SXSW Interactive 2007
March 17th, 2007
I flew back from SXSW Interactive on Wednesday, feeling energized and charged, and ready to take on the world; after my day of napping and recovering that is. You see, SXSW is not only a conference full of fellow geeks, but it is also one big huge social scene with many open bar parties sponsored by the likes of Yahoo!, Blogger, CHOW, and the list goes on. As a conference attendee one would attend panels during the day and party like a rock star at night. It is really a lot of fun.
I almost didn’t go this year, because I just wasn’t feeling it. I am now freelancing and I am more careful with my money. I also wasn’t feeling very social and new that a major part of the conference was the social aspect of it. I know of people that just go to the panels and don’t attend the parties in the evenings. I feel sorry for those people because they are missing a very important part of the conference.
During lunch on the first day there, I was very happy that I decided to go. I met some very cool people that I connected with and look forward to working with. That is the coolest thing about the conference. You meet so many people who think a lot like you and have the same passions about similar things. Its great! I now have a couple of things lined up with some good potential, due to the social part of the conference.
With that said, I was a little disappointed with the technical panels this year. They were not as strong as the year before. There were no new ideas presented. It seemed like a lot of rehashing of old ideas. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t bad, but I was just expecting to get more out of the technical panels than I did.
The keynotes on the other hand were excellent, minus the horrible moderator that ran the Dan Rather keynote. She was horrible. I couldn’t believe how horrible she was. Wil Wright’s keynote was awesome. He demoed his upcoming game Spore. I think I may have to go out and buy a Windows Box just so that I can play that game. I can’t wait.
I am so happy that I went. The hard thing is trying to keep that geekdom alive and around me. I am working on a couple of things to keep it goin. Stay tuned for updates on the that.
