7 Non-obvious Trends at SxSW 2018

Each year, I leave SxSW with several titles to add to my "want to read" list. This year, "Non-obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict the Future" tops that list.

Rohit Bhargava packed his hour with enough information for two sessions. He began by talking about his work as a trend spotter. Sounds like a fun gig if you can get it. As he explains his process, you realize that trend spotting also looks like an amazing amount of work.

He thinks of trend spotting as curation. He curates other people's ideas, but he also insists that we should all find ways to curate our own ideas and thinking.

The result of all this curation is Rohit's annual series on non-obvious trends. During his session he highlighted seven trends: manipulated outrage, ungendered, human mode, light-speed learning, enlightened consumption, disruptive distribution, and lovable imperfection.

I'm, of course, looking for ways the Library can capitalize on these.

"Human mode" seems an easy and logical fit for us. As automation increases, desire grows for personal, authentic experiences. People want advice, service and interaction with real-live human beings. That's us! The Library has always excelled at personalize service with a personal touch, so maybe the real question is how can we do a better job of selling that aspect.

Want to see more? Rohit was nice enough to post his SxSW slides on slideshare.
Rohit Bhargava

Elmo's World: Updating a classic property

You might be wondering why a 40 year-old communication manager who works primarily with college students would go to a session about Elmo. First, I love PBS. I unabashedly love PBS. And, I will always add anything PBS-related to my SxSW schedule. They never disappoint. Second, this year I was really focusing on Gen Z research, and I hoped I pick up a few worthwhile tidbits of generational research.

While I can't say that I got a ton of concrete take aways relevant to my work at OSU at this talk, I can say it was super interesting. Members of the Sesame Street Workshop team talked about the research, creative process and testing that went into updated the children's program, "Elmo's World."

I don't think "Sesame Street" gets the credit it deserves for innovation, but it's a legacy they try to maintain. The research and testing that went into developing this series was really interesting. The team was able to screen the show at various pre-schools. As the children watched (or didn't watch) the show they tracked things like how long the children looked at the screen, when they looked away, and if they engaged with the content (i.e. answering questions, talking to the characters, dancing along). The team used this information to identify which segments were most successful and how long segments should be.

The group also talk about the creative process and how the various units worked together to successfully combine curriculum, animation, puppetry, gaming, and live action. The aspect I found most interest was the media mixing. The original Sesame Street was groundbreaking in its combination of live action and puppetry. Critic thought it would be confusing to mix the universes, but turns out kids don't care. Elmo's World updates this concept, mixing animation and puppetry in a similar fashion.

The team readily admits that adults will find some of the program pretty annoying, but kids love it. They have the research to prove it.  

SxSW, I'm Back

After taking a year off from my annual SxSW trek, I decided to give the festival another shot. This year, I brought Nina, my trusty producer along with me, and we hit the road! This was my sixth SxSW and Nina's first.

In my typical Sx-fashion, I'll be sprinkling in some posts about my favorite sessions over the next few months. Until then, I want to share a few of the themes I picked up on this year. This is one of my favorite parts of SxSW, and I feel like you really have to be there going to sessions to have this experience. Some themes are obvious (like VR/AR having its very own track in the programming), other themes are more of reoccurring ideas that resonated with me personally.

Theme 1: Disruptions that will impact the future of information literacy
There was no one session that addressed this, but I was surprised how many different sessions left me thinking about the future of libraries and role in information literacy education. Here are a few of my take aways.

• We don't have an information overload, we have a noise overload. We aren't just teaching people how to find the best information anymore. In a post-truth world, we need to teach people how to filter out the trash. We can't even begin to talk about the "best" information, until we get people to care about accuracy.  
• Which is difficult because Gen Z doesn't care about source. They care about validation. I hear faculty and librarians lament the fact that "kids these days" can't tell the difference between ads and real content. That's not the problem. They can tell the difference, they just don't care. 
• The under-rated fear of AI is over trust. As virtual assistants and other AIs become more ubiquitous and we grow more dependent on them how does this impact the way we teach information literacy? GPS comes with a warning to not drive your car into a lake if it tells you to. What could a trusted AI get you to do?

