Pick Us! — for SXSW 2023

Designing for Inclusive Innovation

We survive because of innovation. It keeps the world turning and in turn, enriches our lives. Oftentimes the focus of innovation is on the end result when really, the focus should be on the backbone and foundation of innovation — inclusivity. When we design a solution from end to end that works well across a multitude of demographics, life stages, abilities, educations, or incomes, it starts to stretch how we think about who can benefit from solutions. Yet, many design process models that we hold near or dear are broken and prevent us from ever becoming truly inclusive. In this workshop, we are getting uncomfortable, we are questioning the source of our insights and we are sharing the tools needed to inspire change and influence a different, more inclusive way of thinking.

Speakers

• Carrie Patterson Reed, Executive Director, Research, VMLY&R 
• Maddie Umali, Associate Director, Research, VMLY&R

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Leading In Polarity: Drop the Strategy & Get Real

It’s time we stop overcomplicating how to create connected workplace culture. Leaders who work diligently to engineer corporate culture are often at a loss when the disconnect remains with employees. As professionals we are trained to use strategy, but it often ignores a simple universal truth: human just want to be seen.

In our increasingly polarized world, belonging is something that unites us. As leaders we can use that shared truth to connect with our employees and lead compassionately. We’ll explore why strategy can get in the way of authenticity, and how to look within ourselves, and be ourselves, to lead with empathy. From this place, we can bridge gaps and create the sense of belonging we all crave.

Speakers

• Christine Nollen, Executive Director, Leadership Development, VMLY&R
• Ronnie Felder, Global Chief People Officer, VMLY&R
• Brian Owens, SVP, Commerce Strategy, VMLY&R COMMERCE
• Graham Smith, Managing Director, Experience Strategy, VMLY&R

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How Brands Can Re-Write The Future

In 2022, a university, a creative agency and a filmmaker created The Endangered Generation?, a documentary that asked a simple question: what must humanity do to change the future? In this SXSW panel, they’ll discuss what they learned, and what it means for brands and businesses in a new era of marketing. Sharing clips from the documentary, they’ll unpack insights from scientists, artists, Indigenous Australians, engineers, journalists, and South American villagers who are tackling the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced, and how brands can use these learnings to create meaningful work, reassign marketplace value, and play their role in rewriting the future.

Speakers:

• Fabian Marrone, Chief Marketing Officer, Monash University
• Debbi Vandeven, Global Chief Creative Officer, VMLY&R
• Celeste Geer, Director, Celest Geer Films

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Humans vs. Machine: Language Informs Our Future

While we’re all catastrophizing about the latest terrifying news about the AI of the week going sentient, there's a far greater threat on our horizon: we are becoming the AI we fear. We’ve observed, time and time again, that the language we use to describe ourselves is more like machine and AI - and we are losing what makes us human. Why? We've found that the metaphors that we use reveal how we unconsciously think we’re more akin to machines and robots than we ever realized; we talk about our bandwidth, feeling recharged, we unplug and we go offline, we have outages in our productivity. We think in simplistic binaries, unable to wrestle with the complex gray area of our human experience. What happens when there won’t be any of what makes “us” in the future?

Speakers

• Jessica Kukreti, Managing Director, Research Studio, VMLY&R
• Matt Klein, Cultural Strategist & Advisor, Zine

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Queering Entrepreneurship for Inclusion and Impact

If you Google ‘entrepreneur’/ ask anyone to imagine an entrepreneur, it’s likely a white man from the Global North who’s done something to Innovate! Disrupt! Transform! often to become wealthy and/or famous. Even social / women’s / informal entrepreneurship are qualifiers, diversions from rather than inclusions to the norm. In my MPhil, I worked with queer entrepreneurs to queer entrepreneurship as a social construct by including queer folks AND in the academic sense. Queering is a questioning of norms, never settling on an answer, as a fixed answer perpetuates binaries, e.g., who is (or isn’t) an entrepreneur. My research uncovered the benefits of queering entrepreneurship (value creation, inclusion, impact) and indicates what a queered entrepreneurship could look like.

Speaker

• Rhiannon Rees, Strategy Director, VMLY&R

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Women in Web3: The Power of Community

According to research conducted by creative agency Berlin Cameron, 87% of women are actively engaged in some type of virtual community and use these channels to network, connect over shared life experiences, and explore similar hobbies. While it’s apparent that women find value in virtual communities, there’s a lack of awareness to the true value of the metaverse. In fact, an average of 23% of women surveyed have never heard of the metaverse and that disparity grows with age – 10% of women under 25 are unfamiliar with the metaverse while 44% of women over 50 have never heard of it. Join us to explore the exciting possibilities of web3 and the metaverse as it relates to women, while highlighting the female-led communities making the next era of the internet a more inclusive place for all.

Speakers:

• Paige Raiczyk, Strategist, Berlin Cameron
• Alex Hutchi, Discord and Gaming Consultant, N/A
• iGeena Dunne, Founder, Honey Badges NFT

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It's Really Really Really Lonely At The Top

You know the old adage, “It’s Lonely At The Top,” now Benson Strategy Group, TheLi.st and Berlin Cameron—champions for women’s success—reveal research about just how lonely it is for female senior executives and founders—and the damage to their lives, and the lives of the people around them. Even before the pandemic, Loneliness was an epidemic on the scale of the Opioid Crisis, according to the US Surgeon General. But when it comes to successful, high-achieving women (who are often also the ONLY woman/woman of color at their level), Loneliness is doing even greater harm to their health, relationships and finances—and it trickles down to their businesses and employees. This session will offer insight and solutions.

Speakers

• Ann Shoket, CEO, TheLi.st
• Jennifer DaSilva, President, Berlin Cameron
• Bea Arthur, Founder & CEO, The Difference
• Stephanie Lee, CEO and Founder, selfmade

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More Than a JPEG: Creating Consumer Utility W/NFTs

When Kevin McCoy minted the first ever NFT called “Quantum” in 2014, people raised a skeptical brow at the idea of purchasing a digital asset. Seven years later, "Quantum" sold for $1.4M at the close of Sotheby’s auction.

Today, brands think of non-fungible tokens as a key part of their omnichannel planning strategies, but in a market where the ups are overshadowed by the downs, how can branded NFT drops break through the speculative noise? UTILITY.

We’ll hear from the team behind the three-time Cannes Lion award-winning “Genesis Curry Flow” about how the ingredients of celebrity, relevancy, and consumer tension created a recipe for NFT success for Under Armour and Curry Brand – and how they’ve continued to build this passionate community through ongoing drops and partnerships.

Speakers: 

• Jennifer DaSilva, President, Berlin Cameron
• Billy Huang, Founder, Luna Market
• Valerie Middleton, Head of Marketing, Curry Brand, Under Armour
• Jack Cameron, Founder, NewKino Studio

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