The SXSW Trade Show brings together innovators from around the globe!
[NB: I went back to the Trade Show on Day Five and enhanced the technological innovation section]
After seven years of SXSW, I know that the shift to Daylight Savings Time regularly takes its toll on the SXSW Interactive crowd. The pace of the schedule, the late nights, and giving up an hour of sleep is a brutal combination that usually means things get off to a slow start. The 2018 edition of the conference didn’t disappoint in this regard, but (gratefully) the schedule accommodated, offering fewer early sessions, many immersive vendor experiences, and the opening of the always popular SXSW Trade Show. My experiences from Day Three built on the insights of the first two days, speaking directly into the question about a way forward after we get back to the basics from Day Two.
In a keynote session that featured Melinda Gates in conversation with several other tech leaders, the panel (rightly) suggested that we have important work to do in establishing equity in the workplace between men and women and people of color. Ideologically, Western societies have transitioned in such a way that we ideologically accept the social equality of women and people of color. Generally speaking, children in industrialized Western nations have access to quality education and are provided with opportunities for skill development to prepare them to engage the workforce, and in many cases become leaders in their respective fields. However, while this ideological shift pervades the culture, the modern workplace is still structured to primarily accommodate white men. The pace and structure of work in most environments asks women to conform to standards that force them to join the “boys club” to succeed. Further, people of color whose diverse ethnic backgrounds bring unique perspectives to the praxis of “work” are often forced to operate in structures that do not empower these perspectives, but leave them at home.
In order to harness the value women and people of color bring to the workplace, companies need to create environments for open, internal conversations where employees are genuinely heard. Through the creative re-structuring that will (should) inevitably emerge from these careful conversations, the culture will shift to better incorporate women and people of color in the fullness of their humanity working and eventually leading in these organizational structures. Having these conversations and authentically responding to the concerns and innovative ideas that emerge has the potential to unleash new and exciting trajectories for businesses moving forward.
In order to move the needle to a more balanced point will require difficult (but possible) conversations. American journalist and author Katie Couric hosted a panel with her Katie Couric Podcast co-host Brian Goldsmith featuring Wajahat Ali, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, and Syrian-American rapper and activist Mona Haydar. The session announced the April 11 debut of America Inside Out, a six-part series that took Couric across the United States to talk with people about some of the most divisive issues of our time. The goal: To build bridges across the seemingly expansive divides that are being constructed between Americans. One of the episodes takes viewers into the lives of American Muslims, and the SXSW conversation served as an entree into this conversation.
Ali was born in Fremont, California, and Haydar in Flint, Michigan. Each was raised in the United States and has never visited Pakistan or Syria, the respective countries from which their parents very legally migrated. In spite of being born and raised in America, each has experienced racial discrimination that increased post-9/11 and has only intensified since the inauguration of the Current Administration. Haydar is regularly asked by other Americans why she wears a hijab and is sometimes treated like a victim who apparently needs to be saved from her oppressive white Jewish (now turned Muslim) husband. Ali explained that other Muslim Americans in his community talked seriously about giving their children code names like Rayan or Layla that “white people like.” The current state of mass Islamophobia that is routinely fanned into flame by the current President alienates these two American citizens and so many others who are, relative to citizenry and being raised in this culture, no different than other white Americans. The panel demonstrated the amount of important work toward mutual human, yea American, understanding that must take place to move both through and beyond the current xenophobic cultural impasse.
Alongside this foundational work of mutual gender and ethnic cultural understanding, we have important work to do in the area of technological innovation. The 18 long aisles of the SXSW Trade Show bring together inventors, startups and established companies from around the world to engage the SXSW crowd.
Robotic automation was on display in several booths and in offsite locations. Machines that scaled from a tabletop to 15 feet demonstrated their utility and application to any number of complex tasks. The fluidity of their motion and range of possibility they demonstrated was amazing! Sony featured an army of dancing musical robots as well as adorable robotic puppies who move and act like the real thing. This sort of robotics is not necessarily new, but it is amazing to see the forward momentum of the technology over time. The major robotic automation in the air at SXSW was transportation. Waymo is already deploying automated vehicles as a test case in Arizona, the trucking industry is making moves to adopt automated transport in the near future, and many 2019 vehicle models are essentially self-driving. The efficiencies to be gained in the trucking industry makes automation in that sector a guarantee. City services like buses or taxis will likely also be supplanted by automotive automation in the near future. The last sector to move here will be consumers. However, once (and I believe this will be the case) automatic vehicles show their effectiveness, consumers will enjoy the efficiencies gained by letting the vehicles and the system directing vehicles do the driving. While this technology is well on its way, there is still work to be done on a technical and social level at the level of implementation. Continuing to make robotic automation precise and adaptable to tasks that can enhance human thriving is important work that will positively impact the future.
A number of different companies and individuals are playing in the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) space. One company I encountered develops AR experiences for brands. VR headsets were in use on a flight simulator brought by an avionics company. Several universities put their VR research projects on display, exploring possible applications of the technology for training, virtually conceptualizing ideas, or actually constructing VR environments. An immersive brand experience for the upcoming Spielberg release, Ready Player One, invited people into the Oasis through VR experiences. VR/AR ruled the landscape of SXSW 2018, expanding from its real introduction at last year’s conference. VR technology has been around for years and AR is essentially an extension of its basic premises. There is a great deal of value for enhancing human thriving by leveraging AR technologies to expand our understanding of visual landscapes and environments. VR has the ability to place us in imaginative (or real) virtual environments for the sake of exploring and learning. In addition, VR enables us to build virtually, thoroughly connecting out or possibly laying plans for actual environments once they are moved out of VR into actuality.
Booths featuring technologies being developed around the world by makers and startup companies, as well as tech-emergent cities, demonstrated a variety of innovations. A moving 3D printer that uses cement teased the idea of larger scale robotic machines printing roads, walls or other structures. A post-kinetic demonstration imagined using gestures to move real objects within a pre-defined field. TVX is an emergent technology that leverages signals outside of the audible range to activate devices that enhance the viewing experience. Interactive projected spaces were on display in several venues, exploring the possibilities for interactive learning, working or gaming. Students at SXSW from Japan demonstrated a range of tensile materials that can be applied to enable and control movement within a field. The animated GIF search company Giphy and a research group from Japan introduced the idea of voice-activated AR text, meaning that the words you speak appear on your camera screen (or someone else’s) in real-time in your surroundings. A number of displays at SXSW played in the space of interactive environments, where an object (sometimes your phone) is used to impact a virtual (whether projected or VR) environment. The trajectory of the majority of these technologies will be applied to solutions to pain points or efficiencies that can be gained in our experience to improve or enhance human thriving.
From issues of social justice to workplace reform to the business of innovation, there is plenty of important work to be done together as we move forward. SXSW Interactive continues to be an important space where creative innovators come together to present their best thinking to date in sessions, immersive experiences and at the Trade Show. It is always my hope that the synergy of these great ideas and concepts will be the genesis of the next technological frontier, although I did not experience anything this year that completely blew my mind. There were unique and cool moments – such as post-kinetic movement, robotic automation and some of the AR/VR possibilities – that developed technologies already in play, but nothing that I perceived as a complete game-changer.