Many of you may have heard of South by Southwest in Austin — aka SXSW — one of the biggest annual music festivals in the world. Bands from all over the world come to showcase their talent. And this year: Jimmy Kimmel has been airing his late night show from SXSW all week.
But did you know there are also Film and Interactive tracks to the festival? I’ve been lucky enough to take part in the SXSW Interactive over the past week, submerged in everything from social media, search marketing and online analytics to viral content, wearable technologies and personal healthcare technologies. I could go on and on.
Your average real estate auction company or brokerage firm likely does not even think about attending an event like this. But we are geeks about technology and enjoy staying on the cutting edge of digital marketing trends. To boot, our new downtown Austin office is smack dab in the middle of everything SXSW. How could we NOT be involved?
So, one of our graphic designers and I were able to step out of the office and attend some of the amazing speakers and events of SXSW Interactive. Artist and writer Austin Kleon keynoted the first day and had some good input on the creative process. Other key noters included astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Adam Savage of Mythbusters, and Chelsea Clinton. Each gave input on melding the creative process with science and analytics.
But the main sessions I gravitated towards were focused on online marketing and other technologies that I can utilize as a social media manager and content creator. I went to a search marketing meetup led by Bill Leake of Apogee Results. Mark Cuban talked about his new chat app Cyber Dust and gave some great input on business success. There was a solo social discussion on how to do social on your own or with a small team. And the nice people from MarketSmiths copyrighting gave me a critique on what I am doing right now… blogging.