Seattle is a geek’s town and last week the team at aptly named GeekWire hosted some of Seattle’s brightest tech minds for its 2013 GeekWire Summit. From e-commerce to venture capital strategies to the future of video games, the conference covered an array of topics pertinent to investors and tech businesses big and small.
The two of us from Communiqué PR who attended the Summit saw an energized Seattle tech community excited to show off the region’s successes, ideas and potential.
Did you miss out on the Summit this year? Here are our five takeaways that you need to know:
- The Seattle tech scene is diverse. Most businesses know the importance of diversity in their employees, but the tech industry is often critiqued for being a male-dominated field. At the GeekWire Summit, we were thrilled to see the diverse group of people representing Seattle’s tech industry. There was a tremendous diversity of ideas as well. Amazon and Microsoft continue to be huge economic drivers for the region, but the city’s entrepreneurial spirit showed in the range of ideas, businesses and products represented among the Summit’s presenters and attendees. Gaming, communications, retail and real estate are just a few of the markets represented at the Summit and being impacted by technology coming out of the Pacific Northwest.
- “Innovation” isn’t done yet. There are many in the tech journalism and PR fields who will say the word “innovation” is overused. They may be right, but based on what we heard at the GeekWire Summit, Seattle businesses are doing their best to counter that notion. Early in the day, Dr. Nadia Shouraboura, the CEO and Founder of Hointer, shared some fascinating ideas about how technology can revolutionize in-store shopping. Our client Kymeta’s CEO, Vern Fotheringham, participated on the Summit’s panel on “The Future of Innovation.” Kymeta is working on game-changing satellite antennas that are smaller and flatter and require considerably less power than existing solutions. Things got downright futuristic when Peter Lee, the head of Microsoft Research, expressed optimism about the future of artificial intelligence. There’s a reason that “innovation” isn’t giving up its spot atop the tech lexicon anytime soon.
- Mobile is tops. During one panel, investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital emphasized the dominance of mobile succinctly. “Companies that lead on mobile have an advantage,” he said. His fellow panelist, Zillow founder Rich Barton, agreed: “The platform of the future, in fact the platform of now, is the mobile device.” At Communiqué PR, we’ve seen the rise of mobile reflected in our clients’ business (as we work with companies like Mobidia and Lively) and based on talk at the GeekWire Summit, it doesn’t look like mobile is going anywhere but up. We’ve also seen the rise of mobile in the media industry, as mobile-based news outlets like Quartz are continuing to rise. A timely article from Adweek last week highlighted the increase of mobile news apps via a study from The Reynolds Journalism Institute and Digital Publishing Alliance, which found that 50 percent of smartphone and/or tablet users downloaded at least one news app in the first quarter of 2013. It’s a reminder that PR practitioners need to find ways to pitch content optimized for mobile consumption and appealing to editors who are looking to reach mobile users.
- Gaming – mobile gaming in particular – continues to be huge a draw. With geek culture thriving in Seattle, it was no surprise that GeekWire’s panel on gaming was hugely popular. When one panelist asked the audience for a show of hands of attendees of the recent PAX conference held here, a lot of arms went up. The mobile and casual gaming industries have certainly seen ups and downs lately, but users are still looking out for the next Words With Friends or Candy Crush. David Edery, CEO of the game development studio Spry Fox and a panelist for GeekWire’s “The Future of Video Games” discussion, emphasized that mobile games can drive major revenues from relatively small development teams. Based on the enthusiasm here in Halo’s hometown – also home to studios like Big Fish Games, not to mention the indie game developers who call Seattle home – gaming is going to be a major topic of discussion for years to come.
- Education is critical to the industry’s future. If you work in a tech field, you’ve no doubt heard the importance of creating more opportunities for students to learn critical computer science and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills. You’ve probably also heard of Code.org. Its founder, Hadi Partovi, dropped by the GeekWire Summit to make a pitch to the audience on the importance of teaching students to code. His presentation was stellar. In another discussion, Chase Jarvis, the photographer behind the education startup creativeLive, also argued for the importance of a creative education for students – including coding skills. It was a reminder that all the talk about innovation, or the next great startup idea, won’t go anywhere without a highly-skilled and highly-motivated next generation of thinkers and entrepreneurs!
If you’re looking for more from the GeekWire Summit, head to its YouTube channel for full video coverage of the conference’s panels and presentations.