South By South Best 2018

Copyright: James Quinlan 2018
South By South Best 2018
What’s Next For Brands And Businesses:
The Key Trends From SXSW 2018
Image source: James Quinlan

Copyright James Quinlan 2018
2 Copyright: James Quinlan 2018

Introduction to SXSW
Agenda
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The Key Trends From SXSW 2018 (And What To Do With Them)
What’s Next In Music: What To Listen To In 2018

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1. Introduction

5 Copyright: James Quinlan 2018

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“New relationships, new ideas,
new ways forward for the future.”
- Roland Swenson, CEO and Co-Founder, SXSW

9 Image source: busybeaver.net

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Image source: John Maeda
Image source: John Maeda

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2. The Key Trends From SXSW 2018
(And How To Use Them)

'We tend to overestimate the effect of
a technology in the short run and
underestimate the effect in the long run.’
- Roy C. Amara, Institute For The Future (Palo Alto)
Amara’s Law
Image source: sfgate.com

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1. “Real Intelligence” 1. Agents & Assistants
2. Designing For AI
2. “Do You Even Decentralisation?” 1. Business on Blockchain
2. The New Transparency
3. “Disruption Through Inclusion” 1. Inclusive Design
2. Brand Collaboration
4. “Data Agility” 1. Data Driven Storytelling
2. Only The Unbiased Will Survive
5. “Are You Experienced?” 1. Concierge Marketing
2. Buying experiences (and things)
Macro Trends Subtrends

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Macro Trend 1: Real Intelligence
Image source: thepopcornjunkie.com

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Macro Trend 1: Real Intelligence
Answering people’s questions is so last year, real intelligence is anticipating and answering them
in advance.
1. Assistants & Agents
2. Designing For AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) was so prominent at this year’s SXSW that it even had its own track of programming:
“Intelligent Future”. Beyond its presence at SXSW, it’s become an increasing part of our daily lives – more than
70 percent of the time people spend watching videos on the site is now driven by YouTube’s algorithmic
recommendations* rather than by human-initiated search. This technology won’t just disrupt how we do things,
it’s going to be the very foundation of everything.

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Subtrend 1: Agents & Assistants
One in six adults in the U.S. now owns a voice-activated smart speaker*, however this is only the beginning -
devices such as Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home are currently expanding their capabilities, including branded
third party ones, and getting better at the things that they do natively. There’s more to come, and soon – wait until
Facebook starts selling their smart speakers to us...
*Source: cnbc.com
Image source: smartydigital.com

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Subtrend 2: Designing For AI
The evolution from mobile-first to AI-first creates the potential for experiences that go beyond a brand’s direct
control. We now need to design for uncertainty, create personalised results for a wide range of users (what
happens when a system’s training data is based solely upon men, and women want to use it?) and take into
account what happens to people when AI-powered systems get it wrong .
Image source: youtube.com/MercedesBenz

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Real Intelligence: Implications
• AI changes how people find us, how they engage with us and the type of relationship that they have
with us. Think of AI holistically – it can play a part in making decisions in as wide a range of areas as
you have good quality data to train it.
• Platforms such as Echo, Home and the HomePod are expanding into branded “skills” (apps) that
enable businesses to be a part of people’s daily routines – however to do this we need to offer
genuine value that people want on a regular basis and which can be used via a voice-based interface
rather than a graphic one.
• There is a move towards “anticipatory delivery”. Amazon’s wealth of customer data, at both the
individual and collective levels, combined with predictive technology, is used to ship items from its
warehouses to local fulfillment areas before people order them in order to reduce delivery times.
Imagine how we can not just serve people’s needs, but better anticipate them (even before they do)
and reduce the critical “final mile” between us and them.
• Design now needs to go beyond black and white to understanding many shades of grey, incorporating
what happens when the system fails the user and how this will make them feel. As well as making
allowances for people to recover from an action when the system fails the user, we need to ensure
that it understands when it has failed, and doesn’t simply use this encounter as more positive data and
thus create an “echo chamber” effect.

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Macro Trend 2: Do You Even Decentralisation?

