2024 SXSW Community Voting

Every year, South by Southwest (SXSW) seeks submissions to shape its upcoming programming.

For 2024, 11 groups from Huge have submitted diverse proposals focused on answering some of the biggest business and cultural questions of our time, ranging from how to work with your new AI teammates, to what is the next wave of digital user interfaces, and what are the secrets to unlocking organizational (and personal) creativity to accelerate growth? 

Now, the spotlight is on you. Explore the proposals, join the conversation, ask questions, and please cast your votes before August 20.

How to Vote.

• Visit this link

• Sign in or create an account (free to register)

• Once you are signed in, filter proposals by conference, format, title, description, tags, and speakers in the search field

• You can vote once per proposal, selecting "arrow up" for yes

Stop Scheduling Creativity 

Fura Johannesdottir, Global Chief Creative Officer.

The creative design industry has me worried. Designers are being asked to execute without thinking, teams spend more time on meetings than doing, and work is based solely on “best practices”. As a creativity practitioner for over 24 years, I can tell you this is dangerous. Creativity is serendipitous, organic, and alive. It comes when you least expect it to, such as on a run or in the shower. This session will help designers break out of execution mode and bring their full selves into the work. Because that’s how we create work that stands out, drives results and sometimes changes the world.

Building a Real-time UI: Shaping the Future of Human-Computer Interaction

Brian Fletcher, Global Chief Technology Officer.

Join us for a talk on the next evolution of user interfaces. Traditional static interfaces fall short of meeting the diverse needs of users and dynamic contexts. Discover how you can enable interfaces to adapt in real-time, tailoring presentation, functionality, and content. Explore advancements in AI, NLP, edge computing, & data analytics, empowering interfaces to truly anticipate user needs. We'll address the challenges and opportunities of incorporating adaptivity into software development while breaking down the technologies and tooling necessary to build the next wave of user interfaces.

How To Unlock Organizational Creativity To Accelerate Growth

Lisa De Bonis, Global Chief Product Officer & Michelle Yaiser, VP of Product Strategy.

Creativity powers business growth, but how and why hasn’t been well-understood, well-defined, or accurately measured. When the applications of creativity are treated as a source of organizational capital, like ideas or people are, it becomes a tool organizations can use to increase productivity and gain a strategic advantage. Organizational creativity, or creative capital, becomes more valuable when informed by dynamic, outside-in consumer data. Applying data-driven creative capital to your brand, offerings, and experiences can not only power, but accelerate business growth.

The Last Mile for Humans: Embracing Your New AI Teammates

Jon Judah, Global Chief Strategy Officer.

Everyone is talking about the disruption to work from AI, but where should you start as a leader or manager of teams? This talk will focus on the steps brands must take to balance its human and AI workforce - key considerations for the employee experience, examples of brands getting things right, and insights for those curious on how they might work alongside AI tools.

Don’t Hate Your Feedback Culture, Hate the Game 

JD Slaughter, GVP, Org Dev & Effectiveness, Trystin Bailey, Talent Experience and Ops Lead & Kate Wehby-Rauch, Org Dev & Learning Specialist 

Your feedback culture probably sucks. The approaches we often use like rating cards, annual reviews, and surveys have clear shortcomings in providing employees high-quality, relevant feedback. Let's explore how we can build feedback initiatives that don't rely so heavily on gamification of progress that the individual is lost in the numbers game. We'll show you how organizations can rate and gain insights on the macro level while still supporting the individual employee's holistic journey of growth, engagement, and belonging. Spoiler alert: Managers are key.

Learn to Hallucinate Like AI to Become a More Creative Human 

Jason Schlossberg, Head of Marketing.

Generative AI “thinks” nonlinearly and probabilistically, and isn’t constrained by what ideas can logically go together. When it works, this leads to unique, surprising, and creative combinations and outputs. When those outputs are wrong they are called “hallucinations.” To some, hallucinations represent limitations in the current state of AI technology, but what if they can provide us with a new approach to creative problem-solving and generating novel ideas while minimizing human biases? Let’s explore how hallucinating like an AI can help us all become more creative humans.

Coming to Terms With a Digitally-Dominant Existence 

Natalie Comins, Group Creative Director & Jon Hackett, VP of Technology.

Raised on the internet, Gen Z and Gen Alpha have crafted their identities with a digital-first mindset. Much of the analog world is foreign to them—the methodologies, systems, and interactions today still contain the dusty remnants of old-fashioned human behavior. So what happens when our lives become more digital than human? Can incoming generations show us how to innovate for future identities from a digitally-native perspective? In this talk, we’ll examine the new class of digitally-dependent people, and their desire for ownership, control, and total curation of their digital lives.

Community Isn’t a Strategy: User Connection in a Robot World 

Carrie Vogler, Group Director of Experience Strategy & Prerana Dalal, Director of Product Management.

With the surge of diverse platforms, automation, and AI-generated content, businesses seeking new users are challenged to reinvent the traditional "content is king" approach and to make genuine connections amidst increasing brand noise.

Establishing a community to increase engagement isn't a silver bullet strategy. If you build it, they will not come. Success lies in forging intentional user connections within the context of your brand. Join us as we explore how to strategically build thriving communities, foster relationships, and unleash authentic connections in this evolving AI landscape.

The Future of Brand Publishing 

Jennifer Parker, Editor-in-Chief of Huge Moves.

Quality branded content is fundamental for success. But, what are the ethics of brand publishing vs. journalism? This presentation delves into brand publishing in the AI era, contemplating the choice between investing in quality content or depending on ChatGPT. We'll examine impactful platforms, as branded content adapts to changing consumer habits, where the 'medium is the message.' The discussion will focus on ideal strategies for micro, short-form, and long-form content, understanding how targeting the right audience can transform brand perception and consumption habits.

The Connection Between Growth and Your Digital Footprint 

José Simián, Associate Director of Content Strategy.

The impact of the digital world in the physical one keeps growing at an accelerated pace, and even more with technologies like generative AI. While Big Tech companies commit to Net Zero goals, all of us as consumers and organizations of all sizes contribute to global warming with our digital creations and actions—our digital carbon footprint. Change and responsibility for the digital carbon footprint at companies and organizations begins with leaner design and reduced content, but it should also lead us to reduced content and more growth.

Artificial Authenticity: Can Brand Purpose & Tech Co-exist? 

Hari Bajwa, Group Director, Creative.

Brands have always professed their authenticity to consumers. Beyond that, brands such as Dove and Innocent have architected their entire approach to marketing around the notion of authenticity. But with the rapid adoption of AI across creative departments, how does brand authenticity and creative AI connect? Do they collide or co-exist? Does AI alter the way we think about authenticity? Will it affect consumer skepticism about brands? This open discussion aims to pick away at those very questions and asks us creatives to think critically about how we apply AI for the brands we represent.

Planning to be at SXSW 2024? Drop us a line at comms@hugeinc.com and we’ll see you there.