My views & feedback on SXSW

This post sets out my observations of the South by South West (SXSW) interactive festival (http://sxsw.com/interactive), in March 2009.

I attended as Ambassador to Thinking Digital (http://thinkingdigital.co.uk/).

Reflections

Overall, it was a fantastic experience, not overwhelming
I don’t tend to overdo things, so didn’t "burn the candle at both ends" too much!
I found it a validating / affirmative experience, but that’s because I’m a practitioner and interested in the technologies, the people side of them and their future possibilities.
The types of folk who were there were on a pretty similar wavelength to me, there were very few suits
I tried to make it a collaborative experience
- Live-blogging the sessions
- Tweeting from the States
Remember to take your photo ID when you go to a bar, I’m nearing 40 and was refused entry without it – bah!
Also, remember your SXSW badge to get into events
Twitter was a key tool to stay in touch with other people and with what was happening
My.sxsw.com was a useful tool to work out a draft schedule, there was also a tool called the Sched, which seemed to offer greater functionality & integration with iPhone.
Herb Kim made a [remote] introduction to Alan Patrick – a fascinating bloke!
It was a fairly relentless few days. Key things are to eat & drink enough, don’t "rawk" things too much as your body will give in!
- Also useful knowing where the nearest restaurant / cafe is – for instance, I should have made more of the cafe in the Convention Center.
I swapped business cards with as many people as I could. I’ve had the cards scanned by Cloud Contacts, and will be e-mailing those I met.
Austin is a "pretty progressive place", although the Civil War memorial in my Flickr stream might suggest otherwise!
http://sxsw.com/marketing gives the low-down on how to use SXSW for marketing purposes
SXSW is also a film & music festival, although the Interactive bit was key for Thinking Digital / Codeworks. That said, there were other people going out to SXSW from the North East – I think for the Music festival.
- Maybe there’s an opportunity to round them up to get some further feedback & learn for next year?

Thoughts

Travel

Flight to London & stayed at Heathrow
Flew out to Dallas Fort Worth airport, then connection on to Austin, TX
Took Supershuttle from AUS to downtown Austin – good service & good value; also good way of starting to meet people
Journey back retraced my steps, without the stay at Heathrow

Gaming

Good gaming ideas to find out about:

Game camp! – http://gamecamp.org/
Summer Camp for teenagers – to keep them occupied and learn about games and careers in game development
Game Development Institute – http://www.austincc.edu/gdi
Alternate Reality Games
- Article from The Economist on ARGs
- “Running W/ SXSWissors”
- The Hat Game; also see this
- Six to Start, and their work with Penguin
http://www.girlgamer.com/about/aboutus/
Wee World, who are are based in the UK

Digital Mission

Digital Mission “is organised by Chinwag for UK Trade & Investment, enabling digital companies to expand into overseas markets and attract investment outside the UK.”

I’m not sure I met *everyone* on the Digital Mission (DM), but I gave it my best shot!

Chinwag seemed to be doing a good job, there was a lot of goodwill for Sam, Emily & the gang

I attended virtually everything that Chinwag put on, spent a lot of time with the DM folks – having lunch, supper, breakfast, sessions etc.

Having a base & bunch of people I already knew was really helpful. Downside was a I probably didn’t meet as many random people