Theme 2: The now and future of media consumption
I think this will always be a key theme for me at SxSW. But the things I learn surprise me every year.

• Video is still king... for now. 
• We're all about VR/AR, but the future is still unclear. Platforms are still developing. Access is still a big issue. The laws are fuzzy and just  starting to look at the space. There is a dark side and the ethics of the space are also still evolving. 
• Audio. Who knew? I feel like several years ago many were looking down on audio as a bit quaint. Thanks to AI, audio is back in a big way and it poised to become a major part of our future media offerings. While we have a big leap in knowledge and equipment needed to really enter the VR/AR/AI world, we are ready to create high-quality and engaging audio now. Thinking creatively about audio could help us bridge the gap between where we are and AI and VR. 

Watch for upcoming posts on these related sessions:

• Seven Nonobvious Trends
• Mo Reality, Mo Problems? AR/VR and the Law
• Brave New World: The Future of Theater and Tech
• Elmo's World: Updating a Classic Property for a New Generation

Theme 3: Biohacking
This theme really surprised me. The schedule had several sessions specifically about biohacking. While I didn't attend those, biohacking still crept into the sessions I attended, and it was really interesting. Daniel Pink's session on timing was quite possibly my favorite of the week. More on that later.

Watch for upcoming posts on these related sessions:

• Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
• Active Meditation to Shift Your S*** and Increase Your EQ

Theme 4: Gen Z
I've been very interested in Gen Z research ever since I attended a really bad session about the new youth generation last summer. I've had a difficult time finding much solid research on the topic, so at SxSW I attended every session I could on Z. There are a bunch of people who are positioning themselves as experts, but they are just making stuff up. One of the absolute worst SxSW sessions I have ever seen was on Gen Z (and it was actually an encore session). Fortunately, there are people doing real research. They will readily admit that it is evolving because Z is still so young, but trends are emerging.

Watch for an upcoming post on the related session: How Gen Z will Change the Workplace

Theme 5: Innovation is the buzzword
It might seem obvious to list innovation as a SxSW theme, but this year seemed to tackle the subject with more intention than previous years. Nina and I are offering our co-workers a share session on our SxSW experience, and we opted to focus solely on the innovation sessions. There is so much to say on these, it will need to wait for future posts.

Watch for upcoming posts on these related sessions:

• Culture Shock: How Company Policy Hinders Innovation
• Innovating the Future with Culture Track
• How NASA and LEGO Embrace Open Innovation
• Three Innovation Superpowers
• Leading for a Culture of Innovation and Creativity

Rise of the Social Employee with Sarah Pedersen

Presenter: Sarah Pedersen, Director of Customer Success for the Americas, Hearsay Social

I was interested in this talk because for years I've been hoping to tap into the ambassador potential of my organization's employees. I honestly think there are a lot of employees who are passionate about our organization, would love to be ambassadors in any way they can, but they don't quite make the connection in the social media space. 

Social listening is great and certainly gives us useful information, but how to do I get my coworkers to understand the power and influence they have and encourage them (and teach them how) to leverage that on our behalf?

Here are a few of my key take-aways from Pedersen's talk:

In your company you have:

• Brand Advocates-they are out there talking about you already
• Social Listeners-how do we let them share their knowledge internally
• Detractors-how you listen/deal with these employees is important
• Opt-Outs- we can't force people to have social media, that's ok, they do other important jobs.

This idea really clicked with me. I can totally see this at play in our organization. I think I had internalized this to a point, but how can we take this frame and make it a more formalized part of both our internal and external communications?

Pedersen also talked about the History of Social Media using the premise that social actually began with the launch of the postage service. Long before the technology, we had a longing to connect with others and this is the root of all social media. 

