Why should our company launch our global thought leadership program at SXSW? 500 + solo presentations and panels give non-famous, passionate people a chance to engage people and increase their own personal profile as well as the profile of our global network. You won’t find another conference with the quality of innovative, creative big thinkers. 16,000 attendees last year. The best networking event for insanely curious, entrepreneurial thinkers. Plus great barbecue and Tex-Mex. What more do you need?

1. Global Thought Leadership:
Opportunities To Create Content
To Share Across Social Channels
Jon Burkhart, Head of Copy & Social Media Evangelist

2. First Thought Leadership Event:
South By Southwest Interactive
Deadline for SXSW 2011 topics: next Friday 9 July

3. SXSW Interactive – What is it?
The South By Southwest Interactive Festival brings together the world’s
most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators,
content producers, programmers, widget inventors and new media
entrepreneurs. Five days of captivating keynote presentations and
provocative panel sessions provide hands-on training as well as big-
picture analysis of the future of this industry.

4. Why we need to attend/speak at SXSW
>> 500 + solo presentations and panels gives non-famous, passionate
people a chance to engage people and increase their own personal
profile as well as the profile of our global network.
>> You won’t find another conference with the quality of innovative,
creative big thinkers. 16,000 attendees last year. The best networking
event for insanely curious, entrepreneurial thinkers.
>> We’re a global agency. Austin, TX is the centre of the universe. We
should use this as a chance to get all 20 of our offices together.
>> Austin, TX has amazing food. I gained about 10 pounds on a steady
diet of barbecue (pulled pork) and Tex-Mex 3 meals a day.

5. Panel topic? What’s your passion*?
*This was me BEFORE my team USA lost to Ghana

6. Make them fun. Top-rated talks from 2010:

7. Top-rated talks continued:

8. Ask yourself. Would Wired write about it?

9. Who do you know? Any game-changers?
Develop a panel around them or their achievement.
Photo courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/ inju/3739765921

10. Don’t Feel Like An Expert?
Fine. Propose a social experiment.
And do It anyway.

11. RoadTwip

12. RoadTwip – The Accepted Proposal

13. David On Demand – At Cannes This Year

14. David On Demand: Strategic Partnerships
Leo Burnett made the
experiment seem like
just an idea that their
creative recruiter had.
The reality was that it
was a strategic move
to use live-streaming
video technology and
partner with several
companies. It was the
most talked about
topic at Cannes this
year. What experiments
can we take on? What
strategic partnerships
can we forge?

15. Google Job Experiment – cost: $6
A guy called Alec
realised that top creative
directors probably
Google themselves a lot.
He paid $6 for a Google
ad campaign for top
NYC creative directors.
He got a job. Simple.
Brilliant. What type of
experiments can we do
like this? What tools can
we use in innovative
ways? Propose the idea
to SXSW and do it
anyway. We’ll PR the hell
of it.

16. Other tips about topics for SXSW

17. Diversity-Related Proposals Needed

18. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced Topic?

19. Panel or Solo Presentation?

20. http://sxsw.com/panelpicker_faq

21. Next Step: Come Up With
Your Topic and Submit It.

22. http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/

23. http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/

24. Other Uses For Your Brilliant
Thought Leadership Ideas

25. Content for your personal blog…

26. …content for your personal Twitter…

27. …with links to iris Twitter & blog
Clients are asking us for
extraordinary ideas that
people will want to share
on social networks. We
are hypocrites if we’re
not actively sharing
content, both personally
and professionally. We
can build our network
with key influencers
globally by producing
content that lives on
BOTH your Twitter
pages/blog and the
company’s ones.

28. Everyone should share
I’ve taken our Aloha
contacts page and
put the “Who We
Are” page from a top
London social media
agency underneath.
Our vision of the
future. We need links
to everyone’s Twitter,
LinkedIn and
Facebook. We must
show clients that
everyone in the
company is using
social media.

29. Zappos - a company built on sharing
If we model sharing
for our clients, we
will win them over.
However, it’s all
about having brilliant
content that people
would want to pass
along. Like Zappos
which put customer
service and sharing
on Twitter at the
heart of it’s company.
Result: Bought by
Amazon for $1.2
billion.
Read the whole thing here: http://www.slideshare.net/chaturvedibraj/
zappos-a-social-media-culture

30. First, you must create great content
Step 1: Create
content for
ourselves and
for SXSW.

31. Then share it across multiple platforms
Step 2: Become a
company known
for sharing.

32. Task: make @irisworldwide like @bbhlabs
Like BBH Labs,
we can establish
ourselves as
curators of all
things interesting
and innovative.

33. Task: make @irisworldwide like @bbhlabs
We will engage
key influencers
globally with all
the extraordinary
ideas we’re
coming up with
for our clients
and ourselves.

34. Responding to industry white papers
http://www.slideshare.net/PSFK/psfk-presents-future-of-retail-report

35. W+K’s response to PSFK
Our thought leadership
pieces must find
homes on our
company blog. We only
have a curation blog at
the moment: the Under
The Influence one we
link to on our
@irisworldwide Twitter
page. Our content
must be on Slideshare
where we should be
responding to other
thought leadership
pieces as well.
Read it here: http://www.slideshare.net/PSFK/w-4425150

36. Appendix: Other Conferences
(to inspire you in your research,
to attend next year?)

37. Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital

38. PSFK Conference New York

39. Lift

40. O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit

41. Supernova

42. Idea City