{"id":4033,"date":"2020-02-28T20:11:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T20:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/?p=4033"},"modified":"2020-10-21T09:31:56","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T09:31:56","slug":"a-ceos-sxsw-strategy-tamara-littletons-key-sxsw-insights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/a-ceos-sxsw-strategy-tamara-littletons-key-sxsw-insights","title":{"rendered":"A CEO\u2019s SXSW Strategy: Tamara Littleton\u2019s Key SXSW Insights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the course of this week, we’ll be sharing our thoughts about the much-debated South by Southwest Festival. Many agencies have scaled down their presence to the event, some even stopped going. As for us? More than ever, we see it as an amazing moment to energise our teams, find inspiration and connect people who don’t usually meet face to face. Over the next few days, we’ll be sharing some of the team’s point of view on the event, from our CMO’s vision<\/a> on why we’re prioritizing such a festival to our Technical Director’s must-see sessions – and don’t forget our Sales Manager’s classic\u00a0<\/em>How to Win at SXSW<\/a>!
\nToday in this series is our CEO and founder Tamara Littleton’s strategy for making the most of the event. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

SXSW has so many interesting and innovative events that planning your trip can overwhelm the best of us. It\u2019s crucial to go into SXSW with a plan if you want to maximise your opportunities for success.<\/p>\n

1. Get together, share ideas and socialise\"\"<\/strong>
\nWe are taking a small team from The Social Element out to Austin, and once again we\u2019ll be sharing an Airbnb house to make the most of our time together. I love our distributed workforce model, but SXSW presents us with an amazing opportunity to come together as a team.
\nYes, I get some great ideas from the brilliant talks and sessions I attend, but the real benefit of these events comes later when the team gets together to discuss what they\u2019ve heard and seen during their day. To be honest, swapping stories about our days over a meal is my favourite part of my days out in Austin.<\/p>\n

2. Give people objectives and purpose<\/strong>
\nThere are so many interesting events at SXSW that it\u2019s easy to become overwhelmed with choice. Even when you do decide where to go, what drives that decision? How can the business benefit from it?
\nThe Social Element team members going to SXSW have all been given specific roles and tasks. We\u2019re still flexible though. When we plan our days over breakfast and review them over dinner, we\u2019ll often end up adjusting our plans based on interesting things we\u2019ve learned or ideas generated by the team.<\/p>\n

3. Meetings are important, but make time for experiences\"\"<\/strong>
\nTwo of my most important objectives at SXSW are to 1) meet with clients and 2) work on our strategy for the year ahead (what\u2019s being discussed and how is it important to the work brands do). But it\u2019s also really important to me to build in time for more random activities – things that feed inspiration.
\nTo do that, I try to go to the more experiential marketing pop-ups run by the likes of IBM and Sony where I can feed my passion for new technology. The tech trade fair is also one of the major highlights of SXSW for me.<\/p>\n

4. Realise that you can\u2019t do it all<\/strong>
\nWhat this means in practice is that I limit the number of keynotes I attend<\/strong> and they go in the ‘inspiration’ bucket. Keynotes will always be part of my SXSW experience – previous talks by Bren\u00e9 Brown, Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson will forever stay with me \u2013 but I accept that I\u2019ll probably only be able to make it to one.
\nFor the panels, I tend to pick ones aligned with my strategy and avoid ones with people talking about stuff I already know<\/strong>. I’m unlikely to attend social media and brand-related panels unless my clients are on the panel (in which case it’s an excellent opportunity to support them and understand what’s important to them too).<\/p>\n

5. Identify your key themes before you go<\/strong>
\nAs I mentioned, I\u2019m not likely to attend many social media events. This year, the events catching my eye are focused on themes of future vision, leadership and inspiration<\/strong>. Panels I\u2019m keen to attend focus on big questions and developing technology.They include:<\/p>\n