I really wanted to do a proper, long and detailed wrapup post for SXSWi but I’m not going to because there was just so much going on and it’s still digesting in my mind what transpired in Austin. That and I’m really tired due to a day at the airport, flight delays and BBQ withdrawal.
So in no particular order, here’s some thoughts on what happened in Austin over the past week:
- this year was way bigger than last year - lots of people guessing on the numbers so take this with a grain of salt but it’s ’supposably’ 50% bigger than last year. So that puts it somewhere between 5000 and 10000 geeks in one place. This was especially evident since previously, you’d always run into people you know but this year, I know there were people I knew in Austin and yet I never managed to see them in the halls/panels
- I wished I made it to the I Can Haz Cheeseburger panel - they were actually giving out hamburgers to the audience
- 12 sessions per time slot does not work
- 10am panels are very hard to attend
- there needs to be more technical panels. Of all the ones I attended, only two could be considered (by me) technical and they were incredibly well attended - as in standing-room-only-geeks-sitting-in-the-aisles-fire-hazard kind of well attended. Of course since there was 12 sessions in every timeslot (plus other stuff in and around the convention center), it’s entirely possible there were more technical sessions.
- the panel rooms need to be reworked (again). Nothing sucks more than having to go from room 18ABCD to Room C - it’s like walking to Surrey from North Vancouver. I’m all for the walking but when you consider that a panel ends at say 11am and the next one starts at 11:30am, it doesn’t give you much time to actually talk to the panelists afterword, or with friends about the panel before you have to start hoofing it to the other end of the convention center to get a decent seat for the next session
- Twitter stayed up during the whole conference which is a huge deal since it was probably the number one web site talked about (yes, even more than Facebook and the infamous interview). Impromptu ‘Tweetups’ happened everywhere and were awesome. Your twitter name should be printed on the badge next year (everyone just wrote it on theirs this year)
- Internet access generally seemed better this year…except at my hotel which crawled. The convention center’s wifi was much more robust this year and they had a 802.11n access point which was great. Also more and more venues had free wifi so it made using Twitter and checking Google maps a breeze. My prepaid AT&T sim also got a good workout and thanks to some flaky hotel access, ended up costing more than it should have - see my $12 flickr photo for one example:
- Apple should have sponsored a shuttle to the Apple Store…there was a convoy of cabs there from the convention center on a daily basis.
- Canadians showed up in force this year. Not just the 20-30 Vancouverites I knew were going either….great folks from across this great land came down and had a great time
- Once again, the Raincity Studios crew had the best, most coveted t-shirts (read about it in the L.A. Times) and hosted the best party at the Iron Cactus. My second favorite shirt (after the Space Invaders RCS shirt) is the “Hacking is not a crime” shirt I picked up from the MAKE booth
- in Austin (and probably just for SXSW) the term ‘Ranch’ can mean many things. What I didn’t expect it to mean at the Pure Volume Ranch (home of the huge Digg party among others) is dirt floors covered in wood chips and port-o-lets. Moby and Kevin Rose didn’t seem to mind.
- Finally had a chance to visit the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, Texas (outside of Austin)…been coming to SXSW for three years and always heard about it but never had the chance to make it out there. It lives up to the hype
- you can buy iPods at the Houston Airport from a vending machine
- iPhones were everywhere and mine at least was indispensable during the trip. From the wifi that was available everywhere, to the Google Maps locate me feature, it was easily the most used item I brought. Using the sched.org tool to make a customized calendar of sessions/events/parties to attend, it was easy to see where to go next or what our options were if we decided to change our minds.
- I was able to get a tag for my camera that I should have exploited more. Strangely, I saw all kinds of cameras (not just DSLRs) with the tag, including a tiny little lipstick-sized webcam. There also seemed to be some discrepancy as to who should get a tag as Peter was denied just minutes after I got mine.