See all my SxSW recaps on the tag SxSW.

My First Uber

SxSW is all about new things and serendipity. Interesting conversations with complete strangers yield surprising new connections and discoveries. On the last day, I "discovered" Uber.

Of course, I'd heard of Uber, but I'd never had a reason or even the opportunity to try it. A random chat with the guys waiting for the shuttle found its way to the topic of Uber. Our fellow shuttler was a big fan and said he'd found himself regularly skipping the shuttle wait and just getting an Uber ride.

He was singing the praises of Uber, demoing the app, touting all its great features, and then suggested, "Hey, let's just take it. It's on me." What did we have to lose?

The app showed five Uber drivers near us. Our self-appointed Uber ambassador clicked a button and our ride was on the way. We saw the driver's name and car description along with an ETA. Three minutes later (no lie!) our ride was there.

The car was spotless and our driver seemed way safer than any cabbie I've ridden with. The final tab was $13.50. We hopped out, then rated the driver and paid through the app. No tipping and no card or cash needed. Bonus: similar cab rides were running folks $30.

My initial understanding of Uber basically being AirBnB for rides was spot on, and my first impression was very favorable. I'll definitely be downloading the app and looking for good opportunities to try it again, but only when I have my husband or another trusted rider in tow.  

Why Reading is a Flawed Dying Technology with Ed Castillo

Presenter: Ed Castillo, CSO, NY, TBWA\Chiat\Day
Hashtags: #DodoMedium

The title of this talk was just too good to pass up. Castillo admitted right off, he named the talk purposefully to get people riled up. Folks are touchy about reading; it's a sacred cow. Before anyone could light a torch and grab a pitchfork, he clarified: Curling up with a book is an artistic experience. That's not what he is talking about. He's talking about reading as a form of communication.

First, is reading dying or is it simply flawed? Castillo asked, are you reading less? If the answer is yes, that is support for the idea that reading is dying. He argues that it is also flawed.

If the intention of writing, speaking and gesturing is to communicate, then writing just isn't as good as other visuals. Writing is an imperfect medium for communicating. It's a point that is hard to argue with. We know the best form of communication is typically face-to-face. Little of what we are communicating is in our words alone, so how can writing do our message justice.

Castillo said, "I’m not trying to burn down the libraries..." If that's a reference to the future of books versus other media, I say, "Don't worry about us, Ed, we're way ahead of you."

Libraries have been thinking about the evolution of communication and our role in the changing media landscape for decades. But often we cling to traditional styles in our own communications.

In libraries, we use writing as a default mechanism for relaying information. How and when could we find other ways to communicate? I think there are a number of obvious answers worth exploring, but I also think this question could lead to some interesting discussion about new opportunities to communicate with our users. 

Tweet Like a Roman with Tom Standage

Presenter: Tom Standage, Digital Editor, The Economist
Hashtag: #RomanTweet

This was one of the SxSW "Future 15" sessions, which I love as a presentation format. Normal sessions are one hour, but Future 15s pack four sessions into an hour session. It forces speakers to get to the best information quickly. If a session turns out to be less than stellar, you only have to wait for 15 minutes. If the session are great (and usually they are) you get four times the sessions in one sitting.

"Tweet Like a Roman" wasn't as professionally educational as some, but it was super fun and very interesting. Standage spent his 15 minutes explaining how early communication was actually social media. For example, Romans depended on social distribution of media. They used abbreviations to keep messages short. They used tablet-like devices to record messages. They also used social connections to get ahead.

Standage gave a TEDx talk very similar to his SxSW presentation. You can watch him pack an hour's worth of information into 16 minutes below. 

Compelling Image in the Age of Social Media: a Workshop

The number of workshops offered at this year's SxSW was greatly expanded. These hands-on sessions tended to span two or more time slots. It's hard enough to choose sessions, so to give up multiple time slots, a workshop needs to be pretty darn special. I was glad I gave up two and half hours of my first afternoon for Marty Coleman's photo mini-class.

