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SXSW Interactive ran from March 7–11 in Austin, Texas. You probably saw Beth Kanter's post SXSW Zuckerberg/Lacy Interview: What is the style, substance, or participation?. Additional drama of a different kind occurred in Frank Warren of Post Secret's Keynote. When Warren invited the audience to step to the microphone and reveal a secret there was a marriage proposal. It was accepted, too.
I live blogged everything that I attended as fast as my little fingers would go on Web Teacher. But every person who attends has a different experience.
Anne at Just Write Click mentioned Amazing conversations and meeting amazing people at SXSW Interactive. She reflected on a lesser uprising during a panel and the big uprising during the Zuckerberg interview with,
I’m of two minds about the things that have happened here this week - on one hand, I think the conference is only as high quality as its presenters. If all the attendees think they’re smarter than and better than the panelists, then why bother coming at all when you can view the video online or listen to the podcast later? I guess that hypothetical question is answered with - we come because we can interact with the panelists.
I even witnessed a panelist admit that he “wasn’t paying attention” to another panelist’s answer to a question during their panel. It came across as immature, arrogant, and unprofessional to me. Much like the sweater-tossing antics I observed based on the meebo room conversation in the social media metrics talk, I internally rolled my eyes and thought, how many people are just trying to get attention, drawing it away from the panelists disrespectfully? Is this online behavior and real-life behavior only as mature as the junior high lunch room?
Anne also mentioned some of the chance meetings and great conversations she had during SXSWi.
The live blogging award must go to Christine at christine.net. She managed almost perfect rendering of what the keynote speaker had to say. For example, see her post Jane McGonigal on Why Gamers Are Happier Than You.
McGonigal jokes that multiplayer games are the ultimate happiness engine. But why does this matter? Games are an incredible system of language. Imagine if words were only used in books, and nowhere else in the world. Why are we only making games for within computer consoles? Why can't we use games to learn, or navigate the world around us?
An interesting feature at the Keynotes this year was the addition of two artists, working on huge spaces, who expressed the keynote conversations artistically as they went on. Here's one by the artist Sunni Brown on the McGonigal speech.
Taste Teaser wrote about several aspects of the event in SXSW Interactive 2008 - has it been a year already?. Among other things, she mentioned the new discussion type space called Core Conversations.
“Core conversations” was a very interesting new format this year. Speakers sit behind a round table and everyone pulls up chairs in a semi circle. Very interactive and conversational. It was a great way for speakers/ experts to target their talk to the audiences’ needs/ expectations by getting their input early. I found the audience sometimes was able to answer each others questions, even better than the speakers. Unfortunately, it was a bit hard to hear (5-6 conversations at a time in a big room). Overall, great discussions and perhaps better than panels? Panels most often stayed too broad and unfocused (Localization and Designers vs Developers panel examples)
I went to one of the Core Conversations on New Generations of Learning, where I met blogger Karen Rayne. In her blog on Adolescent Sexuality she wrote Things I Learned at SXSW. She commented,
First and foremost, of course, I learned that geeks are a lot of fun. There were interesting and relevant panels starting at 10am everyday, and when they ended at 6pm, the parties started and went until 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning. The networking and connecting were amazing and fabulous.
I went to a panel on what teenagers want online and on their cell phones, and what they had to say was really interesting. There were really three points that seemed particularly salient:
1. Teenagers don’t use e-mail except to communicate with adults (teachers, family, etc.). Instead they communicate through their cohort’s social networking site of choice (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.).
2. Teenagers don’t use cell phones to talk to each other. Instead, they use them to text message and to play games. This was also true of the
