Deeper That Water, a beautiful stop-motion animation about Earth’s water economy for Columbia University’s Columbia Water Center by production studio Hornet Inc. via Explore.

At JAG, we’ve got a deep appreciation for good typography. Hand-drawn typography, even better. Typography hand-created with a bucket of water and broom on concrete?… brilliant. Street artist Shoe got skills, for sure.

At SXSWi this year, I felt right at home. Oh, I had never before been to SXSW, and had only visited Austin once before, but it was clear, almost form the start, that this was exactly where I needed to be.

For the unfamiliar, SXSW began years ago as a music event in Austin, an indie band haven. It quickly grew beyond music to become a cultural, technological, creative mecca of ideas, influencers and innovators. SXSWi was born to accommodate this need to organize these like-minded folk. Made up of an intriguing mix of creatives, technologists, developers, marketers, influencers and those that talk and write about such things, SXSWi has grown into a dynamic gathering of professionals in the digital and creative space. This is where what’s next in digital and creative ideas often makes a first appearance, where trends in marketing and advertising emerge, and at least some of the latest technology is on display.

SXSW takes place in Austin, a unique island of cutting edge innovation and culture within the state of Texas. With nary a pair of cowboy boots or wide-brimmed hat in sight, Austin shares little in common with the rest of Texas. It’s grown to be a technological and hipster haven in a laid-back setting. From hot new bands to locally-sourced, organic farm-to-table restaurants, Austin speaks a unique language, and seems an ideal host for SXSWi.

Alongside my colleagues at JAG, I attended a dizzying array of sessions and speaking events, while consuming some rather tasty locally crafted beer and too much BBQ. Every day served up dozens of choices of panel sessions, interviews and speakers during nearly ever hour of the day, as we divided to conquer and cover as much diverse ground as possible. We’d re-group at lunch or dinner to compare notes and share insights. Each of us seemed to walk away with something that hovered somewhere between unique and mind-blowing. Following are some of the things that stood out most to me.

The Advertising and Marketing Games are forever changed.

Time and again, from experts, influencers and makers of design, advertising and marketing, we’ve heard how the game has changed, in foundational, floor-to-ceiling ways. Technology has certainly played a part of this, as digital is surpassing print, the internet blowing away traditional mediums of radio and television, and social media continues to grow exponentially. The power and influence continues to shift from the brand to the consumer. Cause-marketing continued as a central theme across many sessions, as brands are realizing people care about the environment, where and how the products they buy—and the brands they buy from—are made, and what it means to do “good.” Long-term engagement and conversations with customers were also central themes, as the realization that the hit-and-run, mass-media approach to marketing is forever gone. I also heard about innovative new models for creative agencies, a requirement given the new landscape they must compete in. And the tension between creativity and technology persists, as designers and developers, or “freaks and geeks” as one agency leader referred to them (or referred to “us,” I should say), continue to redefine the path forward in how to reach audiences within an ever-changing digital landscape.

The Power of Story.

This theme, present in more conversations, speakers, panel discussions and sessions than I can recall, was both a new and old call to the power of story. Story has long been the primary way humanity relates important ideas. In this sense, this is old news. What was new though was the realization that those with the power (and responsibility) to communicate a client’s product, service or idea to a targeted audience must better leverage the power of story if they expect to fully engage that audience on a level that develops trust and loyalty.

At its heart, the idea is simple. To us humans, telling stories comes about as naturally as walking. For too long though, advertising and marketing methods have ignored this basic truth, opting for quick-fix, sensational claims to grab an audience’s attention in the hope of selling their whatever with short sound-bites. With the continued steep and rapid decline of mass media (and its old ways), those old-school mass-media methodologies are no longer effective. An ever-growing digital landscape and a more sophisticated and informed audience means brands must develop long-term trust and loyalty through a process of engagement. One of the best ways to do this is through the power of story.

The Need for Good.

