March 8, 2005 - 10:19am

So what is this guide all about?

Soon, you will be at SxSWi in Austin, Texas; I call Austin home and I welcome you with wide open arms. I hope you hug me back.

Here’s a number that will ring my cell phone: redacted

You can call it right now or whenever, and I’ll pick up if I’m able.

While you’re here (or ever), if you find yourself lost, or lonely, or confused, call me: redacted

While you’re here (or ever), if you want to go get dinner, or a drink, or need a ride, call me: redacted

Hell, I have no shame: please just call me to invite me to dinner since I am constantly lost, lonely, and confused.

It’s my town, and I want you to feel at home. I can’t say I’ll always answer or always be able to help… I will say that I care and I’m a good friend to know.

Don’t think I’m a weirdo for being so approachable. You just aren’t used to my brand of relentless friendliness.

@davidnunez View on Flickr →

Here’s my idea: I’m going to put an orange, happy face sticker on my badge. This is my signal to you that I am completely approachable and friendly. I will carry with me hundreds of these orange happy face stickers. When we talk, I’m going to ask if I can give you a happy face sticker as well because you are so friendly and approachable, yourself. In fact, I’ll give you a handful of these stickers so you can infect others with your friendliness. So, whenever you see an orange happy face, you’ll know that person is willing to say hello, and you should not be afraid or shy to approach him or her. At the end of the conference, if this works, we’ll all be a big orange, happy face sticker cult, and the karma will be running clear and smooth.

This is me:

@davidnunez View on Flickr →

This guide has roughly two parts:

  • I’ll give a quickish review of the conference itself.
  • I’ll talk about geeks interacting.

These are definitely half-baked ideas written hastily (possibly while half-baked) as I realized how rapidly SxSWi has approached. If you see typos or illogical ramblings or have additional ideas. Email (david@davidnunez.com), call (redacted), or comment (http://www.davidnunez.com/sxsw).

To be honest, this guide is really more for ME. It’s meant to enhance MY experience at the event. It’s a rant and a plea for a different kind of conference interaction. Maybe this is a case of too little, too late; maybe I’m way too optimistic with my trust. Probably a little of both.

Oh. FYI: There is an official “getting the most out of SxSW” panel session. I urge you to ignore everything I’ve written and go to that instead.

My review of SxSW-i

Who goes?

The event seems to draw lots of people doing nifty media or web-service-like applications, designing web pages, or otherwise doing interesting things with connective technology. (Lot of talk about mobile and wireless these days). Generalizing the skillsets, you’ll find more lots of people with heavy design experience, a TON of folks calling themselves Information Architects, and lots of creatives (artists, writers, coders, etc). Technology tends towards webby stuff: Flash, HTML, PHP, MySQL, etc.

Everybody has a blog, has an RSS reader of choice, and everytime you throw a stick, you’ll hit an iBook. There are pockets of Telcom, law, non-profit and VC-types running around, as well; there is programming (although a bit more limited) to cater to each of those tastes.

Attendees come from all over the world; a significant percentage will be local to Austin or at least Texas. However, and I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, a friend of mine called SxSWi, “Summer camp for California and New York hipsters.” Kumbaya, indeed!

There are some individuals and speakers that have achieved apparent rock star status (yes, there are groupies). You’ll have recognized their names or their sites; they have achieved a little offline fame (books, magazine articles, etc). This is a Good Thing, as they are doing really fascinating work, are generally interesting to hear, and have gained experience working a room. However, take their status with a grain of salt. These people are all approachable and may have some smart things to say about your own projects. More importantly, meeting them in person suddenly makes you feel like, “This girl seems normal enough… maybe I could do this, also?”

Be forewarned: There are also some “rock stars” (with an overflowing rock star ego and look) running around that just make you scratch your head, “What, exactly, is the big deal?” They are less approachable. My advice is: approach them anyway. It ain’t no thing.

What happens there?

