SXSW Reflection
by: Sam Bekman, Director of Technology, MRM//McCann New York
First and foremost, one of the greatest accomplishments I've had at this agency is to have been selected by the Executive and Senior Leadership Teams at MRM//McCann to participate in this year's SXSW Interactive Festival as a Brand Ambassador. I am truly honored, grateful and appreciative of this recognition of all the hard work and dedication done over the year, with the singular focus of the betterment of our brand and our agency. I share this honor with everyone from the NYC office as only a representative, and reflection, of all the great work we all do on a daily basis.
This year's SXSW Interactive Festival was a tremendous event and far exceeded any expectations I had leading up to the festival. Before departing for Austin, I had heard a lot of similar terminology used within our industry and I wasn't quite sure why it was so important. With clients and colleagues, we used words like "Big Data", "Innovation", "Connected Ecosystem", Intelligent Learning", Platforms", "Software as a Service", "APIs", "Privacy", "Security", among many others, and I never fully stopped to realize the importance of each term.
What does it truly mean to build a platform? Why is that even important?
What does it truly mean to be innovative in today’s world?
The single greatest thing that I will take away from this year's SXSW is that I have a better understanding of the importance of these ideas and concepts behind these terms in order to help educate my fellow colleagues at MRM//McCann for the betterment of our agency.
For me, hearing why the development of Platforms and APIs is so essential to any successful business development strategy, can't get much better than hearing it from Werner Vogels, the CTO of Amazon.
What better way to learn about a Connected Ecosystem than from Monica Rogati, the VP of Data at Jawbone?
No matter your personal beliefs of the man, I got to listen to Edward Snowden talk about Privacy, Security and what we all need to be doing to help ensure that our personal information is not open to the world.
I got to laugh with Neil degrasse Tyson as he made common sense out of the most complex systems.
I got to listen to Chelsea Clinton explain to thousands of people the importance of diarrhea (no really, diarrhea, I can explain).
I listened, first hand, to smartest people in the world, entrepreneurs and early pioneers in this industry, talk about what Innovation really means, and where Technology is going in the next decade.
I got to do all of these things, listen, interact, ask questions, explore, learn, and ultimately better myself as a person and young professional at this year’s SXSW Interactive Festival.
If you asked me, what is the most important thing I took away from this year's SXSW Interactive Festival, I would say simply: KNOWLEDGE
Oh, and barbeque. Austin really does have some of the best barbeque in the world (big shout out to Franklin's and Ironworks). In all honesty, all of the food in Austin is fantastic.
FastCompany’s Most Innovative Companies
My Top Pick: #28 / Square
by: Sam Bekman
Alright, so my top choice from the list of FastCompany’s most innovative companies would be #28, Square. You may be asking yourself, why choose a product with a product name so rooted in our vernacular with being as boring, lackluster or mind-numbing as “square”, as being the most interesting, inspiring, relevant and cool company on this list? Well, for one, it’s no longer the 50’s and we don’t call each other squares anymore, and two, everything that Jack Dorsey touches turns to gold. Not really, but anyone that was named as one of the top 35 innovators in the world by MIT before he turned 35 years old gets props in my book. For those of you that don’t know who Jack Dorsey is, he is credited as the original co-creator and founder of Twitter, an idea so elegant and simple, it’s absurd. But Twitter is for another day and another blog post, let’s focus on Square, you squares.
The idea for Square was pretty simple. When two people wanted to complete a transaction, they would “square up” with each other through a piece of hardware that could attach to a mobile device. Simple, right? Except it’s so much more. Square plays in an arena called proximity marketing, which basically creates a force field around a location and beams special offers to your phone.
Pretty cool, huh? I think so, but I’m not the only one. Starbucks invested $25 million in Square. Think about all those people that can take advantage of this technology not only for proximity marketing, frictionless registration and paperless payments, but also what this means for the cash register you once knew and loved in it’s ultimate, and eventual, death. When I applied for my last apartment in Brooklyn, the real estate broker took my credit card payment for the application and credit check on-the-spot and in the apartment.
But I digress, because I could talk about Square for a while. Hit me up @sambekman to hear more and send me feedback! Ciao.
