The Innovation Engine Podcast, Live from DigSouth 2018 – Highlights from the South’s Largest Tech Conference

On this two-part episode of The Innovation Engine podcast, we’re bringing you conversations from the floor of the DigSouth 2018 conference. DigSouth is the largest annual tech conference in the South, bringing together more than 2,500 people who are building digital products and experiences that change the way people live, work, and play.

The conference took place from April 25-27 in Charleston, SC, which has become known as “Silicon Harbor” for its blossoming tech scene.

Because of the numerous interviews from both days of the conference, this episode is split into two parts from over the course of the two days.

Part one features interviews with the likes of Megan Oepen, Head of Content for Under Armour; Jason Feifer, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur magazine; David DeWolf, Founder & CEO of 3Pillar; and Jocelyn Mangan, former COO of Snag. Part two includes interviews with Susan Engleson, Senior Director of Product at comScore; and Cleveland Brown, the Founder and CEO of PayScout; among others.

Charleston was just the first stop on The Innovation Engine’s Spring 2018 tour – for our next stop, we’ll be podcasting from the floor of Collision in New Orleans, a collection of numerous tech conferences all under one roof.

Listen to the Episode

Tune in below to hear our interviews from part one.

Tune in below to hear our interviews from part two.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM DIG SOUTH 2018 PART ONE

On the first episode in our double feature, we talk with:

[2:00] Soon Yu, an international speaker and best selling author on innovation and design, kicked off the conference with a keynote titled “How Stinky Is Your Cheese?” Soon Yu says, “It isn’t always the biggest, baddest, or fastest mousetrap that gets the mice. It’s often the one with the stinkiest cheese. So your goal is to create stinky cheese: cheese that people smell, and that’s really highly relevant to them.” You can learn more about this concept, and why some organizations stand out, in Soon Yu’s book, Iconic Advantage.

[12:10] Megan Oepen, an award-winning Creative Director and Live Action Director who currently leads Under Armour’s content house, spoke about Storytelling and Content Creation in the Digital Era. “You can produce the most beautiful piece of creative or the most inspirational story, but if nobody’s there to see it, it’s completely useless and it doesn’t serve the brand or the client.”

[18:50] Jason Feifer is the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine and the host of two podcasts: Pessimists Archive, about the history of unfounded fears of innovation, and Problem Solvers, about how entrepreneurs solve unexpected problems in their business. Jason presented a keynote on how entrepreneurs can get press for their businesses. “It’s a talk I do because I realized… that most [entrepreneurs] have absolutely no idea what journalists do or how to reach out to them. And yet media is a tool, like any other tool, that can be used to help your business, if you understand it the right way.”

[27:50] David DeWolf, CEO of 3Pillar Global, spoke on a panel about building products with purpose. There’s a lot of focus put on purpose as a mission today, but you can’t forget about the fundamentals: “Focusing on those very real business targets allows us to make money so that we can reinvest, and the more that you have, the more you meet those operating targets, the more you can fulfill your mission.”

[39:40] Jocelyn Mangan, former COO of Snag, presented a talk titled “The New CMO.” She discussed how the pace at which technology is moving, which is faster than we can actually address it, changes everything we do. “In particular, with marketing, I think it poses some interesting challenges because, at the end of the day, we can use technology for so much more.”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM DIG SOUTH 2018 PART TWO

For the second installment of the podcast, we interviewed:

[00:41] Susan Engelson, the Senior Director of Product at comScore, where she works on the next generation of media measurement, including measurement of over-the-top media services and smart speakers. She shares her insight into The Future of TV Advertising in Today’s Digital World.

[27:34] Cori Banyon, the Founder & CEO of AndMe.TV, a virtual meet and greet platform that helps artists create fan experiences unlike any other. Using interactive video technology, fans can “get in line,” join the virtual stage, and meet their favorite artists face-to-face. She shares the story behind the platform and her plans for the future.

[33:54] Cleveland Brown, the Founder & CEO of Payscout, a global payment processing provider that connects merchants and consumers via credit, ATM, and alternative payment networks. He presented a talk titled VR Commerce is Here: The Monetization of Immersive Content, and stopped by afterwards to tell us more about the future of PayScout and alternative payment methods.

[47:03] Dr. Brian Sullivan, a clinical psychologist and the Co-Founder & Chief Science Officer of Morphii, a technology platform that focuses on providing better tools for expressing emotion, and thus better data and actionable insights for brands to leverage. We discuss the origins of Morphii, and why gaining more insight into your customers’ emotions is so valuable.

[53:11] Eli Calderón Morin, the Founder of All_ebt, a smart wallet for food stamp users that allows those on food stamps to participate in the digital economy. Eli participated in the startup pitch competition at Dig South, and he certainly offers a strong pitch: “There’s a lot of problems with food stamps, but we’re basically just trying to focus on consumers, on communities with low income, and figuring out how we can give them technology to help them be healthier, save money, and have access to better choices.”

About The Innovation Engine

Since 2014, 3Pillar has published The Innovation Engine, a podcast that sees a wide range of innovation experts come on to discuss topics that include technology, leadership, and company culture. You can download and subscribe to The Innovation Engine on Apple Podcasts. You can also tune in via the podcast’s home on Spotify to listen online, via Android or iOS, or on any device supporting a mobile browser.