Bernie Sanders stopped by to set the cultural context in a conversation with Jake Tapper on Day One at SXSW Interactive
That blowing sound you hear is me clearing the dust off of this blog for another run of reflective summaries on my SXSW Interactive experience.
This is the eighth year I’ve been #blessed to be able to be here. My reasons for coming haven’t changed: SXSW Interactive is a unique space in time that brings together the leading digital creatives from around the world who are innovating and developing the future of technology, social media, news, communications, marketing and more. This gathering is the perfect match for the work I get to do every day directing marketing and communications efforts for a robust academic IT organization and a dynamic academic library at a university with a unique position on the landscape of higher education. Plus, all of this awesomeness happens a mere 90 minutes from my front door, which makes it incredibly convenient!
As always, the mood of SXSW is upbeat, optimistic, and FUN because we are a group of future-thinking creatives. Facebook, Google, and representatives from other social platforms are part of many sessions. Representatives from CNN, the Atlantic, the New York Times and other media outlets are on hand. CEOs and key account executives from major brands are here to share their marketing strategies. Oh, and Bernie Sanders stopped by. However, the positive vibes in the sessions are haunted by a thickening, shadowy cloud of concern. This collective skepticism stems from the radical shifts we have all experienced in the past year (especially in the US) on the political, social and economic horizons within which creatives work.
It is no surprise that the SXSW 2018 program reflects this tension. There are plenty of future-looking sessions on advancements in AI, data sciences, VR, blockchain, and automation. However, these sessions are matched (if not bested) by the number of sessions on gender and racial inequality in the workplace, the disrupted state of what counts for fact and truth, the chaotic shifts in the global political economy, and the negative perceptions people around the world have about themselves and the future. The SXSW community, it seems, has moved from the backlash of shock following the inauguration of Trump evident at last year’s conference to a state of still hopeful, but deep concern about the world’s future.
Day One at SXSW Interactive put a spotlight on these concerns. The opening session featured Josephine Goube, a French native, graduate of the London School of Economics, and founder of Techfugees (among other ventures). She reframed the international conversation about refugees in the context of hospitality. “We do not have a refugee problem,” she said, “We have a hospitality problem.” Particularly in the U.S., which historically imagines itself in strongly Christian terms, our lack of hospitality to immigrants creates a genuine moral crisis. And the U.S. is not alone in its disdain for the 65 million displaced people currently living around the globe. A large number of these in camps, where some have lived their entire lives. The more refugees are dehumanized by world governments (including the U.S.) and treated as “lesser Other” (or “cockroaches,” in some cases) the more readily we will dehumanize every other people group labeled as “Other.” Just looking around with this lens, many places in the world seem to be on a downward spiral in this regard. Concerning.
Second, I returned to the Edelman presentation of its Trust Barometer. The Trust Barometer is a survey distributed worldwide that measures social trust in government, business, NGOs, and media. The results of the latest survey, which will soon be released, were astonishing. Last year, for the first time, the survey showed a drop in trust in all four institutions, with NGOs remaining trustworthy and the tech industry within business maintaining social trust. This year, the numbers dropped even further. NGOs are now considered less trusted than business and, in the wake of the news scandals in social media and privacy concerns, tech lost its trustworthy standing. Things have grown so bad in the sphere of media that 50% of the people surveyed said they have stopped engaging mainstream media altogether. Of the remaining 50%, half of them are simply viewers and the remainder are engaged readers and commenters. When it comes to gaining information about the outside world, a vast majority of people are bouncing around within in their own echo chambers. Now, we (especially those of us who are hyper-individualist Americans) might not think this is an issue. But trust is what makes society happen. Without trust in institutions, society ceases to function at anything beyond a very local level. Concerning.
So, Day One of SXSW Interactive kicked things off with a sobering perspective on the current climate in which digital creatives live and work, and into which many of the things we create speak. If there’s a key takeaway from today, it is that all of the “key performance indicators” suggest that things actually are as grim as they seem on a number of fronts in the U.S. and around the globe. It is on us as digital creatives – and all of us who perceive the direction of these shifts – to fight the forces where we live and work and move things in a different, and better, direction.