- If you don’t like Rockband, be glad you weren’t at SXSWi….every second booth in the Trade Show had it setup and many events used it as a focal point
- Adobe had a sneak peak of their new Adobe Media Player in a bar with a live band and a skateboard halfpipe. Nothing kills a party faster than trying to demo your software on a projector in the middle of a bar AFTER a decent local band played while skateboarders used the halfpipe in front of the stage. Still surprised about the presentation’s inappropriateness and the fact they thought they had to explain RSS feeds to a room full of geeks. The Media player actually looks decent (if not a little iTunes-ish) but they really need to work on the promotion side of things and figure out who the people that attend Southby are
- Most heard/overused word/phrase I heard this year: ‘Fail!’ or used in a sentence: ‘Epic Fail!’. #2 was ‘iPhone’. #3 was “I’ll have another Shiner Bock”.
- There wasn’t as many MacBook Air’s there as I would have expected. Consensus from those I talked to about it was they were hoping for more from Apple - or technically less as they wanted a true replacement for the 12″ Powerbook in screen size (or even smaller). It definitely got a lot of looks and was asked to hold it many times. There were a ton of eeePC’s in attendence which was cool to see.
- I managed to head over to BarCamp Austin between sessions at the convention center and sit in (briefly) on the iPhone DevCamp. As if the fact there was too much concurrent content at SXSWi, the fact that an awesome BarCamp AND iPhone camp was going on at the same time. Too much to do, not enough time to take it all in.
- As if you aren’t already tired of me talking about the BBQ, all the food was amazing…well except maybe not that late night pizza from 6th street
- as I write this post, there are over 12,000 SXSW related photos on Flickr. I have about 200 in there.
That’s pretty much it for me and this post…as I said at the beginning, there is still a lot of digesting to do (bbq and otherwise) so I may add to this once I’ve had time to take it all in.
See you next year, Austin!
Haven’t had a ton of time to post anything since I got down here in Austin….mostly just the odd twitter post. I’ve taken a lot of photos and they are viewable on my Flickr stream.
I’ll post a big wrap up once I get back (possibly even on the plane home) so for now, here’s a few highlight photos:
MJ Kim rawking the first panel
Zappos.com CEO talking about ecommerce lessons
View from my hotel’s 18th floor restaurant
Attendees in the ‘big room’
Yes, there was an accordian performance and he kicked ass
The Flickr crew at the Cathedral of Junk
The Frag Dolls pwning all comers at the Screenburn Arcade
at the “Logos and why they’re irrelevant and may actually hurt your business” panel
More soon.
Now that Northern Voice is over, everyone is gearing up for SXSWi which starts in just over a week. My damn Moo cards better get here soon!
One of the great things about attending a conference for a bunch of geeks, is that if there is anything missing or lacking from the conference organizers themselves, the attendees will fix/build/make it. Case in point, there isn’t currently an easy way to see all the panels and sessions in one place.
Previously, I had a Palm device and there was actually a surprisingly good schedule app available. This year of course, just about everyone there will have iPhones or an iPod Touch. There are web optimized versions of the schedule but since I’m not planning on relying on the sketchy wifi, I’d rather have something a little more stable.
Enter Stuart Colville’s iCal version of all the daytime sessions as well as the evening parties. Just download the .ICS files, add them to your iCal and then sync with your device (iPod or iPhone) and you’re done. The added benefit is that you also have it on your Mac laptop if you’re taking one. Awesome job Stuart!
Check out the SXSW Tools page for other things that will help make things more fun.
Photo by kk+ on Flickr
Another cool thing about SXSW is that it’s also a music festival…well actually it was that first and then the geeks came along. A music festival has bands which play music. They want people to hear that music so what do they do? They post a huge pile of MP3’s online of all the bands coming. Then someone makes a giant torrent of all those MP3’s.
Yup, a big pile of free music to listen to on that long flight to Austin. Thanks to Laughing Squid for the torrent link - lots of other great SXSW resources in Scott’s post too.
Finally, check out Phillip’s round up of all the locals making the trek to Texas.
Last year, a coworker and I made a submission for a panel at SXSW Interactive. Unfortunately, we didn’t get enough votes (but thanks for yours if you took the time!) - that or it was because we’re not internet rockstars (yet).
But I’m still going as an attendee and finally took a closer look at the sessions that did make the cut. It’s not a final list yet nor is it a list with the full details of each session.
