SXSW Highlights,

thoughts & connectionsDom Burch | Nick Bamber | Matt White

We had the privilege of attending the SXSW festival

What is SXSW?

SXSW Interactive alone includes

more than 800 total sessions as

well as countless competitions,

exhibits, and networking events.

Three

events

in one

– Adobe funded every single new product idea

from any employee, no questions asked*.

– Created ‘Kickbox’ a box containing everything

you need to implement and test your idea, inc.

– Starbucks card for caffeine to fuel your idea.

$1000 dollar debit card to test /prove it *.

– First 1000 boxes have delivered 23 ideas into

products.

– Inspired new career directions (e.g. Legal to

Product Management).

– Adobe have open sourced Kickbox for anyone

to use.

– Your people are your best Innovation asset.

– ‘Stop playing the HiPPO game - Highest Paid

Person’s Opinion wins’.

– Adobe funded every single new product idea

from any employee, no questions asked*.

– Created ‘Kickbox’ a box containing everything

you need to implement and test your idea, inc.

– Starbucks card for caffeine to fuel your idea.

$1000 dollar debit card to test /prove it *.

– First 1000 boxes have delivered 23 ideas into

products.

– Inspired new career directions (e.g. Legal to

Product Management).

– Adobe have open sourced Kickbox for anyone

to use.

– Your people are your best Innovation asset.

– ‘Stop playing the HiPPO game - Highest Paid

Person’s Opinion wins’.

– Meets a lot of ‘entrepreneurs’ who don’t have

an idea.

– Lead with humility, self-awareness is key,

be yourself, be authentic.

– Your people and how you treat them is the

most important thing.

– The generosity gene is what you want to look

for in a boss.

– Kick someone when they are swelling not growing.

Don’t kick them when they’re down.

Highlights for MattMark Randall – VP Creativity Adobe

Three P’s to success of leadership:

Persistence

There are many barriers and obstacles, leaders

breakthrough and find a way.

Persuasion

You need to bring people with you, willingly.

Preparedness

Be prepared for the road ahead, anything can

happen so be ready.

Final thought:

– Understand your people and their needs,

managing a team you will need to let go.

– You can get where you want to on your own.

But it’s easier with a map. Books are those maps.

Highlights for DomJack Welch – Former CEO of GE

– Meets a lot of ‘entrepreneurs’ who don’t have

an idea.

– Lead with humility, self-awareness is key,

be yourself, be authentic.

– Your people and how you treat them is the

most important thing.

– The generosity gene is what you want to look

for in a boss.

– Kick someone when they are swelling not growing.

Don’t kick them when they’re down.

Lowlights of the event

‘Charles Barley

of Basketball

Fame speak on

social media even

though he doesn’t

do social! Very

disappointing.’

Dom

Thoughts +Connections

The meetings and

conversations around the

event are as important as the

sessions themselves.

Connecting with people

such as, founders of Brand

Cast, Instacart and Blynk

Style, and even meeting

Ronald Mcdonald.

Taking time to reflect,

calibrate your thinking

and be inspired by what is

happening here.

US Grocery store

encourages customers to

‘buy theirs, get ours free’.

People don’t care about

brands as much as you

think. 77% admit they

have no brand relationship.

Simply suggesting loyalty can

drive disloyalty.

Attract new customers

with disloyalty.

Craig Evans - Executive creative director Wunderman

‘We became one of the

largest US dry cleaning

businesses over night’.

‘Find me a new fedex/UPS’

shipping is a major

barrier for growth.

VC funding is hard for women

with female targeted ideas.

Male dominated industry prefer

things they can relate too.

Jennifer Hyman - Founder and CEO RentTheRunway

Other Stuff

that struck a

chord with us

More presence from women on panels & presenting keynotes.

Criticism of

Dove making

women feel like

they are ugly.

– Future of retail was all women, very

positive and felt different.

– New generation of role models who

are confident and powerful.