As brands begin to realize that people are becoming more informed on the power of good, many were openly grappling with the concept of “good” in their products, services and business practices. While a few brands are crafted with “good” at the foundation of who they are and how they do business, most are playing catch-up, trying to figure out how best to leverage their business for causes that their customers care about.

Toyota ran a campaign to challenge people to find ways to use Toyota technology to “do good.” In turn, Toyota would fund a few of those efforts. One innovative guy figured out a way to use Toyota’s automatic parking technology to help firefighters automatically position a tall ladder alongside a burning building covered with dense smoke. Pantene sponsored a wig-making effort for female cancer patients, whereby 12,000 wigs made form donated human hair went to these patients. And yet another SXSWi panel debated the good/bad realities of brands trying to position themselves for good. Cyndy Gallop, perhaps most wisely, honestly and succinctly, called on a roomful of listeners to “make good profitable, so that in turn you can do more good.”  The crowd responded with cheers, as this point clearly resonated deeply.

In five days and over twenty sessions I participated in, I’m still only scratching the surface. My colleagues and I agreed though, SXSWi is a powerful, can’t miss experience. We’re already looking forward to SXSWi 2013.

The phrase “life-changing” is something I’ve used , in a tongue-in-cheek way, to describe great meals or rare beers, but this truly fit the bill. If you’re the kind of person who loves to learn and be exposed to new ideas I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Combing through the densely packed list of sessions was challenging because there’s just too much great stuff. Odds were good that during any given hour of the conference you’d have a dozen things you’d want to check out.

I spent most of my time going to the web developer-oriented, geekier nuts-and-bolts sessions on web technologies. There were presentations about really cool new CSS libraries, javascript techniques, interface design, and what goes on under the hood when browsers process DOM trees.

I learned a lot in these sessions, and they alone were worth the price of attendance. What really made my visit a life-changing experience, though, were the sessions that dealt with the subject of technology as a whole and how it impacts our lives.

There was a session about Buddhism and technology, which offered some thought-provoking conversation about the implications of living in such an interconnected world, and the irony of it taking the Internet for people to finally grok the concept of the interconnectedness of all things. Another fascinating session dealt with the changing nature of the advertising business, and the evolution of the classic agency model as we move into the digital startup world.

But the one that really moved me was a presentation by Dean Kamen, an inventor most known for the Segway, titled “Invention & Inspiration: Building a Better World”.

While the Segway may now mainly be remembered as a big flop – a device meant to revolutionize transportation that’s become a niche product for factory supervisors and tourists – before its release it was touted as having the potential to change our cities for the better. (And in light of oil prices, I’d say the jury may still be out on this one.)

What I didn’t know about Dean Kamen was that he also invented a lot of medical devices. He spoke about a mechanical arm he made at the behest of DARPA which will allow soldiers maimed by IEDs to have the use of arms again, controlled by thought and delicate enough to hold a grape. He also invented a wheelchair that allows its occupant to be at eye-level with other people and climb stairs.

The invention I found most amazing, though, was a machine that can make fresh, clean water from any water source, no matter how polluted, and a companion machine that generates the electricity to run it via any combustible material or heat source with extremely high efficiency. I was surprised I’d never heard of such an incredible invention, but as he reminded all of us in that ballroom, we live in a culture that is preoccupied with sports and entertainment rather than science.

He pointed out that in China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears, whereas here Britney Spears is Britney Spears. That got a good laugh, but he was making a serious point about our culture’s unhealthy obsession with fame and material wealth. With an ever-growing population competing for ever-dwindling resources there will only be an increase in our dependence on technology to survive.

Facing this reality, Kamen’s challenge was simple: how can I make science cool?

And that was where his presentation really cranked up the inspiration. Kamen showed us a remarkable video about a program he helped start called FIRST, a program that helps schools treat science as a sporting event, where students compete on teams for trophies in science and technology.