The name of the session was a bit misleading. We talked very little about social media. It was actually a basic photography class using only smartphones.

The phone you carry around everyday has a better camera on it than any digital camera we had access to 10 years ago, but for some reason, many people don't trust their phone cameras. I don't know if early cell cameras tainted their view, or if they just haven't mastered holding the tiny panel still while tapping the screen.

In my office, we're already using our smartphones to capture a lot of the images we share on the Library's accounts. The intern team is particularly good at this. They'll see something interesting while they are walking into work, snap a photo with their phone and then upload when they get into the office. This workshop helped me realize that with a little instruction and a little motivation, all our employees could be contributing great images for our accounts.

If you've ever taken a basic photography class most of the lighting and composition techniques you learned will apply to smartphone images. Get good front lighting, look for interesting angles, and play attention to your composition.

We did a handful of quick photo exercises, but my favorite was looking for compelling images of empty spaces. If you've ever tried to put together a quote on photo, you'll appreciate this one. These popular social media postings work best when the majority of the picture provides a neutral canvas for your words.

Hashtags: #sxsw #compelling

Austin Kleon Keynote

The keynotes at SxSW tend to be big picture, fairly basic and more on the inspirational versus informational side. This was true of Austin Kleon's opening keynote. For me one of the best things to come from this talk was discovering Austin's site AustinKleon.com.

Kleon talked about the process of creativity and the importance of sharing not just the finished product but also the work that got us there. He claims that opening up and sharing your process brings you closer to an audience, adds value to your work, and makes you better at what you do.

He had a great insight for sharing behavior online. He said, when you share other people's work treat it with the same amount of respect you would treat your own work. I really like this concept, and it seems like a nice frame to promote ethical behavior online.

Hashtags: #showURwork

Workplace Redesign with John Hagel

It took me nearly nearly a year to get through posting notes from last year's South by Southwest, and now it's time to start over. Here's the first in many installments from my SxSW2014 adventures.

Presenter: John Hagel, Chairman, Center for the Edge, Deloitte
Hashtags: #WPRedesign

Hagel gave a great talk about work environments and his take on how we should be thinking about our employees. He said most businesses and organizations understand a need for talent recruitment and retention. The missing piece, Hagel argues, is talent development. What would the work environment look like if our top goal was to maximize talent development.

There was a lot of great food for thought in this talk, but my favorite part was his take on passion in the workplace. Hagel suggests what we need are passionate explorers. These workers have a long term commitment to a domain. They have a questing personality, and they actively seek out new opportunities. They have a connecting disposition: they seek out people to help when confronted with a challenge.

In the US, study found 11% of workers have this. "Engaged Employees" are happy with their jobs but often they don't want to change. These are not the same as "Passionate Explorers." Passionate explorers are often frustrated because they focus on how things could be improved.

Intrigued? The entire talk is now online. 

Data, Storytelling and Breaking Through the Noise, SxSW 2013 recap

With information overload, how does your brand break through the noise? How do you earn trust in a fragmented 24/7 media world? Storytelling can reset legacy brands, launch unknown brands and reach consumers in ways that go beyond the noise. Unfortunately, most brands will suck at storytelling because they won't do what good storytelling requires. Stories have conflict and villains, winners and losers. They have personality and flaws, great highs and severe lows. And today, stories are supported and in some cases driven by data. Whether your brand is B2C or B2B, data can help shape the story you want to tell.

In this session, the panel explored how data driven stories can have significant impact for connecting with the audiences you want to reach.

This was one of my favorite sessions at the 2013 SxSW. You can read more about it at Storify.

