This year's SXSW conference saw discussions around privacy and data use following Edward Snowden's leaks about government surveillance programs. Both Snowden and Julian Assange appeared virtually to discuss these issues. Other popular topics included wearable tech, drones, crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo challenging Kickstarter, and the growing "maker movement" enabled by accessible tools like Little Bits and free/open source software.

1. South By South West 2014
Ogilvy Labs Trend report
By William Harvey
@WilliamEdHarvey
Every March Austin, Texas is overrun by some of
the greatest minds and practitioners from the
world of music, arts, technology, advertising and
Politics. They bash out and debate some of the
greatest discussion and subject matter affecting the
world of communication. With every year SXSW
(South by South West) gets bigger and more
elaborate. Its origins as a music festival have been
left behind in the wake of what has now become
the greatest conference for creative free thinkers in
the world.
!SXSW takes new tools, deposits them in rooms
full of tech and creative people, who then
dismantle and debate them to work out just how
they might work and have an effect within
contemporary cultures and lifestyles. Compared to
conferences such as CES, MWC (used to launch
the latest and greatest tech and toys into market),
SXSW has become the place to discuss, debate
and create future tech-driven road maps in
culture, how/will people actually use them and
what their effects might be This was the Lab’s 3rd
year studying, debating, chewing over,
summarising and reporting back on SXSW. As
usual, a host of new ideas were on offer, along
with validation of a number of trends and subjects
we’ve covered and reported on in the past, lots of
which are finally making their way into the
mainstream onto consumer’s radar. This year
there was a even larger presence of brands and
ad. agencies present. 50+ Ogilvy employees (35
last year) Some very big brands hosted large
stunts : Samsung, IBM and Chevrolet.
!Here come the stats...
30,000+ Interactive Attendees
600+ Sessions
74 Countries represented
1m #SXSW Tweets across 5 days
!Wearable tech most talked about topic with
-15k tweets
- 800+ News articles
- By 2018 will be an $18 billion market
SXSW2014
SXSW20157-11thMarch
@WilliamEdHarvey1

2. SXSW20157-11thMarch
Indiegogo
The next Kickstarter?
!Crowd funding has become a big
mainstream business trend since its
inception in 2009 with the launch of
Kickstarter. Over 4 years, people have
pledged over $1Billion on projects from
board games to health trackers.
Kickstarter has led this space, but
Indiegogo is showing the potential to
break that monopoly.
Indiegogo’s approach to the crowd
funding space is different. The
Kickstarter model is all or nothing &
has very strict guidelines. Indiegogo is a
more natural fit for creative thinking
and application. The user base is 1/6th
the size of Kickstarter as yet, but they
are overtly open to commercial
partnerships. They have already worked
with MTV to develop new content and
Barack Obama on ‘Start Up America’
to offer crowd-funding for
entrepreneurs.
This openness to partnership
means they are perfect for brands to
collaborate with, to trial and launch
more experimental products and
services by fully embracing
crowdsourcing and listening to users.
Trends
Big in 2014
Downfall of Bitcoin?
Over the past year you couldn't have
missed the ongoing debate around
Bitcoin, a peer to peer virtual currency
originally (rumoured) to have been
developed in Japan. It has been in the
press even more over the past 6
months, because of alleged non-
regulation and security flaws and the
supposed growth of the value of the
currency people are putting into it.
Recently a number of Bitcoin cash
machines have popped up including at
SXSW (see picture). This allowed users
to exchange real currency for Bitcoins
and vice versa. The future of this
currency seems incredibly unstable as
Mt.Gox (the largest exchange of
Bitcoin in Japan) recently filed for
bankruptcy, with an announcement
that they’re missing 850k Bitcoins
allegedly valued at $450 Million...
Hmm.. we’ll be watching this closely
and will report back.
Digital Wellbeing + Sharing
Following on from the whole suite of
new fitness and health trackers
launched earlier this year at CES, this is
now taking an interesting tack, with the
help of social, as well as ‘Bio-gram’.
Basically, biometric photo-sharing on
social media. Our ‘always on’ and
sharing culture now means people feel
the need to compete and share more
and more personal information. Within
the fitness and tracker space it’s now
easier and more accurate. Nike’s run
app lets you share a map of your route
then post comparison stats. This will
only grow as the showboating levels of
fitness, and need to share does too.
!!!
Food and Tech
An explosion of brands embraced the
growing food and tech scene. The IBM
food truck used cognitive cooking,
powered ‘Watson’ Super computer,
partnered with culinary education. It
combined 3 elements - Ingredient,
Cuisine and type of dish to create
unconventional new food ideas.
Delicacies such as Ceviche Fish and
chips and Vietnamese Apple Kebabs for
example. It created a real, unique buzz
across the conference. Oreos also
showcased the ‘Trending Vending
Machine’, a 3D food printing, vending
machine. It allowed you to select and
customise your Oreo fillings and biscuits
then have them 3D Printed ready to eat
in minutes.
Smart City vs Playable City
We have all seen concept videos to what
the future of Smart cities might be.
Microsoft, Berg and IBM have all
depicted very cold, streamlined
interactions with our surroundings to
make them more efficient and linear.
!One company who predicted it a more
fun and playful vision of a ‘smarter
cities’ future was the Bristol based PAN
Studios team. Their 2012 project ‘Hello
Lampost’ looks to develop a more
surprising, delightful and engaging
perspective on how we might interact
with a ‘Smart City’. Hello lamppost is a
simple idea that takes everyday objects
in a city with an identification number
on them, and brings them to life by
responding to a conversation with its
own personality when people text in to
that code. This gets people to look and
think differently to how we interact with
the ever connected cities we live in.
A perfect branded example of this is the
famous VW Fun Theory Musical Stairs.
“You need to give people
permissions to play in
open Connected City's”
Clare Reddington - Pervasive
Media Studio
!
“To have human like
intelligence, devices will
require human like
senses”
Vlad Sejnoha - CTO - Nuance
Communications
Crowd Funding
With Kickstarter recently announcing having
received $1 Billion in pledges since 2009
competitors such as Indiiegogo have started
up.
@WilliamEdHarvey2

