SXSW 2006 - The Year The Legends Died
March 15, 2006
*Note: I only left my room about four times my entire time in Austin this year due to illness so my thoughts are only based on the few experiences that I had with people. I am going back to the hospital, but I know I will forget to write this if I don't do it now so hopefully it all sounds decent.
Last year at SXSW seemed to be the year of the superstar. Flickr was rumored to have been bought out, everyone was drooling over every word that left Fried's mouth and generally there was a divide between the elite and the followers. This year was a lot different. There didn't seem to be that star attraction because everyone is really getting into their own things this year. Last year was talk and this year seems to be all walk.
You couldn't drool over every word Fried said this year in his keynote because, well, he has been saying the same shit for the past year anyways. Okay, my bad, it isn't shit because less is more" makes sense in a lot of cases, but I was really hoping for some new insight. The Craig Newmark keynote was another rehash of what I have read in the past from websites and magazine articles about him.
Last year I bitched about the panels and said that this year I probably wouldn't even go to any. Well after talking to people it seems next year they will be doing the same thing, which sucks. It sucks because I want to like the panels. I want to learn something new or at the very least be entertained. Last year when I vented I took a step back and thought that maybe it was just my arrogance and general assholiness that caused such resentment towards the panels, but how much have you seen written about the panels this year in comparison to year's past? Again keep in mind that I missed 95% of SXSW so I am going on what people are telling me.
This is the transition year. Between this entry and next year's SXSW a star or maybe a couple will develop where they will become the must-hear speakers next year. If you are one of them try your best to be entertaining. A good way to help people learn is to keep them interested and that doesn't mean rinse, wash, repeat all your blog entries from the year before.
You can kind of see this happening in the design blog community. There isn't a consensus site that everyone says you must go read. Sure we all have our favorites, but there isn't that one star anymore. Maybe we don't need a star, but I'm surprised to see that no one has taken advantage of this opportunity to really make a name for themself. I suppose a couple years ago there wasn't money to be made so blogging was much easier and now that people are starting to cashout that simply leaves less time for blogging.
If you attended SXSW this year I hope you enjoyed your time and if I didn't get to meet you I apologize and if I did meet you and seemed generally out of it I apologize for that as well.
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Comments
#1 | Chris Kavinsky
Not sure if its because this was my first time down there or not, but I think it depended on personal interest and knowledge as far as enjoying the panels or not. A few I attended were disappointing, but the majority of them were good. It may also be due to the fact that I was awestruck to finally meet a lot of people who's sites I read regularly. Overall I thought it was worth it. Defenitely a learning experience.
Sucks that you got sick. I was looking forward to hanging a little more than we did. Hope you;re feeling a lot better. Oh, and congrats on 9 Rules winning the web award.
#2 | Matthew Pennell
I thought last year you bitched about the fact nobody appreciated your boomboxing/dance party piece?
I don't think the superstars have "cashed out" - they just don't write anything interesting any more. Or maybe we've just got too many feeds in our Bloglines account we don't have the time to hang on any one person's every word?
#3 | James Cogan
First, I hope you get better soon Scrivs.
Second, I've never been to SXSW but I've always been of the impression that it was more of a party and networking event than a potpourri of exceptional panels. It always seems that most of the posts that follow SXSW are about Austin itself, the food, the good times, the laughs and who met with whom. Maybe I'm wrong (may very well be :-) ) but it almost seems that the larger a conference gets, the meaningful content subsequently shrinks. Would anybody who frequents conferences far more than I care to agree or disagree?
#4 | Greg
I got more out of talking to fellow designers and friends than sitting in a panel, especially when I found out they were all being podcast. Maybe it helps that I know most of the presenters and get an idea of their thinking and directions through regular conversations but to me there was just as much learning to be had in the hall ways as there was inside the conference rooms.
I'm glad you finally made it out of the hospital.
#5 | Chris Griffin
I've never been to SXSW so I may be talking out my ass when I say it seems that there's not a lot of knowledge gained from SXSW, at least not enough for what you pay for, but it seems like it's probably the best and fastest way to network with people in high places within the industry.
I've seen some of the slides posted by a few of the speakers, and to me, doesn't seem worth the cost for just that knowledge. But the networking definitely and entertainment value seems evens it out.
I'm only 22, and I just made the transition from school to a real job, so I just haven't had the money to go. But I'm going to plan on going next year for sure.
#6 | Britt
I hope you're getting better, Paul. I was looking forward to a report on the questions you were going to ask people. Maybe next year.
Speaking of next year, my idea for a panel is to strip all participants of any laptop, cell phone, gadget, badge, etc. in exchange for pencil and paper.
No one can talk. We then write notes about what we are interested in and pass notes around until the crowd becomes organized into nodes of topic areas.
As a finale, we burn the notes and no one is allowed to blog about it.
#7 | Britt
I forgot one more rule for the panel: When people start writing notes about their interests, it cannot include the internet, computers, gadgets, technology, video games, etc.
#8 | Justin Perkins
I had a lot of fun, but it was my first year. Only talking about the panels, it was about a 50-50 split between enjoying the panel or being disappointed.
You would think that those who organize SXSW Interactive would put together good panels with top notch people in their field. Some of the panelists almost seemed like marketing folks for the company they represented.
Assholiness? Nice one :)
#9 | Glen C.
"I don't think the superstars have "cashed out" - they just don't write anything interesting any more. Or maybe we've just got too many feeds in our Bloglines account we don't have the time to hang on any one person's every word?"
