Elliot Kotek’s 2015 SXSW Diary from Austin
Co-founder of Not Impossible Labs in Venice Beach, Elliot Kotek – the recipient of last year’s Cannes Titanium Lion was a keynote speaker at SXSW Interactive. He reports exclusively for CB.
My featured keynote “Not Impossible: Crowdsolving for Humanity” was one of the first announced by the festival – giving me ample time to attempt to equate how my words would be as worthy of bums on seats as Al Gore’s drawled tones, the Tesla-designer’s established cool-factor or Snoop Dogg’s casually hemp-fueled poetry.
I had to remind myself that our “Technology for the Sake of Humanity” message is a good one and, even when muttered, manages to find volume.
Taking up Salons 5 & 6 at the JW Marriott – a hotel that opened a week before this year’s Sx (the rumor was 1000 rooms at $1000 a night) – the hall is so big it served up a stage & two side-screens upon which I could show my slides and give myself a simultaneous dermatological examination.
The upshot of the Not Impossible model is this – we (as an industry) are constantly making and advertising things that are faster, cheaper, stronger, smaller and more powerful – those things make our lives more convenient. But, if they can make our lives easier, it must be said that on most occasions these devices must be able to even marginally improve/solve/treat/
alleviate the hardships of the most vulnerable among us – those without physical abilities, financial means or geographical access.
I’m thankful that this message doesn’t just resonate because I say so – we’ve been fortunate that last year’s Project Daniel (backed by precision engineering company Precipart and Intel) has mustered about a billion media impressions and won One Show, AICP and Cannes Lion honors. So, my message doesn’t have to exist to please those who wish to do good, or those who seek to do better, and it doesn’t have to live a limited existence within marginal CSR budgets. As companies struggle to find authentic/organic/native ways to voice their message, our stories of Daniel, Tempt and Don have resonated with sincerity, and delivered the eyeballs and awards that warrant the marketing and advertising budgets that can truly help amplify a cause.
While it used to be enough to get a win-win, we’re in a win-to-the-power-of-three situation.
So, when you’re next putting together a campaign series, join us in this action: if appropriate, even if only for one of the spots being produced… instead of building a set or renting a studio, use a real location; instead of buying props and costumes, invest in equipment and structures that can benefit that location; instead of paying actors to learn lines, consider using them to teach locals something positive; and instead of returning everything to David Jones and Bunnings at the end of the shoot, leave it behind as infrastructure.
We get the content we need, the places we go get something valuable left behind, and our stories are filled with all the buzzwords that make industry go ’round. It’s a win x win x win.
FINAL DAY WRAP-UP
“The SxSW Interactive Innovation Awards” – aka “Those who are ‘crushing it'”.
Firstly, by way of sheer amazement, the whole awards ceremony took ONE HOUR, inclusive of entertainment, thereby making it the BEST EVER AWARDS SHOW.
This post also requires a full disclaimer/bit-of-a-boast – we were nominated in two categories:
1. Innovative 3DIY: Innovative use of 3D printing for “Project Daniel: 3D Printing Limbs for the Children of War-Torn Sudan.” An award we won, but a category where all nominees are “crushing it;” and,
2. In the Sci-Fi No Longer category. Where our Brainwriter project to enable people with ALS to draw using their thoughts and eye-movements received a nomination, and did not win, and was not robbed – the award went to a device that looks like a pen, and can detect skin cancer
With Netwars winning for their exercise and campaign around cyber security. FireChat won for developing a system of blueooth-to-bluetooth phone messaging where there is no internet connection or cellphone reception, and VocaliD won for their building of a database of human voices that will eventually enable those who can’t communicate to sound more like themselves when represented by a synthesized voice, the nominees were both impressive and made more attractive by the 140 character limitation placed on speeches (there was a gong girl who casually struck her copper circle whenever the character count of a speech ran high).
It must be said that we can imagine ourselves working with a number of these companies – VocalID could really help with our Don’s Voice project’s next iteration – while we helped a farmer with ALS speak audibly to his wife for the first time in 15 years, imagine if it sounded somewhat like him? That is our future.
From the Hilton, where the awards were held, we zoomed under the freeway to the Dell/Intel/Mazda/Converse/Fader “Fort” to check out Passion Pit (for those that know them, a band that like taking walks), then to Stubbs’ BBQ/bar/outdoor band venue for Interactive’s official closing night party. The philosophy, insight and innovation took a hiatus, and was replaced by hip hop artist Ludacris singing “Move bitch, get out the way, get out the way.” Similar to, but not quite reminiscent of, the buzzwords that “Crushed,” “Disrupted,” and “Broke through the noise” thus far that week.
My final morning at the fest/conference/mental-balderdashery that is SxSW was one mad spirnt for just one more taste of BBQ, one quick lick of something unusual (Taco Mahal’s Indian-inspired tacos – quite possibly the perfectly inappropriate pre-flight meal) and a run through the convention center before everyone broke down their booths. Tomorrow, the people making the Meerkat app popular, will give way to SxSW’s Flatstock – an aisle-by-aisle showdown between font-tastic independent music poster artists. The Flatstock artists are seriously “crushing it.”
So, on that last dash, as I weaved and baulked with the skill of an 80s Aussie rules footballer, I was bombarded with branded wayfarer copies, squeezy stress-bally things in their company mascot’s shape (promotions people still order these???) and a slate of offers to try out beta-level software to test “pre-revenue” business models.
The companies are each trying hard to trademark fairly usual words by switching out vowels for the letter “Y” (e.g. Gyft), and if I were to have to pick a darling in the space it must have been Fove, a VR headset that utilizes eye-tracking technology instead of the head-turning prospect that is Oculus Rift.
The potential humanitarian uses of Fove to transport people who are otherwise paralyze
d, and to enable the voiceless to speak and play and be understood and entertained, is mindblowing. Note though, that we were also warned that Microsoft’s own VR unit, HoloLens, is also going to absolutely “crush it.”
We were also gobsmacked by a brilliant piece of wearable tech – a bra that uses circadian diagnostics to painlessly detect breast cancer. Called the ItBra, the tech’s story is being told with funding from Cisco Systems, whose hashtag the #InternetOfEverything represents their view to adding-a-human experience spin on the IoT (internet of things). A worthy endeavor indeed.
By the way, stats thrown around at SxSW included one point that, by 2020, a third of all data swirling around the net will be between devices communicating to each other.
Ahhh, the Internet of Things, the Internet of Everything and surely, next year, the Ynternet of Everythyng. Crushyng Yt.