There are many, many panels. Way more than you’ll get a chance to see and often scheduled so you have to make choices about what is the best use of time (you’ll end up asking, “well, if I have to miss one of these really awesome topics, which one will it be?”).

There are no formal paper presentations or other Academia-style features, and even though there are panelists and participants affiliated with universities, it feels like more of an industry event. Product promotion happens under the auspices of “looking under the hood.”

The prevelant attitude seems one of optimism. If you are open to hearing out new ideas and interacting with people, this is very contageous. In that respect, SxSWi has a way of making you feel very energized and eager to attempt new experiments.

As would be expected, the REAL value of this thing is the networking opportunity; to immerse yourself in the experience of being around a group of people that “get it” and aren’t there to overtly do politics for their companies or universities (or march forward on their tenure track, for that matter).

There’s a laid-back attitude that seems very conducive to the meet and greet; the after-hours events are, generally, really good - go to some of the quieter and/or private events, and you’ll have direct pipelines and ample opportunity to discuss ideas with the A-Lister of your choice.

A side rant about panelists and panels and a bit of advice on dealing with the bad ones

Last year I batted about 50/50 sitting in on good/miserable panels. I will absolutely not name names, but I was furious at certain panelists who clearly prepared nothing for their session and expected to wing it or fill their entire hour with Q&A (“So… I think I’d like this to be a conversation… any questions?” grrr…) . I frequently hopped between panel rooms when the sessions started to stink; my advice to you would be: express selfishness with your time… if the panel isn’t interesting or useful, I’d leave to find one that is… You should only feel guilty for the seconds it takes to step over your neighbor as you make your hasty retreat, especially if the panelist didn’t do his homework.

If I may be frank: The problem, which is a blessing and a curse, is that this industry has an abundance of relatively young and inexperienced trailblazers. They have incredible ideas, have the “audacity” to actually execute on them, and create amazing results. These people are honest-to-god genius guerilla marketers and technologists.

Unfortunately, very rarely do they know “how to be a panelist,” and they even more rarely have the modesty to admit they don’t know everything, much less haven’t done respectable research on their so-called “expertise.”

(and, yes, I’m one of the Austin geeks that weaseled onto a panel in exchange for a pass last year… and yes, I’m a young’n…)

A lot of panels tend to turn into “This is the story of how my website grew from something I put together for a group of friends as a laugh to an international phenomenon valued at $2.Much.” This is frustrating because it’s hard to translate “be smart, work hard, and get REALLY, REALLY lucky” into something you can actually apply and replicate in your own work.

I’d take a long, hard look at the panelist list. Figure out peoples’ credentials. If the resume is short, I’d suggest determining what you’d like to get out of the panel and be That Guy in the audience who asks all the questions (or engage them at the end of their talk as everyone else rushes outside to desperately check email (what could possibly be so important?)). Every person has something to say. Some will just need prompting to say something useful. Chances are, if you put in some effort, you can learn something or just be inspired from even the worst panelist.

Blogging, Chatting, Emailing. How 'bout we try disconnecting?

So here it is. It’s my biggest pet peeve.

There is a LOT of ad-hoc and errr… “multitasking” side chatter going on during the panels. People whip out their laptop and start clattering away taking notes, browsing and IM’ing. In some cases they’ll be supplementing what the speaker is saying with quick google searches or playing peanut gallery in an IRC room, “Can you believe she just said that?” or “This speaker is pretty good. How is the speaker in your room?”

That’s really neat; I’d expect there can be quite a bit of value from that.

If you really ARE taking notes, if you really ARE liveblogging a talk, or if you really ARE having on-topic conversations in the side chatter, then good for you and banzai. (i.e. you are using communication technology in a way that is relevant and dependent on your physically being in Austin during SxSW)

However, from my casual observation, people were more likely to be engaged in off-topic email checking and Metafilter surfing than they were enriching their audience experience.

I think that’s a shame. I think if you’re bothering to be in Austin to listen in on a panel session (especially if you or your employer pays for you to be there), then you should give it the attention it deserves.

