1. What is X|Media|Lab?
2. What is X|Media|Lab About?
3. Is Every X|Media|Lab the Same?
4. Who Attends X|Media|Lab?
5. What is the Mix of People at a Lab?
6. What is the Process of the Lab?
7. What's a "Mentor" and a "Project Team"?
8. How Does My Project Team Get Selected into the Lab?
9. Is My Intellectual Property Protected?
10. Two Days Isn't Very Long!
11. Why the Big Deal about X|Media|Lab?
12. Would You Run a X|Media|Lab in My Part of the World?
13. But Couldn't We Run a "X|Media|Lab" by Ourselves?
14. How do I Stay in Touch with these Amazing People I Meet at the Lab?
15. Can You Help My Project Get Funding?
X|Media|Lab is an event. It takes place over three days: the first day is a Professional Day Conference with General Admission (in other words, anyone can buy a ticket and go); followed by the two-day Lab which is for selected projects only.
The Pro Day Conference is intended to give a general audience access to each Lab's line-up of world class digital media practitioners, and also to give the selected project teams ideas about what they can access from each Mentor once they get into the Lab.
X|Media|Lab is all about Interactive Digital Media (IDM).
We stage original, high-value events focusing on creativity and innovation, technology know-how, business thinking, and investment opportunities.
Our focus is on the arc from the Middle East, India, China, and ASEAN – the new media, new geographies that are re-configuring the power structures, economics, and creative centres of digital media innovation.
The ‘X’ in X|Media|Lab is they key to understanding what the Lab is all about.
‘X’ stands for: Cross Platform, and Cross Disciplinary, of course. But it also definitely stands for “cross cultural”. XML celebrates the genuinely international nature of our network of people and events.
‘X‘ also indicates that the “intersections” of people, skills, and ideas are the cross-roads where original creativity takes place. And it also symbolises that “X Marks the Spot” – where, as all map readers know, the hidden treasures are buried.
‘X‘ also illustrates, the “critical moment”, the “crossing over”, the “exchanging” when some thing … becomes some thing else.
And finally, ‘X’ stands for the unknown. If the future is merely programmed and known in advance, there would be no need for X|Media|Lab. The Lab helps bring this un-known and un-formed future into being through the shared inspiration, creativity, and know-how of everyone who participates at each X|Media|Lab.
That’s why every Lab event, above all, is something joyful.
No, every X|Media|Lab is different. We run X|Media|Lab's in digital media hotspots all over the world, and every Lab has a different theme and a changing set of Mentors.
We are cross-disciplinary: so we deliberately make sure there is always a mix of traditional media people, along with a mix of experts in computer games, mobile content, animation, interactive TV and advertising, digital cinema, social networking, and virtual worlds.
We are also resolutely cross-cultural. You'll find people from all over the world in X|Media|Lab: the US, the UK, India, China, SE Asia, Australia and NZ, Japan, and so on.
Participants at X|Media|Lab have included internationally renowned film-maker Shekhar Kapur; the BBC; Disney Internet Group; the ABC's "Chaser", "JTV", and "Rage" programs; India's largest media conglomerate Reliance Entertainment; Wikipedia; Hungama.com, the world's number one Bollywood portal; Al Gore's Current TV; Bebo.com,; Last.FM; America's biggest talent agency ICM;Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation; Lonely Planet; Zuji.com; 4-times Emmy Award winners Schematic; the Beijing Film Academy; China's No. 1 tertiary institution Tsinghua University; the British Council; the UK's biggest ad agency BBDO; world leading games developers Eidos and Codemasters; UNESCO-winning heritage projects; New York's Parson's New School of Design; Nokia's Research Center (from Finland and Beijing!); Intel's Digital Home Group, and many others.
Our job is to get the most outstanding set of people into the room. After that, it's all up to you!
At each event, X|Media|Lab brings into one place all cross-disciplinary participants in the creation of successful digital media applications and content: the original creative idea generators; research and development know-how; commercial acumen; and financial resources.
Hence, you'll find yourself amongst start-up's and creatives, media arts centers, R&D institutions, big corporations looking for big ideas, VC's, government agencies, independent advisors, and greatly successful mentors from all around the world, all contributing to the swirl of the uniquely valuable and personal experience of X|Media|Lab.
The core focus of the Lab however is, always, you and your idea.
And helping you make that a reality
The uniquely successful X|Media|Lab process is based on two core organizing principles:
No. 1) the "Open Space" facilitation process, whose creator Harrison Owen was motivated by his realization that the most valuable parts of all the conferences he attended was not the speakers, but rather the coffee breaks! X|Media|Lab is one long rolling series of high-value coffee breaks.
