Dan Lacaze: A Suit in SXSW – day six
Dan Lacaze, a Group Account Director at BMF Sydney, is attending SXSW in Austin, Texas and is writing a daily diary exclusively for Campaign Brief.
Day 6: the Gospel
It seems that I have gone from BBQ ribs to world politics in just five days.
Today was an inspiring finale to my journey. The first session was a chat with Henry Rollins, who wikipedia describes as an American musician, writer, journalist, publisher, actor, television and radio host, spoken word artist, comedian, and activist.
He describes himself as an insurgent, and revels in delivering a ‘sermon’. His punk rock roots drive his passion and curiosity for a better world. And his curiosity then drives his anger to make things better. Curiosity is a major theme emerging here at SXSW that seems to unite the various groups from Interactive, Film and Music.
Henry has travelled to 85 countries, including Islamabad during Benazir Bhutto assignation, North Korea under an alias, and Iraq to visit the Green Zone and Saddam’s Palace. He talked of walking into his local supermarket in L.A. with “the dust of Baghdad still on my boots”.
He was wonderfully poetic, including these gems:
on collaborating with people: “pick your co-conspirators carefully”
on stress: “it keeps the skin on the snare drum tight”
on technology and underground radio: “it helps widen people’s perimeter, or adds another colour to their palette”
In stark contrast was Dr. Astro Teller, Google’s Captain of Moonshots (yes, that is his title) and final keynote in the Convention Centre. His division ‘Google X’ is an innovation incubator that takes it’s inspiration from JFK’s famous Moon Shoot speech to congress in 1961.
Google X are responsible for Google’s self-driving car, Google Glass, Project Loon (a project to get high-alititude balloons into the atmosphere to bring 
internet to the world), and Project Wing, a drone-type delivery service that has been trialled in remote Queensland.
Astro’s theory on innovation was clear; embrace failure, and fail early.
I might test this mix of curiosity, anger and failure at the bar. Wish me luck.