I've noticed this, too. Seems there's a lot of repetition and just kind of an apathy going around.
#10 | Nathan Smith
While this was just my first SXSW, and I certainly enjoyed many of the panels, I too was expecting more. I suppose that so much of the material covered is the same good stuff on everyone's respective blogs, so there wasn't the "wow" factor of learning something totally new. I agree with Greg - the main highlight of the whole conference was meeting everyone and putting a face to a name / site.
#11 | Mark
I think it should be remembered that Southby is a festival not a conference. So yeh, the emphasis is going to be on "learning" through informal methods such as networking, bowling events, kickball, lunches and after parties, not panels.
Regarding the "cashing out of legends" -- Do you think maybe this is just a cyclical thing for blogs / bloggers? I mean it wasn't too long ago (maybe a year or so) that you wrote a similiar entry on this. I think it was titled "It's getting quiet" or somesuch.
#12 | Scrivs
Oh it most definitely is a cyclical thing, but I think this time it goes a bit further because of there being less and less talk on development and design as we have seen over the last couple of years.
#13 | Dave Seah
My first SXSW too, glad I finally got to meet you in person, dude!
There were three different communities that I identified by the end of the festival: the webdevdesign community, the cluetrain/empowerment community, and the content creator community. There's a lot of overlap between them of course...it was almost all new to me. I tended to gravitate toward cluetrain/empowerment and content creator topics, since I figured I could just look up a lot of the web dev stuff online.
Now that I think of it, if I was expecting more hard-core tech and design, I probably would have been disappointed. However, I was there this year to be energized by meeting people doing cool shit, and on that account I got my money's worth on the first day. It'll be interesting to see if this holds next year.
#14 | Michael Moncur
I don't know, I found it just as inspiring as ever, although there were no real "wow, that's amazing, I didn't know that existed" moments.
Then again, if there were, it probably would have meant I was reading the wrong blogs - after all, this is an open culture and I'd be a bit bothered if a company revealed something at SXSW without at least hinting at it first.
One stand-out panel was Kathy Sierra's "Creating Passionate Users" - nothing new and amazing if you've been reading her weblog, but it inspired me enough to make the whole conference worthwhile.
We're in a time of agreement on the web right now. Syndication: good. Microformats: good. CSS: good. Ajax: good if you're careful. Flash: Good if you're even more careful. This makes for a great environment to work in, but makes very poor entertainment.
Nonetheless there were some great people to talk to, good food and drinks, and a few thousand bats. I'm not complaining.
#15 | karmatosed
Hope you are well soon scrivs. I have observed through posts the SXSW this year. Living in the UK and being not rolling in it means so far not being able to go. I hope this changes next year. Way I see it the event has become about the social side and the meeting more than the panels. I find this an interesting development and perhaps a mark of the times. You see these lulls in inspiring speakers a lot of the time after an glut of a few years ago, often in the web. I think it is natural that the event will come back to some must sees, however I also would see no problem in it developing away from that and becoming purely about the social.
As much as travelling across the sea to actually interact with complete strangers might be slightly unease making... I am confident from what I have seen that people are made to feel welcome at this event. Perhaps that is the key point about the whole thing.
#16 | Jason Santa Maria
I definitely saw fewer panels this year than I did last year. It seemed like many of the panels were focused on turning a buck from your blog or from your new web app, but that's probably due to the huge number of acquisitions in the last year. All of that just makes me want to talk about design even more. That being said, SXSW is still about the people, and regardless of panels, I would go just to spend a week with friends I usually only see once a year.
#17 | Jeremy Flint
This was my first year to miss SXSW after attending for two years (04 and 05). I have come to the realization that SXSW is about the networking and social aspects. Sure, some of the panels are good, but it is hard to really teach something in under an hour. I always took the panels as a way to get an idea of something I could research more on my own.
The biggest thing I always got out of SXSW was the rejuvination of sorts that comes from being with your own kind, feeding off each other and just getting some momentum for the upcoming year.
#18 | Jonathan Snook
The panels certainly didn't provide any learning opportunities. It's really all about the people. Until next year when I do my panel. :)
#19 | JC
I've just felt like the whole field has been stagnating for a year or three now. It's not exciting and new anymore, there are no real innovations, just minor changes to existing things. There's nothing really special out there anymore that makes you say "damn, now this is why I'm in this business."
#20 | tiffany
I think we're on the edge of progress in terms of the web right now. I'm not sure how much movement we can do until we have a new browser or until mobile content hits the mainstream. Until then, we've got this holding pattern on technical innovation. I did learn some stuff at the Demystifying the Mobile Web panel. But the panelists were coming from a few angles, so it was hard to learn about developing for mobile.
This year's SXSW was heavy on the culture-side of technology: what does blogging mean from a political-social-cultural standpoint? And I think it had to do with the integration of BlogHer -- which is far more concerned with the *use* of tech tools than the development of tech tools.
But it's all about the parties anyway man.
#21 | Patrick Haney
I enjoyed the panels, but this was my first SXSW, so I am slightly biased. I felt like most of the panels I went to were more about inspiring and less about learning though.
And it's true, you can dance. But I outbowled you.
#22 | Anton
Hey man, it was cool meeting you finally. To me, the price of admission was all about meeting everyone, and made it worth attending (in my rather humble opinion). It's all good though.
I'll certainly be watching to see who rises to the surface this coming year.