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Every year, thousands of bands, bloggers, filmmakers, social media gurus and entrepreneurs come to the South By Southwest Music, Film and Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, bringing three major industries under one roof together. When I joined theMCDM program in 2008, I heard about SXSW and started to work on plans to participate in a strategic way. For the past two years, I have been filming a documentary on legendary blues singer Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter while studying from the University of Washington’s Masters of Communication in Digital Media program and using the MCDM program where applicable, as a testing ground for the documentary’s online marketing and digital distribution strategies. The opportunity to participate in SXSW came sooner than expected, and I got to spend a week soaking in the latest in digital media while merging entertainment, Southern hospitality and genuine networking. Attending SXSW was well worth the lessons, networking contacts and, sometimes, the free food.

I started my efforts to get on the SXSW agenda in November last year. At the Showbox downtown Seattle I met with the pickers for the music panel who were visiting to accept submissions from bands, record labels, and anyone else who wanted to pitch a idea. I decided to present an MCDM- inspired panel based on the evolution of Lead Belly’s music from analog recordings to digital formats. Thus, the title “Lead Belly to Ludacris: From Analog to Digital.” Staying true to the digital storytelling code of honor, the presentation included a video mash up I produced especially for the panel. The video was a mash up of a rare performance of Lead Belly singing with Hip Hop artist Ludacris covering a popular folk song.  My panel was listed as part of the Music conference and later reviewed in the Austin Chronicle.

In addition to networking and the panel experience, I learned about quite a few innovative technologies and saw some great films at SXSW. Here is my review:

Interactive
Location-based services like Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla were competing for new users at SXSW as everyone tried to locate their friends or free food parties in the frenzy of downtown Austin’s Sixth Street. With these and other applications, masses of people moved to different venues based solely on cell phone alerts.

This year, SXSW used Quick Response barcodes or QR codes on registration badges, providing smartphone users a fast and easy way to exchange contact information rather than using traditional business cards. (This Fast Company article that gives a good explanation of how it worked for attendees.) QR codes haven’t yet reached their full potential among business owners, but we can expect to see more usage in the near future. On a visit to Washington, D.C., immediately following after the conference, I noticed a salad and yogurt shop called Sweet Greens had placed a QR code on its their front door. Eager to see a real example of how mobile scanning applications can work for a small business, I tried it. My phone was directed to a Website that rewarded me a free yogurt for my next salad purchase.

Another big talk of the town was a start up company called Stickybits that attempted to have a sort of Twitter launching at SXSW this year. With Stickybits you can attach a barcode to a flyer or other print product. When someone uses his mobile phone to take a photo of the bar code on the flier, the phone which will display photos of the items being sold. Or, for example, you could use this bar code technology to attach a video to a birthday card.  This is a brilliant idea and something we will see more and more users people continue to usinge bar codes and mobile phones to create and share instant digital content. sharing with others as long as they have a barcode reader on their phone.

Each day of SXSW was packed with panels, workshops and keynote speakers discussing the next generation of social media and video gaming. Clay Shirky spoke candidly about the evolution of technology and how it impacts society. I got a chance to speak to him for a lengthy period and reminded him that one of the MCDM’s graduates Keiichi Iwashita recently translated his book “Here Comes Everybody” into Japanese. Twitter CEO Evan Williams announced a new platform called @anywhere that allows Twitter integration on Web sites. Many people in the audience were expecting the announcement of a rumored Twitter advertising platform and were only to get disappointed even when Williams admitted that Twitter’s business model is still in experimentation, and they’re working to deliver the best user experience possible first.

Film

The film section of SXSW film festival has been building a great reputation. This year, there was a ton of buzz surrounding the film “Thundersoul.”  Skipping a few panels, I packed into a crowded audience to watch the documentary “Beijing Taxi,”  of a Chinese taxi driver prepairing the city for the Summer Olympics and a bumpy ride to modernization.

