South By Bye
I’ve been back from SXSWi for a little bit now, so I thought I’d write a recap before it fades into the sunset of my memory.
It was my first time there, and my first time at any web conference, actually, so everything was 100% fresh for me. On day one the airline lost my luggage (Damn you, American Airlines!) but everything was smooth besides. I got myself checked in, found some great vegetarian enchiladas, and hit an opening night party (Where they accidentally served this non-drinker a Jack and Coke in place of a Diet Coke. That was a big gulp of surprise!)
SXSWi was a blur of panels and people, business cards and food, and parties. I couldn’t possibly set it all down here and convey how inspiring and fun it was. I’ve never had so much energy on so little sleep. It’s invigorating to be around around literally thousands of web pros. Most of us do our daily work alone or in small teams, and it’s incredibly refreshing to get together and trade stories, tips, and germs.
Panel-wise, the main standouts were:
- Jason Santa Maria & Rob Weychert’s Field Guide To Design Inspiration - A great show on how to integrate design into your daily life
- Mark Boulton and Richard Rutter’s Web Typography Sucks !important - This one wins my award for Best Presentation. Web typography is really in a sad state. Mark and Richard did an excellent job and showed me the path to redemption. Do yourself a favor and check out their slides and the podcast of the panel.
- Alec Cove’s Beautiful Algorithms - As is evidenced by the fancy leaves in this site, I loves my algorithms. This was a treasure trove of inspiration.
- Jim Coudal and Brendan Dawes’s Short Attention Span - Use your ADD to make a profit!
- Jeremy Keith and Derek Featherstone’s Ajax Kung Fu Meets Accessibility Feng Shui - I had to buy Kieth’s book after this one. (Ka-ching for Kieth!) He laid out a very smart workflow for AJAX that degrades gracefully.
- Matt Mullenweg’s Scaling Your Community - He started Wordpress, so pay attention kids.
- Kevin Rose and Kent Nichol’s (among others) Future of Video on the Internet. - You know it’s at least going to be a fun panel when there’s a drinking game involved. All the panelists had beers. Take a drink if someone says ‘paradigm’, another when someone asks a question.
Other Highlights:
- Real Mexican food! Not like the bland ‘philly style’ stuff I get around here. You really can’t go wrong, at least not at any of the places I chanced.
- Lifehacker party / meeting Gina Trapani at her book signing - Lifehacker is my blog of choice. I sometimes worry that I waste more time reading it than their tips save me. I had Gina sign the page in her book where she introduces her Todo.txt system. That little guy has changed the way I work.
- The Drupal session at BarCamp - Easily the most fun “party” I went to. How cool is it to hang around with other Drupalers and actually get smarter while the free drinks are flying around!
- Bowling, which was fun despite my…
- Blisters!
I met many charming and attractive people and we had great meals and conversations about life and the web. Way too many to count here, but it was particularly nice for me to meet and hang out with so many Philly folks. I think we might all have been there. There were some I already knew, and some I hadn’t met yet. In a funny way it was like being back at home.
Now I’m going to risk some dirty looks and say that I just don’t get Twitter. Twitter is a service that accepts SMS messages from your phone and broadcasts them to your friends, a group, or the web. (I think.) And it was all over SXSW. Everywhere you turned it was Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. I’m sorry but I don’t see what’s so useful or enjoyable about sending or reading messages about how you’re at some bar or that you just spotted some celebrity. Maybe I’m just too private a person, but I don’t feel the need to send or receive constant micro-updates on my friends. It’s just kind of boring.
And now, please enjoy the Flickr set!