Many of the West of England’s most talented creative and tech experts have just returned from Austin, Texas, having attended the annual SXSW Festival.
So what is it about the mix of music, film and tech that keeps them going back every year? 
Creative Business News asked Gabby Shaw, pictured, of Bristol’s specialist digital, marketing, creative, technology and e-commerce recruitment firm ADLIB, to fill us in.
“For the uninitiated, the annual SXSW conference pulls together the world’s brightest minds across film, music and technology for a two-week period that sees more than 85,000 pour in to Austin to enjoy 2,000-plus conference sessions, browse the 586 trade show exhibits and, last year alone, collectively inject more than $325m (£266m) into the local economy.
“This year, the pursuit of knowledge took us to places weird and wonderful. Across various exhibit stands, we saw everything from great British export Pavegen, who are turning footsteps in to energy, to Laundroid, your own personal robotic laundry-folding assistant, to the long-anticipated Jacquard jacket – a collaboration between Levi’s and Google that brings us fully connected garments – and everything in between.
“We played with more VR than you can shake a stick at – from a NASA launchpad to a Game of Thrones AR escape room, to live action VR documentaries.
“We even managed to fit some sessions in! From an ADLIB perspective, we wanted to learn more about future industry trends, what impact these would have on the future of work, what impact they’ll have on the skills that’ll be needed in the future and what we can start to do now to stay ahead of the curve.
“The core recurring theme from this perspective, was the rise of AI and machine learning. What does it mean for humans in the workplace when we have machines teaching other machines to do the jobs that humans currently do, just much better?
“While there were no simple solutions presented to one of the most complex challenges we’ve faced in recent times – recurring advice focused around collaboration and the accessibility enabled by things like open source, APIs and the information age more generally. Oh, and hiring data scientists.
“As the dust settles, we’ll be squirreling away behind the scenes to pull together something to explore these themes in more depth – but for now we’re hopeful we’ve been able to shed at least a little light in to the beautiful chaos that has been SXSW 2017.”