Hashtags: #BrandStory

Examples

• Coca-Cola is using the site to turn visitors in super fans and ambassadors. The Coke rep claimed that "Journey" tells stories. It's not a shill for Coke. They run no advertising, not even Coke ads.  
• Target produces behind the scenes video, Bull's Eye View, to feed the "infolust." The Target rep stressed that you need support from the top because it is a commitment to continue producing and providing access. You don't want to lose audience and hurt the brand. 

Take Aways & Library Applications:

• Panelist introduced the idea of an "Expression Index." For example, EI= [Views x 1] + [Facebook Likes x 4] + [Comments x Y] + etc. Can we examine our expression index? What are we already doing in this vein? What else could we do?
• Use data to decide which stories to tell. Ask "will people share this?" That is your filter.
  At the Library, we have conversations about share-ability in our content development. We have some data we base this conversations on. How often do we need to be collecting?
• A visit is not a visit. What do they do there? How many stories do they view? How long are they on site? How much do they share?

Alcoholic Designs Organization, Shenanigans Ensue: SxSW 2013 recap

Much of how we “do work,” has changed in recent years, yet little has changed in how we design organizations. Our antiquated organizational and management models are ill-equipped to marshal the intangible assets so integral to how we create value today - things like diversity, creativity, identity and dissent.

Interestingly, Alcoholics Anonymous is not organized in any formal sense and is sometimes referred to as a benign anarchy, yet it has grown consistently since its beginning and has been incredibly successful. It has done this without a highly paid CEO, branding consultants or social media gurus. AA seems to have some valuable lessons for us as we work to architect organizations better able to thrive on today’s terrain.

Hashtags: #organize15

Take Aways/Library Applications:
AA has no CEO, no chief marketer, and no marketing budget. But you can always find an AA meeting; it's been running successfully since 1935.

It has:

• Clarity of purpose:
  It helps alcoholics stop drinking. Simple enough. In our organizations, what looks like resistance is often lack of clarity
• Choice-it's powerful.
  How do we put choice in the workplace? Our speaker suggested volunteer meetings. This tells you what is important to people and what is not. 
• Principles over personalities
  It's not able who you are or what your title is. What is important is why we are here. 
• Truth
  Do you have headquarters truth and ground truth? That is dangerous to the organization. 
• No management
  Can your organization reduce the role of management?

Guest Post:Leadership and Jazz

This week I guest posted on the Library Futures Blog. Over there, I shared some of my notes from South by Southwest 2013.

You'll find my post on "Yes to the Mess: Leadership Lessons from Jazz" there.

Productivity, Scaling Yourself: SxSW 2013

If more is more, how do we keep up? Sooner or later something has to give. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, email, texts, news, and on and on. Some days it seems a bit too much. When we need a vacation just for an excuse to "unplug" maybe there is a better way.

Scott Hanselman explored the essence of what it means to be truly productive and how to scale your life online.

Hashtags: #scaleyou

Here are my take aways from the session. Each one is simultaneously so easy and so hard.

• Don't be an "AskHole," someone who always ask for advice, but doesn't take it. 
• Triage the inbox of your life. What's beyond help? Cut it loose. 
• What are 3 things you can get done today, week, year, which will make you feel awesome. 
• Set an appointment to set these goals and review these goals 
• Being busy is a form of laziness. Being "busy" doesn't mean you are getting things done. 
• Challenge-Don't check email first thing. Do work first thing 
• It's not your time that is important, it's your attention.

Suggested Readings: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/

Perfection, Algorithms to Optimize Human Existence: SxSw 2013

In this Future 15 session, Byron Reese claimed the widespread proliferation of cheap sensors of all kinds will create a vast "collective memory," a record of every cause and effect. This data will be mined for associations that will be turned into algorithms to optimize every decision we make, from where to eat dinner to what job to apply for.

We learn from our previous experiences, but imagine having the life experience of everyone at your immediate recall. In theory you could make the perfect decision every time. We're not talking about ethical perfection, but technical perfection.

