Per Keith Barclay in Screenhub, an overview of the X|Media|Lab event in Auckland. Excerpts below:

The keynote address day at X|Media|Lab contained more than enough information and ideas to make one’s head explode several times over. Commercialising Ideas was an outstanding success, judging by the responses at the end of the day. Even the attendees not participating in the Lab, at which sixteen teams worked with mentors to develop their projects, left the venue buzzing and shell-shocked by the vast array of experience and wisdom on offer.

Always good company to have venture capitalist Tim Chang on board, although his discussion of capital made it hard to believe we’re anywhere clear of this recession. Very understandable slides and only a few new acronyms to add to the start-up book:

Tim Chang, from Norwest Venture Partners, repeatedly referred to throughout the Lab as the smartest guy in the room, offered analysis. He discussed current trends and where money is likely to be invested over the next two or three years (search widgets, mobile applications, and vertically-integrated networking communities if you’ve got a few hundred K to spare). Running an investment fund of roughly a quarter of a billion US dollars, he should know.

For the benefit of the Lab’s participants, he also suggested that anyone seeking investment for a project should apply the ’seven deadly sins test’. If the pitch can’t satisfy at least one of those basic (or base) desires, go back and rework it.

Maybe. “Looking for a needle in a hayless desert” was how Adrian Sexton of New Medici described the search for profitable ideas. Commercialising ideas in the brave new online world is still – in large part – the stuff of legend. There’s an insatiable appetite for new ’stuff’, be it applications, social networks, widgets, even hardware, but while the path to market seems well-marked, the path to profitability is not so easy to find.

In the programme notes, X|Media|Lab director Megan Elliott wrote of the importance of having ‘an acute appreciation of the changes occurring internationally in the consumption and behavioural preferences of consumers’.

Read the whole article at Screenhub (link down but will post when live).

Related X|Media|Lab - Auckland links:

• New Zealand 3 News: Interview with Juliette Power: Digital door opens wider for Kiwi entrepreneurs; Fri, 22 May 2009; Making money in the digital world is the theme of a conference in Auckland today featuring the internationally acclaimed digital media organisers and think tank - X Media Lab. + view video
  
• New Zealand 3 News: Interview with Adrian Sexton: New Medici aims to innovate media in NZ; Mon, 25 May 2009; New Medici is an LA based company that aims to innovate media, entertainment and lifestyle branding across digital and traditional platforms. + view video
• The Big Idea magazine/site: Richard Cardran, Adrian Sexton, Susan Bonds, Juliette Power, Dale Herigstad, Hugh Mason, Rajat Paharia, Mike McGraw, Greg Suess, Vishal Gondal
• Idealog mag/site: Tim Chang, Vishal Gondal