Jeckecko

Here we go again…

Well it’s that time of the year again: SXSWi. Spoken like a veteran but in truth, this will only be my second visit. Just like last year, I’ll be joining all the cool kids at the Hampton Inn Downtown for geek breakfasts and then daily meanders to the convention centre.

As the event gets nearer, I’m filled with equal parts excitement and trepidation. Excitement at the sheer numbers of friends and colleagues that are heading over; A combination of both over the fact that I’m making my speaking debut; And genuine anguish about leaving Sarah and Jemima for a whole week. It’s all very sentimental I know, but I’m getting old so I’m allowed. I’m sure the Shiner Bock will help.

There’s lots going on isn’t there? Wow. Andy’s proposed trip to the Rodeo looks like a laugh. Cindy’s taken the bowling in to a new stratosphere of cool. And then there’s the Great British Booze Up. And if you need to know more, Jeremy’s Adactio Austin can help. Apparently there’s a conference as well.

I’ll see where the tide takes me and look forward to meeting lots of new faces. Twitter seems to be the mode-of-communication-of-choice. I’m on there, so get in touch if you want to chew the fat.

Back from SXSWi ‘07

After a torturous 48-hour journey home, Paul and I finally arrived back in the UK on Friday morning – 24 hours later than expected. ‘Severe weather’ over Houston meant our scheduled half-hour flight actually lasted seven hours and resulted in us missing the last connection back to London. There’s more of a story here but it’s essentially unpleasant and certainly not what I want to remember SXSW’07 for.

What I do want to remember is the fantastic conference I was lucky enough to attend. As clichéd as it sounds, it really is a unique event and one that I just can’t imagine taking place anywhere else. The key difference between SXSW and other conferences is that the event is unashamedly people as opposed to presentation-centric. That’s not to say the programme is neglected. Quite the opposite in fact and I was often left struggling to choose between two or three simultaneous talks. But the emphasis is very much a social one, not just during the evening events but also either side of the talks, in the stairwells and especially at breakfast.

With so many talented folk in one place, the conversation is always fruitful. It’s great to meet some of the ‘household’ names but equally good talking to people from other walks of life. Meeting Stef Lewandowski on the flight over was a great start. This guy is seriously talented. As well as MD of Birmingham’s 3Form, he’s also co-director of the experimental record label Type, a mighty fine photographer and I’m not surprised to read that he’s been chosen to represent the UK as one of its digital pioneers.To add insult to injury, he’s also a thoroughly nice bloke. Good luck to you Steff.

Same goes for the chaps from Resn. These guys ooze talent and certainly know how to give us Brits a run for our money when it comes to drinking (and creativity). It was great to hear they scooped the ‘Business: For-Profit’ award at the Web Awards.

Oh and the talks were pretty good too. Off the top of my head, I really enjoyed Emerging Social and Technology Trends, Learning Interaction Design From Las Vegas, Stop Designing Products, Web Typography Sucks, Will Wright’s keynote and Worldchanging 2.0. It’s great to see the podcasts are already arriving but in the meantime, I’ll hopefully get time to write up some of the notes I took during the event. It never ceases to amaze me me how quick and comprehensive some people are when it comes to capturing these events. At least there’s a benchmark.

One minor regret: Despite staying in the same hotel, I didn’t get to meet Naz Hamid. I’m a long-term admirer of this guy’s splendid visual work, especially his Absenter photo journal and he’s come up trumps again with his SXSW 2007 Infographic. For some reason, this just seems to capture the style of thinking that the entire conference thrives on.

Count me in for next year.

Free pool for the living