SXSWi - remote!
I wasn’t able to join my intrepid colleagues who ventured to Austin for our annual digital innovation fix at South By Southwest. And while I’m missing the fabulous fete thrown by Frog design, morning muffins fresh from the hotel breakfast buffet, and jockeying for a seat at the keynote – I’ve got a front row, no carbon footprint seat to SXSWi content from the comfort of my New York City abode.
Thanks to twitter, I’m in the thick of the conference virtually. My TweetDeck is buzzing with reports from every session as I follow the bouncing #sxsw tags. I can tell which speakers are worth “listening to” as the volume of tweets increase and the speaker’s words begin to flow in a continuous stream, 140 characters at a clip.
I sit in my comfy armchair and multi-task, simultaneously fighting the online crowds at Target’s Liberty of London launch while I also play Austin traffic cop, sharing which rooms are filling up and who’s holding seat for whom. I’ve also been doing a little match making as I tweet forth meeting places to introduce my friends to each other.
About the only thing I can’t do is hike over to the Austin Whole Foods (corporate HQ) where my nose tingles as I encounter small mountains of fresh bread, my eyes dance across rows of glistening berries, and my foodie soul swoons at the high alter of food merchandising excellence.
So if you find yourself, like me, grounded and not able to attend that next big conference in person – don’t despair. Situate yourself in a comfortable place, get the wifi tuned up and line up your columns and hash tags in whatever twitter console you choose. Because the next best thing to being their in person is participating 140 characters at a time!
Elizabeth Talerman is CEO and Managing Partner of Nucleus – a brand strategy collaborative. She has spent more than 25 years working with leading brands in the consumer, business, and non-profit sectors. Practiced at the art of innovation and pragmatics of turning strategy into action, Elizabeth focuses on sustainable branding and delivering profitable, effective, and replicable business results that include positive economic, social, and environmental impact.
Elizabeth’s recent experience includes conducting a feasibility study for the Prince of Wales that analyzed a global expansion for his Duchy Originals brand, defining and developing a brand architecture for Gilt Groupe, helping reposition the radio industry for future growth, launching nine new brands for the merchandising division of Martha Stewart, developing ground-breaking augmented reality campaigns for Audi and Levis, re-positioning both the MSN and Yahoo! brands, and creating innovative digital work for IBM, NBC, Gillette, The Food Network, Met Life, and Credit Suisse First Boston.
Additional collaborations include work with Ogilvy PR, O’Keefe Brands, Neil Powel, DiMassimoGoldstein, The Brooklyn Brothers, Deputy Consulting, Faith Popcorn, eatbigfish, Ted Sann, and Campfire for brands including Hanes, Sundance, Colgate, Gerson Lehrman Group, Radio Shack, Sharp, Old Spice, HP, Timex, Kellogg, Pepsi, Unilever and Kodak.
Before launching a brand strategy practice in 2002, Elizabeth was founder and CEO of Agile Industries, a pioneering digital marketing agency. And prior to that she held senior positions at Ogilvy working on IBM, Ingalls Advertising launching John Hancock Marketplace, and The Harvard Business School as Marketing Director. Her early career includes rich experience in direct marketing focused on financial services (American Express) and telecommunications (MCI and AT&T).
Elizabeth teaches a survey course in strategic communications within Columbia University’s Master’s Degree program and serves on the board of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Brandcenter.
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