Dig South Mobilizes a 2nd Year of Celebrating Innovation and the Digital Economy

Billed as "the Southeast's interactive festival celebrating innovation and the digital economy," the second annual Dig South event offers a topic lineup certain to appeal to a wide range of attendees, from the mildly curious to the diehard enthusiast.

The five-day festival -- held April 9-13 at various venues around the peninsula (College of Charleston, Charleston Music Hall, Bay Street Biergarten, among others) -- includes a two-day interactive conference with high-level presenters, innovative startups, a tech and creative industry expo, national touring bands, comedians, "space walk" tours, deep dive workshops, micro-cinema, dine-arounds, craft beer gardens and, of course, networking opportunities.

The interactive break-out forums include topics such as "Speed Dating for Startups," "Straight to Video," "Dig Deeper," "Deep Dives" and more. Other discussions will focus on creative collaborations across the region and how the Southeast can expand partnerships and capitalize on regional initiatives.

Charleston Digital News recently caught up with Stanfield Gray, CEO and founder of Dig South, and tossed him a few questions:

CDN: This year's theme is "mobilize." How did you decide on that theme?

SG: I think "mobilize" is a metaphor for what's happening today, in several ways: With today's technology, everyone has something -- a phone, a tablet -- that connects them to the rest of the world. Plus we're mobilized in how we can work anywhere globally. And there's a mobilization of people in the United States, a migration of talented people moving to places where they can find the best opportunities.

CDN: How did you come up with the idea for this festival?

SG: I've been involved in events, marketing and concerts for over 20 years. I helped with operations at the (City of Charleston's) Office of Cultural Affairs. I helped promote the Farmers Market on King Street. And for the last eleven years I worked for the College of Charleston doing PR and events. I helped create the mobile app for the walking tour. So I have a lot of experience running festivals, and I have a love of marketing, technology and innovation.

Everything is immersed in digital now. What's happening in Charleston and what's happening on the global scale, the innovations in software and hardware and technology in general -- it's all exciting.

I went to a conference a few years ago in New York and saw presentations by people from Twitter, Huffpost, Virgin Atlantic, lots of others. I was inspired by that because I see the Southeast brimming with the same talent. We might not have as much capital, but it's the same talent.

CDN: You had some pretty strong numbers last year -- 134 presenters from across the nation, 454 conference participants and 3,162 total festival attendees. What do you think made it so successful in its first year?

SG: When I came back from the conference in New York, I put together a plan and shopped it around with our local talent -- people from Benefitfocus, People Matter, the Charleston Digital Corridor, the CRDA, the College of Charleston and others -- and we went through how we could make this happen.

I put the question to them: Can Charleston support something like this? They all said yes, got behind it and gave it their support. Getting that buy-in was the first guarantee of success.

Next, I put together a team of professionals to work with me, and we got started on the plan. I knew we needed to distinguish ourselves from other festivals in other cities. Most of those are specific to those cities or industries that happen to be in those cities. Ours is different in that it involves a region, and the Southeast has a specific culture. We have "cultural capital" -- and I think that gives us the strategic advantage and the ability to compete with places like Silicon Valley.

Another factor is that we have a great program, and it's something people want to see. When we choose presenters -- we think of it as curating the program -- we look for great presenters, but we need to find a balance between locals and people from other cities. And we want to make sure to balance a wide range of industries, so we curate for topics too. If we had 10 incredible presenters but they were all from the same company, that wouldn't work. And we can't program the same people every year, so we're always looking for new presenters. Some people will come back, but we'll have to rotate every year.

CDN: I know you can't play favorites, but if you could choose, which session is a not-to-be-missed?

SG: When we first started, we raised money through Kickstarter. Yancey Strickler, CEO and co-founder of Kickstarter, will give the closing keynote, and that's very special to us. It's amazing -- it feels like we've come full circle.

The Wild Pitch event is a good session too. The early stage entrepreneurs get to showcase what they have and hopefully get what they need to succeed.

I'd also recommend the HACKCharleston Challenge, which we tagged "code for the cause." Developers get to help out a nonprofit and give assistance that ordinarily would probably be beyond their budget. It's a really cool idea. I like to think about what kind of global problems we could solve is we did this kind of thing more often.

CDN: Why Charleston? I know you said "think wi-fi at the beach," but seriously, why here? Do you see Dig South becoming the next SXSW?

SG: South-By is kind of the superbowl of technology festivals. It started with independent musicians and grew to include film and technology and other things. And they're huge, thousands of people attend.

The difference is we're starting with the interactive side and the core of it is tech-based industries and creative industries using technology to do business.

For the near term, we're focusing on quality -- curating great events, getting the best presenters, and providing opportunities for people to connect and find capital and recruit talent -- and we're not as concerned with being enormous. I think our size and scale fits the peninsula.

CDN: Who is the "get" you wish you'd gotten for this year?

SG: Elon Musk. The guy is fabulous, such a dynamic entrepreneur. And Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook, because of how she empowers women.

CDN: When will you start planning for next year's theme?

SG: We already know what next year's theme is. [Editor's note: He wouldn't reveal it.] July 4 is the official opening process. We're already talking to venue partners. We position ourselves in April, in between SEWE and Spoleto, and we have to balance our calendar around other events nationally. It takes a lot of thinking ahead.