Digital Lifescapes

I recall when I first met Kam Star at the SXSW 2012 Festival, he shared his aspiration to make the Digital Shoreditch Festival as successful as the now infamous annual vent in Austin, Texas. After I attended the UK event that his team organized in 2012, I offered some suggestions for his consideration. I still believe that the creative culture in London is different -- and that's a good thing. London's creative digital talent strengths tend to be focused on the fashion, architecture and design sectors. The financial services sector also has a renewed focus on technology-enabled innovations. Digital Shoreditch Festival 2013 is expected to double in size, bringing together a community of 15,000 digital creatives to showcase and debate the latest advances in digital and technological innovation. The event held in East London last year attracted over 6,000 delegates with support from more than 40 sponsors and partners. This year the event is even bigger -- reflecting Lon...

I wasn’t able to attend the full Digital Shoreditch Festival, just a few days from the second week of scheduled events. That being said, I’m really glad that I witnessed part of the second annual festival of creative, cultural and technological developments within this evolving East London community. I had mentioned – before my visit – I believe that London, England has some things in common with the emerging tech and digital creative clusters in Austin, Texas. But based upon what I saw and heard during the insightful Digital Shoreditch activities, I’m now thinking that there are more similarities with the New York City clusters. London has a wealth of creative talent focused on the fashion, architecture and design sectors of the global networked economy. Few places in the world can likely match this amazing combination of artistic assets and intellectual capacity. Besides, the local higher-education and professional mentoring opportunities are clearly more attuned to the app...

I’ve previously shared a summary of observations during my attendance at the 2012 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive events earlier this year. What I didn’t mention was that I had the opportunity to briefly meet Kam Star, while he was in Austin, Texas attending SXSW. As the founder, Kam explained his aspirations for the Digital Shoreditch Festival -- to replicate some of the success of the SXSWi legacy within the London marketplace. Why should this bold goal matter to the British public. For starters, it’s about the potential economic impact. Case in point: for the second straight year, in 2011 the SXSW Interactive attendance fueled the impressive increase in event attendance -- although SXSW Film and SXSW Music also enjoyed banner years as well. The City of Austin’s hospitality industry benefitted from the outside visitors with two very profitable weeks. SXSW’s direct booking of more than 10,500 individual reservations totaling 47,500+ room nights -- that was an in...