Winning our Way into SXSW
All it took was a photo and 1400 votes
Last year I submitted this picture to a contest Marriott sponsored on Facebook (also cover photo for this post):
After bothering every person I have ever met in my entire life for about a week and with the help of Jade and her family, I gathered over 1,400 votes. Shout-out to Julie who wanted me to fail at any cost possible. I won. The grand prize consisted of two tickets to South by Southwest (SXSW) with airfare and hotel included. So I wanted to start this post by thanking everyone that helped me get to 2014’s SXSW. It was refreshing to meet people who follow their passion to create change and disrupt stagnant ideas dominated by huge companies that like to remain comfortable. It would have never been possible without Jade convincing me to be vulnerable and submit a picture; and all of my Facebook friends, real friends, Twitter followers, family, random strangers I approached on the street, and of course you, the person reading this article right now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Here is a list of speakers I had the honor of listening to at South by Southwest:
Eric Schmidt, Jared Cohen, Stephen Levy, Brandon Stanton, Alexis Ohanian, Dana Brunetti, Randi Zuckerberg, Adam Savage, Mark Cuban, Guy Kawasaki, Chelsea Clinton, Michael Dell, Carley Roney, Jeff Housenbold, Steve Kaufer, Chase Jarvis, the team behind the latest Esurance Super Bowl marketing campaign, and many others who were constantly striving to adapt the startup culture for worthy causes.
If attending SXSW taught me one thing, it’s that ideas are more abundant than ever. The internet has empowered ordinary people to share their ideas and build them into products that we use everyday. But see that is the easiest thing to say, “I have an idea so show me the money.” The simple idea that publicity trumps genuine content is something that is so easily overlooked. There is a separation between good ideas and hard work. This is a time where execution is everything. Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind Humans of New York, said he approached over 5,000 people before he got his first bit of press. He stressed the focus on his goal of taking 10,000 portraits. His goal and passion for photography and people mattered more to him than the amount of followers or fans he had.
I think one of my favorite parts of the conference was having my parents there to experience all of the ideas that will someday change the world. I sat with my dad watching Edward Snowden talk about mass surveillance, end-to-end encryption, and the revolution that sparked many online companies to change the way they dealt with users’ privacy. I’m pretty sure that he didn’t understand the technical terms, but it didn’t stop him from reiterating what he had learned to everyone we passed on the street. Attending SXSW made me think further out than I have ever previously thought. What is the world going to be like 20 years from now? Am I going to have any privacy? What’s next? On the last day my dad and I signed up for a workshop that was basically a crash course in hardware design. My dad sat at the front of the room and asked a question as soon as he didn’t understand something. I had thought he had made up those stories about those calculus classes in college he told my sister and I about. But, I saw him sitting up there in the workshop, and now I believe him.
Chase Jarvis spoke on the importance of creativity and vulnerability, and I immediately thought about the reason of how I was able to be sitting in that conference room in the first place. The reason was because of a picture I took in India, and, well, being vulnerable. I had to ask hundreds of people to take the time out of their lives to help my dream come true. And they did help me. Creativity has the ability to solve any problem. I’ll cite that Albert Einstein quote now since I feel it’s fitting: “Creativity > Knowledge”.
I’ll end with this.
Mark Cuban spoke about his successes and failures. He said he was a terrible employee and an even worse businessman. His first business was a powdered milk company that immediately failed because no one likes powdered milk. The ability to learn from mistakes and never give up makes people successful. An idea so simple to comprehend but so hard to actually do was at the basis of every speech I heard. If there’s one thing I can impress upon you it is this: Never give up. Any overnight success is the result of all of the years of failure. This last part really is because Jade is graduating very soon, and this is a bit of advice that is relevant for her too. You don’t need to find the perfect job. After having to pay for school, you have reached the time in your life where other people will pay you to learn. So find a job and learn as much as you can. It doesn’t have to be your dream job. Just never. Stop. Learning.
