American Greetings welcomed the SXSW crowd into their experience that invited participants to unplug and go analog.
While the “presence of the absence” of the truly new pervaded my experience of SXSW Interactive 2016, many of the established players in the field of digital culture and the broader corporate world were on hand to celebrate the great things we are all creating together. Mashable, Spotify, McDonald’s, American Greetings, Bud Light, Oracle, Neiman Marcus, Google, IBM, Samsung, and Capitol One each hosted a venue that welcomed the SXSW Interactive crowd and put their brand on the festival.
Mashable House is always a playful, fun and serendipitous environment, and this year was no exception. The bazaar-like setting featured some sort of crazy (but apparently amazing) concoction made with Cheetos that was mixed right in the personal sized bag, flavored Pepsi products dispensed via touch-screen, a Las Vegas-themed VR bar, a custom designed temporary tattoo station, a literally out of this world “glitch” photo booth, entertainment provided by Amazon, and a few other engaging activities. The whole environment is, as always, a testament to the culture of Mashable and serves not only to celebrate the platform they have built but also as a big “thank you” to the community that continues to make Mashable one of the premiere online news platform. Oh, and we had a surprise visit from Adam Devine and Anna Kendrick while I was there which just increased the serendipity of the Mashable House adventure!
American Greetings surprised with its Analog creative space. In the midst of a conference dedicated to the exploration and expansion of digital culture, they invited the SXSW crowd into their store set up along Congress Avenue to be very, well, non-digital. Typewriters were available to write letters that could be mailed (postage-paid!) from the store. I had not typed on a non-electric typewriter since I was in elementary school. Let’s just say that the muscles that I used to use to drive type onto the page through fabric ribbon have substantially atrophied! A card station staffed with designers was available, enabling everyone to pick a card and have the design finalized by the designer to make it personal. They also offered GIF-ing, a reverse digitally engineered experience in which a camera captures 24 still motion images in rapid succession. These pictures are then printed onto labels that are folded onto flaps that are then placed onto a spindle. The spindle is then strapped into a holder that enabled me to turn the spindle. The half-images on each flap flipped around resulting in an analog animated GIF image. Analog was a fun and refreshing experience because it is very grounding to craft things by hand – something often forgotten in the digital age.
McDonald’s, a surprising addition to the sponsors list for 2016, hosted a lounge that also featured VR experiences along with live music. However, as you can imagine, the spectacle in the McDonal’s Loft was the food. An open sundae bar and drink bar was available along with a massive semi-trailer – a “McD’s on Wheels” – that served a variety of standard McDonald’s fare including their famous french fries. A large seating area in their loft was routinely packed as SXSW attendees flocked to a favorite place from their childhood. I only passed through the loft to see the brand experience McDonald’s created, but I did stay long enough for the fries!
But fun and engaging brand experiences weren’t the only way that SXSW Interactive attendees celebrated their successes. Several technology solutions that were released prior to SXSW Interactive surfaced during the week, serving less as a launch and more of a celebration of success prior to the festival.
Andrew Jarecki, documentary filmmaker and founder of Moviefone, has spent the past five years working with a team to develop KnowMe, a mobile app that enables users to produce simple, high-quality videos from the clips and still images on their mobile device. The app fills the space between SnapChat, which allows for the private publication of serial images and clips with graphic context and sound, and iMovie, an increasingly robust and complicated to use video editing solution in the iPhone environment. The basic interface and controls in KnowMe make it easy for just about any one with a smart device to quickly create a sharable video that tells the story about a particular experience. The app was released months ago, but Jarecki’s mention and demonstration of the app on the SXSW keynote stage created a buzz about it that will propel it forward.
Another existing platform celebrated its past success by launching their rebrand and new services during SXSW Interactive. Ten-X was highly visible around the conference and while they came off like a startup, they are actually a rebrand of Auction.com, a long time player in the online real estate space. The company used SXSW to announce their new online commercial real estate platform and while I do not know how it was received, I at the least noticed it and was compelled enough to look into it…if only just a little.
After 10-15 years of very rapid, technology-driven innovation, it seems that the SXSW creative community took a step back in 2016 to assess how far we have come and take time to get our bearings in this new space. For me, this statement characterizes much of what SXSW Interactive 2016 was about. Two of the keynote addresses strongly reflect this mood. Brené Brown, who was voted by attendees as Speaker of the Event, presented not about a new app, a new software platform, or some sort of technological revolution. Rather, she spoke to the SXSW crowd about vulnerability, humility, boundaries and recovery. Not your normal SXSW fare. But, again, these are the types of things you talk about during those seasons when you take a break from constantly pushing the horizon forward. Andy Puddicombe, former monastic and founder of Headspace directed everyone crammed into Ballroom D, the largest venue at SXSW Interactive, in a keynote presentation highlighted by 10 minutes of silent meditation. Austin hasn’t been that quiet in decades nor possibly so clear-headed. But it is just this sort of holistic practice, taking a moment to stop, that is entirely out of step with the race of technology culture but completely consistent with being in a season of reflection, rest and celebration.
So, while there was a lack of the truly new at SXSW Interactive this year, it was a great opportunity for established brands, developing platforms and the rest of the SXSW creative and user community to relish in our collective success.