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Macro Trend 2: Do You Even Decentralisation?
The impact of blockchain goes far beyond Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to potentially disrupt
the way that we make every single transaction with one another.
1. Business On Blockchain
2. The New Transparency
Blockchain technology – the use of a distributed ledger stored on, potentially, millions of machines around the
world – provides a transparent platform on which transaction data from around the world is registered. This
technology not only changes how we transact, but more importantly is an entirely new operating system –
decentralising authority, increasing transparency and removing intermediaries.
Image source: youtube.com/MercedesBenz

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Subtrend 1: Business On Blockchain
Blockchain technology is changing the way that business transacts – from smart ledgers to identity management,
the uses for this technology go far beyond digital currencies. KODAKOne is a platform secured in the blockchain
that is an encrypted digital ledger of rights ownership for photographers to register both new and archival work that
they can then license instantly and directly to users, increasing transparency for all parties.
Image source: kodak.com

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Sub Trend 2: The New Transparency
Platforms like BanQu use the transparency and simplicity of a distributed ledger not only to reduce friction but also
to connect the previously “unbanked” (who have no credit history) with the “banked” (including friends, family,
financial institutions and businesses). Beyond connecting these groups to one another so that they can transact,
the system also enables people to openly prove their “economic identity” so that they can take the next step
forward in their lives – economically and socially.
Image source: sourcereddit.com

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Do You Even Decentralisation? Implications
• Data storage has long been centralised and clandestine – think about opportunities where it can be
advantageous to be transparent, such as when an item’s chain of ownership needs to be proven.
• Blockchain ecosystems ensure that every step of a product’s journey is immutably recorded, enabling
instant confirmation of its price or origin at any time – this has implications both for supply chain
management as well as for proof of provenance for the end owner of an item. Brands can use
blockchain not just for B2B purposes such as logistics, but also as part of their ongoing relationship
with end users.
• Using blockchain results in high quality, unalterable data – and lots of it. Think of the data that
blockchain records not just as an output, but also as an extremely valuable input source to train AI-
powered systems.
• An additional way in blockchain can create efficiency is through the use of smart contracts –
agreements which are self-executing, self-enforcing, or both. The aim of smart contracts is to provide
security that is superior to traditional contract law (as they are both immutable and distributed),
increasing the level of trust between the parties to the agreement.

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Macro Trend 3: Disruption Through Inclusion
Image source: brickverse.com

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Macro Trend 3: Disruption Through Inclusion
Efforts to advance inclusion are taking places in spaces including people, brands and even data.
As Verna Myers said:
“Diversity is being asked to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance.”
While some brands have been called out for their feel-good inclusion campaigns, others have seen that when
that same spirit inspires real action that it pays off, for everyone. Inclusion – reaching out to other people,
companies and brands and actively involving them in a process beyond just representing them – is not only
necessary to reflect what the population actually looks like, but also to address untapped business opportunities.
1. Inclusive Design
2. Brand Collaboration

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Subtrend 1: Inclusive Design
Design can be used to find a way to bring people in, meeting the needs of the many rather than the few, however
the key change in an AI-powered era is that we can avoid the “one size fits all” solutions of the past to meet these
needs in a personalised way. One application for this is in credit verification and the use of hundreds of data
points other than credit histories or bank accounts to assess people’s ability to pay back a loan.
Image source: prweb.com

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Subtrend 2: Brand Collaboration
While brands have sought out influencers for many years, it’s increasingly important that they seek out other
creators, including both individuals and other brands, in order to innovate and also to reach new audiences.
Image source: theplaybook.asia

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Disruption Through Inclusion: Implications
• Real value comes not just by designing to mirror your full audience (or who you think your audience is)
but rather to encourage their active participation and involvement with both your brand and beyond.
Some brands are designing experiences not just to solicit people’s ongoing involvement with them, but
to facilitate people’s engagement with society at large, creating value that extends far beyond the two
initial parties.
• The era of “big data” means that we not only have an ever increasing amount of data at our fingertips,
but also a widening range of data sets. If we can’t find the most obvious data points to meet our
needs, consider triangulating between non-traditional sets to satisfy requirements.
• While influencers can provide brands with useful reach and endorsement, partnering with another
creator can potentially achieve both of these goals with the additional benefit of creating real
innovation for your brand. Consider seeking external perspective and partnership not just from within
your category, but also outside of it.
• Partnership need not be confined to a one-off effort in order to spur interest in your brand, it can be
ongoing. The initial benefits of working with other creators can be sustained and even grown if the
partnership continues.

