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7/29/2010Posted by Leo Ryan, Influence Planning Director, Draftfcb London
This is a belated post about the digital culture smorgasbord that is SXSW. Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to attend SXSW and have written endless almost-finished-blog-posts and presentations about the amazing things I learnt and saw there. Now I have finally managed to (quickly) check my punctuation and spelling and roughly assemble my notes into an almost intelligible format...enjoy.
Some things that make SXSW cool...
The breadth: There is a very broad range of attendees: Compared to some 1 day conferences in London SXSW is incredibly good value. This low cost means that instead of a few clients from Proctor and Gamble and the creative digital director of BBH talking to themselves at the Grosvenor Hotel you get students, indy agencies, R&D guys from HP, tech and media startups, VCs and angel investors and every level of employee from interactive and marketing agencies including Draftfcb's healthy contribution that included junior creatives teams through to senior bods like Rob Sherlock and a raft of HR recruitment team swooping on any wandering talent.
The depth: There is a Massive Choice: Each session has about 21 different events from lectures to workshops, demonstrations and round-table discussions / debates. On the upside, what would be in itself a very good conference in Europe or indeed anywhere in the world is all on in one 60 minute session. On the downside obviously you can't possibly see everything or even just the things that you are really really keen to see. So completely opposite to TED where you get a single stream and lots of intense conversation around a single topic at SXSW you get lots of different conversations. To deal with the spread of interest the Draftfcb team split up and then shared notes after each session.
The treats: The Goody Bag was so heavy it could only be dragged back to the hotel and dumped on the floor to sift through. Containing all kinds of fun treats, stickers and flyers, some of them useful, most of them rubbish. Best one were the free Sticky Bits which I have only just re-discovered and distributed around the London office...
The BBQ: As a Queenslander born and bred I have strong opinions about BBQ. The Texans do it very differently but they do it very well. As evidenced by the regular damage we inflicted at Stubbs.
The Weather: Spring comes early to Austin. So while my family friends and colleagues were still shivering in London was in short sleeves and even managed a swim at the natural outdoor Barton Spring.
The Headsup: It is the harbinger of Things To Come. The products and projects launched or profiled at SXSW includes;
2006: Wikipedia2007: Twitter2008: Facebook Beacon (I didn't say they were all successful)
2009: Spotify2010: FourSquareSo what did this years SXSW presage?
1. The Internet of Things
The intersection of online and offline worlds. Newspaper Club printed a newspaper for the conference but took all of their content form the speakers and event data, Sticky Bits were handed out randomly and stuck to all manner of things (no, I'm not going there..) and naturally FourSquare and Gowalla were in high demand.
FourSquare added 100K users after SXSW. During the event we used it as a way of keeping track of who was in which talk, bar or party, sometimes with some hilarious results as we discovered a group who we'd invited to dinner had instead decided to meet separately, but only two blocks away...
QR codes on our conference passes meant that (for mobile phones with the software installed) you could just scan someone's pass and get their info into your contacts. No, it's not particularly new but when you see a gadgetally advanced crowd who all have iPhones and who all want to connect in a short period of time then you start to see the future of how this might be used.
2. There's an App For That
The SXSW iPhone app was a bit rubbish but it heralds an interesting thing; special purpose short term apps with very specific functions like a Nivea For Men World Cup App or a Matters *%^ Me Numbers App.
3. New kinds of businesses
There are some very different kinds of business emerging who are not hampered by legacy business thinking or technology who are really thriving in this new environment. Local Motors, Mint, SmartyPig, Vook, Newspaper Club are all very new types of business operating in traditional sectors; automotive, finance and publishing. There is a significant shift underway and we need to help clients to understand and adapt.
All in all an inspiring and invigorating event. MOre posts to come on some of my fave talks including Transmedia, Future of Publishing, Education 2.0. Once I get this pitch out of the way...
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