As you can see from the list below, it’s pretty huge and I’ve chopped out a ton of sessions simply because I don’t know more about them yet. This is usually the problem at SXSW - there are too many great sessions going on and they always seem to be in the same time slot. I think there is something like 8 sessions going on at any time during the conference so it’s impossible to have a perfect schedule. Somehow, I’m sure I’ll manage, possibly with the help of some good BBQ.
Ironically, I had gone through the schedule before the names were attached and had actually circled the “Blame Canada” session without even knowing that kk+ was the one giving it so I’m sure it will rock. I’m also glad to see Kathy Sierra on the list again - she’s made SXSW worth attending every time I’ve been to her sessions.
Here’s a few sessions that have piqued my interest based on title or speaker alone - hard to believe this is only a small portion of the sessions too:
AJAX and Flash Mistakes (Jonathan Boutelle)
Behind the Scenes at the Onion News Network (Sean Mills)
Filching Design: When the Shoe Fits (Lindsey Simon)
How to Rawk SXSW: Achieving Geekgasm (Ariel Waldman)
The Rise of Authentic Media (Derek Powazek)
Social Marketing Strategies Metrics, Where Are They? (Tom Parish)
Social Network Coups: The Users are Revolting! (Annalee Newitz)
The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007 (Henry Copeland)
Taking Your Web Talent to the Video Game Industry (Adam DuVander)
Top Ten Lessons Learned in E-Commerce (Tony Hsieh)
Worst Website Ever: That’s So Crazy, It Just Might Work (Andy Baio)
You’re the Pawn, Sucker: a Google Maps-Nintendo Mash-up (Rodney Gibbs)
Keynote Speaker: Mark Zuckerberg
A/B Testing: Design Friend or Foe? (Corey Chandler)
Career Transitions: From DIY to Working for The Man (Jason Garber)
Does Tomorrow’s World Need Designers? (David Merkoski)
Everyone’s A Design Critic (Jason Santa Maria)
From Frustration to Elation: Getting Emotional by Design (Dan Rubin)
Logos: Why They’re Irrelevant and Can Actually Hurt Your Business (Bryan Zmijewski)
Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs (Jared M. Spool)
Make It So: Learning From SciFi Interfaces (Nathan Shedroff)
Mobileactive: How Mobile Technology Impacts Politics and Vice Versa (Justin Oberman)
The Science of Designing Interactions (Andreas Weigend)
Scope Creep and Other Villains (James Archer)
Social Design Strategies (Emily Chang)
Tools for Enchantment: 20 Ways to Woo Users (Kathy Sierra)
A Critical Look At OpenID (Jason Levitt)
The Art of Self-Branding (Lea Alcantara)
Blame Canada: 7 Ways We’re Ahead in New Media (Kris Krug)
Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again? (Arun Ranganathan)
Building Developer-Friendly Web Service APIs (Ben Vinegar)
Building Portable Social Networks (Jeremy Keith)
Hardware Mashups: Introducing the Long Tail of Gadgets (Peter Semmelhack)
How Piracy Will Save the Music Industry (Jason Schwartz)
Make Your Audience Love You (Tom Merritt)
Mobile Phones: International Devices of Mystery (Michael Sharon)
Self Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing (Brian Oberkirch)
Social Networking and Your Brand (Jina Bolton)
Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! (Dave McClure)
Content Management System Roundup (George DeMet)
Creative Collaboration: Building Web Apps Together (Paul Hammond)
Data as Art: Musical, Visual Web APIs (Peter Kirn)
Designing for Freedom (Gina Bianchini)
The Future of Corporate Blogs (Lionel Menchaca)
Futurists’ Sandbox: Scenarios for Social Technologies in 2025 (Michele Bowman)
Getting There Faster By Using Open Code (Jack Moffitt)
How to Rawk After SXSW: Staying Inspired (Kevin Smokler)
Life After the i-Phone (Kate Ryan)
Roll Over Gutenberg, Tell McLuhan The News (George Kelly)
Secrets of JavaScript Libraries (John Resig)
Take Municipal WiFi Back (Joanna Rees)
Taking Over the World: the Flickr Way (Simon Batistoni)
Using Entertainment to Create Effective Mobile Advertising (Adam Zbar)
Whew…it’s going to be a busy conference.
