SxSW for rookies
If you are planning to attend SxSW in 2012, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Analysis paralysis: There are hundreds of talks, panels, core conversations and workshops to choose from on the Interactive track and you are guaranteed to feel like you are missing out. Deal with it. Consider choosing a theme: gaming, mobile, future of journalism, social media, marketing, design/development etc. and sticking to it. I found that six talks a day was my limit (9:30, 11:00, 12:30, 14:00, 15:30, 17:00). By 18:00 you are suffering from info overload – reset your brain with a good meal (see below), SxSW chit-chat with your many new friends (you will meet many) and great music (Austin by night is your oyster).
Building retention and engagement
by Gaby Rosario.
There seemed (to me) to be a recurring theme at SxSW 2011. In almost every session on design and development that I attended, the issue of retention was raised.
If you look at the pace at which online business is born — witness the recent group discount craze in South Africa — how do you ensure that you keep your users or customers engaged in your offering? Last month it was Wicount & Groupon, this week it is Zappon, next week, who will it be? Angry Birds is out, Tiny Wings is in. As a friend of mine David Iannone says, “America’s favorite flavor, is me, and NEW.”
LinkedIn recently reported that it has over 100 million users. Twitter accrues 460 000 new accounts per day. Foursquare is headed toward 10 million users by August. Facebook squats happily on its 600 million (and growing) user base. MXit has 10 million active South African users, and the new kid on the block, Motribe, is gobbling up 10 000 users per day.
Read MoreThe future of PR
In his recent post, Does PR have a future?, David Armano, senior VP of Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital, predicts that as business becomes more social, job descriptions will change. Each employee will become the face of the company, acting in part as the marketing, communications and sales agent for their organisation every time they engage publicly, especially on social networks.
Employees have been doing this for years at conferences, launches, client meetings, functions, and on the shop floor, but with the proliferation of social media platforms (both online and mobile) this expectation and requirement of employees has certainly increased. Now everyone is a brand ambassador, online and off, in and outside of the organisation.
What does this mean for the role of the public relations department and agency?
Read MoreThe Startup Bus #SxSW
by Gaby Rosario
So how exactly do you get to South by South West? By car, by plane or by bus? One of the most interesting discoveries this year at SxSW was The Startup Bus. Conceived by Elias Bizannes, an Aussie living in San Francisco, he created an opportunity for start-up types, designers, developers and the like to apply to win a seat on a bus. Thirty-eight teams leave in six buses from San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, and New York. Their job: to conceptualise, prototype & design a website for their start-up, with people they have most likely never met before.
Bizannes believed that “Learning how to focus on what matters is a key reason why I chose a bus and not another transport mechanism. The goal was to put a set of constraints on people so they can think about the things that mattered and focus their time on the work that has the highest impact.”
And yes there is a “win” attached to it. This years winners:
TripMedi
WalkIn
Read More#sxswsa roundup
Here’s a roundup of the last couple of days’ posts, for easy at-a-glance browsing, syndication, tweeting, reposting, general interest and instant gratification.
Zef hits the silver screen — Ninja and Yo-Landi, better known as Die Antwoord, premiered their first short film at SxSW Film in Austin, Texas. It were gangsta.
People you meet at #SxSW — Gaby Rosario continues her quest for snap interviews with interesting people.
South Africa inspires TOMS Shoes — Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS Shoes and the One for One Movement it pioneered, delivered a keynote address today. Toby Shapshak was there.
Be Evil: Does corporate social responsibility matter? — You just know, with a title like that, it’s going going to be good. Ivo Vegter was a moth to Siva Vaidhayanathan’s flame.
Nuclear Tacos waiver — SxSW is incomplete without a Monday evening supper of astonishingly hot tacos. Some of us enjoyed it more than others.
Viral marketing with The Oatmeal — Alistair Fairweather on the funny, unassuming Mathew Inman, the man behind some of the web’s most popular viral memes.
Things to love about SxSW — Catherine Lückhoff and the M&G’s Chris Roper note down some random observations in an attempt to capture what makes SxSW — and Austin — so great.
Anonymity is Authenticity — 4chan — One view of Monday’s keynote by Christopher Poole, the founder of “the dark heart of the internet”, 4chan.
Distrupted, again: the next chapter in news — Matt Williams, the CEO of digg.com, lists the many ways in which the news business is changing. Catherine Lückhoff reports.
People you meet at #SxSW — Gaby Rosario continues her quest for snap interviews with interesting people.
Can banks innovate? — Mark Griffioen is a banker. That’s sad, but at least he’s a geeky sort of banker. Ivo Vegter looks at what he’s been up to.
Networking at #SxSW — It’s all about who you meet, who you talk to, who you close that deal with, at SxSW. Gaby Rosario is good at meeting people.
How the web is changing Dutch Politics — A fascinating look at the politics of talking to voters who are spoilt for choice, and spend more time online than watching TV. By Ivo Vegter.
4chan 4ever — Alistair Fairweather’s look at the Christopher Poole keynote address. The “dark heart of the internet” was clearly popular here on #sxswsa.
Read MoreZef hits the silver screen
by Ivo Vegter.
It wasn’t quite Oscar night, but it was a classy old cinema called the State Theatre, in Austin Texas. It had a marquee and lights and red carpets and popcorn and everything. And beer. Beer in a cinema is Die Antwoord.
Ninja and Yo Landi, the Zef-rap duo who go by that name, play caricatures of themselves in the world premiere of a short film called Umshini Wam. People, says Yo Landi, aren’t taking them seriously anymore, so they have to keep it gangsta. They do. They drive wheelchairs, wear pink and yellow furry suits, smoke astonishingly large joints, and play with their Uzis the way most SxSW folks play with their iPhones: all the time, and with reckless disregard for the safety of bystanders. It’s gang$ta nommer een.
The Austin State Theatre fills up prior to the premiere of Umshini Wam
It’s unclear to me what international audiences see in Die Antwoord. The custom plates that say FOKOF GP or WATKYKJY GP, or exclamations like “Poes!” and “Vat hom, fluffy!”, all require a certain context for their humour. That said, the theatre was almost full, perhaps in part because of the reputation of director Harmony Korine, who won the main prize at the Toronto Film Festival late last year for Trash Humpers.
Die Antwoord made its film debut at Austin's State Theatre
A group of Americans we caught up with on the way out thought the film was both funny and absurd. However, they had no idea that Umshini Wam — conveniently translated to “bring me my machine gun” — has a fairly significant context in the person of one Jacob Zuma, nor that this Jacob guy is the president of South Africa.
My own opinion? Fok, piele!
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