Monthly Archives: March 2007

Inspiration on Tap at SxSW

I’ve been back from Austin for a few days now and I’m still floating from a week of inspiration and fun. Not even a weekend of taxes has broken the spirit of SxSW.

Things kicked off at Buffalo Billiards on Friday night as I reunited with some of the great friends I made last year. It was like no time had passed at all. For me and so many others, SxSW is more about real human interaction than anything else.

This year was bigger than ever. With between eight and nine different tracks, there were way too many good things going on at the same time, all the time. It was frustrating to choose between things like “Field Guide to Design Inspiration” and “The Influence of Art and Design“. All I can do is await the podcasts of the panels I missed.

Twitter became suddenly very useful because you never had to wonder what everyone was doing at any given time. Speaking of twitter, I believe I may have coined a new term:

twitterlanche
What happens when turning on your mobile device after it has been turned off for an extended period of time during a major social event.

When I turned on my phone after landing in Austin, I had to dig out from the twitterlanche.

SxSW Take Two

I’m sitting here at Gate A9 in SJC waiting for the nonstop to AUS. My two week whirlwind tour of the southwest continues as I make my way to SxSW Interactive 2007. Waiting with me are Kent Brewster and the Pipes guys from Yahoo! and Jeremy Gillick from PayPal. I am sure more than half the plane will be filled with conference attendees. Even though we have yet to board the plane, it feels like SxSW has already begun.