Click to download the interview

This year the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas saw over 30,000 attendees, an increase over the previous year. The event was once again presented big ideas and emerging tech trends.

“I keep coming back — it a staple for my education and mind expansion.” — Suzi Dafnis

With the biggest thinkers in attendance and an amazing keynote speaker list, and hundreds of sessions held over 5 days, Suzi and Cat definitely came back to Australia with their minds blown and expanded. Not only are established thought leaders present such as Malcolm Gladwell, but up-and-coming talent attend which makes South by Southwest also an excellent place to discover new genius.

Hearing from speakers such as Astro Teller who leads Google X (a partially secret facility committed to making major technological advancements), or Daniel Pink who specialises in changing behaviours, the diversity of disciplines at South By truly broadened Suzi and Cat’s horizons.

There was much to be gleaned from Daniel Pink’s presentation. Pink, with an unmatched finesse, spoke about how to change people’s behaviour using fear, shame and empathy. He cited a study where he and a team worked to deter people from parking in disabled spots. Photographs of locals from Austin who have disabilities were added to the disabled parking spot signage with the slogan: “Think of me, keep it free”. People would pull into the disabled parking spots but upon seeing the photo, they would pull out immediately. It was inferred that the wording of the slogan, along with the photo, discouraged people from parking in disabled spots because once something is humanised, people respond differently. What is abstract from what is personalised will create a different response.

Another idea espoused by Pink was using fear to motivate. To make airline safety announcements more effective and to increase passengers’ attention rates, Pink said it was essential to utilise fear as it narrows the focus of people’s attention. Using fear is only helpful when you want people to listen to your instructions. However, it was noted that because fear narrows, it shuts down the brain and due to this, it is an impediment to creative thinking. Consequently, fear should not be used when trying to brainstorm solutions.

Martine Rothblatt was also a notable speaker and Cat was lucky enough to get an interview with her (go on our herBusiness youtube channel to watch it! Or hop on staging.abn.org.au/sxsw15 to watch it). Rothblatt shared her idea of digital immortality through mind cloning. Mind cloning works by putting people’s mannerisms, personality, recollections, beliefs, attitudes, and values into a cyber form. They may then be downloaded into a regenerated human body, allowing people to live forever.

Rothblatt not only researches about digital immortality but strives to explore the possibility of helping people to live longer by removing the impediment of aging. Rothblatt is exploring technology to enable 3D body organs to be printed – this is all towards her quest to allow more people to live, and not die simply because of a lack of viable body organs. Cat was excited to note that all of this sounds like science fiction but it is within reach and we’ll likely see it all unfold in our lifetime.

Lessons about failure were learned from Astro Teller, who heads the experiments going on at Google X. Teller suggests that it’s more effective to let people tell you what’s wrong with your product sooner rather than later – it’s more cost effective than waiting. For example, the mistake that Google X made with Google Glass was marketing it as a finalised product instead of as a prototype so the public began attacking what was wrong with it. If Google Glass was put out as a prototype, it would have received excellent feedback which it could take on board as a finalised, refined product later.

Teller sagaciously said that failing doesn’t have to mean not succeeding; rather, failing can act as a great learning curve. Teller’s words are liberating as he gives us all permission to fail: “A mistake free environment in which there is progress doesn’t exist.” It’s more productive to suffer failures as it ultimately moves you closer to your end goal, Teller advises.

Suzi felt so inspired by Dorie Clark that she expressed her wish to interview the author of Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It for a future podcast. A notable thought leader, Clark shared how to create advocates who will actively share and spread your information. Not only does she talk about one-to-one engagement, or one-to-many (which is what many social media communications are) but many-to-many conversations – where others are advocating on your behalf and spreading your message.

Suzi and Cat love going to South By but what they love more is bringing back from Austin to Australia what they’ve learned, to enable listeners to have access to the latest developments. To find out more about what Suzi and Cat got up to at South By, check out the herBusiness channel, which features interviews with the biggest thinkers from this interactive festival.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Stock Unlimited
• Facebook’s friend-to-friend payments system
• The rise of podcasting networks
• Rainmaker FM
• A new search engine for finding marketing podcasts
• Meerkat

This post was co-authored by Yenée Saw. Yenée is currently completing a content marketing internship at the Australian Businesswomen’s Network. She studies an Arts/Law degree at the University of New South Wales.