SXSW Virgin is a term actually used at the conference and gives you a hint at the atmosphere. The first day this year at least started off with a session called “How to . I chose to get the Gold Badge which enabled me Film and Interactive conference access. I didn’t really get to see any of the Film panels but I did see quite a few of the movies and was thoroughly impressed. I attended as many of the design and useful but different panels and talks that I could on the interactive side to take advantage of being at a conference like SXSW. This is a relatively small conference compared to say Microsoft’s techEd so there usually aren’t that many choices for each hour of sessions that would actually meet your interest. I did miss quite a few talks I would have liked to attend because they were at the same time as another talk I wanted to see, for instance they had Jason Fried of 37 signals speaking at the same time as Gruber and Michael Lopp. In fact they were right next to each other’s room.
The best experience I had was attending my first Film festival film, Shot in Bombay. The actual director and creator of that film spoke to us before the film and was available for Q&A after. That was a privileged experience to be sure. The documentary was excellent and just the kind of movie I enjoy really.
For the interactive portion of the event I’ve been to some pretty unique talks, the kind of talks you’d never find at a python or Microsoft tech conference. Daring Fireball aka Gruber and Michael Lopp from Apple gave a talk on the difficulty in sticking to your guns with design and convincing all the suits that you have heard their opinions without changing your original design. The guy who started a site called ICANHASCHEEZBURGER and the current CEO gave a talk on how they got started and all the things they had to think through when it came to keeping the happy visitors happy while expanding on their ideas. To giv
Dreams With Sharp Teeth was my second film and was all about Harlan Ellison, whom I’d never heard of but was ordering books written by him immediately after the movie. If you like Robin Williams’ humour and the art of writing, you’ll love this movie.
LOLCat talk, the CEO and original creator of ICANHASCHEEZBURGER gave a talk on how everything got started and how they expanded the site without upsetting it’s existing user base when Huh and friends bought the site. My first impression of Eric Nakagawa is he’s a pretty cool dude and has the right attitude about the work. Just to give you an idea of what LOLCat’s does business-wise, they get 1.5 million hits a day, pay the salaries of 9 people and tranfer 2+ terabytes of lolcat picture data a month.
Cliques at SXSW are one of this conferences draws and problems, it is sort of like the geek version of fast times at ridgemont high. Some of these parties are basically made up of groups of people that hang out together in Silicon Valley just moved to a different town and time zone. I heard several times people referencing the enjoyment of meeting up with people again that they hadn’t seen for awhile. To be fair, I’d be likely to do the same thing, really it’s just natural. However, It is a bit intimidating to someone on their own at this conference though to just jump in and meet these folks. Which is a shame because there are probably many new connections that could be productive that just never make it past that barrier. There is a lot of partying going on, parties with lines around the block, and “secret” parties that invite people via Twitter. People would start announcing parties on twitter and in a short amount of time had this huge build up, I think it became a competition for some.
Places I hate here, Billiards Pub across from BD Riley’s, fat guy rudely walks up and asks to see my ID then proceeds to inform me that they need to check all bags, without my MBP at 5pm? no thanks, your deck and beer are not that much better than BD Riley’s, so I’ll head over there. Many of the places that purport to be pubs on 6th street are not actually pubs in the sense that they don’t serve enough proper beer to be considered one in my book and they seem to treat you like you’re one of the frat boys from the UT Campus, which I don’t really enjoy. Austin Java at the airport has terribly rude service but there is no other coffee place that I could see so I’m forced to continue to give them money.
Places I enjoyed, Iron Cactus and the rare blackened Ahi tuna tacos, BD Riley’s pub, Magnolia’s on south congress, The Clay Pit on Guadalupe St., The Omni hotel on San Jacinto, and Las Manitas breakfast tacos.
It’s my feeling that all software developers that want to expand their horizons should give this conference at least 2 tries. I think you only have to look to Apple’s current success to see why. Apple values design, a lot. They look at many other industries and what they are doing as far as design and all that research comes out in their products. Products that people love or hate but generally aren’t in the middle and that’s where you want to be. If you treat this conference as a place to broaden your ideas and network with other open minded progressive developers you’ll do well. I would recommend getting a work buddy or 2 to come along to have your own sort of posse to go to all the parties with as I think this would help a bit in the networking department I also think it would help you really enjoy yourself in Austin a bit more.
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