No. 2) the logic of the Internet: self-selecting and self-organising. At any time during the Lab, each project team is talking to who they want to talk to, about their own project idea.
No-one "manages" the Lab, it "happens". No bore is standing at the front of the room wasting everyone's time. There are no "trust games", origami exercises, or other kindergarten activities.
Each project team selects who they want to talk to, when, about what, one-on-one. That's why everyone loves the process so much. It's all about helping you and your commercial media idea get to market by working one-on-one with some of the most successful, creative, and best-connected digital media practitioners from all around the world.
Each Lab has its location, a general "digital media" theme, and a unique roster of International Mentors who are chosen for their outstanding creative skills, impeccable business networks, and/or their technological acumen.
Above all, the Mentors are chosen for their willingness to help! The point of X|Media|Lab is to help people get their own digital media ideas perfected, funded, and to succeed commercially. The highest quality of X|Media|Lab Mentors is to listen ... and respond.
"Project Teams" are generally, but not always, independent companies, start-up's, a few friends with a great idea, or teams of people inside organisations who are responsible for some new digital application or content they are working on.
After each theme, location, and roster of Mentors is announced, we have a "Call for Projects" issued through our partners: funding bodies, industry bodies, event partners etc.
A few weeks before the Lab, we announce the selected project teams. They are selected according to three criteria: 1) the ability of the Mentors to contribute significantly to the success of the project idea; 2) the likelihood of the project idea getting to market; and 3) the quality of the nominated project team.
Our rule of thumb is that we maintain a ratio of 1:1 between Mentors and project teams, so that at any time during the Lab a project team is working one-on-one with a Mentor of their choosing.
Absolutely. We wouldn't get the quality projects and people into the Lab otherwise. We spent a small fortune on a plain language legal agreement that is accessible on every page of the website. Principally, each participant agrees, by virtue of participation, that:
a)each participant recognises each other participant's prior and subsequent ownership of any IP that is presented in any form in the Lab; b)any communications that occur within the Lab are non-binding, non-obligatory, and non-proprietary.
Lastly, X|Media|Lab doesn't own anything, except our impeccable guanxi (i.e, network).
True. Apart from the exceptionally laudatory compliments that we get about each Lab, it's true that the most important things about X|Media|Lab actually happen after it - after the networks have been formed, the personal relationships have been made, and when everyone has gone back to their offices with an impeccable set of friends and professionals made in the environment of the Lab.
Secondly, X|Media|Lab is for people trying to get a real, commercial, digital media idea to market. We don't waste anyone's time - Mentors or project teams. That's also why we run the Lab on weekends, in central locations, at iconic venues, in the world's media hotspots. People are more than happy to give up a weekend for such a valuable experience, and we recognize the serious value of their working time.
We are most proud of two things:
1) XML has created an original format in which these kinds of amazing people come into direct, genuine, and personal contact with local companies and institutions who are trying to get their idea to market.
2) most especially, we are proud that XML was the first digital media event in the world that insisted on: a) equality of different cultures – Mentors and projects from China, India, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Singapore, and North America have participated at every Lab; b) mixing of different disciplines - games, mobile, animation, IPTV, Web 2.0, text, performance, video, coding and hacking; and c) fusion of different expertise: between the creative, the technological, the commercial, and the academic.
Originality reigns.
Yes. We are constantly looking for the right partners to extend the X|Media|Lab network, and we are always looking for the right set of partners. We are currently evaluating a number of new cities and new partners for 2008.
Our best set of partners usually consists of: a strong industry association partner; a strong event context along with which we can run the Lab; and strong government support for proven industry development activities in Digital Media.
If you've got an idea – contact us
Sure. Even though we've put a lot of thought and effort into perfecting the process, it's simple to imitate. In fact, some simpletons already have.
But what cannot be imitated – nor created without major investments of time and money - is the international network of events, places, people, and projects. This is the unique value of X|Media|Lab.
By partnering with X|Media|Lab, you and your network get to participate in all the Lab's that we already run: currently India, Australia, Singapore, China, and the UK. And more in 2008.
We're thinking about the best way of doing that. It's a question we've been asked since Day One. We want to make sure we come up with the right answer, or the right partner.
That's the other question we always get asked.
In each Lab, we make sure there are a good number of people attending who are able to so this – VC's, investment funds, and funding bodies. Our preference is to provide access to these kinds of contacts inside the Lab itself.
That said, we've also been offered access to a “XML Ventures” fund for XML projects. We're thinking about that too.
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