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Macro Trend 4: Data Agility
Image source: creative-analytics.corsairs.network

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Macro Trend 4: Data Agility
Being able to move quickly means not just reacting to what’s going on but being able to take
advantage of it, and this necessitates transforming your data swamp into a data lake.
Recent events have highlighted three key parts of brands’ data strategies – what you collect, how you collect it
and what you do with it. However a fourth component has also become increasingly important because without
it even the best data is rendered useless: the speed at which your organisation can use that data.
1. Data Driven Storytelling
2. Only The Unbiased Will Survive

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Subtrend 1: Data Driven Storytelling
Data literacy is moving from siloed skill to core competency, evidenced by its being taught in courses such as
journalism, where it is enabling people to do their jobs not just more quickly, but also in ways that enable them to
tell new and better stories. While “fake news” might make the headlines, data driven journalism – the finding and
the sharing of stories using data – is one way to make sure that this is countered with “factual news”.
Image source: news.vice.com

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Subtrend 2: Only The Unbiased Will Survive
While data is being gathered from more sources and used to inform an increasing amount of choices, the amount
of “biased” decision making – that is decisions made on insufficient or incomplete data – will also increase. While
computers and algorithms are excellent at processing, they aren’t good at inclusion because their data can be
inherently biased – resulting in problems processing people’s accents or struggling to recognise various images.
Image source: dogtownmedia.com

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Data Agility: Implications
• Decision making and predictive systems such as AI aren’t free of bias – they’re actually really great at
perpetuating it. Even the best natural language processing algorithms and fastest processors can’t
compensate for poor data or erroneous system training, they just get to the wrong place faster than
other systems.
• Beware the “echo chamber effect” – while your data sources may be of high quality they also need to
reflect the diversity of your audience (otherwise you end up with “good data in, garbage out”). This
means that it’s necessary to ensure that you have the systems in place to collect, clean and process a
range of data sets. One size does not fit all – to provide personalised answers and recommendations
to all of your users your data sets need to fully reflect your audience.
• Access to both raw data and insights is essential throughout an organisation. While organisations may
be set up in a way to distill insights, they also need to ensure that those insights are readily available
to all users. In addition, data can provide you not only with insight, but with the story itself – meaning
that people need ready access to sufficient data to tell the entire story.

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Macro Trend 5: Are You Experienced?
Image source: jordanmclayton.com

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Macro Trend 5: Are You Experienced?
Customer experiences are evaluated by people’s expectations and perceptions, a constantly
moving target – meaning that smarter, more adaptive systems are now required.
How we perceive brands is based upon our personal experiences with them (and also with other brands,
including those outside of our category, as benchmarks) – meaning that there is a constant need to deliver
better, individualised experiences, and to do this at scale.
1. Concierge Marketing
2. Buying Experiences (And Things)
Image source: jordanmclayton.com

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Subtrend 1: Concierge Marketing
Rather than being liberated by choice, people can find themselves burdened by it, ultimately making poor
decisions. Guiding people step by step through experiences (as Nestlé aims to do in the kitchen with its branded
GoodNes skill for Amazon’s Alexa) can result in both better experiences for the user as well as an improved
understanding of their preferences, needs and passions.
Image source: twitter.com/GoodNesUSA

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Subtrend 2: Buying Experiences (And Things)
Brands are extending engagement in a way that redefines exactly what the product is. Apple refers to its physical
stores as “town squares” (a mix of retail store, education center and plaza), Starbucks will open a four-level
roastery flagship in Chicago to show people the previously unseen process of producing their coffee and HBO re-
created Westworld for real. Your largest product isn’t what you sell people, it’s their entire experience with you.
Image source: businessinsider.com.au

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Are You Experienced? Implications
• While an understanding of people’s preferences, needs and passions – the things that drive them –
has long been key to success, it’s important to recognise that these aren’t static, and neither should
our approach to understanding them. An iterative approach is required – consider how you use the
data that you collect from people as well as involving them in the brand not just for greater connection,
but also to help them further develop the experience with you.
• Digital and physical already work together for customers – this is evident in “showrooming” behaviour
(where they experience the physical product and then buy it online). Consider how we can co-locate
the digital and physical experiences for our customers, such as Mecca Maxima does with its “Selfie
Studio”, which enables people to generate better looking visual content for their social feeds than they
could by themselves.
• Create continuity in the experience between promotion and use of the product. HBO completely de-
branded itself from its real life Westworld experience, instead focusing on the TV show’s promise to
enable people to “live without limits”, creating a far more authentic experience for its legion of fans (as
well as those people’s online fans).

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3 April 2018
3. What’s Next In Music:
What To Listen To In 2018

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Billie Eilish
Image source: neirad.org

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Gaz Coombes
Image source: comeherefloyd.com

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Ought
Image source: cstrecords.com/

The Weather Station
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Image source: paradiseofbachelors.com

Thank y’all.
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Image source: sxsw.com

South By South Best 2018

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