Breakfast Taco Day 1: Put your screens away for a moment –Why even digital people need real contact
Howdy from Austin! 🤠 👋
Imagine telling 250 hyperdigital people who are on their way to one of the biggest digital conferences that they should put their smartphones away, close their laptops and turn off any screens. What would happen? You’d probably get a mild smile, at most. But that is exactly what Lufthansa tried yesterday, Chapeau for that much courage. And: It really worked!
🙋 The Crowd: Welcome to the Travel Group!
Yesterday we started our trip to South by Southwest, with the Lufthansa Flying Lab on a direct flight from Frankfurt to Austin. Between Munich and Texas we have assembled our travel group bit by bit, because this year Media Lab Bayern is on the road with startups, alumni, partners and politicians. Instead of staying in a hotel (which nobody can afford anyway), AirBnBs with shared (bath)rooms are an essential part of the real SXSW experience. So we rented two houses with 15 people this year and meet up in the Media Innovation Mansion for breakfast to discuss the most exciting sessions.
May I briefly introduce? The Media Innovation Team in Austin:
Pia “Why aren‘t our Startups getting in touch — again? Lexa — The Startup Sitter from Media Lab Bayern
Tobias “Innovation? That Buzzword is old!” Köhler — The most innovative person at the german publisher SWMH
Michael “I should sleep in the only single room? What nonsense!” Strepp — Chief of Staff of the Bavarian Digital Ministry since 4 weeks
Silke “Let’s pick up the badges first, before there are queues again” Schmidt — Innovation Pioneer in the Digital Ministry and SXSW veteran
Jim “Pickup? We take a practical car with at least 7 seats!” Sengl — Networking Professional at Mediennetzwerk Bayern
Jacqueline “Yes, the flight will arrive sometime today!” Hoffmann — Media Conference Expert from Mediennetzwerk and Medientage München
Also, accompanying us in our thoughts: Stefan “We have to take care of China — and what about Blockchain?“ Sutor — Head of Media Days, who couldn’t fly with us due to illness
… and me, of course. Lina, Head of Media Lab and Innovation Enthusiast.
Also, there are 6 supercool startups, which are arriving in Austin one by one and who I will introduce you to tomorrow.
🙌 The Class Reunion: When Digital People Travel
The SXSW has always been kind of a class reunion for the German digital scene. This feeling has intensified since the big hello now already starts at the gate, even before the boarding, thanks to the special Lufthansa flight. I really like this atmosphere, where you can hug someone with whom you usually only write or chat on digital channels.
At the gate you could already “test” innovations, for example a VR training for flight attendants. The environment in that was impressively detailed, but the actual possibilities within were still limited. I was able to lift a cushion and flip open a seat.
The Flying Lab also offered a spotlight for new apps: The app HRMNZR by Sony (Can we finally agree that names without vowels are over now and never worked anyway, because nobody can remember which letters are coming when?).
What the app can do: From the Spotify accounts of all party guests, it picks out their favorite songs and puts together a playlist. The result should be “the lowest common denominator” of all guests. Interesting thought. But doesn‘t that lead to playlists with nothing but Justin Bieber and Drake in the end?
✈️ The Flight: Less Tech, More Feeling
For the flight itself, the Flying Lab organized a mini-conference. I’d love to tell you about it, but the in-flight stream on my iPad broke down so often that I got tired of reloading it. It worked perfectly for the colleague next to me, and that shows again: Bring-Your-Own-Device is always the biggest technical challenge.
How convenient that no device was needed at all for the main act on board. A big experiment was announced, the keyword “empathy” was mentioned at some point, but there was no more information. Not even when it really started. There were only instructions: screens off, cell phones away, laptops closed, window screens down, tables up, backrests as far back as possible — and above all: armrests between the seats up.
Next, the lights went out. And I mean all the lights.
The first moment in such a dark plane was scary, and a certain tension wandered through the plane. What will happen? At first, nothing at all. After what felt like an eternity (no screens! no feeling of time!) some spherical music started — but still nothing happened. Then a woman emerged behind us in a glowing dress and walked through the rows.
When she arrived at ours, she looked deep into our eyes, stroked our cheeks, our arms, and put our hands on each others. My neighbour Laslo, journalist from Hamburg, and I had introduced ourselves by name before and had talked a little about the Flying Lab — but then holding hands was very strangely intimate.
The show recieved a mixed echo, being touched by strangers is simply not for everyone. But what I found exciting: It did something with the atmosphere in the plane. Everyone had to put away their screens. Everyone sat together in the dark plane and wondered what was going to happen. Afterwards, a lot of individual people had turned into a group. I think it’s courageous that Lufthansa dared to stage such a performance, especially since it must have been hard to get arrange this in the air, from a safety point of view. And it brings up a topic that always lurks behind the whole tech hype: digital doesn’t solve everything. Maybe it even made us forget a little bit, that we are a physical species who needs real, physical contact to each other. Without screens in between.
I think it was a very nice prelude to a conference where it’s easy to fall for the hype. In any case, over the next few days I’ll try very hard to not only have “Hello! Hey, what’s up, sorry, have to keep going” conversations, but those that go deeper.
Tomorrow we will finally start with the sessions. 🙌
These are my highlights for Friday:
11.00–12.00: How to Launch & Grow a Membership Business
With sinking advertising income, the question increasingly arises for media companys: How can one convince users to pay directly for content? Alexis Gay is Partnership Lead at Patreon and will report on how creative people can build a sustainable relationship with their fans.
11.00–12.00: Designing a Better Media EcoSystem Without Ads
Four speakers, including from the New York Times and the University of Kentucky, will take a look at the design principles according to which the distribution of media content has so far worked. And they ask themselves: What can a media ecosystem look like that values engagement and dialogue higher than click-through-rates?
11.00–12.00: Featured Session: Jonah Peretti
What do you even have to say about him? With the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed, Peretti has founded two major digital media brands. Peretti’s view of the media world is certainly worth some attention in 2019 as well.
11.00–12.00: The Age of Smart Information
How do AI and Spatial Computing transform the way we communicate? Microsoft’s Envisioneer Mike Pell gives an outlook into the future.
12.30–13.30: A Language to Foster Innovation
How does a language have to look like, that illustrates product innovation and reduces the risk of missed shots?
12.30–13.30: Preparing for the Next Wave: Video Fake News.
With Deepfakes and similar tools, fake videos will look more real in the future and will be faster and faster to produce. How can journalists deal with them? Two Reuters editors share their story.
15.30–16.30: 7 Non-Obvious Trends Changing The Future In 2019
Rohit Bhargava’s curriculum vitae as an innovation expert is impressive: He is a bestselling author, university lecturer and has advised numerous well-known companies, including Disney, Linkedin and NASA. In this session, he will present his trends for 2019.
15.30–16.30: Media and Entertainment for Autonomous Vehicles
If autonomous driving ever really becomes universally accepted, it would free up a great deal of time that people could spend consuming media. But what should media content look like that would work in an autonomous car? That’s what this talk is about.
17.00–18.00: The Weekly: The New York Times Expands to TV
The most famous newspaper in the world now also makes television: In the furute, it will transform one of its stories per week into a TV format on FX and Hulu. In this session, some of those responsible will talk about the project.
And don’t miss our first Media Startup Night on Monday (March 11th) in Austin! Come join us for an awesome evening of networking with media founders, editors-in-chief, innovation managers and innovators in media and journalism!
We from Media Lab Bavaria, invite you together with our partners Media Network Bavaria, WAN-IFRA and Creative Munich to an international night all around media innovation. Get your free tickets here: https://media-startup-night-sxsw.eventbrite.de
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