Cold Beer, Hot Movies, and Delicious Snacks

As told by ATXEquation student Eric Flores

Two hours at the Alamo Drafthouse and you’ve got all you need: a tasty dinner, a round of drinks, a box office movie, and an evening well spent. But it’s more than that—way more. Recently, members of my ATXequation class at St. Edward's University and I had the opportunity to take a behind-the-scenes tour of their newest theater, the Ritz. There we meet with chief creative officer, Henri Mazza, who fancied name-dropping and sharing tales of memorable Drafthouse events. Besides making me completely hate my day job, Henri gave us an in-depth look at my favorite theater.

Over the past decade, the Alamo has grown tremendously. But what caused this growth? Most would venture to say that starting a theater could be dangerous territory with theater giants, Cinemark and Carmike practically monopolizing the market. Originally a second-run movie theater in Austin’s warehouse district, founders Tim and Karrie League were not afraid. They knew they, along with many others, loved movies but disliked all the negative things that could come with it—all the bullshit. Crying babies, talking, annoying advertisements, etc. So to distinguish themselves from the rest was to pay particular attention to this thing we like to call “the experience”. From an all day Lord of the Rings food and film pairing, to disco dancing Justin Timberlake sing-along’s, to Austin’s favorite movie mocking maestros, Master Pancake, the Drafthouse spares no expense at creating engaging events.

Because of their dedication to making the viewers experience as enjoyable as possible, its no wonder they were dubbed “#1 theater in America” (Entertainment Weekly) and “the nations #1 moviegoer destination” by Fandango. They are undoubtedly #1 in Austin’s book. Critics and cinephile’s alike will agree, The Alamo Drafthouse is one of the most innovative exhibitors in the country, and people love them for it.

“Locate, Engage, Wow!”

-- As told by ATXEquation student Amarette Edmonson --

“An experience occurs when [an organization] intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as the props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event.” – Pine and Gilmore. Recently in class, we spent the evening talking about experiences and what comprises an experience. We began class by looking at how parents prepare for a birthday party as an analogy of experiences. There are four important things that compose an experience design: commodities, goods, services and an experience. Goods are composed of commodities, services are delivered using goods, and experiences include various services. In relation to the birthday party experience, Chuck-E-Cheese allows the parent to relax and enjoy the whole experience because it stages the experience.

There is a whole business of experience design and how to create an experience that can be compared to a film production. The organization is the producer/designer of the experience; the audience is the customer; and the actor is the employee. In order to create a memorable experience, its important to understand the needs and wants of the audience or as Michael Barnes stated, “align goals” with your audience and “attune personality” with your goods or services. An experience designer has to be able to slide up and down the scale of commodities, goods, services, and experiences depending on the level of participation and engagement of the particular audience. For example, a movie buff might be more interested in the experience of watching a movie in a theater with surround sound and a huge screen, whereas another person might be interested in simply renting the video from Redbox or something like that.

According to the ATXEquation model for experience, there are three parts of creating a good experience: locate, engage and wow. Locate happens before the experience and its important to find your audience where they’re at and help them navigate the experience. During the experience, it’s important to engage the audience. For example, make them work, make it meaningful, personalize when possible, and gather key data. After the experience, it’s important to wow your audience by customizing the outcome, give a take-away, and by adding some element of surprise and delight factor. All of these elements are an important part of the experience. In Austin, Amy’s Ice Creams has done a good job of utilizing all three of these elements in their stores. There are so many examples of this model in all kinds of experiences, large and small. Since learning about these elements, I’ve been noticing them when visiting different places in Austin. What are your favorite Austin Experiences?

ATXEquation Course: How to Pitch a Scene

- As told by ATXEquation student Erica Tillson -

Recently the ATXEquation class at St. Edwards University had an opportunity to learn from a highly experienced professional with an excellent reputation. Austin socialite, blogger, and writer for the Austin American Statesman, Michael Barnes, joined us as a guest speaker.