If the speaker is that boring, then go find something else more interesting that you can’t get back home (like a conversation in the hall).

I promise the email will be there when you are done, and unless you are routinely contacted via IM to perform emergency heart operations, it isn’t that urgent for you to respond right away. (I’m convinced brandishing the laptop (or Moleskine, for that matter) during a session is sometimes more about fashion than anything else).

Ditto for parking yourself in the hallway with the laptop. I always found that very sad. I think I may take a picture this year to remind myself how sad it can get: Seeing a row of geeks on the floor, clicking away, lost in the ether, as tons of very interesting and very real and very Right Here and Now people walk by. Potentially fun or even lucrative people connections squandered by the minute.

Be honest with yourself: how critical is it that you are online Right Now? Are you online to show off? To show that you are a hipster digirati? Can’t it wait until you get home or at least until you finally crash at your hotel room that night?

Have you really had a conversation, in person, with everyone interesting at the conference?

And this is the main point of this rant.

Let’s put the laptops away for a few minutes and have honest-to-goodness conversations.

I know for a lot of us, it’s difficult. We’re much more comfortable and witty and fun in the online universe than we are in meatspace. We aren’t, shall we say, “in our game,” when it comes to people interaction.

So here’s my idea: I’m going to put an orange, happy face sticker on my badge. This is my signal to you that I am completely approachable and friendly. I will carry with me hundreds of these orange happy face stickers. When we talk, I’m going to ask if I can give you a happy face sticker as well because you are so friendly and approachable, yourself. In fact, I’ll give you a handful of these stickers so you can infect others with your friendliness. So, whenever you see an orange happy face, you’ll know that person is willing to say hello, and you should not be afraid or shy to approach him or her. At the end of the conference, if this works, we’ll all be a big happy face sticker cult, and the karma will be running clear and smooth.

Advice on approaching people:

  • Smile, make eye contact, shake hands, say hello. Easy.
  • Instead of, “So what do you do?” use this to spark conversation: “What is the coolest project you are working on, right now?”
  • Don’t have a stack of resumes. This is not the time or place.
  • DO have a tall stack of business cards or other contact information giveaways.
  • If it’s me, David Nunez, hugs are always appropriate… well, almost always… you’ll know the difference.
  • Use caution w/ pictures. Always ask permission.

Here’s how you can tell if you have not had the full SxSWi experience:

  • You find yourself back in your hotel room for the rest of the night right after the last panel of the day.
  • You haven’t shaken hands with people who look and act nothing like you
  • You haven’t had dinner with complete strangers.
  • You’ve stuck only to your clique of people that you see daily back at your hometown.
  • You haven’t attended the EFF / EFF-Austin / Creative Commons Party on Monday night (free drinks! free food! live music! delicious food! (I should know, I’m responsible for getting it))
  • You left Austin without fifty business cards of new contacts you expect to email at somepoint soon.
  • You left Austin without the intention of calling 3 new contacts to meet up within 2 weeks of getting home
  • You haven’t crashed every clique you see
  • You aren’t smiling and smiling BIG
  • You are talking more than listening,
  • You haven’t had a conversation or at least said “hi” to me, David Nunez.
  • You don’t have an orange, happy face sticker on your badge.

That’s it. I’ll see you there. And please slap me if I pull out my laptop to check email during a keynote.

Addendum

2005.03.09

  • I’ve been contacted by some sxsw people. Putting stickers on badges is a no-no. I’ll be looking for alternatives: the key is: orange, smiley face. It’ll probably be orange ribbons tied around the lanyard (but NOT obscuring the badge).
  • I don’t abhor technology. In fact, I’m planning on bringing a generous supply of guerilla power strips to plug in to the notoriously limited outlets for shared use. Enjoy clicking away!
  • Fashion isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Don’t worry. I’ll have my moleskine at the ready.
  • Rob Davis, a panelist this year from Haberman & Associates, sent me a link to Hints for successful panel presentations

See:
Louis Rosenfeld’s Tips