Live Blog from TechFest NW Day 2

[03:30] Jessica Zollman (ex. Instagram) and Asha Dornfest (Parent Hacks) “Why community matters”.

[02:35] Brendan Mulligan (Cluster) and Joe Stump (Ex. Digg) “Inspired again and again”.

[02:05] Mark taking Tyson to task a little, on the good and evils of using analytics in news and the recent hacking of the NYT.

[1:30] Tyson Evans (New York Times) and Mark Zusman (Willamette Week) discuss “the future of interactive news”.

Tyson: Tyson showed us some of the interesting new ways they are exploring data at the NYT.

[12:30] A little live entertainment during lunch at Bunk Bar, courtesy of MFNW.

[11:40] Kelley Roy (ADX) and David Fredrickson (Figure Plant) “Slow manufacturing: integrating digital technology with fabrication”.

[10:50] Chris Lindland (Betabrand) and D’Wayne Edwards (Pensole) talking about “Reinventing apparel design”.

[10:45] In summary.

[10:30] User experience honeycomb.

[10:11] James Keller (WalmartLabs) kicks things off today with “Forget viable. Build your mini mum valuable product.”

Minimum viable product (MVP) is a possess of focus. Stripped down to build, measure, learn. (The lean startup by Erica Ries)

James feels Viable is being misused. If you have minimized your product to the point you have stripped out user experience you have gone too far. Good technology should be an emotional experience. Ever dropped your iPhone?

She would like to rebrand viable with valuable. Make sure your product is useful. Not just usable.

[09:19] Only the best mocha in town.

[8:25] Day 1 of TechFest NW was fun. By far may favorite presentation was the keynote by John Saddington. His presentation was not only entertaining and personal but had clear takeaways.

Day 2 looks to have a good schedule of interesting talks as well. Of course the two I want to see most “the future of interactive news” and “inside a kickstarter campaign” overlap.