3. This year at SXSW the biggest recurring topic
across numerous sessions was around privacy.
The big debate now is of course linked to leaks.
The NSA, and how the US government has been
allegedly tracking, monitoring and invading
personal email accounts, calls in multiple countries
was being talked about everywhere.
A number of key speakers were very open to share
their opinions on privacy and what this could
mean for the future of the use of the internet.
Edward Snowden
The most anticipated speaker this year at SXSW
was Edward Snowden. An ex CIA employee and
former NSA (National Security Agency)
contractor, Edward came into the spotlight in June
2013 when he leaked a number of classified
documents disclosing the details of global
surveillance programs run by the NSA. They
included ‘phone hacking, email tracking and
internet surveillance. He is currently on the run
from several government bodies for his actions.
He appeared via video link, scrambled by several
proxies from a unknown location in Russia.
He stressed in his talk the importance of the free
internet, the risk of it becoming government
controlled and possible breaches of privacy that
might follow He has several, key influential
supporters : Sir Tim Berners Lee (inventor of
WWW) and Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google)
who have spoken publicly in support : “..we don't
have to give up our liberty for security”
!Julian Assange
Julian Assange is the editor-in-chief and founder
of WikiLeaks. Set up in 2006, it became
internationally well known in 2010 when it began
publishing secret US Military and diplomatic
documents. He is currently held up in the
Ecuadorian Embassy in London and appeared
virtually at SXSW via Skype. He wanted to add
weight to the current debate about political
disclosure that is at the heart of Wikileaks. He also
criticised private entities such as Google and
Facebook for the handling and storing of their
resource of personal data, for commercial and
marketing gain.
Are we willing to give away personal information
to companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon in
favour of getting more personalised services, offers
experiences? Well, one speaker told us “66% of
Americans say they do not want to receive targeted
ads, but 53% of them want websites they visit to
offer discounts tailored to their interests.” This one
will continue to be a hot topic for some time. Cake
and eat it too springs to mind again.
!NSA
The NSA (National Security Agency) in the US
was officially set up in the 50s, but originated from
a team in WW1 that was used to decipher coded
communications. More recently it’s been
discovered to have been monitoring billions of
people worldwide, most specifically tracking
people’s movements via cellphone GPS. When this
was leaked back in 2013 by Edward Snowden it
made people aware of the possibilities of GPS
monitoring and tracking on mobile devices. Since
then it has raised a number of ethical
conversations of opt-in options to share location
data with governments, providers and brands.
“NSA is setting fire to the future of
what the internet could be”
“The greatest threat to our modern
world is Cyber attacks”
Edward Snowden
Privacy and Politics
Who is doing what with your Data
SXSW20157-11thMarch
Virtual Speakers
This year saw both
Edward Snowden
and Julian Asstrange
appear as virtual
speakers due to their
current political status
@WilliamEdHarvey3