We may not always choose to do those things, it will effectively make every person on the planet vastly wiser than the wisest person who has ever lived. It will be wisdom at processor speed.

This session bordered on the creepy. Our presenter argued that with this sort of technology the point we are at now will be the equivalent of drunken sailors on shore leave. But, isn't it kind of fun to be a drunken sailor on leave?

10 Tips from Kim Jong-Il About Interactive Docs: SxSW 2013

I was attending everything I could on video this year because the Library had recently launched our video initiative. I had never heard of an interactive documentary, but this one blew me away when I learn about it. 

"The Defector" documents the struggle of those fleeing North Korea. The film is accompanied by an online video game (for lack of a better term) where you are the defector, and you have to make choices to get you and your family across the border. It's a very scary build your own adventure.

For educators who like to bring documentaries into the classroom, this adds a whole new component to to engage audiences (i.e. students) with the content. 

Hashtags: @thedefectormov

Take Aways:

• Interactive Documentaries add an online interactive component to reinforce the message of the documentary. 
• Tip #1-Great ideology creates great times: Docs are niche market. Interactive docs broaden that market. 
• Tip #2 Look at things: What have other people done? 
• Tip #3-Make Movies by Any Means Possible 
• Tip #4-A man who dreads trials and difficulties cannot become a revolutionary 
• Tip #5-Before you launch, test it: Have your project viewed by fresh eyes. Use feedback to adjust what you are doing. Build in the beta time. 
• Tip #6-Use propaganda: Talk about it early and often. 

Library Applications:

• With our new video offerings, are there short doc opportunities? Can we think about any of our content in this way? 
• Are there any interactive documentaries that would be good resources for instruction? What can we do to make those available? 

Suggested Readings:

• http://blog.thedefectormovie.com/ 
• thefwa.com 
• fastcocreate.com 
• doclab.org 

Suggested Tools: interactive.thedefectormovie.com

The Smile Epidemic: SxSW 2013

This was definitely the happiest session at SxSW. The Smile Epidemic session discussed their science-based social sharing tool that increases levels of happiness in individuals and organizations. At first I thought it was going to be a sales pitch. While they do conduct organizational training, the session focused on the research and free services. So, I guess it was actually a really really well-done sales pitch.

The concept: 1. Find something in your day that made you smile. 2. Use the app to take a photo 3. Write down what makes you smile on the digital sticky note 4. Post to the site and share on social media. Although the activity is simple, the impact has a deeper impact; executives claim improved morale, more productivity; students admit they feel more socially supported, and individuals report that they are simply, happier.

Hashtags: #sxswsmiles

Take Aways:

• We aren't happy when we get rid of problems, we are happy when we do what we are good at. 
• Lasado line-6:1 positive to neg organizational interactions gets the most done; 13:1 positive to neg interaction is not productive. 
• Use the negative interactions sparingly and effectively on things that impact organizational success. 
• Psychological Capital: Hope, Self-efficacy, social/emotion intelligence, signature strengths (hire for strengths your org needs), resiliency (bounce back from disappointment), optimism 

Library Applications:

• Happy employees has fewer sick days, are more productive (+31%) and creative, and stay with the organization longer. 
• We have wellness initiatives, how do these incorporate psychological well being? 
• Add reporting to team meeting: what made you happy, what did you learn. Reporting trains our brain to collect this info. 

Suggested Readings: The Smile Epidemic blog

SxSW 2013 Belated Recap

I am already making plans for SxSw 2014, and it occurs to me I haven't posted any session recaps from this year's festival. In an effort to secure support to attend again, my co-worker and I prepared a report for our Dean about the sessions we attended, what we learned and how it applied to the Library. The final report was 66 pages long. That's a lot of blog posts.

To introduce the upcoming recaps, I thought I'd post a few videos to demonstrate why I keep going back to SxSW, even though it's insanely expensive, overcrowded, and a bit full of its self.

