2012 was supposed to be the year of stalking apps for the hyper-networking types: Glancee, Highlight, Banjo – you name it. Once we arrived at SXSW, we would use these platforms to meet new people, find new connections. A funny thing happened.

Nobody cared.

Besides the usual technology cheerleaders, most SXSW participants just shrugged their shoulders and moved on. It’s pretty apparent, these are total duds. The technology and philosophy behind many of these apps is sound as the concept of implicit social graphs tied to explicit graphs through background location is indeed an interesting idea. Yet, they fail because they don’t solve any problem.

Foursquare and Gowalla (and gazillion other forgotten platforms) were the hot startups a few years ago that dominated the conversation when it came to social location, focused on the check-in model. Foursquare, the winner of the first location-based arms race, with its check-ins plus deals, tips, photos and to-do lists is mildy useful. It’s good for events like SXSW where you want to connect with people in your graph. It’s a reactive app.

The next generation of location apps will be about ambient location: You could be planning on going to one place and see that your friends are at another and go there instead. The app could pull you to a different place than your original destination. Ambient location apps will have amazing data sets: Better location and social models based on location awareness mixed with the data created by such interaction theoretically could have a profound affect on user behavior. In addition, brands and retailers could find this information useful as well.

It’s clear that Glancee, Highlight and Banjo did not crack the code of background location data. (Delete, delete, delete.)

In the next two parts, I will be exploring the differences between noisy and calm technologies, followed by a glimpse in the future of ambient location platforms and the emergence of calm technologies.

SXSW is overwhelming madness, as usual. I had 15 meetings already, more than 10 to go. It’s easy to google the person in advance or check their profiles.

The problem is, we tend to pretend to know others based on public information. What we share on social profiles is not really meant to be a real representation of ourselves. When you use the tools to create closeness and familiarity with the other person, you cheat just a little bit and try to trick your way into their emotional self.

It’s a common technique, used by traditional direct marketers. You offer a product/service based on previous purchases. Direct Marketers track the success diligently and optimize based on performance. When digital marketing took off, marketers tried to copy that direct response technique. Unfortunately, they were not as disciplined as their traditional counterparts and made bad assumptions.

You look at outdoor sports sites, let’s send you an email with a background featuring the great outdoors.

You visit a site for car enthusiasts and you’ll be considered one of them until the end of time. (Or until you delete your cookie.)

In real life, it’s often better to start a conversation without assuming anything, just being curious and open. In the digital marketing world, many digital campaigns don’t succeed because they are based on false assumptions.

If you want to be successful, you need to be sure that your assumptions are right. Or you better start out with a blank slate.

It’s my fourth year in a row and I can’t wait to be part of the insanity we call SXSW once again. Here are a few thoughts while I’m prepping for the event.

1. The conference ticket is quite expensive. The hotel is even more expensive. Add to that the flight and miscellaneous expenses, suddenly you’re talking about a real investment. While the badge allows me to see all the sessions, panels and keynotes, that’s not why I invested money going. For me it’s all about the conversations. The human connections. Moments where I learn from people what drives them, what makes them tick, what they are working on: The coffee with an interesting person that has 12 followers on Twitter. The drink with a woman who is about the change the world. The discussion about marketing at 11pm with five brilliant minds. The friendships that last.
2. I will try to go to 2 sessions per day and be present. Not just sit there and check my email or update my status. Listen, learn and focus. If possible, I will add my voice to the conversation, not just rehashing sound bites of the speaker.
3. Location-awareness apps will be the Twitter of 2012. Or the failed group-messaging apps of 2011. Remember Beluga? I’m pretty sure apps like Glancee or Highlight will make a big splash at SXSW but I’m skeptical how that translates into the real world of having a normal life. I use Foursquare extensively during SXSW but tend to return the remaining 51 weeks of year maybe weekly. This might be the destiny of location-awareness apps.
4. I’m giddy about The Violet Crown, a location-aware app that let’s me explore a musical album while walking around the SXSW grounds. Instead of listening to the record chronologically, you listen to it geographically, stumbling into pockets of sound dotted around the streets which blend between each other smoothly. I can’t wait to explore it.
5. I’m looking forward to connect at Startup Village. I love to learn about new ideas, new ways of thinking, new ways to change the world.

Most importantly, I would love to connect with you. I’m on Twitter @uwehook, text me at 323.304.1661 or just say hi when you see me.

I submitted a speaking proposal entitled:

How creativity will reinvent capitalism

“Stimulating the economy is not about tax cuts or new subsidies. Stimulating the economy is about reinenting the economy and its institutions through creativity. The old “capital” was all about machines and efficiencies, the new “capital” are living networks of many different kinds of capital: natural, human, social and/or creative. The goal has to be to seed those many different forms of capital most productively – nurture, allocate, utilize and renew them. Explore the first signs of this emerging movement to topple the old form of capitalism and build a more sustainable model.”

These are scary times.

Unemployment hovering around 9%. Real unemployment at 20%. A global debt crisis. A global demand crisis. A systemic crisis.

As I discussed before, we are entering the age of strife.

Institutions won’t save us. No President will save us. No party will.

We have to save ourselves.

Capitalism is a good thing. The current expression of capitalism is not. How can we transform capitalism as radically as it happened during Adam Smith’s era? It won’t happen through institutions, it will happen by all of us changing it. While we’re facing the abyss, a few of us have already jumped to the other, transformative side.

The new capitalism has to be about accumulating and saving any productive resource for tomorrow. We have to minimize economic harm and maximize creating real economic value. It’s less about exploitation and more about optimization.

Many people call this the age of constructive capitalism: We’re creatively destroying old institutions, building new institutions, founding on authentic, enduring and meaningful value. Stakeholder value vs. Shareholder value, allowing enterprises to play a more constructive and valuable role in society. It’s as revolutionary as the change from an agricultural society to industrial capitalism. The change from managerial/financial capitalism to a human business design will change the way we work and live. And reclaim our humanity.

It’s much bigger than just building better products and services – it’s about building better institutions first. Hank Paulson and Donald Trump wouldn’t recognize this form of capitalism. It is composed of a disruptive new set of cornerstones, geared for the new economics of interdependence. And it will flush out the dinosaurs of 20th century capitalism.

My goal is to explore this important topic at SXSW 2012. I believe there’s more to talk about than tools or platforms. We need to change the world.

And we need to start now.

Would love to hear your thoughts and any vote for my proposal is welcome.