Speakers

Enchantment – The Future of Influence

Guy Kawasaki

The entrepreneur’s entrepreneur is back with his ninth book, this time tackling the tricky art of influence and persuasion. Kawasaki (Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition, 2011, etc.) transforms the otherwise exhausted and overwrought tropes of how to win friends and influence people with a complete makeover here, whether he’s talking about wardrobe choice or tips for effective swearing. The author, a modern-day Dale Carnegie, offers explanations on how to wield the most influence in the digital age: Push Technologies like presentations, e-mails and Twitter are discussed as active means of enchanting others, while Pull Technologies like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn passively draw them in. The author’s suggestions for achieving likeability and trustworthiness, as well as overcoming resistance, are thoroughly explained and can easily translate from the workplace to the real world. Kawasaki makes good use of subheads and bullet points, rendering information in a searchable format. He ends each chapter with an anecdote that illuminates the effectiveness of his techniques–while it’s not original, it’s effective. The author’s trademark light and airy style is on display, but it’s his humor and empathy that makes the heavy use of BusinessSpeak and buzzwords more easily palatable.

Energy Abundance, What Then?

Bob Metcalfe

When done solving energy in coming decades, we will have a squanderable abundance of cheap and clean energy. It’s time to begin thinking about what we are going to use all that energy for. To get started, consider generalized economic prosperity, visiting the Moon or migrating to Mars, providing all the world with potable water, scanning and sequencing all of us for personalized healthcare, removing CO2 from the atmosphere, …

People are Analog Too

Andrew Hyde

The truth lies where it lies and in the future it does it more so. Electromagnetic fields erase all data, and it is our job to repurpose and reprogram our lives, and lies.

The Incredible Shrinking World

Jason Wohlfahrt

As technology continues to advance, everything is shrinking before our very eyes. From the phones that we use, to the cars that we drive; from our medical technology, to the clothes we buy, bigger is no longer better. The world of 2021 will be an incredibly tiny one, packed with more wonder and whimsy than the mind can currently imagine. Sit back in awe, as Jason Wohlfahrt takes you on a journey of mind, body, and soul, albeit a very small one.

2021: Hardware is the New Software

Nick Pinkston

Just 10 years ago we were climbing out the internet bubble. Fast forward to today:
We sit in 2011 during a surge of agile software startup activity, but we’re climbing out of a global recession in manufacturing (so-called “man-cession”), but there’s a force arising out of the rubble: “Makers” – who build physical hardware as agile as software. By 2021, we’ve seen this run its course: startups making unique physical products are as ubiquitous as today’s web startups. Fueled by open source hardware, digital manufacturing and the internet – these hardware startups overturned what we thought we knew about making ::things::

The Future of NonProfits – Thrive and Innovate in the Digital Age

Randal Moss

The Future of Nonprofits helps organizations capitalize on internal innovation. Innovative nonprofits are able to better predict future trends to remake and reshape their culture, structure, and staff to be a more nimble and lean. By applying the strategies laid out in this book, nonprofit professionals of all levels can prepare their organizations to take advantage of future trends and develop innovative “internal entrepreneurs” that will grow revenue and drive their mission.

The State of Free Speech Online in 2021

Brandon Wiley

A retrospective on the historical developments in online censorship and free speech from 2011 to 2021. Trends, major events, and predictions for 2022 and beyond.

- Presented on behalf of Dorkbot

Political Communication in 2021

Harold Cook

The future of successful political communications in the coming decade is even more uncertain than political communications methods have been over the past decade. Political advisor, analyst, and satirist Harold Cook will explore the range of possibilities for the future, in this very unique pursuit for votes – in which more than half the candidates fall short, almost half the voters are bitterly disappointed, and almost everyone involved takes themselves way too seriously.

4 Futures of Coworking via The Golden Girls

Angel Kwiatkowski

The Golden Girls can teach us more than how to accessorize with shoulder pads and solve problems with cheesecake: this sitcom’s sassy seniors can provide a useful visioning framework for the future of coworking. I’ll show you how! Join me on a journey that uses scenario planning (a discipline for developing multiple imagined futures to guide decision making) to explore coworking in 2021 – via four fussy fictional characters from 1988.

The Future of the Texas Hill Country

George Cofer

George will present twenty provocative slides showing the beauty of the Texas Hill Country and the hard-scrabble lives of the folk who have lived there for generations – in an emotional, compelling presentation that will cause everyone to ‘get it’ that preserving the Texas Hill Country should be a high priority for everyone whether they’ve been a Texan for a day or a life-time.

Slingin’ the Cream, Living the Dream…with Ice Cream Man

Matt Allen

Matt will focus on the future of free and the power of altruism, doing things right and being nice. A third of Matt’s talk with be about what he does, traveling the country and giving away free ice cream. The middle third will be the philosophy behind it – using quotes, examples, why free works and why free ice cream works. The final third will be about future-looking prognostications and what is the level-up for free.

Gamification: The Future of Fun

Kristy Bowden

Games are perhaps the most engaging and motivating interactive entertainment in human history. Currently, commercial video games use a variety of methods (from multi-player competition to achievement structures) to engage and motivate players. Companies have begun to employ these tactics to reach customers and encourage behavior. The future of this gamification of products will likely include everything from education and workforce training to community service. My talk will cover the innovative ways gamification is currently being used and will provide a look towards the future of how gamification will be used as new integration technologies become ubiquitous.

The Future of Music

John Pointer

The future of music isn’t with the CD or .99 cent download. The future of music is in the hands of the fans + subscriptions = Patronism.

We’ll talk about how the CD and album model is dead and how fan subscriptions or Patronism is the model of the future. It allows fans to pay-what-they-feel for monthly access to their favorite band. Career musicians have tons of content that they can’t monetize. Super fans really want access to that material. For the first time ever musicians can now monetize that unreleased material.

Managers Ousted

Prabhakar Gopalan

For the last 20-30 years, management wisdom, and policy objectives at both corporate and national level have been driven by profit maximization (increase profits, increase GDP). We have seen where that got us. What is the future? The future is about sharing values, collaborating and truly making the world a better place. There are numerous disruptive movements already underway. Let’s see what, how and why we can change the world.

The Future of Entertainment: From Sensation to Imagination

Derek Woodgate

In 2021, two of the most scintillating, emerging dimensions in the entertainment arena, will be in the realms of augmented sensation and expanded encounter. In both cases, active AI and nanobots plus interactive cognitive response systems will help to forge hitherto unthinkable inner and exterior experiences.

The Future of Transportation and P2P Car Sharing

Jessica Scorpio

Peer-to-peer car sharing is a new trend that could quickly bring millions of vehicles online available by the hour, day or week for sharing. With companies like eBay, Airbnb and Zipcar there are enough people who are either interested in looking at a different consumption model or sharing it for the greater good. Through stories of people who use Getaround, we’ll see how car consumption is changing towards a shared model. Not only is it really good for the environment and offers substantial cost savings, car sharing members gain access to an exciting variety of vehicles not otherwise possible. Fast forward to SXSW 2021, you won’t have to own a car anymore to get all the personal mobility you need!

Tech 2021: Uploading Humanism

Valeria Maltoni

OF COURSE there are women in tech, and their agenda is precisely the same as men. The shift will occur when instead of thinking — and talking about — the inherently sexist idea of women (or men) in tech, we focus instead on the co-creation aspects. Think of that as the creative spirit, which traditionally is expressed in feminine poetic terms. THAT is what we need. Balanced humanism is what we need as active agent in increasing the options, choices, and possibilities of others. That is what technology wants.