Taught by collaborators and ATXEquation co-founders Heather McKissick and Bijoy Goswami, the Austin Equation aims at exploring what makes Austin uniquely Austin. Through experience and journalism, the class dissects the various scenes in Austin including those selected by the student groups: nightlife, food, music and fashion. Barnes shared his extensive knowledge of Austin. He also shared some fundamental aspects of good media journalism with students that day.

I think it's safe to say there aren’t many people that wouldn’t want Michael’s job. Michael Barnes is the Austin American-Statesman's social columnist. Michael is an ‘experiencer’ of events and scenes. Michael’s blog,‘Out and About’ depicts Austin’s uniqueness and fabulous experiential capacity as seen from his point of view. Two out of 3 people in Central Texas read the Austin American Statesman. @outandabout currently has almost 6,000 followers on Twitter.

This savvy entertainment journalist didn’t get to the top with out a few ground rules—which he was quick to share with students. “Remember only four words” Michael said about media journalism and pitching the Austin Experience: “Align goals. Attune personalities.” What is most important, it seems, is aligning goals with your audience and attuning with their personality - especially when it comes to media relations.

Some students agreed there is no better way to learn than getting hands-on experience from a teacher after a lecture. Barnes shared more insights as a journalist covering people, places, and scenes. He added that a journalist must constantly ask him/herself certain things and be self-critical of the work. After reminding us that a good journalist must ask "What are the communities in the scene?" Barnes surprised us during class by announcing we would be inviting him to the scenes of our choice via Twitter, email, by phone and in person. What followed was a fun, interactive workshop that was beneficial to all the students in "pitching" our selected scenes.

Personally, I had a wonderful experience during Barnes lecture and workshop, and practicing my scene-marketing skills on the Yoda of the Austin Experience only made me a more skilled communicator.

Energy Scene expands outreach

Several leaders in various Green Energy communities have been working with various members of the Austin clean tech community, under the guidance of ATXEquation to steward our own "Energy Scene".

The ultimate goal is to convene community participants together to communicate, share ideas, share calendars, and further develop and nurture the "Energy Scene". This will ultimately help organize and facilitate a stronger sense of coordination, cohesiveness and collaboration amongst the different people, groups, and companies within Austin.

Our first step was to map out all of the people, companies, groups, and resources in Austin relating to energy. In June, we opened the first draft of the "Energy Scene" map to the public. In total, 39 people requested access to edit and view the map and 16 made changes.

Now, we will personally sit down with key stakeholders that expressed interest in the first round of edits.

With this stakeholder feedback, we will begin to identify next steps and outline an implementation plan that will move us toward a more organized and navigable clean energy community in Austin, benefiting all parties involved and stewarding the future of Austin's clean energy economy.

As we continue to progress, we will keep you and the community informed.

Please contact any of us (emails below) if you have any further questions, or would like to provide input.

We look forward to your continued participation, support, and interest.

Best,

Chad Blevins (cnblevins@mail.utexas.edu) - Jackson School Energy Resources Group, President

Audrey Thompson (audreythomp@gmail.com) - Solar Austin, President

Stephen Garten (sgarten@ati.utexas.edu) - Austin Technology Incubator, Senior Associate

John King (john@focusedadvocacy.com) - Focused Advocacy, Senior Associate

Jeffrey Sabins (Jeff.Sabins@mba12.mccombs.utexas.edu) - McCombs Cleantech Group, President

The ATXEquation course has launched

Just a quick note to say how much fun it has been to launch the ATX Equation course at St. Edward's University this Fall. We're thrilled to have a great group of 2 students with us exploring the model and helping us unpack and expand it. The semester is organized into three units (conveniently) - Experience, Community and Scene. Each unit contains some lecture, some reading, some personal blogging and a healthy dose of guest speakers and field trips to round out the "experience."

We are excited and grateful for our friends and supporters who are helping us as it unfolds. Stay tuned here for guest posts from students and others who will be chronicling what we're learning together. You can check out the partial reading list here.

Open invitation for feedback on Austin Energy Scene Map

A number of citizens with interests in the Central Texas Energy Industry have been working with various members of the Austin clean tech community, under the guidance of ATXEquation, to organize and facilitate a stronger sense of synergy and collaboration amongst the different stakeholders within the Austin clean tech community - all in an effort to create an "Energy Scene".