1. Live keynote from amazing speakers you didn't even know you wanted to hear. 

In 2013, I heard Elon Musk (among others). Haven't heard of him? Me either. Evidently, he is the guy Tony Stark (Ironman) is based on. I heard the real life Ironman. Wahh?

2. Demos of the Next Big Thing

What will everyone be talking about in social media/technology this year? Whatever it is, they are probably planning to demo it at SxSw.

3. Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

SxSW is information overload. Between sessions, demos, trade show, events, and chats with random strangers I always come back with so inspiration for things to read, do and especially to think about.

4. Of Course, the Sessions

That's coming up next. 

Show & Smell Marketing: Part 2

5 pm, Friday, March 9, 2012
#SxSmell

Somehow this session was only an hour, but it's going to take me days to recap it. Up today: marketing to your sense of hearing.

Spectra: language translation tool
Spectra is an app that allows you translate written or typed passages into a number of other languages. As of now I could only find it in the iTunes store. No android version just yet.

The session was moving pretty quickly, so I honestly don't remember and didn't note the marketing value of a handheld translator, but you have to admit, it's pretty cool.

Responsive Digital Signage
If you've left the house in the last year, you probably come across some version of digital signage. I've seen them in malls, convention centers, doctors' offices, restaurants and even our very own OSU Student Union. Companies are now working to make the signs interactive. You can ask the interactive digital signs questions and they'll answer you.

It gets even cooler than that. In development they found the signs "got confused" about who was talking to it and when someone was still listening. So developers added a face recognition component. The digital sign scans for faces looking at it, only listens to questions from the person addressing it, and only answers if that person continues to look at it.

Audio Spotlight
We totally need this for our new audio visual displays going in at the library. In fact, libraries and museums were the example the presenter mentioned as ideal locations. This gadget works just like it sounds it might. Imagine a spotlight, one discrete target of light. But instead of being bathed in light, it's sound. When you are in the audio spotlight, it sounds like standing in front of a normal speaker. But two feet away, those not standing in the spotlight can't hear a thing.

Here's the audio spotlight marketing at work:


Turn Any Flat Surface into a Speaker
Huh? I'm not even sure where to start with this one. Our presenter had a tiny sticky pad, when he placed it on a large foam core poster, the poster became a speaker. The tiny stick-able speaker uses the flat surface to amplify the sound vibrations. Um, yeah. You kind of had to be there.

Show & Smell Marketing

5 pm, Friday, March 9, 2012
#SxSmell

This was an awesome SxSW session where our presenters demoed products that targeted each of the five senses. In marketing we tend to focus on sight and hearing, but our presenters managed to find a few new way to appeal to these senses.

Sight:

1 Tweet=1 Gumball
They put this device under sight, but it definitely had a sound component to it as well. At the front of the room was a gumball machine. Every time someone tweeted the session hashtag, a gumball dispensed. It was instant feedback for the presenters. Any time they brought out something really cool, the gumball machine went crazy.

One presenter said he had one at home. When he's away on business, he tweets candy to his daughter, so she knows dad is thinking about her. Awww, so sweet.

Color Change Straw
Color change anything for that matter. Why contain yourself to static images when you can incorporate items that change visually when your audience interacts with them. And, we can't forget, everyone loves fun straws.

Makerbot: 3D Printing
3D Printing, you ask, how could it be? It is, and it's being used for everything from children's make-your-own-jewelery parties to snap-together housing. The presenters proposed letting your audience upload plans for their own personally give-away trinket and printing them out for trade shows or events.
Lytro Camera
This funky-looking little handheld camera takes pictures that allow you to change the focus after the fact. Who's that blurry guy 10 feet behind the person you meant to photo? Just refocus the picture and you can see. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space. Don't ask me any more than that. As far as I'm concerned it's magic.

Tomorrow, I tell you about the sound toys, until then if you could have one of these gadgets for yourself which one would be?