South by Southwest trends at PUCRS

Arthur Gubert, Ramiro Martini and Kim Gesswein shared their views of Austin event

Artificial intelligence expansion, manipulation of emotions and voice as a search engine in the digital environment. These are some of the trends presented at Highlights SXSW, on Apr 3, at the PUCRS’ Events Center. Arthur Gubert, Rádio Atlântida FM communicator, Mr Ramiro Martini, president of Grupo Cinco TI, and Mr Kim Gesswein, School of Communications, Art and Design professor and advertiser , shared the insights, their personal impressions and clues on how to deal with the avalanche of information presented at South by Southwest (SXSW), the world’s largest creativity event, in Austin, Texas (USA). The event was opened by the director of the Science and Technology Park (Tecnopuc), Dr Rafael Prikladnicki.

Behavior and technology trends were shared by Gubert, who works as the head of Innovation at Grupo RBS. We are soon to have a “future without screens”, said he. Screens, to be used for searching purposes, will be falling rapidly into disuse with the emergence of smartphones, notebooks or other devices. SXSW estimates that by 2020, 50% of all these searches will be made using voice, facial recognition or gestures. “Technology will be more and more at the service of human laziness”, said he in a joking way, as he claimed this will have an impact on the solutions to be conceived by companies to their users. In his view, this trend will be a reality, especially because digital personal assistants, such as Siri (Apple), Cortana (Microsoft) or Alexa (Amazon) will be gaining momentum. Google Home, for instance, now understands human languages with 95% accuracy”, said he.

Self-learning and humanizing experiences

Gubert also went on to mention other aspects of technology: the expansion of artificial intelligence with the goal of helping people’s personal routines; the proliferation of fake news in a very purposeful way, no matter how harmful it can be; the manipulation of emotion – such as indignation – by the means of communication, with political and commercial uses; self-learning through online tutorials, such as YouTube videos; and the disruptive distribution of products and services, with unrestricted forms of delivery and logistics, as a means to get closer to clients’ brands.

Human relations was another topic addressed by the Rádio Atlântida communicator. To follow are some of the things that the future might hold: The consolidation of diversity in the workplace, either of gender or ethnicity, for instance; humanizing experiences, or mode human, will encourage emotions that technologies are not able to cater to, such as physical contact with people and animals; informed and conscious consumerism, in which clients demonstrate interest in all stages of production of the product or services purchased; and the ability to laugh at own own mistakes and weaknesses, as a competitive edge, for companies.

A tour around Austin

Ramiro Martini was keen to talk about Austin’s streets, events, presentations and the experiences he had there as well as the contacts and businesses prospects to an audience of 500 people at PUCRS. “Creativity comes from diversity. We can only be creative when we see different things”, said he as he described the importance of being at SXSW, which he defined as an “avalanche of inspiration”. Overall, the festival served to teach him how common it is to be around influential people from several areas and countries, all of whom would be available to talk and find out about new opportunities. “I never imagined I would be so close to Barack Obama, but he was there, talking to people” stated he. Martini was proud of the fact that this year the Brazilian delegation was the second largest of the event, as it comprised 1,104 members. “Next year, you need to go to Austin”, said he.

Organizing ideas

Mr Kim Gesswein, PUCRS professor and director of innovation at Paim Comunicação, was the third to talk and focused on helping people organize ideas that arise from such an event and then, put the things they learned in practice. “I’ve heard a lot about SXSW and studied its concepts that I’ve been an active enthusiast of it way before I went to Austin”, said he. He presented simple methodologies that include note taking – such as cloud photos, the construction of a matrix of priorities and the use of free apps, such as Evernote and Google Drive, to guide a visitor’s routine.

“This kind of event teaches us to set our priorities, as we learn to face the fact that we can’t know everything. Then you have to make a list of good questions and lastly, set goals and viable schedule”, explained Gesswein. Ultimately, he stated that it is necessary to have a knowledge base that is easily accessible and, above all, share experiences with other people and companies. He also highlighted the relationship between universities and businesses a factor for success and multiplication of good ideas.

SXSW 2018

The latest edition of South by Southwest (SXSW) brought together outstanding professionals from different areas. The event featured exponents from the music industry, cinema, games and executives from large companies, such as Spike Lee, one of the most popular and highly acclaimed Hollywood moviemakers and Michael Dell, president, CEO and founder of Dell Technologies. In addition to them, Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California and Hollywood superstar, gave a lecture about his principles for an effective government, and Melinda Gates, co-founder of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who is the 3^rd most powerful woman on the planet according to Forbes magazine in 2017.