We love Austin and the Spirit of SXSW

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By Mary McKeown-Christie|2021-10-05T17:29:44-05:00March 12th, 2019|

Each year in mid-March, visitors from around the world descend upon Austin, TX for the South By Southwest (SXSW) conference featuring film, interactive media, and music festivals.

The city of Austin is a buzz with activity in every corner, and the positive vibe is tangible and indescribable — fun, happy, open, busy, surprising, loud, funky, crazy, goofy, fun, fun, fun. Movie stars, musicians, politicians, writers, prominent business people all mingling together towards the one goal – celebrating art, provoking thought, learning, and mostly using positive energy to move forward with solutions.

It starts quietly with Education and Film, picks up speed about mid-way (around the 11th or so) , and then explodes into music all over the city (everywhere there is a patio or space for a band, there is live music, seriously) through Sat the 16th.

For locals, it means navigating around a hassle of 500k people in the downtown area. But it also means we get the chance to experience true diversity of people from different cultures and languages which I personally love. You can spot the hipsters from New York a mile a way, and I could people watch all day. That, combined with the fact that you can walk all over the city and find a great (and free) live music, food, and meet new, happy people — SXSW is a great experience.

The cool thing is, you can also avoid the crowds by streaming many of the keynote speakers/presentations, as well as some of the live music performances. To learn more, visit www.sxsw.com and perhaps you’ll find a new favorite band, author and personality. Either way, we wish the positive vibes of SXSW upon you and hope you will find a way to celebrate in your own special way.

All photos provided by the Austin Chronicle: https://www.austinchronicle.com/photos/photos-from-day-4-of-sxsw-2019/1/

About the Author: Mary McKeown-Christie

Mary is a long-time tech marketer with experience driving marketing programs from the early stages of a startup all the way through IPO and acquisition. She's also well-versed with growing mid-cap and large enterprise corporations looking to drive hyper-growth. As a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, she designs integrated strategies deeply rooted in the Science of Marketing with data-driven decision-making resulting in more leads, scalability, and increased revenue.

Mary is absolutely stellar at her craft. She analyzed our needs and paired them with our goals for the company. With an updated website and new social media strategies we were able to start a new trajectory of growth. Thank you to Maven Marketing Solutions!

Pamela Thanawalla

Chief Operating Officer / Thanawalla Digital

I've been in the moving business for over 30 years and had absolutely no online marketing or PR presence. Mary changed all of that within months, and to my astonishment, grew my business 60% in the first year of working together. Her knowledge of integrated marketing, public relations, and best practices in business management has completely overhauled my business and allowed us to move into new markets successfully. I'm very grateful to her, and would highly recommend Maven Marketing Solutions to any business.

Mary Kopp

CEO / ABC Longhorn Moving

Through Mary’s marketing expertise and guidance, we were able to rebrand and reposition our small SaaS cybersecurity startup to successfully sell directly to large enterprises, as well as large consulting houses such as Deloitte. Her ability to refine messaging and create an integrated, strategic marketing program transformed our business and grew revenue by 400% in 12 months. Amazing. She was a true partner as a fractional CMO and helped us solidify our company and product as the industry leader in Salesforce cybersecurity. We’re truly grateful for her efforts and highly recommend her services to any organization looking to grow.

Matt Meyers

CEO / Adaptus, LLC

Mary is a detail oriented, high energy, incredibly positive and very insightful marketing and public relations professional. These attributes have clearly helped her to make important contributions in subsequent positions. I would immediately consider Mary for hiring in my company today.

Kerry Pope

EVP Sales and Marketing / Intuitive Surgical

I approached Maven Marketing because we needed to update our image, our web presence and marketing in order to attract new customers to my restaurant. Maven helped me by listening to my concerns and guiding us through the process. The result was that our web site and social media have become major components in our marketing and we’ve attracted many new customers and accelerated our growth and profitability. I appreciate their attention to detail and level of personal service, which goes beyond what I expected from a marketing company. Working with Maven Marketing has been a very positive experience for Las Palomas Restaurant and I would recommend them to other businesses that need help to update and improve their marketing.

MariCarmen Desentis Corona Dale

Owner, General Manager / Las Palomas Restaurant & Bar

I had the pleasure of working with Mary when she first came to Austin, and signed up to perform the Public Relations function for Cleanovation 2010. Being new in town, Mary did an outstanding job navigating her way into the relevant media principals and acquired significant coverage for our event in local, national, and international media. Kudos Mary.

Arie Brish

Conference Director / Cleanovation Cleantech Conference

Mary plus your business equals Growth. If you want potential clients to know who you are, how to find you and to convert, Mary is the right person for the job.

Shane Matt, DDS

Owner, Dentist / Authentic Smiles Dental Studio

Tracey and Mary helped us through incredible changes in the last 18-24 months. As a 90+ year old company on the third generation, we had some historical helps and hazards. I was absolutely thrilled with what The Mavens were able to do for us as we rebranded, changed names, and relocated all within a month. The Mavens created and implemented a strategic marketing and PR plan to increase the company’s reach into new markets and helped us directly with PR, marketing, messaging, even some décor consultation to insure we had a customer friendly environment. They guided me through the rebranding process and recommended a creative firm who worked patiently to create a logo that embraces our history as well as our current and future presence. The Mavens then continued with our marketing efforts that including web updates, email campaigns and newsletter, and advertising calendar and budget. What the Mavens brought... Read More

What the Mavens brought to me was priceless, and I am forever appreciative for how Tracey and Mary both helped transition, brand and grow our business. They came highly recommended to us, and I highly recommend them to you.

Luci Miller

President / Miller Imaging & Digital Solutions

I’d hire Tracey and Mary again in a heartbeat to help me with marketing and with website design. Everything about it was expertly done and it was so easy on me. And it worked – my patients loved it.

Dr. Sara G. Austin, M.D.

Neurologist / Seton

Maven Marketing Solutions came in at a critical time to help us at Saks with a major marketing event. She was sensitive to the team, brought insight and created a spot on action plan we were able to deliver. Their professionalism, experience, network, and ability to understand not only our local store but omni-channel goal was very impressive.

Ann Kasper

General Manager / Saks Fifth Avenue

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