It was heartening to see all the kids in that video excited about science and learning. When Kamen lamented the common portrayal of scientists in popular culture, as either madmen out to destroy the world or socially awkward losers fit mainly for ridicule, it definitely touched a nerve. FIRST changes that and gets a new generation excited about exploring the frontiers of our knowledge, something that is actually of vital importance to our society given the raft of challenges we face in the near future.

I must admit, I was pretty envious of those kids in that video. I would have loved to have had access to a program like that when I was in school. But even though I didn’t have that experience, it made me happy to see that this idea is spreading, and that science is becoming cool.

I never thought I’d see the day.

It’s easy to look at the challenging road ahead for our species and lose heart. I know that I fret about this more than I’d care to admit. This session did a lot to restore a sense of hope in me about where we are heading, and that alone made SXSW in invaluable experience for me.

It’s widely known in this industry that when it comes to the web, content is king. Content is the only thing that keeps people interested in your site and coming back for more. Flashy appearances only go so far – they may bait the hook, but it’s the content that reels people in.

We set out to redesign our site, replacing a Flash-based one, almost two years ago, with the understanding of the importance of fresh content. Our Flash site had served us well, and people really liked it, but keeping it up to date was harder than it should have been, and with the advent of mobile and tablet browsers we needed to move away from Flash.

We gathered at a company retreat and worked together as a group, using Post-It notes and whiteboards to isolate what we wanted to say and how we wanted to say it. This resulted in a hand-drawn schematic on butcher paper, currently gracing the homepage of this site, which we then started to solidify into a design in front of a giant display.

Not a bad start, but that’s all it was: a start. The reality of agency life is that most of your hours are consumed by client work, with very little time left over for internal projects. I can’t count the number of agency people I’ve met over the years who talk about how difficult it is to bring their own sites up to speed due to a crushing workload.

Fast-forward a year and we had gathered again, determined to emerge with a completed website in-hand. We put up a temporary site based around a blog as a placeholder, along with a very confident announcement that in just a few days a brand new site would be there.

We got a lot done at our gathering – hammering out details of what the sections would be, compiling and photographing portfolio pieces, figuring out copy lengths, etc. Despite all our work, though, the site would still need more time.

Once again the reality of client work intruded, and the temporary placeholder blog site was still up.

After a couple of months passed there was a renewed push to get the site finished. I holed up with one of our designers, and once we started we found ourselves confronted by the realities of design by committee. The beginning of a design that we’d hammered out as a group was missing something. In working as a committee with an emphasis towards cleanliness we’d lost the human touch that we try to impart to so much of our client work.

Using the schematic and early design as a guide, we reshaped it a bit and added subtle touches and nuances that breathed life into the design. As we started adding content and working out the interactivity, new ideas came forth and were incorporated, and slowly but surely we really started to have something.

After many, many hours of work, with things looking pretty close to completion, it seemed certain that the launch date was imminent. I was so happy about this I foolishly wrote a blog post announcing that with any luck, the site would launch over the weekend.

That was December.

I thought little of this at the time. Some of our other team members started looking at what we had, and with their fresh eyes they uncovered some things we had missed. After all, when launching a new site for your business you don’t want to leave stones unturned. But then word started getting back that clients were wondering why we’d said the site was going to launch but they were still seeing the same old blog posts.

Ouch.

I thought about taking the post down, but the truth is by that time we were mere days away from launch (and the damage was already done). A firm believer in owning up to my mistakes, I decided to leave up my wildly inaccurate prediction as a reminder to myself to never do that again. Our site was delayed, far longer than any of us would have wanted, but it’s the better for it. We’re sure you’ll agree.

Smart, funny, engaging, and completely unexpected, the spot itself is “just the right amount of wrong,” but not exactly in the way we might expect from Vegas. This seems to be right on for Cosmopolitan’s audience. While I’m not sure that’s me, I was thoroughly entertained and engaged, and hope to see more.

Watch the spot below, then read AdWeeks take here.