The best, and scariest, bits from my 7th trip to South By Southwest

One of the most joyous things about running an independent business is that no one decides how you spend your money but you. And at Joint we relish being free to spend the money we earn on things that inspire and educate the people who work here.

One such thing is our annual trip to the South By Southwest Interactive festival, in Austin, Texas.

For a creative business such as ours, obsessed with solving our clients’ business problems in innovative ways, spending a week immersed in the future is an exceptionally good investment of time and resources.

So, this March, 20 Jointers flew to Austin and shacked up in a bunch of Airstream trailers ready to learn and be inspired together.

There was only one golden rule: Spend time on things you know nothing about. There are plenty of case studies on digital marketing, social media and social video campaigns, but they’re ultimately empty experiences as we’ll tend to know at least as much, if not more than the speakers.

With that in mind here are a few of Joint’s joint highlights from our sixth trip to SXSW.

There’s always a underlying theme at South By, sometimes subtextual, sometimes overt. This year the shock of Harvey Weinstein, not to mention Silicon Valley’s own issues with sexism and lack of diversity, as exemplified by last year’s Uber and Google scandals, was palpable. It lead to some really positive conversations around creating a more diverse, equal and decent working environment, and more amazing female speakers on stage than ever before.

One such speaker, and a favourite of many Jointers, was Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel. She explored the evolution of human relationships, making the point that in primitive times, when we lived in small tribes in small villages “you could hear every fight and every fuck”. Everyone had an accurate representation of relationships, the highs and lows. But that today, with social media, we only see shiny happy couple after shiny happy couple; a crafted, curated slice of an invented perfect reality, making our relationships pale in comparison. She insists that really listening to other people’s stories and opening our eyes to the people around us to be able to see the truth of the relationships of others as well as our own can help us all live happier lives together. Her closing thought being “the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. Your relationship is your story, so write well and edit often”.

John Krafcik from Waymo, formerly Google’s Self Driving Car project explained that self driving cars will be on our roads in 10 years time. He showed their latest video of people being driven around in their cars. The most impressive demonstration of their success? The guy who was so relaxed about the ride he’d fallen asleep.

Clearly not a stupid man, William Hurley (AKA Whurley), did a talk entitled ‘The endless impossibilities of Quantum Computing’ which, to be honest, was impossible to comprehend. His attempt at explaining quasiparticles and ‘the dangers of quantum tunnelling’ were indecipherable enough, but when he moved on to ‘programming computers that don’t even exist’ we decided to pop over to the Handle Bar for an extra large Loopy Juice.

Apple’s Eddy Cue talked about Apple TV and how they (allegedly) are (kind of) leaving Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to spend billions on programme making, whilst they’re focussing more on augmenting the experience of viewing everything on an Apple platform. Apple’s view about VR and VR? AR is absolutely the future. It’s faster, easier, and doesn’t take away from people’s live experience.

And talking of AR… Every year a few brands pour a rodeo full of cash into pop-up experiences around the town. This year’s Sony pavilion was the winner. Sony seems to have focused its energy on becoming a scanner and sensor manufacturer. Using projectors and haptic technology to create awesome AR experiences like virtual football and table hockey. 360’ scanning people’s heads and bodies and putting them into bonkers VR worlds and playable games. Possibly the tent’s biggest hit was their little sensor-laden robot dog, Aibo, (on sale soon for a mere $2000) that can actually feel you stroking it and reacts accordingly.

Inventor and superbrain, Google’s Ray Kurzweil, knows a thing or eight million about nanotechnology, robotics, biotechnology and AI. He talks about technology as ‘something we develop to go beyond human ability; brain and body extenders’. According to Ray pretty soon we’ll be used to ‘being in AR all the time’. We’ll have printable clothing and printable houses. And, in the 2030s, we’ll ‘merge with AI’, meaning we’ll have virtual augmented reality within our own bodies and synthetic neocortex in the cloud. At which time our intelligence will increase a million-fold, leading to us inventing new art, new ways of doing things, new ways to relate to each other. However, there’s also the small issue of AI ethics to iron out; Once the singularity occurs will AI be allowed the same rights as humans…? Alexa must be looking forward to that.

Everyone looked up from their smartphone as Amy Webb, a ‘Quantitative Futurist’, mentioned casually that 2018 is the beginning of the end of smartphones. And they stayed staring at her as she talked through a load of emerging tech trends. Some of which are already picking up momentum, like Digital Assistants, Augmented and Mixed Reality. Some of which seem like science fiction but are basically just round the corner, like Natural User Interfaces, Faceprints and Voiceprints (which will replace passwords), Generative Algorithms and Nanobots, which will end up inside all of us (and, if we’re not careful, end up deciding who lives or dies by aborting foetuses based on their probability of success and contribution to society!!!).

And if that wasn’t scary enough, the techy’s sweetheart, Elon Musk fucking terrified everyone by saying in his usual gentle tone: “Mark my words AI will be more dangerous than nukes. The single biggest existential crisis we face and the most pressing one”. He followed that with a chilling explanation as to why his Space X programme is so focused on getting people to Mars. Basically he reckons that there’s the likelihood of another dark ages “especially if there’s a third world war. And we need to ensure there’s enough of a seed of human civilisation somewhere else to bring civilisation back.” Zikes.

