We were off to a great start on our first official day at SXSW, the team attended several interesting talks and meetups. Read which sessions and events we attended and a few key quotes and what else we've been up to so far.
Our favourite talks today:
“Data-Driven Fan Engagement” - Tim
Insight from major players in the fan engagement space including LADBible and Manchester United football club. The panel was led by Mayor of Manchester and BBC’s Caroline Barker. Whilst the key area of focus was support there were lessons learned for TheTin’s Rock App project.
Panel of Data-Driven Fan Engagement
“The Anatomy of a Trend” - Laura
So I went to this talk because it was in the same room as the Bruce Mau talk (the one I really wanted to see) but it turned out to be my favourite talk of the day. Carla Buzasi (Managing Director of the World’s Global Style Network) talked about the process of forecasting trends across fashion, the way we live and how we interact with brands.
She explained how a combination of global events paved the way for the trend of artisanal products and gave her predictions for 2020 trends. There will be three consumer tribes that brands will need to watch out for; the localvist, the augmentalist and the imperfectionist.
Top tip: If you want to get ahead of the curve on colours then you want matte black and mint green!
“The Power of Vertical AI in a Monolithic AI World” - Juliette
This was without a doubt my favourite talk of the day, an excellent start to the day! The panelists were very strong, and there was a lot of food for thought in this talk. The session filled up quite slowly, not as popular as some other talks I attended later in the day, so I’d like to think this one was a hidden gem! The talk explained the importance and power of vertical AI and what smaller companies can do to make AI a success for them.
“Almost every success you see now, is AI that effectively perceives stuff (seeing text, hear a sound and transcribe, respond to prompt, etc) this is just the beginning of the AI ecosystem. Observation, decision, simulation to action = your AI eco-system. It needs to reflect real actions in the real world, from a real observation. How do you start to reason & build a case for action to use AI? How to enable the action and make it explainable to the client or company? How the big 5 apply AI, is not the only way.”
The team this year, minus Jamie who will be joining us very soon!
Who did you meet?
Yesterday we met Clara, who was a speaker on the panel: “Letting Go: Designing For An AI You Can’t Control”. Unfortunately we couldn’t attend the session, but we’re sure we will catch up with Clara again. We were given a small Austin tour and introduction to Trader Joe’s! Today, Juliette met a cartographer, lovely people from a Japanese advertising agency, an interface designer, and an engineer also on a mission to learn as much as possible about the latest trends and what to look into further in terms of emerging tech.