With a tip of the hat to Mark Hurst, I thought I’d post the ‘good experience’ I just had with Alaska Airlines.
When I was coming home from San Francisco last week, I got in fairly late to YVR and waited for my checked bag to come down the conveyor belt. Surprisingly it was the first one down the chute and I grabbed it quickly thinking I’d be on my way home that much sooner.
Then, as I was wheeling it away, another passenger asked if my bag ‘was supposed to be like that’:
It had come down the belt face down and I just picked it up and extended the handle and started towards the exit without looking at the front of it….obviously it wasn’t supposed to look like that. At some point in it’s journey from San Francisco to Vancouver, it appeared to have had the front main pocket ripped cleanly off along with the contents of that pocket.
Once I realized what had happened, and put the hanging threads and fabric back inside what was left of the pouch, I quickly thought that my speedy trip home just got a lot longer. Fortunately the Alaska Airlines counter was only a short distance from where I was and there was no lineup.
I wheeled up to the counter and showed the person behind the counter my luggage and that I thought it wasn’t supposed to be like that. She seemed genuinely concerned about the situation and asked if I had anything in there that might have been lost. I was pretty tired and couldn’t remember what I had in there as I had also shuffled everything around in SFO so that I wouldn’t have to lug too much around in my carryon bag which already had my laptop and a bunch of other stuff.
She told me the airline had a local repair shop that would either repair or replace my bag. I laughed at the thought of repairing the missing pocket - I had searched out for this particular suitcase for awhile and because I have a thing for green, combined with the ease of spotting it in a sea of black luggage figured it would be hard for them to patch the gaping hole. At least the rip was very clean and on the pocket’s seam.
I was then given a local number to call back once I had figured out what was missing and they would arrange to replace the items. She also gave me a claim form to take to the repair shop and I was on my weary way.
Given the circumstances, I couldn’t think of a better way for them to handle my situation. The woman that helped me seemed to really care about what had happened and wanted to ensure that I was taken care of. If only more companies had these kind of people working for them.
Once I got home and got everything sorted a few days later, realized I was only missing a couple of books and some magazines….I did have some gifts for Stacie in there at one point but decided they were too fragile for checked baggage and ended up swapping my reading material with them in my carryon.
All told about $70 worth of books is probably clogging up a conveyor belt somewhere underneath YVR or SFO. When I called back to tell them of the ‘damage’ I ended up speaking with the same woman who remembered my green bag. She told me I could simply rebuy the missing items and bring the receipts to the airport and they would reimburse me on the spot…or I could mail them in. The mail in option wasn’t that appealing since it’s a little too much like a mail in rebate so I opted to drop the bag off at the repair shop, pickup the missing items and head to the airport in one trip (a 60km roundtrip from my house). I figured it was worth the hassle and time to get it all sorted right away as we’re planning on going away in a few weeks and wanted usable luggage.
So I headed to a book store to replace the items, then to the repair shop. They determined pretty quickly that a repair would be too involved and opted to replace my bag with a similar one. Unfortunately it wasn’t green and so I now have a bright blue suitcase - so leave it alone if you see it on the conveyor belt - I’m talking to the old man that I always seem to see manhandling every bag that comes down thinking it’s his….going so far as to open the bag! At least the replacement is the same brand and a slightly better model than I had before - according to the repair shop staff.
Next stop was the airport. Of course the ticket counter I had to go to was at the opposite end of the airport from where you have to park. I swear it took 20 minutes to walk from my car to the counter.
Once I got to the counter, I was taken care of quickly and they even reimbursed me for parking which was nice. I was surprised they were able to just cut me a cheque on the spot and not have to go through head office or some insurance company. Of course, it was a relatively small amount of money. As before, the person that helped me seemed to actually care about my ‘loss’.
All things considered I thought the entire situation was handled great. Considering the hassles involved, it was very smooth. Kudos to Alaska Airlines and their helpful staff!
I didn’t even get to mention that the flight(s) were great as well…but I’ve rambled enough for one post so I’ll leave you with one word and photo: Legroom!
