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SXSW

SXSW Day 2: Ball Rolled. Confirmed.

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Whoah nelly, this guy it pooped!  Today was the first full day of conference snaction down here in Austin for SXSW and I now know what this whole thing is about.  From thoughtful collaboration, genuine inspiration, to a closing night ceremony, I finally experienced all that I imagined I would when attending this conference.  As I struggle to type out a recap of the day, I gotta smile a big grin.  To be this tired after day 2 means that I will exhaust myself to the limits and come away with a total conference experience.

Continue reading SXSW Day 2: Ball Rolled. Confirmed. →

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SXSW Day 1: Kick Off, Station Go

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With most of the road behind us, the first part of the first day of SXSW found us driving from Denton, Texas down to Austin.  The second part found us smack dab in the middle of Austin and then smack dab in the middle of SXSW.  I’m  going to do our best to gloss over the last part.  All in all a great kick off to my first ever SXSW, even though my feet are super sore at the moment.

The only way to kick off this day right was with a hearty breakfast and we hit it off right.  The Best Western my and my girlfriend stayed had an average continental breakfast plus a waffle iron that made waffles the shapes of the state of Texas.  Everything in Texas is all about Texas.   I scarfed that down with a breakfast burrito and we were ready for the road.  And my, was the road so beautiful.

I’m not sure if it was the fact that the weather in Kansas City was consistently dreary for last 4 months, or weather it was a bodily need to feel the kind of sun and warmth we felt on the drive through Texas.  The sun was out and it was about 70 degrees.  I’m leaning toward a bodily need because my bones felt good with the cool wind and the gentle sun stroking my skin.  Spring needs to show up back north real quick.

We got into Austin and instantly felt the traffic crush.  Sure, the traffic stunk in Ft Worth but we expected that.  Austin was mega crowded.  Now part of that was the conference crowd, but I think the other part was our lack of knowledge on the area.  The crunch of cars reminded us that Austin was a college town as well as a capital city town.  Never fear, we negotiated it pretty well and pulled into Mellow Mushroom for lunch.

If you have not been to Mellow Mushroom, GO THERE!  The pizza was fantastic.  Every pizza joint has the traditional fare like pepparoni, meat lover’s, or combination style pies.  Mellow Mushroom puts the specialty over the top with it’s choice ingredients.  We opten for the Philosopher’s Pie and didn’t regret it one bit.  The atmosphere, too, made us feel like we were back in college jamming out to some old records again.  There’s leftover in the fridge I’m staring at while I’m trying to type this at the moment and I may just grab it.

We paid our tab and hit the hotel.  After we unloaded we opted to walk the distance to SXSW.  The walk reminded us of the 39th West part of Kansas City.  There were lots of tiny knick knack shops and corner vendors pumping out home cookin’ and home fashions.  The walk ended up being much longer than what we expected but we made the trip without breaking too much of a sweat.  Now on the meaty part of the day.

We grabbed our platinum badge, after getting lost and finding our way in the convention center, then grabbed all three of our schwag bags and made off to the registrant’s tent.  Because of the traffic and pizza eats, we missed the first two sessions of the day.  So we pounded our beers and parted ways to make off to the 5pm events that caught our eye.  The registrant’s lodge was just a little to compact and we can see getting worse here in the next couple of days.  Inside, however, it was easy sailing to my very first SXSW Session.

It was a battle between either a design session or a future of communications session.  The abstract session won out.  My brain wasn’t ready for nuts and bolts so a tasty little big picture thought bounce seemed the best route to take.   The session was called Wave and Communications (R)evolution:  Better than Being There? It was moderated by Jared Goralnick and featured Casey Whitelaw, Daniel Raffel, and Jay Cuthrell.

The talk revolved around three aspects of future communication:  The engineer’s building view, the sofwtare manager’s cooking, and the real world’s take on the whole shebang.  I liked where the panel was going with their ideas on making communication easier to use and swallow, while giving the power to whoever uses it to chop and cut and mold it to whatever they want.  The only problem with the session is that ended being a big Google Wave slam fest.

Whitelaw is an engineer on the Wave project and most of the questions from everyone poked at why no one was using Wave as much.  A lot of the examples brought up to support why came from other talks or other data.  It all pointed to Wave being to much up front and scaring everyone away.  They talked about the need to dampen such heavy feature blasting.  It also seemed that the panel accepted email as a foothold that was way to strong to upend.  Cuthrell pointed to a poll that suggested most managers and CEO’s see email being around for 35 years.  Jinkies.

The problem I think the panel is missing is the builder’s dilemma.  When the builder of a software project, or more broadly, a creative project works toward thier view of the end point of the project, they tend have a difficult time when the user or universe takes that project toward another end point.  The builder has a hard time of letting go.  When Twitter was made, no one envisioned Retweets to become as big as they did.  The users grew it out.  Google Wave has yet to find that kind of dilemma because in part, the builder’s want to build in the user growth but also becuase of the admitted issue with up front complexity.

The Wave and Communication talk was a good tip of the ice berg for me and now my brain is ready to think in terms of tech here in the next couple of days.  My lovely girlfriend had an equally exciting time as during her sesison someone yanked the fire alarm and caused an evacuation in mid session.  After the day events, we grabbed another drink at the Registrant’s Lounge then made our way to try to watch some films.  We missed out on all the films we wanted to due to long lines, tiny room, and more than 1 1/2 hour line waits.  So yeah, we need to work on our line mojo for the upcoming music events.  Outside of that, the day was a succes and we are getting our feet under us pretty well here in Austin.

