What Went Down at SXSW 2015?

What once might have felt like a reality show entitled Tech Nerds Gone Wild is now more Brands Gone Wild. SXSW definitely feels more corporate this year. The festival is saturated with mainstream corporate sponsorship, which they refer to as ‘Super Sponsorship’.

It’s obvious that big brands spent their marketing dollars but I’m still uncertain if any of these efforts managed to make an impact. Apparently some brands have already recognized SXSW as becoming too saturated and have pulled out of long term sponsorship deals. This year McDonald’s and Mazda replaced Subway and Chevy.

Despite all the noise, here’s a few things that, for me, stood out in the crowd and managed to provoke a dialogue.  

Meerkat – Engaging the forward thinkers and gaining organic traction

Meerkat is a live-streaming app that organically grabbed the tech world's attention this year at the festival. It lets users share real-time video directly from their phones to their Twitter followers and interact with people that are watching it. The success of Meerkat is spreading organically from users, not big marketing spends. They even had a big hand from Jimmy Kimmel encouraging people to use Meerkat for his live broadcasts from Austin. However, Meerkat wasn’t without controversy, immediately being cut off by Twitter because of their recent acquisition of a similar app, Periscope.

This only added to the buzz, with Meerkat gaining even more recognition and being seen as the underdog. And Meerkat is quickly finding solutions to overcome the challenge of being cut off by Twitter, adding new features that allow users to search and connect with other users.  Could this be the next multi-billion dollar company, as Twitter was in 2007? Or alternatively will it be another high profile app that goes absolutely nowhere? Either way, at least, they’ll always be the rockstars of SXSW 2015.

Ex Machina - Deceiving the public and breaking their hearts for attention 

“How do we get the attention of the over 30,000 attendees this year?”

“I know, let’s deceive them and pull at their heartstrings.”

It may have gone something like that. This year the company promoting the film Ex Machina turned to Tinder to see results. They created a fake account, Ava, with pictures of a beautiful young woman (aka. a ‘swipe right’ for many attendees, male and female). Ava immediately opens a pretty intense conversation, asking questions like, “Have you ever been in love?” and “What makes you human?” She then recommends you go look at her Instagram to find out more about her before you meet.  

On visiting her account you realise this is a promotion for Ex Machina, a sci-fi film premiering in Austin, and the woman in the app’s picture is the actress from the film, Alicia Vikander, who plays a being with artificial intelligence in the movie.

It’s clear then that all her questions were about a robot trying to learn how to be human. Yes this approach was clever, taking a more subtle (read: spammy?) path to find it’s audience but I found it mostly invasive and cruel. It reminded me of something Sacha Ouimet, CD at KBS&P Montreal, shared from the session, How Art Affects Strategy; “If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face.”

Drones – Everybody loves drones, even if they aren’t using them right

Drones were a huge buzz this year, they were being addressed at sessions from warfare to wearable technology. Drone, drone, drone.  Just thought that would stress how much I heard about it. Ironically, Austin was declared a ‘drone free zone’ this year because of public safety and airway congestion concerns.

Despite the lack of physical drones in the air, valuable insight was definitely delivered inside the conference centre. ‘Captain of Moonshots’ at Google(x), Dr. Astro Teller, addressed drones in his session, revealing information about their failed delivery drones, we were left with promises to hear more about the next stage within the year. Nonetheless, the crowd was thrilled to be let in on at least some of the riveting secret projects and technological advancements that are driving the Google(x) team.

On the other hand, some people showcasing their drones made me think; ‘wow, anyone can come speak at this festival’. I headed to the robot petting zoo (only to be somewhat disappointed. I must admit that part of me was hoping I’d walk into a room full of adorable robot puppies) and at the front of the room there was a man showcasing his drone which he had decorated with a Halloween style, Wizard of Oz-esque monkey mask…ok, I know that’s the tech nerd cliché but come on.  

What fascinated me was that his drone was controlled by a brainwave headset, I know this technology isn’t new but still, woooah! Tell me more. After asking a few questions he said he had bought everything online and wasn’t actually very good at controlling it because it’s super hard. So I’m thinking, can someone please introduce me to the man who created the headset, not the dude who bought it on the internet and decorated his drone like a monkey?  

In addition, when I asked him, “What do people see as the future use of this technology?” he went on to tell me that someone in a wheelchair with limited control of their body could put on the device and then use it to control… wait for it… a drone! Then they’d have their hands free to take pictures of things like them flying their drone.  

“OR,” I replied, “they could use it to control their wheelchair!” Come on SXSW organisers, isn’t there a screening process? But let’s all take this as a lesson to start utilising more of the cutting edge technology that is already available to the public. If Monkey Robot Drone Man bought all this on the internet, think about the innovative opportunities that are out there. As Astro Teller expressed in his keynote, projects need to fail before they succeed, so get out there and start failing in order to give birth to a truly successful idea.  

Women in Tech - A force at SXSW, taking down gender bias

Not only were more women making keynote speeches and attending the festival but there were also a number of sessions specifically focussed on women in tech. Keynote speaker Princess Reema Bint Bandar Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia [below] spoke about "empowering women" in her country. During the panel, How Innovation Happens, Google executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, explained that an increased level of diversity and gender inclusivity is necessary to bring about breakthroughs in technology.  

Unfortunately, the point fell flat when he constantly interrupted his co-panelist, US chief technology officer and former Google executive, Megan Smith. During the question and answer program, an audience member, later identified as Judith Williams, global diversity and talent programs manager at Google, made a point to call him out on his actions and was greeted with a huge applause for doing so. Sha-bam! This crowd’s too smart to let that one pass by unnoticed.  

It’s obvious that this year there was a valiant effort to recognise women in tech but we have to do more than just talk about it #makeithappen. Schmidt’s actions made it clear that the unconscious bias exists, women need to be heard and action needs to be taken if we’re going to reach the organization, UN womens’ goal, declaring 2030 the expiration date for gender inequality. UN women is the “leading organization with a global mandate to promote gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment.” (www.unwomen.org)