MBA2388 My Biggest Take-Aways from SXSW + Free Ride Friday

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show because a better business begins with a better you. That's why we deliver practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started back in 2014. And today's episode is Free Ride Friday, where we give away a free ride to the$100 MBA program, helping you become a better entrepreneur 100 % guaranteed over at 100mba.net. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review, and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday.

0:44Listen in on Friday to see if you won. we announce this week's winner a little bit later in the episode. In today's episode, you will learn my biggest takeaways from South by Southwest. South by Southwest is a unique conference that has operated out of Austin, Texas since 1987. It combines tech and innovation, gaming, music, and film. It's basically a week-long festival about the future, about culture, technology, and where we're heading. And in 2023, for the first time, they're doing it out of Austin in Sydney, Australia. I attended South by Southwest so I can gather all the information, the tips, the insights, so I can share with you here on the show so you can implement it in your life, in your business, so you can be ahead of the curve and be ready for what to expect in the future.

1:32Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I really had no idea what to expect about South by Southwest. I heard so much about it over the years. It's this huge conference and festival that happens over a course of a week. So when we bought our tickets and decided to attend, I was pleasantly surprised because this is an incredible event. I think what makes it so great is that it gathers very interesting people from interesting walks of life, whether it's in tech, business, entertainment, film, music, creatives of all sorts. And the ideas that are shared and discussed have been incredible. Some of the sessions that we attended really were eye-opening.

2:11I want to share with you some of the insights and tips that I've grabbed from this conference so that you can implement them and start thinking about them at least in the days to come. And at the end, I'll share with you, do I think it's worth going to South by Southwest? Is it worth the price of admission and the travel and the timeout you got to take for a week? We'll get into that a little bit later, but first, what are some of the things that I want to first share with you? Things that really have stood out that I've learned from this event. It's so surprising that AI was a big part of the conversation.

2:41And here's the truth. AI is here to change the internet forever. The internet will be unrecognizable in the very near future. And we got to get ready for it as business owners. This is the first thing I was thinking about. I'm sitting in this session. I'm hearing these talks about how AI is going to manipulate how we search for content, how we consume content, how we even value content. And if you're in business, in any business, you've got to start thinking about How is this going to affect your business? The one thing that was really interesting is how search will change. Most businesses rely on Google searches to be discovered, whether it's through SEO, whether they're a local business, or even through word of mouth and people search it on Google.

3:21Well, the way that things are heading, AI will take over search. And instead of giving people the top results, it's going to just give the searcher what it asks for. So for example, if I search best Italian restaurant near me, it's just going to give me one answer and say, this is what we recommend based on the AI algorithm, based on what we know about you and all that kind of stuff. So that business will reap all the benefits. But what about the other businesses that want to show up on Google? Well, people will have to change the way they search. They're going to have to say, what are the top 10 Italian restaurants near me?

3:57And then maybe you would show up. But AI is going to really create this forced curation, this forced feeding of one message, one idea. If you get your traffic through Google, through search engines, what are other ways you can create more traffic for your business that's outside of search? Because you're not going to be able to rely on that traffic for much longer. For me, this rang alarm bells in my head, and it should for you too, because it means you need to start building a stronger brand. You need to become your own media company and start creating great content, whether it's audio or video or written, whatever it might be on social, to create brand awareness rather than just rely on search.

4:39You've got to get customers in different ways, and we just can't rest on our laurels anymore. But don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom. AI is going to make our life really convenient in a lot of ways. The way spellcheck has helped us write better emails, it's going to take that to a million times, especially when it comes to languages. Say, for example, you want to reach a new audience. You have a great YouTube channel, but all your content is in English. And you want to maybe tap into the South American audience, the Spanish speaking audience. Well, this technology already exists. And it only will get better from this point on where you can just upload your video and it will translate.

5:20lady. It will overdub with your own voice what you're saying in a new language. It'll even deep fake your lips to move in accordance to that language. So going back to that example, your YouTube channel, you'd upload your videos, you download it. All of a sudden in the video, you're speaking Spanish and your lips are moving in accordance to the words that you're saying in Spanish. You now can create a whole new YouTube channel of your content, but now in Espanol. The power of AI is really, really incredible. We just need to adjust the way we work around it. One of the things that was talked about at South by Southwest is the booming economy of creators.

5:59It's becoming so much easier now to build a brand, to build a little niche business as a content creator, whether it's just solely on TikTok or Instagram or via YouTube or a podcast. But the bar is becoming so low in terms of the bar of entry. You can really create incredible content with very little tech. There's creators and influencers making a very healthy living using no fancy technology. They're using their phone, getting brand deals, getting sponsored content, and building an incredible following online because they're consistently creating valuable content, entertaining content. Another thing that was really discussed in a lot of the sessions that I attended was the importance of diversity in all industries.

6:47And it's everybody's job. It's my job. It's your job. It's everybody's job to make sure that we're all represented and everybody has a voice. I grew up as a minority in America. And yes, I know what it feels like to be ignored, to be treated differently. But I never felt like a victim. I never felt like that's an excuse for me not to perform, not to do well, not to exceed or to excel in my career. And that perspective is being shared more often now, not just, hey, we want to save minorities. These poor minorities need a voice, whether it's in music or in film or in tech or in gaming or whatever it might be.

