SXSW: Goodbye to All That

Cruising at 34,000 feet back to DC on Southwest flight 891, I'm taking some time to reflect on my days at SXSW2012. If you've never experienced the conference, let me tell you that it's hard to make it through without feeling drained. And no, that's not from the drinking. With the ability to hit 30 sessions or Meet-ups in 6 days, plus countless opportunities to network over dinners, what's draining is the amount of ideas you're exposed to in a short window of time. I find myself, now, in a bit of an 'information coma.' And partly because this year was especially good for the topic of 'the future.'

Trying to pick one session that was truly mindbending isn't easy, but for me it was probably the session with SXSW's first robot panelist, Bina48. Based on mind files from one Bina Rothblatt, the researchers are using DragonGo 11.5 voice-recognition software to feed spoken questions to a duo of databases, and generate unpredictable answers. We were, in essence, talking to an artificial intelligence. How is this different from, say, Siri? Well, for one, Bina48 has anthropoid features (literally head and shoulders above Siri) and has cameras embedded behind her eyes. So when you ask her a question...she 'looks' at you....then answers. The answers don't always make sense, but it was fascinating to see the edges of limitation in the technology. And it also was a profoundly reflective moment as well. (Read more about Bina48 and the state of A.I. at the conference here.)

Some glimpses of the future were not nearly so far-reaching though. In terms of new ideas, I noticed a lot of brain power being applied to trying to bring the concept of mobile payments to early adopters. The sessions on this topic at SXSW ranged from the conceptual (Seth Priebatsch) to the practical. Isis, a company marketing a Mobile Wallet, spent a considerable amount of promotion dollars on brand placement and a prominent booth on the trade show floor. While a certain number of Android phones will have the necessary Near Field Communication (NFC) chips to make this happen, I don't see this taking off until Apple releases an iPhone with an NFC chip. What I saw at SXSW leads me to believe that will probably not happen until the 2013 iPhone.

Continuing that look ahead to next year, if I had to guess what will be a hot topic I'd probably put my money augmented reality. Of course, SXSW panels are a meritocratically chosen by vote on proposals submitted via SXSW's website in the summer. So you never really know what the wisdom of crowds will produce. But just as Siri made A.I. a topic of special note this year, I think in 2012 apps like Highlight and hardware like Google Goggles are going to bring forth a number of sessions about A.R. and just-in-time information delivery.

Beyond that, my final thought on SXSW2012 is on the number of sessions that traded on the concept of foresight by using the word "Future" in the session title. Many sessions had "future" in the title when they really were mostly talking about was what happened last year. So in the spirit of being the change I want to see in the world, I'm already kicking around a few ideas for sessions next year. If you're interested in attending SXSW2013, and would like to co-produce a session related to futuring next year, drop me a line (chadjasondavis@gmail.com).