t happen. But in the same instance, those doing the shouting were just as excited, drawn to the promise of somewhere with fewer loud voices to compete with. Marketing agencies and PR firms were emailing us en-masse, asking when tickets would be available, how many they could get, and if it was possible to bulk-buy before they went on general sale.

Our solution: Who are you? What do you do? What have you done lately that you’re proud of?

XOXO is about makers, and makers can answer these questions. We made this thing for people who create, for the kind of people who are working on interesting experimental bold new ideas. Asking these three questions is our attempt at preserving what has made XOXO a success in the past, and what we believe will continue to make it a success in the future.

Our survey is not an “application” in the traditional sense. You don’t have to “prove” you’re more “interesting” than everyone else to “get in”. Just be the kind of person who makes things, and tell us about it. That’s all we’re interested in.

Sponsors as patrons

Another new element that suddenly introduced itself into our inboxes were enquiries from potential sponsors and parties with commercial interests. We were beginning to turn the heads of the energy drinks, light beers, and seasoned corn-based snacks, and we had to figure out what to do about it.

Normally, sponsors are seen as a necessary evil. As an organiser, you excuse their demands because it helps with your bottom line, and it helps you do more. As an attendee, you excuse their behaviour because they probably paid for your lunch, or bought you a beer at the after-party. Personally, I’ve never believed this had to be the case. Sponsors can enrich an event if you work with the right people and you ask for the right things.

Our solution: sponsors as patrons. We’ve invited our sponsors to be protectors of our event, not adversaries. We began by drafting our information pack using language borrowed from museums and galleries rather than other events. It asks for help and support to protect what we’ve created, rather than a bullet point list of what we’re willing to sell off.

This approach means finding companies, projects, and people who genuinely care about what you’re trying to do, who value support over promotion, gifts over giveaways, and creating memorable experiences for attendees over creating opportunities for marketing.

We’ve been very lucky to find that in MailChimp, Squarespace, Etsy, Typekit, Wieden + Kennedy, and Teehan + Lax. Their contributions will enable us to invite a more diverse range of artists and makers to participate in XOXO, and to expand our schedule of events. We’re eternally grateful for their belief in us, and for their belief in XOXO.

It begins with orange jumpsuits

Early on the Saturday afternoon of last year’s XOXO, two guys in bright orange jumpsuits took a walk through our venue, handing out flyers promoting the launch party for their new app. Only a few weeks earlier, these same guys had gone through our entire attendees list, visiting everyone’s website in search of an email address in order to begin a campaign of unsolicited spamming.

By the end of the day, they’d been kicked out of the building almost a dozen times, each return trip bringing with it a new excuse or a change of clothes. Although their chicanery was an isolated incident, it was so jarring against the backdrop of XOXO that it was all anyone could talk about.

We’ve introduced the XOXO Festival pass because we want more people to be able to get involved. We’re asking our survey questions because we want to keep XOXO about makers. We’re inviting our sponsors to be patrons because we want to be able to improve XOXO without auctioning off your trust in us.

What we don’t want is more orange jumpsuits.

XOXO was perfect. At least, for me it was perfect. As an attendee, it was one of the most enjoyable weekends of my life, and as an organiser, it was one of the most creatively fulfilling endevours I’d ever embarked on. I’m proud of what we created, but I’m also looking forward to a time when the success of 2012 is eclipsed by what we achieve together in 2013.

Let’s do this.

(Thanks to Chloe, Andy, and Paulo for helping review and proof-read.)

Thoughts from the first XOXO festival in 2012

This past weekend, I spent four days in Portland, OR at the XOXO Festival. Billed as “an arts and technology festival celebrating disruptive creativity,” it brought together 400 minds in one space to share and discuss our work.

The conference talks and themes have been thoroughly and thoughtfully covered by Anil Dash, theNYTimes, BoingBoing and WIRED, and some great commentary has been published by folks like@kottke, Jon Lax and Eric Holscher.

The consensus from everyone is that in a sea of uninspiring tech conferences at [insert convention center] in [insert major city], XOXO was an inspiring and refreshing anomaly. It celebrated the city of Portland, OR from the venue itself (the restored YU Contemporary) to the local food trucks providing lunch, and the crowd in attendance was everything you’d want — smart folks from different industries who listened to presentations instead of tweeting, and were open to having a conversation with anyone. Whether you were talking to a visual artist, industrial designer, developer, CEO, blogger, filmmaker, consumer advocate, or game designer, everyone was interested in talking about and learning one another’s craft and how it’s evolving.

Since returning home, I’ve had a few days to decompress and digest my days at XOXO. And the more I think about it, the more I find myself coming back and revisiting these three themes.

1. Artist-controlled distribution is the new norm. For years, artists of all types have been digitally distributing content themselves. This isn’t news. But I do believe we’re at a tipping point where it is becoming the default option, and for many creators, the only way they will ever consider distributing their content. Digital channels have democratized distribution, the tools to distribute media are getting easier to use and the distribution channels themselves are taking smaller percentages of sales. As this trend continues, the legacy distribution companies aren’t going to die overnight, but just like we’ve seen in music and television, they will continue to viciously fight over a pie that’s getting smaller and smaller.

2. The best marketing is word of mouth. Again, not a new concept, but in this à la carte distribution model, the greatest success stories are coming from individuals and companies that have engaged their audiences on a very personal level. This open communication and transparency allows artists to talk directly to fans, and fans in turn feel more comfortable paying for content knowing that their dollars are going directly to the artist. This is the new value exchange for consumers.

And this value exchange applies to businesses as well. Yancey Strickler from Kickstarter mentioned in his talk that Kickstarter has a staff of 40 people — 20 people devoted to building the website and 20 people devoted to community and outreach. For an entire company, that’s a 1:1 ratio of product development to marketing. Is this the new staffing ideal? To date, Kickstarter has been the channel forover 300 million dollars in successful project funding and they attribute much of their success to their direct communication with their audience. I would love to hear examples from other companies that have similar staffing ratios.

3. Giving is inspiring. For those of us in attendance, the entire conference felt like a gift. OrganizersAndy Baio and Andy McMillan conceived this conference out of passion for creativity and technology and pitched the idea to the Internet via Kickstarter. Once funded, they worked tirelessly to create something wonderful, and I don’t think a single attendee was disappointed.

When you’re a recipient of a gift like this, it’s inspiring, and it makes you want to give something back. Attendees’ default attitude was closer to “How can I contribute?” versus the more cynical “What do I get out of it?” For instance, in the weeks leading up to XOXO, the pre-conference updates were so exciting that I took some time and built an electronic hat that lights up when you tweet the #xoxofest hashtag. Consider it my salute to the work that Andy and Andy did. But the hat itself wasn’t original, it was inspired by the open source gifts provided by numerous other hardware and software developers including Lilypad, Amarino and Twitter4J. This act of giving and inspiring is crucial to creating great work, and if there’s anything I took away from XOXO is that we as a creative and technical community need more of acts of giving like this conference.

But now comes the hard part. How do we take all this inspiration and channel it back into our work? How do we translate these ideals into something that we can use everyday? How do we make something like XOXO be the everyday? How do we give, but in a way that also sustains a business? I don’t know the answers, but I do think I met about 399 other folks this weekend and together we can start figuring this out.