7:23The message now is saying, hey, their voice is actually valuable. Their perspective is valuable. These people are part of our society and the work they produce adds to the beautiful art that we create in our world. And I appreciate that message because it means let's not just give people opportunities and attention just because we have to, because that's what's politically correct, but because there's a value there that it's actually in everybody's benefit that we see from everybody. And I really liked that message because it doesn't make anybody powerful or powerless or a victim. It makes everybody, minority or majority, valuable.

8:03I also had a chance to meet some interesting people while I was waiting in line at the expo halls. I tried some VR and some games at the expo hall, which really opened my mind and said, wow, VR is going to really change the world when it comes to entertainment, immersion, work. This is coming, guys. Like it's not going anywhere. And whether it's going to look like these chunky goggles or glasses or whatever it might be, we might be looking at the end of the screen, as Amy Webb said in her keynote presentation, who's a very well-known futurist. But I think the tech world has known this for some time.

8:41If you look at the iterations of the smartphone recently, things are not really progressing. Things are not really changing. We've made the screens bigger, smaller, more high res, you know, borderless, all that kind of stuff. But essentially, the lifespan of the screen is probably going away and being replaced by some sort of virtual or augmented reality that's just around the corner that is going to be affordable, but also very immersive and allows you to experience what you're working on, what you're enjoying, what you're watching in a totally different way. If you haven't tried VR, it's definitely an experience.

9:17As soon as you put it on, you feel like you've gone somewhere new. And when you take it off, it actually takes a while to acclimate yourself. Kind of like when you leave a theater and you're in that dark room in that theater for two hours, you leave it and you're kind of like, okay, we're back to reality. I would say when you take off a VR headset, it's like that times 10. It's like, okay, where am I again? You're kind of readjusting. But I definitely see that this technology is going to permeate especially online businesses, people that are teaching for a living, coaching for a living, people that are doing online courses, people that are interacting with their customers through customer service and all that kind of stuff.

9:56I did this VR experience for Qantas Airlines where you put on a headset and you take a tour of their upcoming Airbus A350. You go through all the classes. You feel like you're in first class. You're sitting in the scene. You're looking around and you can move your head and you can look down the corridor. It's super immersive and I can definitely see this being a part of the learning environment online very, very soon. My last takeaway I want to share with you is as scary as the future might feel like with the technology kind of moving very fast. Things are changing incredibly fast. The changes that we're experiencing in a span of a year usually took like 10 years, just like a couple of decades ago.

10:37So be ready for change. Be flexible. Be open minded. Be a learner, a lifelong learner. Understand that there's going to be a lot of things that are going to come our way. We've got to learn it fast. We've got to adopt. and then we're going to change again because innovation is moving so quickly. And it can feel overwhelming. It can feel frustrating because it's like, oh, another new thing. But those who keep up, those who are learners and are curious and are having fun with it are the ones who are going to make it and actually benefit from all this stuff, from all this innovation technology. And people that kind of put their hands up, they're going to be left behind.

11:10And as long as that's a conscious choice, that's fine. But if you want to be left behind, if you want to be on the cutting edge, if you want to be successful and utilize all this great technology, then stay in the know. And that is one of the reasons why I would recommend going to South by Southwest, because it kind of keeps you abreast. It keeps you up to date with what's happening in the world of technology, innovation, film, music, culture, and it keeps you ahead of the curve, which I like because I don't want to be left behind. I want to be ahead of the curve. I want to know what's ahead or possibly ahead.

11:41Can't know for sure, but what are some of the options so that I can just at least mentally prepare and get ready and start investing my time and effort and even money in things that will make a huge difference in the future of our world. On top of that, it's a lot of fun. It's actually a lot of fun. It's a great event. It's well organized. The people that run it are very humble, very nice. I've seen smiles the whole week through the conference, through the attendees and the organizers and the moderators and the volunteers. Everybody's actually been fantastic. I see some great films and got a chance to catch some good music.

12:15And it's just kind of nice to get out of the office and have an experience once a year like that. So if you are thinking about going to South by Southwest, whether it's in Austin or in Sydney, it's going to be in Sydney for the next 10 years, actually. I would highly recommend you grab a ticket. It's well worth it and worth the time out. I would say that probably the investment of time is more than the money, but it's worth it. Thanks so much for listening to the$100 MBA show. That wraps up the lesson, but not the show because we got free ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's free ride. And the winner is Running Back.

12:48That's the handle on Apple Podcast. Running Back says great practical information. Five stars. Easy listening to help provide guidance to business. Thanks, Running Back, for that great review. Your mission is to email me at omar at 100mba.net so we can hook you up with the free ride to the$100 MBA, helping you become a better entrepreneur, 100 % guaranteed over at 100mba.net. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Conferencing is tiring, okay? It's very tiring. It's taxing on your time, on your effort. A lot of these conferences are expensive. Tickets are like$1 ,000 to$2 ,000. There's a travel if you're traveling from different cities or from abroad.

13:29You're meeting people. You're talking to people. You're on your feet. You're paying attention. You're thinking a lot. It's tiring. So make sure you make time to recover. Whether it's at the end of the day or the end of the week, don't just jump right back into work. Give yourself a chance to review your notes, to think about things, even maybe write down a summary of what you learned from that conference on the weekend. And then once you've kind of recharged a little bit, a day or two, get back at it and build your business with this new perspective, with these new ideas that you got. Start implementing what you learned.

14:00Feel energized. But it's always good to kind of absorb what you learned, summarize it in your notes, and then even say, hey, I'm going to take action on these three things in the coming weeks. That way you make the most out of the experience and see actual practical value of the application of what you learned. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you on Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

14:36Thank you.