- Sound bites of SXSW Interactive 2014

Sound bites of SXSW Interactive 2014

“Once upon a time there was a tech startup-focused festival in central Texas. And every day, it felt like an indie entrepreneurship hub, until one day Twitter and Foursquare were born there

And because of that, the marketing industry did notice it, and because of that Austin was flooded with more logos than Nascar. And because of that, more diverse conversations have emerged around content, interface design, collaborative economy and two of this year favorites: privacy and wearables

And since then, brand marketers are flocking there every year in an eager hunt for new ideas that (hopefully) transform their organizations for the digital age

[Moral of the story] And now, SXSW is more about innovation in marketing, and not a dreamy geek-only spring break anymore”

So using the technique above from a UX storytelling workshop I attended, I can summarize the atmosphere in SXSW Interactive 2014

Apart from this general summary, expect more posts to come on the specific workshops and sessions when the speakers make presentations available in the new few days

Geeks Spring Break? Not anymore …

Regarding the “geek-only” statement, don’t take me wrong; there were more than a dozen panels that mentioned Google Glass and probably SXSW is the only place (outside Mountain View) where seeing people hanging around “wearing” Google Glasses doesn’t seem … well, weird. Also, robotics, drones and 3D printing had their space there

Actually 3D printing is a clear example of how some of the most interesting technologies weren’t deployed by a-week-ago-born startup but by a large brand instead. Oreo was one of the most tweeted brand as it used 3D printers to create cookies on demand based on real-time trending topics in Twitter (watch demo here: http://bit.ly/1riOSMc)

Creme 3D printing oreo cookies. #sxlnc #sxswlnc http://instagram.com/p/lQz0gULbuu/ by @alfredojledesma

The big brands that sponsored the event tapped into usually startup-associated techniques and technologies such as agile prototyping, recommendation engines and robotics. Certainly they were using SXSW as a test ground to move them beyond the TV, print, traditional online advertising and 2-dimensional social media

Networking and new business opportunities atmosphere

Among the attendees, there is an underlying feeling that, as an industry, marketing is struggling to really innovate; and all of us know that innovation is a big differentiator (right Mr. Jobs?)

For that reason this year the presence of Mad Men has created another big opportunity: connections. Agencies like Barbarian Group and JWT all-expenses-paid parties featuring music acts. Social media firms hosting “unofficial” panels, personal cards and “go-for-a-drink” invitations with a vendor were flying around

SXSW continues to be a creativity, innovation and technology melting pot and the “connections” that can provide marketers ways to leverage these and impact their businesses would be the new selected partners

Privacy, SXSW? Why here? I’m a marketer, so what?

On the conference side, the biggest headlines didn’t go to the hottest startup or the “next big thing” in products or communications (although Samsung was… literally everywhere). One of the main topics was: privacy. SXSW hosted 3 landmark sessions with none other than: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange

That definitely shows that how the enterprises and brands behave is more visible than ever (even if you try to hide). Snowden said, “Whether you are Google or Facebook, you can do these things in a responsible way, where you can still get the value out of these that you need to run your business”

So there is … the given responsibility to support, advise and prepare the industry and our brands to protect their reputation. Whether online, social or experiential advertising

A Conversation with Edward Snowden #sxswinteractive https://twitter.com/turboricua/status/443055003935064065/photo/1 by @turboricua

Are you thinking about Collaborative Economy?

If there was one startup that was mentioned at SXSW14, it was Airbnb … not because of a revolutionary technology but because it was likely to be the most-used “hospitality” service

Airbnb, Etsy, Kickstarter and Uber (make notes now) actually leverage one of the potentially most disruptive social trends for corporate America. The collaborative economy – peer2peer transactions. However, as Jeremiah Owyang (https://twitter.com/jowyang) pointed out, this is the “2nd phase of sharing: collaborative economy … people are sharing the physical world”

However, in the past year, some smart and visionary companies took notice of the risk and opportunities that this fast-growing trend opens up to their businesses and companies, such as Staples starts selling products developed on Quirky, Avis acquiring Zipcar, and Walgreens using TaskRabbit to deliver its products

@jowyang recommendation to enterprises was look at the “collaborative value chain” - a framework that helps them to find the opportunities in this new trend (more here: http://slidesha.re/1leNKIg)

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2013/06/04/report-corporations-must-join-the-collaborative-economy/

And what about other social media trends?

There were 2 other topics when discussing Social:

Accountability
Social TV

Andy Markowitz, from GE and also chairman of the board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC), was interviewed on the hot topic of Social media accountability. Here: http://bit.ly/1ppEVJe

On Social TV, I’ve attended interesting sessions with Colby Flint, Consumer Insight Strategist, Discovery Communications; Alexandra Samuel, VP, Social Media Vision Critical; ESPN President, John Skipper Univision President, Kevin Conroy; and PBS President, Paula Kerger

Vision Critical and Discovery collaborated in a Social TV study that included these highlights:

77% of millennial have used #socialmedia triggered by #SocialTV CTA
More than 40% of regular Internet users like to see what other people are thinking when watching a TV program #SocialTV
50% of moderate users enjoy seeing what other people watching the show are thinking

To see all the slides, click here: http://slidesha.re/1gfQuC9

On the other session, ESPN proudly pointed out that they are willing to experiment and they’re a leader in second screen programming and native content apps (according to them)

Without hesitation, ESPN’s Skipper launched a line that became the tweet of the hour. “TV is a dirty word,” he said. “That’s the T-word. We use the S-word. Screens”

On his side, Univision’s Conroy refers to creativity a single, unified digital platform where everyone can sort through and easily experience television

Ok, and Hispanic?

SXSW Interactive organizers agreed to launch the first-ever Latinos in Technology Track

The 3-day free-to-attend event featured a range of panel discussions, from tech to social media and startup entrepreneurship

Probably the most tweeted session included a celebrity, a hot mass topic and certainly the Hispanic sauce

In the session “Star Power: Innovative Ways to Engage Millennials” Rosario Dawson, celebrity and also co-founder of a non-partisan political organization called Voto Latino, and Alex Wagner, MSNBC anchor, received good a amount of buzz as they addressed the importance of marketing to Hispanic Millennials

More here: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SXSWLatino&src=typd

Learnings (from the relevant to the mundane):

SXSW continues to attract a mass of creative, interesting, innovative and curious technologists
Marketers come eager to learn and identify partners that they think are most likely to impact their business
SXSW is also about making new connections and strengthening those you already have
There’s still not enough diversity. Hispanic has still big bandwidth to grow in the SXSW speaker line-up and overall topics
SXSW is a great place to meet the technologies and marketers who want to stand out; however a better matchmaking service would be useful
Digital, strategy and creativity are the agency-related pillars to SXSW
Register early and book workshop sessions as soon as possible as they get booked fast
Choose sessions that are either close to each other or allow plenty of time get there. Time > 60 mins when in different locations
Book early as accommodation prices go through the roof
Don’t ride a bike; Austin is too hilly

Acknowledgement:

Thank you amigos: Cecy @CecyA, Alfredo @alfredojledesma, Arturo @helloimr2ro, Mandred @gma_kruger, Miguel @sansegocreative, Rafa @rjccomm, for sharing the knowledge in this excellent experience

And we cannot miss the “selfie”