The GE Media manifesto

Do we need one in Asda?

Martine Rothblatt

Highest Paid US female CEO

Founder and CEO of United Therapeutics

– Immortality through cyber. personality imminent.

– New jobs and economy boom.

– Cyber personality psychologists/lawyers.

– Saving lives via bio-genetics (lungs, pig organs).

BINA48 - Her wife being made into a robot.

Katrina Lake - Stitchfix

‘Your either the

smartest or dumbest

person in the room

when you’re doing

something for the

first time’.

HeyHuman Agency

How our brains

are coping with social

media. We’re task

swapping not

multitasking.

An interesting debate

on retail

The future of retail:

Sales per sq ft metric

will kill traditional

retailers.

Samsung VR

A headset allowing

a 2D screen to

become 3D for you to

enjoy the view in a

virtual reality.

Facts of US Ad spend

‘US as spend on non

programmatic to sink

to only 17% of ad

spend by 2017’.

Ben Lerer - Thrillest

Ben Lerer founder of

Thrillest with a

revenue of over $40

million a year was the

best speaker of day 2.

Publishers

Publishers want to be

nearer the point of

purchase.

Katrina Lake - Stitchfix

‘Your either the

smartest or dumbest

person in the room

when you’re doing

something for the

first time’.

HeyHuman Agency

How our brains

are coping with social

media. We’re task

swapping not

multitasking.

An interesting debate

on retail

The future of retail:

Sales per sq ft metric

will kill traditional

retailers.

Samsung VR

A headset allowing

a 2D screen to

become 3D for you to

enjoy the view in a

virtual reality.

Wearable camera captures a

photo every 6 seconds.

Categories by location

for ease of use.

Tells your day/life story

in pictures.

Jaclyn Ling

Co founder of Blynk style

– Blnyk is a personalised stylist app and retailer.

– Tinder style interface learns your fashion style

preferences by liking or disliking imagery.

– Every photo that is swiped ‘like’ gets saved to your

profile as an aid to help you get styled.

– ‘Style me’ button in their profile.

– This could be a great addition for George.com.

Brendan Wright

Walmart

Mobile is consumers’ most dominant screen

and apps are now the primary way they interact

with brands.

– We are in the era of unadvertising.

– A shift from interruption to invitation.

– Broadcast to precision.

– Reach & frequency to moments that matter.

– A search enhancing algorithm to help

online searches

– The worlds largest community of readers

and writers.

– Tinder based UI that enables brands to collect more

unstructured data on personalities of their users.

Idea for Asda to collect richer data on consumers

– Bot blocking: Blocks bots from siphoning away your

data and revenue.

– Dynamic visual content production tool

to produce animated presentations.

David Sloly

Author & former

BBC reporter/

journalist

Five steps to telling

business stories

The five W’s set the scene

Who, What, Why, When, Where.

The four P’s

Prince, Purses, Pets, Places.

Three acts; beginning, middle and end

Act one: Problem/Obsticle.

Act two: Conflict whilst overcoming problem.

Act three: The resolve; learn from the conflict.

Two different states

Can’t be two states at the same time.

One killer headline

what gets noticed first, the three types

of headline:

– News.

– Promise.

– Intrigue (Man bites dog).

Our time in Austin, Texas

Post event thoughts

– Sign up for Radio lab podcasts.

– Connect Blynk fashion app team to George.com.

– Read Martine Rothblatt book “Virtually human”.

– Read book and contact David Sloly on business stories

invite to Asda for keynote.

– Connect with University/schools to produce insights videos

on how Gen Z Consume Media.

– Play and trial Visme.co (Powerpoint presentation tool).

– Consider tableau for AMP finance and sales team.

– Connect with Wattpad.

– Follow up with Saatchi and Mediavest on brand activity.

– Link Tom Lloyd with Luminoso (integrate with Endecca).

– Link GEC with Distil Bot Blocking.

– Tratify – look at how we can use on apps.