The team is currently reaching out for help and input from stakeholders all across Austin.

The purpose of creating this 'Energy Scene' is to facilitate cross-community collaboration that breaks down barriers and enables communication, resource sharing and innovation. The ATXEquation teaches that when a scene truly becomes a scene, it is no longer perceived as (or perceives itself as) a collection of related communities, but as a nimble, decentralized collective with shared motives and goals.

The creation of an Austin Energy Scene should benefit every individual and group within the community by providing greater direction in navigating the community, connecting the various organizations within the community, providing greater communication within the community, reducing overlap and repetition between different groups, and driving greater numbers to each organization's events and programs.

Following the ATXEquation process, the first step in helping to steward the Austin Energy Scene is to "map" the scene. The team has created the foundation of this map with a Mindmeister account and invites all stakeholders to sign in and contribute to the map. Please add freely, but we ask that you not delete anything, rather comment on this blog, or via email, with your suggestions to remove an item.

To access the mind map, please contact any of the following people to request that they send you a mindmeister invite:

Chad Blevins - cnblevins@mail.utexas.edu
Stephen Garten - sgarten@ati.utexas.edu
John King - john@focusedadvocacy.com
Jeffrey Sabins - Jeff.Sabins@mba12.mccombs.utexas.edu

Again, we ask that you only add to the map and submit a comment via email with your suggestions for the removal of any entry.

The team will keep this round of edits open until July 14, 2011. The next step will be to convene community participants together to communicate, share ideas, share calendars, and further develop and nurture Energy Scene relationships. The final step is to evangelize the Energy Scene, advocating its development both to itself and to the people and communities outside of the scene.

Stay tuned on this blog and elsewhere for more information and progress!

Next Scene Lab Meeting on 12/08

Event registration for Austin Equation SceneLab powered by Eventbrite

Come join us for the next SceneLab on Wednesday, December 8th. We want to connect with you and hear how your scene stewardship, using the Austin Equation model, has been progressing.

SceneLabs are the gathering point and discussion area for people actively engaged in, or wishing to be actively engaged in, mapping and stewarding Austin's vibrant creative scenes applying the Austin Equation model (Experience + Community = Scene).

Agenda:
We will be speaking with Charles Knickerbocker and Jon Lebkowsky, two people who have rich experience growing grassroots communities from scratch, locating stakeholders and encouraging participation. Specifically we will be talking with them about the "Community" part of the equation and the lessons they have learned.

As with previous SceneLabs, we will have the opportunity to discuss how and whether our emerging process of cultivating, documenting, and stewarding scenes "maps" onto their pragmatic experience of engaging individuals to form a community.

• 5 - 5:15 Connect/meet/chat
• 5:15 - 6:20 Intros and “Keynote” segment and group-wide discussion
• 6:20 - 6:50 Scene steward status reports (mapping, convening, collaboration requests, etc.)
• 6:50 - 7:00 Housekeeping & next steps
• 7:00 Adjourn for follow-up social time at separate venue

Potluck beverages: We'll have a few drinks available, but please feel free to bring your favorite beer/wine/other and share.

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Charles Knickerbocker has over 20 years of experience as a professional community organizer and political campaign staffer: campus strike leader in high school and college; Movement for Economic Justice; ACORN (at its beginning, when it was Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now); Consumers Congress; Industrial Areas Foundation; and city, state and national political campaigns.

Jon Lebkowsky managed Wireless Future, a year-long economic development project via the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas towards catalyzing the wireless business scene in Austin, bringing wireless companies and other stakeholders together and thereby actually creating a robust wireless scene. He was also an instigator with Rich MacKinnon of Austin Wireless City, a project to promote wifi in venues across Austin. Jon leveraged the synergies of the two projects in his scene-building activities. Currently, Jon is a web strategist, developer, and freelance project manager through Polycot Associates, Chief Digital Officer for the events company Plutopia Productions, and writes about culture and technology at his blog and various other publications. More information in Jon's longer bio and in the Jon Lebkowsky article at Wikipedia.