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| Dancing with Anne Marsen from Girl Walk // All Day after the SXSW Premiere |
In between losing myself in films, were the invaluable panels. A major sentiment I noted this year across various panels was the idea that for digital/social media campaigns to be successful they must be fully integrated into a business & marketing plan, rather than existing in its own digital silo. This approach was encouraged from both large & small media companies: "Digital media should be a company wide effort, not just the effort of 1 or 2 people" was the advice from Bravo's panel, Top Chef: How Transmedia is Changing TV. And reps from small media start-ups concurred, "Content creators need to be marketers & marketers need to be content creators. There is a behavioral shift & this is perhaps what slows down change." (Screw the Big Screen, We Have the Web!)
This latter comment on what slows down the embrace of change was discussed further by this panel as a cultural issue: "Technological problems are a reflection of the culture." This sentiment was echoed by another panel I attended, Meaningful Use & Beyond: Health Software, Etc. Presenter, Fred Trotter, claims that issues in the relationship between IT and healthcare are not technical - that the appropriate technology already exists - but rather that changes are slow because of political reasons. Now political isn't just a Democrat vs. Republican thing - but rather, perhaps more significantly, its the smaller scale politics and bureaucracy which exist in the everyday workplace. During my 15 hour movie binge at the Alamo I grabbed a quick lunch with a friend who told me about his thoughts and efforts at his job to implement social media to already existing platforms. His ideas are all solid & there are case studies to back up why they would add value to his organization... the only thing that remains is navigating the layers of bureaucracy & creating buy-in from others across his organization.
Articulating my friend's challenges, Marc Schiller lamented that, "digital typically gets siloed... & its essentially at the kid's table", (Empowering Filmmakers, Marketing/Distribution Keys). "Digital is not its own thing [however], rather its about the amplification of content". As an MBA student, who has spent more hours than she cares to remember on statistics, I agree with Schiller's assertion that analytics are critical to sharply defining your plan, measuring success & identifying weaknesses. Bottom line from Schiller, "More data allows for more insight into the most profitable revenue streams".
My big take-away from this year's SXSW is "Integration = Success". While technology is moving rapidly, what slows down progress more than anything is perhaps culture & entrenched ways of doing things. As we approach graduation & I spend more and more time consulting and applying what I've been learning in the dMBA program, I'm finding myself navigating people and organizations who are sometimes shell-shocked by new media. In working with many of them I find myself labeled "the digital person". But as these panels have reminded me, & as the dMBA program has trained me - the value in digital technology is not in digital itself, but in its seamless integration across an organization or venture.
Most of the above panel links will take you to recordings of the discussions... or for something completely different (& fun!), check-out "Sh*t Panelist Say" from Flow Nonfiction below.