4. SXSW20157-11thMarch
Little Bits
Circuits in Seconds
!Little Bits are a US based IOT company
that produces snap together circuit
boards using magnets, no need for
soldering, programming, or wiring skills!
The simplicity of this product allows
users to make something that does
something right out of the box. You start
with power element you add an input
(such as a button) then an output (such as
a light) by just snapping them together
and you can keep branching out with
various ‘Bits’ such as fans, pressure
sensors, sound triggers and even more
being released all the time.
It’s a fantastic first step into
understanding electronic hardware and
circuit boards, in this rapidly-growing
IOT space, and the trend to enable
inanimate objects to do new functions/
actions kits like this helps bridge into this
world. Imagine enabling your seat, when
you sit down, your table light turns on,
when you close your front door, a little
motor shakes your key bowl to remind
you to put them down. It has a huge
possibility to inspire more people to get
involved in the ‘Maker Movement’ that
was out in force this year at SXSW
Drones
Are they taking over?
!A subject we have not covered in past
trend reports was a biggie this year.
A Drone is an un-manned aerial
vehicle (UAV) controlled remotely by a
human. Originally used by the military
for surveillance and long distance
reconnaissance, drones have started to
become more mainstream over the past
16 months, with a number of more
affordable consumer versions now
coming to market.
Parrot AR drone
The most well know consumer drone
company is Parrot AR. They start at
around £299 for the flagship 2.0
model, with an on board HD camera,
streamed to and controlled from a
mobile phone for up to 30 metres. It
shows the possibilities at the affordable
end of the market for drones, and has
already enabled a number of amateur
film makers to attach GoPro or similar
digital cameras to achieve aerial shots
for a fraction of the professional
versions.
Amazon Prime Air
Amazon showcased a concept 6 months
back into the possible future of express
delivery using drones. Amazon Prime
Air would be an express service using
automated drones utilising geolocation
pick up of products from distribution
centers seconds after the order is placed,
couriered then by a drone directly to the
customer’s front door in minutes. At this
stage, it’s theoretical, but has sparked
conversations about the possibility of
fully automated distribution, as well as
competitors such as DHL to experiment
with their own version of the service.
Performances
Drones have also made an appearance
in a number of stunts and performances
already. Lexus used a swarm of drone
copters in their Ad. ‘Amazing in
Motion’ that created a buzz on the
internet as people believed them to be
CGI, as they seemed so synchronized
and smoothly. More recently, as part of
the promotion of release of the latest
Star Trek movie on DVD in London, a
fleet of Drones took off with lights
attached and then synchronized
together to create the Starfleet logo
from the film. This illustrates the
fantastic potential for ‘guerilla’
marketing of products and brands in
the sky, drones configured to perform
set pieces mid air.
!
‘Cupid’ Stunt Copter
At SXSW this year Chaotic Moon
made a stir, showcasing the
‘CUPID’ (Chaotic Unmanned Personal
Intercept Drone) which is a self-piloting
stunt-copter that can be programmed to
video patrol designated areas. Still in
prototyping stage, it felt like a huge PR
stunt, but has the potential to offer the
first real glimpse into true pre-
programmed robotics, automated drone
systems and even AI. They plan to
develop and bring to market a home
automated surveillance system later this
year.
Stay tuned to the drone space as we
expect to see it being used heavily in
2014 as it moves away from PR stunts
into more practical deployment and
uses.
“Amazon delivers
packages, We deliver
80,000 volts of
Awesomeness”
Chaotic Moon Studios
Build your own
Make something that does something!
Little Bits snaps together circuit boards using
magnets
@WilliamEdHarvey4

5. ‘The Maker Movement has a similar
trajectory to that of the personal computer
revolution’
The Raising Geeks
Something growing within the creative and technology space
is the development of the future of ‘making’.
With the increase in availability, affordability and
accessibility for consumers, students and small businesses of
tech like 3D printing, it has started a whole new ‘maker’
movement of people prepared to try and DIY.
It plays completely into the growing thrust from the
‘Millennials’ generation to question, take part, take control
and build for themselves
This year at SXSW, they created a dedicated space to bring
together like-minded people to make stuff: ‘SXSW Create’
It encouraged makers to debate, hack and build themselves.
It ran as part of the larger SXSW festival, and featured an
exhibition space for people to go hands on, as well as a
number of speakers to address and to inspire attendees.
Make
The launch of MAKE Magazine in 2005, followed by
Maker Faire in 2006, jumpstarted a world-wide ‘Maker’
movement, which is transforming innovation, culture and
education. It is devoted entirely to DIY technology projects,
MAKE unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing
community of individuals who undertake innovative projects
and ideas, away from the ‘big boys’.
Free software for all
Over the past decade, a number of key software packages
and tools have revolutionised the commercial market
providing the opportunity to design, develop and create:
Photoshop, Maya, InDesign etc.,. These traditionally cost a
fortune and have been accessible only to established
companies. Over the past 18 months, certain powerful
creative tools have been available free as open sourced
facilities: Google Sketch-Up for your first 3D object, and
Adobe Photoshop Light for basic design elements on tablet.
Free to access tools are democratising and enabling the
maker movement & the start-up community to flourish.
!If you would like to know more about our findings from
SXSW, or any other event we cover such as CES, MWC
Digital Shoreditch or 3DPS please get in touch with
will.harvey@ogilvy.com
Future of Making
Next Generation of Makers
SXSW20157-11thMarch
@WilliamEdHarvey5

6. ImageThink:Bestsessions