SXSW Interactive 2013 “Strategy” Analysis

New News:

I’ve contracted someone to assist me in pulling the SXSW Interactive 2013 data for my analysis. I was able to complete one piece- the micro view of ‘Strategy’ representation from the 27 accepted proposals referencing ‘Strategy’. I’ve summarized those selected proposals below. I’ve uploaded the full data sheet (with proposal names and full descriptions) for easy access here.

Notes:  (1) You’ll see the list below doesn’t add up to 27, that’s because there are two books and one Meet Up. (2) Once the data comes in with the 3256 total proposals I’m going to go looking for trends in the programming selections and trends in the proposed topics. I also want to look at proposed topics against accepted topics; you know, just for fun.

Sources:

1) SXSW Panel Picker / Vote / Event: SXSW Interactive 2013 / (Search) Strategy

2) SXSW Interactive Programming

 

SXSW Interactive 2013 Selected Proposals Summarized by Alix Representing “Strategy” for SXSW Interactive 2013:

-The U.S. Army a national leader in social media engagement

-The first Mason Zimbler creativity abroad program

-W+K joins forces with Graeme Devine of GRL Games

-Unicorn Booty’s blog-to-brick progression

-The role of social media in the success and sustainability of the series “Deadliest Catch”

-Intellectual property strategy

-The problems with social media

-Diagnosing the disease of inflated importance

-WWE’s social engagement

-Foster social booty shakers

-Growing a non-social network

-UX methodologies

-Sales strategy

-Responsive design

-The new major minority

-Mobile patient experience

-Art of storytelling in the digital age

-Be prepared for new domain endings. the most sought-after endings include .app, .home, .art, and .shop

-Social media and storytelling

-China is the new battleground

-Position your startup for acquisition and negotiate a sale

-A new definition for API: Apps, Partners and Income

-Unlikely, surprising and curious partnerships

-Content strategy

Net Net for me:

-Lots of great topics covering a wide variety of interests

-Case studies are wonderful; I think several will be case study heavy which is good

-Outside of case studies, I don’t agree problem/solution is the necessarily the best approach for understanding ‘how to’ integrate strategy in the interactive world. A lot of these selects are problem/solution oriented.

-I need more info on who attends SXSW Interactive. I wonder if SXSW has a published survey on outcomes and interests. I can share my POV (below) but it would obviously be one dimensional without knowing more about current and prospective attendees.

-IMO, I don’t see the fundamentals of strategy being represented at SXSW Interactive 2013. What’s represented is ‘at-stream’ and ‘down-stream’; the ‘up-stream’ piece lags for me. Up-stream is grounded in understanding why consumers care or should care. We don’t need to reinvent the connecting with consumers’ wheel. We need to understand what the wheel is made of, where the parts come from, what the wheel is designed to produce, and again why folks care (or might care) about it in the first place.