“The People vs. George Lucas” is an in-depth examination of fans obsessed with George Lucas’s science fiction universe and how it defined an entire generation. If I had a clone, I would have attended “The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights,” a feature-length film documenting the rock band The White Stripes’ 10- year anniversary celebration in Canada because I didnt have enought time to do everything. The film panels were loaded with informative topics, from “Can online video pay?” to “writing a successful screenplay” hosted by filmmakers and entertainment lawyers.

Overall, this year’s SXSW exceeded my expectations. SXSW and is really the frontier of what is new and what is next in digital media. Keeping my eyes on my main goal in attending, I am actively following up on conversations and leads to further develop a marketing and distribution strategy for my documentary. A big thanks and shout to my MCDM cohort/peers who contributed insights and contacts to help me have a great SXSW experience. I had lunch with Drew Keller, meet with friends of Priti Ubhayakar and bumped into Brooke Ellingford during the course of the week. For all others reading this if you head out for the sun and music only, its still totally worthwhile.

Alvin Singh is a digital media consultant and Disc jockey who lives in Seattle and enjoys tennis.  He is currently producing a full length documentary on the life and music of blues singer “Lead Belly.”

Thomas Humphrey Co Founder of GTK Marketing

Alvin Singh & Thomas Humphrey – GTK Marketing

I travel often and one of the first they tell you to do when you buckle up is to turn off your cell phone and any mobile devices that requires a battery.  Except what if your mobile device is your ticket to get onboard an airplane.  That is exactly what Alaska Airlines is launching this week with their first mobile website allowing passengers to check in using a Wi Fi capable cell phone.

Alaska Airlines will introduce electronic boarding passes to passengers in seven cities using a encrypted bar code that will be verified by Transportation Security Administration agents at security checkpoints.  Using mobile technology customers can now look at flight schedules, status and online check in while on the road (as long as they are not driving at the same time) using the mobile website Alaska Airlines has fitted for smaller screens.  A change from curb side assistance to mobile check ins will cut additional cost for airlines while allowing high tech travelers the ability to go from the car to the gate without a printed boarding pass.  This proves that more companies are looking at mobile applications and websites to market, engage and even service their customers who own a cell phone. With nearly 300 million subscribers in the United States today and a rapid growth in North America there is no doubt that mobile marketing is the next market.

My prediction is that in the coming months this year more airlines will develop serious mobile marketing strategies to reach tech savvy customers and keep up with the increase sales of smart phone’s each year. Now is the time to tap into the mobile market and begin looking for new revenue streams for your business.  By reaching this untapped market you can increase your brand awareness and improve customer retention which are golden in the business world. Finally the choice to go green is becoming more popular these days as more companies find ways to go paperless and instead go mobile.

Haiti has a special place in my heart ever since I visited the country in 2003 for a medical missionary trip that involved a group of nurses, doctors and volunteers. The mission was to save lives and treat people who needed medical assistance. I can assure you that even the under “normal” conditions that ability to help everyone was a difficult and heavy burden for a small group from Tennessee.

Today we can witness in real time the devastation that Haiti is experiencing. The earthquake and its 18 aftershocks have not only destroyed the Presidential Palace to crumbles but it has left thousands of people missing and unidentified. International relief efforts have been sent from other countries despite the irony that Haiti still carries a $1 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). So when Wyclef and his Yele Foundation rallied up its 1.3 million Twitter followers to make #HelpHaiti a trending topic it once again proved that social media tools are effective in building communities and movements. The constant updates from Facebook and Twitter users to donate $5 by texting YELE to 501 501 provided over $400,000 in relief.

This is the first time that text campaigns are being promoted on a wide scale through social media websites to filter donations to rescue organizations like Red Cross, CARE and the Yele Foundation spurring a viral influence marketing reaction. My boots now have a new meaning when I wear them and will remind me that even before the earthquake impacted Haiti there have been past efforts to help the ancestors of former slaves who is the first independent nation from colonial slave owners.

I will continue to write in the coming days and even post my short documentary film from my trip to Haiti on BOOKiDO TV or check out Guerrilla TechKnowledge YouTube channel.

In the meantime send a text YELE to 501 501 or go to www.Yele.org