As an optimistic antidote to Elon, Dr Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize, used South By to announce the next $10million competition: To create an actual avatar. You know, like in the movie. The vision is that everyone will end up having one hanging in their cupboard at home (the Apple iVatar?) allowing a plumber/doctor to ‘get inside it’ from anywhere in the world and fix your leaking tap/ fractured pelvis. Then, after dropping in the fact that he’s invested in a company that plans to fit all Google’s data centres into a space the size of a sugar cube, he combined a bit of Moore’s Law chat with some exponentiality banter to explain that the $1000 we pay for iPhone X today will, by 2025, buy as much computing power as the human brain. And by 2050 as much computing power as, wait for it, the whole human race!!

Oh and did I mention Bernie Sanders, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Melinda Gates, Ira Glass, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Hamill, Thandie Newton, Nile Rodgers, barbecue, fried chicken, pizza, tacos, waffles and beer?

Will we be going back to the future next year?

Absolutely. Unless someone drops an AI on us all in the meantime.

The future is here. For a while.

Here’s a scary thought.

Anyone under 15 can’t remember dial-up internet. (Those long hours spent trying to download anything accompanied only by the brrr-brrr-ting-ting-ting-ting of the modem plugged into the phone socket.)

Anyone under 10 can’t remember life without 3G. (That dream that one day we’d be able to access internet and email on our phones, to be set free from our offices and work anywhere at any time.)

Anyone born after next year won’t remember life without 4G. (“Daddy, in the old days, did you really have to wait to download films on your phone?” “Mummy, what’s ‘buffering’?”)

Yes, for all their amazingness, our phones, with the 3G that we adored so much only a few short years back, will soon seem like the equivalent of a black and white TV with a crappy aerial you have to tweak to get a decent picture.

Today EE introduced 4G to the UK. (That’s a lot of acronyms in that there sentence.)

We were treated to demonstrations of its speed in comparison to 3G. 

And it is indeed much faster.

Sodding fast in fact.

The other networks of course were swift to point out that what EE have isn't really ‘the best kind of 4G’ and that theirs will be even more sodding fast when they launch next year.

Whatever.

Today was a momentous day.

One which means that soon enough, like always happens when new technology is introduced that truly supersedes the old, we’ll forget just how amazing what we have now is, just how lucky we are to have it, and life will become 'un-livable' without something we couldn’t even imagine we’d need or might even exist only a few weeks earlier.

And we'll love it. And cherish it. And value it.

Right up until 5G comes along...

"I MEAN, WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS ANYWAY?"

Words said to Richard and I soon after we resigned from our last jobs.

Interestingly the person who said them was someone who’d started their own, not unsuccessful business.

But he did have a point.

I mean, as jobs go, they didn’t come much better. 

We were earning a decent living. We’d had a great run at RKCR: Top of the new business league. Top awarded agency in the UK.

And it was also true that the economy was not in the best of health. 

So what the hell would induce us to want to jump out of a safe, secure, corporate job into that maelstrom of the unknown that is entrepreneurship.

Everyone has their own reasons, but in taking the above question seriously a few answers came to mind. Answers which still held true nine months later when we were finally contractually allowed to open our doors.

First, I felt ready.

Ready to put into practice what I’d learned over the last 26 years. I’ve worked for some amazing people in some amazing companies, and throughout that time I’ve attempted to assimilate the good bits whilst learning from the bad.

Sure, you don’t need 26 years experience to start your own business. But if I were a client I’d like to know that the people I’m working with are not just able to do funky, cool, creative things, but also understand the commercial imperatives, having come across, and solved, a load of business problems comparable to mine. And also that they’ve done enough good work and won enough awards to have got glory hunting out of their system, whilst still staying passionate about the value top quality creativity can add to their business.

Second, and probably most importantly, I’d found a kindred spirit.

In Mr Exon was a like-minded soul also chomping at the bit to do his own thing. And that, I can tell you, is a rare and beautiful thing to find.

Another thing I realised during my contemplation: everyone I truly respect has started their own business.

Dave Trott, Paul Arden, Maurice and Charles Saatchi, David Abbott, Frank Lowe, Robert Saville, Mark Roalfe. And those are only the people I’ve worked for. In the little old world of advertising. The list outside those small confines goes on and on.

There’s something brave and special about what these people did. They didn’t start up for the money. They did it because they felt they ‘just had to’. Most had become too big a character to live in captivity. Their vision and ambition outgrowing that of the organisations they were working for. Their personal happiness, not merely their wealth, depended on their starting their own business.

I know myself well enough to realise that if I didn’t at least give doing my own thing a go I’d end up respecting myself just a little bit less.

A few more reasons:

The world of communications is more exciting now than ever before. Technology has unleashed upon the world wave upon wave of inspiring startups in all manner of spheres.

Over the years I’ve become obsessed with tech and the increasing part it’s playing in everyone’s lives. For me the opportunity to meaningfully partner and collaborate with some of the most amazing experts in their field was becoming overpowering.

I began to feel the need to create something. Something special. Something I can look at in years to come and be proud that I helped create it. Something that doesn’t just have value, but that is valuable. 

Finally, someone once gave me some advice about starting your own business: if you don’t really, really want to do it, for God’s sake don’t. 

And I guess that was the clincher. I really, really do.