đ¤đłVote Local, Austin: 20 SXSW panels featuring Austinites that deserve your PanelPicker vote
By: Tom Hadfield, CEO @ M.io
SXSW 2019 may still be many months away, but the time to vote for panels is now!
Support the ATX Startup Community by voting for this selection of panels featuring Austinites.
If youâre unfamiliar with PanelPicker â it is a time for brands, influencers and professionals to submit their ideas for presentations and discussions to be held on one of the many stages at next yearâs SXSW. Once submitted, the community is allowed to chime in and vote on what topics capture their interest. Community voting opened up last week and will run its course over the next two weeks ending on August 30th. Of the thousands of submissions, our team has poured through and highlighted a diverse grouping of Austin startup focused panels that we think deserve to be at SXSW 2019!
We reached out to the M.io readers to make sure we hadnât missed out any awesome people so may notice this post has grown from 15 to 20 panels!
1. âStartup-Corporate Partnerships Key To Innovationâ with JD Weinstein @ Oracle
A recent trend for all startups to take note of: corporations are changing their approach to innovation. Weâve selected this panel as our first to upvote as itâs something thatâs been critical to our own path to success at Message.io. Find out how startups and corporations can partner to achieve results that truly benefit both sides. JD Weinstein, head of Oracle Global Startup Ecosystem in Austin; Karen Kilroy, entrepreneur and CEO of Kilroy Blockchain; Sabrina Wojtewicz, co-founder of Bunker Labs; and Sara Chapman, Director of Entrepreneurship Strategy & Partnerships at Dell will discuss how both startups and corporations can work together and find the right fit.
2. âFrom Basic Bot to Extraordinary AIâ with C.K. Sample @ Hypergiant
Over the past five years, the tech industry has pushed the implementation of conversational intelligence, but actual execution presents several challenges. This panel will take a realistic look at whatâs possible and how to get started. Technologist C.K. Sample from Hypergiant, expert data scientist Drew Lipman, and EVP of Design Chris Klee will lead this panel thatâs sure to give high-quality advice that goes beyond the hype.
3. âHunting and Gathering Data is so Paleolithic!â with Monica Landers @ Storyfit
Tools and machines now allow us to capitalize on unstructured data in ways unimaginable even a year ago. We no longer have to travel, search, and pull together large datasets, which allows more time to interpret, extract intelligent insights, and act upon the data. Monica Landers, CEO of StoryFit, Will Mitchell, CEO of ContractSimply.com, Julia Cheek, CEO of Everlywell, and Matthew Wensing, Co-Founder of Risk Pulse, will share how to leverage your companyâs data to make smarter decisions and ride the next wave of performance and productivity gains. Learn how to focus your data objectives and build a data-rich culture based on applied use cases.
4. âGetting Vulnerable with Female Entrepreneursâ with Autumn Manning @ You Earned It
This impressive panel lineup may look effortlessly successful but acknowledges that they are struggling with the same things as everyone else. Four successful female company founders â Shayna Brown, Founder of Chez Boom Audio, Jan Ryan, Exec. Director of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the University of Texas at Austin, Alex Winkelman Zeplain, Founder of Hello My Tribe, and Autumn Manning, CEO of YouEarnedItâ will open up about their struggles, pressures, and leadership battles to share how theyâve coped and built a community.
5. âMaximizing ROI via TLC (Talent-Leadership-Culture)â with Kim Gorsuch @ Weeva
Decision Makers and Influencers (executives, investors, board members, advisors) must push for these results and not accept anything less. This panel will help you get a better understanding of how Talent-Leadership-Culture drives ROI and how it can be achieved, with Wade Allen, CEO of Cendea, Jim Bledsoe, Senior Partner of Cendea, and KimGorsuch, CEO of Weeva.
6. âHow To Activate Your Hidden Data Workforceâ with Brett Hurt @ data.world
Learn how to shift your companyâs thinking from Selective Data Empowerment to Collective Data Empowermentâmaking it possible for everyone to contribute. Join Alex Balazs, Vice President of Intuit, @databrett, CEO of @datadotworld, and Dan Khabie, CEO of Mirum Agency, as they discuss how to activate your hidden data workforce to build a truly data-driven culture.