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SXSW Day 0: Road Tripping

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When my girlfriend suggested we drive down to Austin instead of fly, at first I was like, “huh?”  Waking up in Denton, Texas this morning I’m more like, “Huzzah!”  The conference festivities haven’t started yet and already this trip has been fantastico.  We met some peeps along the way.  We ran into some crazy looking businesses.  We drove through the state of Oklahoma.  All good times.

The first leg of the trip saw us head out to Wichita where we met up with my buddy Tim who does the Gonzo Guys with me.  He moved out there for a new jobby job and we spent a good hour or two having lunch.   The place of eats?  Jimmie’s Diner.  Diner food is the best when you are not hungry for the rest of the day after you eat.  That was the case when I had the Royal Crown burger and a peanut butter milkshake.  Oh and Wichita roads stink butt big time.

We tooled on down to Oklahoma and ran into a friend my girlfriend’s with whom she used work with.  A quick detour to Ponca City saw us meet Joe and hang out at the Chili’s.  Ponca City either is a dry town or the rules down in Oklahoma make it to where the local Chili’s is the best bar in town.  At any rate, we had a great time with Joe and we were lucky enough to talk some smack on Oklahoma State right before Kansas State rolled them in Big 12 Basketball tournament.

The rest of the drive was kind of a blur.  The roads in Oklahoma were good but half the state’s highways had construction going on.  No matter, we made it to Denton, Texas okay.  But not before we stopped to gamble here and there.  No, not in the big casinos that sprinkled the I-35, but the ‘gaming centers’ that either popped up next to the big boys or were framed with a gas station around.  Essentiallly the ‘gaming center’  is a glorified slot machine facility.  Hey, it worked for me, I walked into the first one and won 70 bucks.  In and out in 3 minutes.

The trip doesn’t certainly feel like it’s been 3 minutes.  But it doesn’t seem like it’s been a day.  Already great times were had and we haven’t even touched the tip of the trip.  We have a couple of more hours to go before Austin.  The girlfriend tells me that Mellow Mushroom is the bomb for pizza joints so we are heading there first.  Then it’s on to the hotel and then SXSW!  Hopefully they have a ‘gaming center’ close by….

Announcements, Music, Social

SXSW Here I Come!

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As you may have realized from the sidebar on the right hand side, I’m SXSW bound!  This will be my first time heading down to Austin, Texas and mingling with the technological, film, and musically inclined.  SXSW is somewhat of a long time dream of mine and starting tomorrow it will be fully realized.  Much of what I’m interested in both personally and professionally intersects with all of the different aspects of SXSW.

For the Film portion, I’m into seeing the movies that pull me back to my high school days.  During the late 90’s, I watched movies all of the time.  I would head to the now defunct Video Library out in Lenexa and pick up a movie 6 pack for the weekend then veg out on the couch.  After awhile, I got to the point where mainstream movies just weren’t enough.  I wanted to see the influence of great directors and actors, I wanted to see off the beaten path movies, and I wanted to tap into an underground that couldn’t otherwise be known if it weren’t for the 5,000 plus title Video Library sported.  It was an age of discovery for me.  I hope to relive that with the Film portion.

The Interactive portion is all about cutting edge technology and more importantly how it affects people.  Most people come away from this event with more than just the latest, hip social media trend.  Workshops are all over to walk through attendees on some of the best practices in development or the latest methods to integrate bleeding edge tech.  New technology will be on display as each big player brings out the best they have to offer.  This is the meeting of highly proficient minds and what spins out from that collaboration and networking can be something special.

My passion for technology and how new ideas affect people and hopefully improve their lives came from my college days.  I used to work in the only profitable division at Kansas State besides the athletic department:  the distance education department.  Because of the money we made, we got to preview and implement tech before it saw the light of mainstream.  We’re talking smartboards and video captured lectures using carts, cameras, and computers.  I always remember the impact it on the teachers utilizing that tech to help teach their content.  Hopefully,  I will see what new items (more than likely in the mobile realm) that will help people and their daily lives down in Austin.

The  Music portion speaks for itself.  Whereas the Interactive portion’s sessions usually start around 9am, the Music portion’s sessions start at 1pm.  The brunt of the showcases won’t end until the last encore song bleats out over the PA system at around 2am.  It’s all about bands and musicians coming together and sharing their voice.  On top that, they will share the methods and discuss topics on how to best use their voice.  The collective voice for SXSW will hear over 1000 bands joining in the song.

I’ve always been trying to find my voice.  Whether it’s in technology, music, or just my day to day actions.  I sport a decent amount of music equiptment that grows each day, but I’ve never found it sounding right to me.  Morever, I’ve also found it hard to share my voice with other people.  Courage will always be a hard thing for me.  I’m thinking that a chorus of over 1000 other bands may just help me join in and sing my song.  What better way to find my voice?

Half the fun of finding my voice is the path I take to get it..  That path leads me to SXSW.  Most of what I identify with will be represented in some form down in Austin.  I’m lucky enough to go down there and take part.  What do I hope to accomplish?  I want to start a new age of discovery.  I want get my hands on new technology to help others.  I want to mix with peers and jam out with them, whether it’s tech, film, or tunes.  Most of all, what I want to do on this trip is to bring back fresh inspiration and make some new friends.

This is a great opportunity for me to mix with like minded people and I’ll be bubbling up the better things from the event right here.  I’m going to do my best to document much of the road trip and the conference so be prepared for an onslaught of content.  Please feel free to share with me what you think.  If you are going down there, hit me up and let’s have some fun.  SXSW is like Mecca to me, even though I’ve never been and I don’t pray toward Austin every day.