Reflections and Sketchnotes from SxSW Interactive 2014

SxSW Interactive is wrapping up and I head home with food for thought. I am excited about the progress in both the development of and integration of social technologies. We’re not there yet, but things are certainly looking up. One always has to be reminded after an event like this that these are early adopters. We must not be myopic as to our understanding of who is using and how they are using social technologies and media. Here are some quick recaps of the highlights and sketchnotes from my SxSW this year…

Brand Innovators Summit with Ted Rubin, Ajay Ramachandran of Dynamic Signal, Bryan Kramer author of Human to Human, Jon Peters Digital Sniper (love this title), Susan Emerick author of The Most Powerful Brand on Earth, Tiffany Tuell of Hitachi Data Systems and Sabrina Stoffregen Director of Intel Ambassadors. Changemakers discussed how social can humanize communications and organizations. Understand your advocates and ambassadors, listen and give them what they want and help them share well.

Yahoo! Flickr designers Andy Law and Shaun Forouzandeh. Flickr moving to more dynamic interactive community with photoshop in your pocket for sharing your best side.

Nilofer Merchant and Rachel Sklar‘s session on Hacking Privilege. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In opened the dialog by laying the cards on the table. Play wisely by believing, belonging and becoming. Listen and create value that only you can provide – Onlyness. Be extraordinary!  Great continuing the conversation with these dynamic ladies.  Check out Nilofer’s book  New Social Era.  Nice work Rachel with  li.st and Change the Ratio and kudos for your passion for visibility and opportunity for women in tech & new media.

Neil de Grasse Tyson keynote of Cosmos on the Cosmic Perspective. We are special because we are the same. Be curious and never cease wonder.

The future of wearables and evolution of communication with Christina Mercando of Ring.ly, Koichi Yamamoto, Takahito Iguchi of Telepathy and Marco Tempest the virtual magician. Marco, love the magic! Christina, gotta have the ring! Takahito, looking forward to experiencing your discreet device. Wow! Impressive work that brings much thought to the future of wearables. Discreet, Funtional, Magic – BRINGING BACK PRESENCE

Hardwiring the Brain with Ariel Garten of Interaxon, Andrew Smith Lewis of Cerego and Jan Plass from NYU had a great session on tools for understanding the brain’s processing on inputs evolves the development of user design and mindfulness to superpower our brains.