7. âRadically Better Mentoring: Giving Women a Chanceâ with Mellie Price @ Dell Medical School
Mentoring is so important yet fundamentally broken for aspiring women leaders. The lack of top level female representation leaves many aspiring young women without role-models, and critically, access to mentors in the workplace. This panel brings together Anna Robinson, CEO and founder of Ceresa, an international womenâs mentorship organization, as well as successful female mentors and mentees Jackie Olson, Director Customer Retention and Analytics at Build A Sign, Mellie Price, Executive Director of Commercialization at Dell Medical School, and Brent Allen, Associate Publisher of Marie Claire. It will also cover how to find mentorship opportunities, the importance of menteesâ preparation, and how to build truly impactful and joyful mentoring experiences.
8. âWhat B&M Brands Can Learn From eCommerceâ with Ryan Wuerch @ Dosh
With 94 percent of all retail purchases still taking place in brick and mortar locations, itâs time brands unlock the full potential of mobile technology. E-commerce and online brands are starting to crack digital marketing as the industry has been progressively adopting hyper-personalized advertising. The same success has been impossible to effectively replicate offline, and physical stores continue to struggle to understand customer behavior. Doshâs CEO, Ryan Wuerch, says there are three crucial components we need to effectively address to master offline advertising: automation, location, and personalization.
9. âCEO Diaries: So Youâve Been Acquired. Now What?â with Cotter Cunningham @ RetailMeNot
Another important panel topic in a Startupâs journey! Hear from Brian Sharples from HomeAway.com, Cotter Cunningham from RetailMeNot.com, and Jag Bath from Favor Delivery. These are 3 successful Austin CEOs who have built significant consumer-facing tech businesses. Find what life is like after their companies have been acquired. Learn how acquisitions can usher in new eras of growth and hiring, how to nurture existing cultures, how to merge different ways of thinking when the acquiring company doesnât have tech roots, and how to deploy strategies for future success.
10. âInvesting in & operating a fast-growth D2C bizâ with Roger Chen @ Silverton Partners
This will be a panel with two venture capital investors and two entrepreneurs that focus on the consumer goods category. Topics will include best practices in building fast-growth consumer goods brands and the differences between the old and new way of building consumer product companies. There is a great tie-in to Austin here with panelist Roger Chen, given that the city has become a hotbed for consumer goods innovation. The companies that are represented will be digitally-native brands, with Jessica Ewing, CEO of Literati, and Georgina Gooley, Co-founder of Billie.
11. âCorporations are Failing to Innovate, or Are They?â with Ben Lamm @ Hypergiant
This panel with Mike Erwin, Co-Founder of SoftMatch, Emily Keeton, Global Head of M&A at WeWork, and Ben Lamm, Co-Founder of Hypergiant, will explain how corporate innovators can expedite innovation through strategic connections to cutting-edge tech locked-up in the startup ecosystem. Startups will learn how to leverage corporate M&A and R&D departments to provide resources for scale and funding opportunities for next-stage growth.
12. âInside the Wild Wild West of Cryptocurrenciesâ with Kyle Samani @ Multicoin Capital
Kyle Samani, Managing Partner of Multicoin Capital, Ari Paul, CIO of Blocktower, Linda Xie, Managing Director of Scalar Capital, & @Robert Hackett, Editor of Fortune, will elucidate their investment practices and approaches, expound upon forces moving the market, and imagine what the future of blockchain will hold for users around the world. This will no doubt be a lively conversation that fiercely debates diverse investment approaches.
13. âBuilding Your Brand in Texas & Beyondâ with Dan Graham @ Notley Ventures
Ranked Americaâs top state for businesses in 2018 by CNBC, Texasâ rapid entrepreneurial growth and business-friendly attitude have made the state an attractive place to start and expand a business nationwide. Hear from C-suite executives of successful Texas-born and bred companies across varying industries â from retail to tech to social enterpriseâ all at different stages in their growth, as they share their tips and strategies for success.
14. âWhy âImagination Eats Innovation for Breakfastâ with Josh Jones-Dilworth @ Culturati
Josh Jones-Dilworth, co-founder of Culturati Team, a community of CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors and other c-suite leaders who practice and study culture building, joins Sharon Chang, the founder of Future Architects and visionary behind Future Labs Imagination Fund, to dig into what most startups do wrong when it comes to âinnovation.â This panel explores why we must develop the discipline and capacity to imagine new realities before we can innovate our way out of the complex challenges we face.
