SXSW 2024 Takeaways

As I sit on the airplane heading back home from my first time at SXSW, I’m reflecting on the diverse perspectives and insights I’ve just taken in. Here are 10 of my key takeaways. (Note, they do reflect the types of panels I personally was interested in as someone working in the product space).

1. Create with and listen to your audience. This was a common thread throughout so many panels I attended. Whether you’re trying to determine what type of product to build, working on an sacred archive that tells the stories of indigenous people, or writing a piece of journalism about a community; whomever you are creating for, should be involved in shaping the process and/or the work.

2. Create for everyone. Pigging backing off of learning 1, not only should you listen to your audience, but whatever idea, service, or product you are working on, it should be made for everyone from the start.

“Nothing about us without us is a disability slogan,” shared Rachel Kolb of Harvard University. "The design of your products, services, or ideas should always include disabled, deaf, and hard of hearing folks and listen to that community in terms of what their needs are.”

When we create for the disabled community, we actually create better results for our entire audience.

3. Show up 365 days for what you believe in. Do not just jump on the bandwagon for events when it’s convenient for you and your brand.? If you work with influencers support them and their work year round (not just during history or pride months). Companies should also look inward and make sure they are supporting their staff and communities internally just as much as they are supporting them externally.

Recommended Talk: When Beer Goes Viral: The Role of Brands & Media in Fighting Hate with Dylan Mulvaney | SXSW 2024

4. AI is a tool. Educate yourself on its capabilities and experiment with it. At the same time be intentional where and how you use it. As John Zimmerman of Carnegie Mellon University shared, “ideation really matters because it changes the conversation of should we do this or not do this to what are all of our other choices? Do we have a choice that’s equally valuable but much lower risk from a responsible AI point of view?”

His colleague Nur Yildirim also shared, "don’t replace an expert with AI." Instead, look at opportunities as if you had an unlimited amount of interns — what would you have them do or what’s too tedious for an intern to do? Start internally before rolling out something externally as your audience is your highest risk. Bring everyone together — data scientists, designers, product managers, end users, etc.

Recommended Resource: Along with their colleagues at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, they put together this handy dandy AI design Kit that I can’t wait to dive into:? https://aidesignkit.github.io

5. Understand the ethics behind AI and the datasets used to develop it. Ethics should be at the center of AI. As Ionana Teleanu of Miro mentioned, “this is a continuous exercise that needs to go on. Ethics should not be an afterthought at the end of the process. It should define the process itself.”

Additionally, the outputs are only as good as the inputs, so if you are working with AI tools trained on biased data, your output will inherit those biases.

Recommended Talk: The talks I attended on AI are not available on YouTube but I will be watching this one from OpenAI’s Head of ChatGPT Peter Deng: AI and Humanity’s Co-evolution | SXSW 2024

6. Fact check, fact check, fact check (yes, at least 3 times). As Ravi Mehta of Outpace, mentioned we have entered an era where we must “Trianglulate what we believe is true and validate that. We used to say seeing is believing, that’s not true anymore. You’ll have to look across different data sources.”

And if we are in positions to help provide accuracy and educate others, we should — just as Jo Yurcaba of NBC News, was saying when discussing the importance of not repeating misinformation without saying what the facts are.?

7. Sustainability is one of the biggest challenges we face today and we need to tackle it together.? Uwe Cremering of iF international Forum design GmbH, and Brad Ascalon of Brad Ascalon Studio NYC, both shared the importance of saving the planet. “We want design to make our lives better and there is always variables that come into play but I think the one target that is no longer moving is sustainability,” said Brad.

8. Creativity & empathy will continue to differentiate us from AI. “Design takes empathy and emotion…I keep going back to the pandemic because this was such a learning experience for so many in the design world. AI can’t predict how people are going to fear or welcome the next thing, whatever that thing is — that’s on us. That’s on human beings. Creativity is a subset of intelligence so artificial intelligence, I don’t think, will be able to grasp what we as humans can,” shared Brad Ascalon of Brad Ascalon Studio NYC.

Continue to value creativity in your processes and remember to have empathy for your audiences in order to create the best possible service or product for them.

9. Give yourself grace. As Dr. Corey Yeager noted, the language we have with ourselves is so important. “Negative patterns are easy to fall into, we need to get better at giving grace to ourselves.”

In a world that is so heavy, it’s crucial to remind ourselves that we are all human at the end of the day and no one is perfect.

Recommended Talk: Mindfulness Over Perfection: Getting Real On Mental Health with Wondermind | SXSW 2024

10. Human experience and connection should be at the forefront of everything we create. Whether you are an advertiser, influencer, creator, analyst, archivist, etc., we all crave human connection. I saw the most incredible VR documentary Walk to Westerbork, a personal account of a young girl’s survival during the Holocaust, and?I also saw an inspiring 120 mm film photography series by Imran Nuri that shared strangers advice to their younger self. Despite these bodies of work being created with vastly different technology that span 50+ years, what made both of these pieces so successful was the way in which they centered their work around the human experience.

So don't let your tools stop you from creating or building what you want to. Your ideas and stories matter.

Regardless of whether it’s a product, service, film, or idea, at the end of the day we are all human. We all seek to connect with each other, have our problems acknowledged, our stories told, and to feel less alone.

The convergence between tech, film, music, culture, and education at SXSW is like no other event I've been to. Honestly, so much to see, so little time — I’m looking forward to going back to listen to the audio recordings of the talks I missed and hopefully will find myself at a future SXSW. I soaked up as much as I could and left feeling inspired and empowered. ??

If you attended SXSW this year, what was your favorite thing you learned?

Thanks to the Ad Council for supporting and allowing me to attend and my former boss Anastasia for encouraging and budgeting for me to go!

Note, while I drafted the original version of this on the plane, I posted this a few days later. :)