15. âUsing AR to Bridge the Online-Offline Retail Gap â with Trish Katz @ Outdoor Voices
Augmented Reality allows users to interact with virtual objects seamlessly in the real world. It has the power to enhance online and offline retail experiences, making it attractive to both shoppers and retail workers. By using AR in the digital shopping experience, product uncertainty is removed and conversion is increased. In store, AR can be used to provide product details, promotional displays, customer reviews and more. In this session weâll discuss examples and opportunities for retailers to bring Augmented Reality into their retail strategy and tech roadmap.
16. âYou Donât Need Rockstar Engineersâ with Dan Murrel Jr and Karen White @ BigCommerce
Once upon a time in computing, it was thought that in addition to junior and senior software engineers, companies needed superhumans that could do the work of many: the mythical rockstar engineer. You donât need rockstar engineers. You need a rockstar engineering organization. An engineering organization is more than the group of people within. It can have a history. Diversity. A point of view. Opinions. Practices. Failures to learn from. Successes to celebrate. Experience. Stories to tell. Learning how to tell those stories, share that experience, voice those opinions, and demonstrate that diversity, is key to elevating your engineering organization. This session explains the strategy, documents our own efforts to make that transition, and shares lessons learned along the way.
17. âHow Underdogs Can Build A Kickass, Inclusive Teamâ with Meteesh Karia @ The Zebra
Competition for top technical talent is tough. And it gets even tougher when your company is just starting out and canât match the salaries that bigger players offer. The Zebra, the top car insurance search site in the US, overcame those challenges with an unorthodox approach that included easing up on technical requirements for particular roles, recruiting in under-utilized areas like Nigeria, and guaranteeing a phone screen to any candidate from an underrepresented background. As a result, The Zebra assembled a diverse group of engineers in one of the most competitive hiring environments in the country. Find out how their approach can help your scrappy startup put together a team you can be proud of.
18. âCreativeâs Failure Swap: Stories and Solutionsâ with Michu Benaim Steiner @ In-House International
For leaders in creative industries, failure is still taboo. Reputation is king, and referrals are still a major source of new business. So we drown our failures in margaritas pray no one ever finds out. But failure is knowledge capital.
Participants signing up for the workshop will list topics theyâre interested in, and areas where theyâve failed. The workshop will create a safe space for creatives to exchange their failures openly, discuss lessons learned, and help peers going through similar issues now.
By the end of the session, participants will feel less alone, be better prepared to face tough challenges and have people they can call on to work through difficult situations in the future. As a whole weâll build a more resilient, competent and collaborative creative community.
19. Oil & Water: Can Banks and Fintech Innovate 4 Good? with James Garvey @ Self Lender
So what happens when a small Bank that is a social engine for good wants to make a difference in Fintech too? Meet Sunrise Banks, a certified B Corp and Global Alliance for Banking on Values bank â that takes on the challenge of integrating values with Fintech. Hear from a bank who was one of the first B Corps in the country, a fintech who will discuss how they collaborate. A Fast Company reporter to discuss the impact of social good on our economy. And, finally Dessa, the socially conscious musician (currently, in talks) to add consumer perspective on how implementing popular Fintech apps adds to positive social interactions and public good.
20. âNext Generation Messaging in the Workplaceâ with Tom Hadfield @ M.io
And finally, I will be moderating a lively discussion with leaders from Google, Cisco & Slack API about the shift from email to real-time messaging, which has enhanced collaboration and productivity, but also presents significant challenges.
Vote for this panel to understand how top-performing companies use workflows, bots, & other integrations within their internal chat to create organizational efficiencies. Youâll strategies to prevent your teamâs internal chat app from being a noisy information overload, and hear upcoming trends from platform thought leaders like Jonathan Rosenberg, Bear Douglas, & Mike Sorvillo from Google Cloudâs Google Hangouts Chat.
If youâre using a combination of Slack + Microsoft Teams + Cisco Webex Teams, check out M.io for how you can get everyone in your org chatting together at last.
