Overwhelming. My first word for SXSW. After five days of the interactive conference, I have a long list of sites, apps, and ideas to be checking out for awhile to come.
Originally in the mindset of handing out some business cards, I found that far better than networking to simply toss cards around in hopes of scoring jobs, it was an opportunity to exchange ideas and expand by everyone sharing their work. There are some new contacts with intriguing businesses that I need to check out. Incidentally, I’m happy the QR codes on my cards seemed to be a point where I was up with tech trends (surprising, I know). It was a rare chance for me to share how something worked to a few people. I also appreciated the codes SXSW attached to everyone’s badges as a means to follow them online. Another bit of knowledge I have to credit Brad McCall with relating to me, and another subject of brought up in sessions—”finders”—those people that are early adopters, that find all the cool new items going on and spread that knowledge. Brad is a finder.
I got into a few sessions on the design side such as making websites more beautiful, sketching out concepts pictorially with clients rather than noting keywords (quote: sharpies smell like ideas), dashboard and app design. The balance was jumping into more technology-heavy sessions (which gave me some homework). I particularly enjoyed the panel about the pros and cons of HTML5 Canvas and Adobe Flash. Augmented reality, technology ideas from sci-fi, crowdsourcing science, and a couple hours of infographics and maps (I am a geek after all) added some apps to play with. (Foursquare anyone? Gowalla, Dopplr?). There were a couple particularly good discussions on self-promotion. Excellent thoughts from Peter Shankman that are simply good general rules for life, but are always helpful to remember and apply to professional situations.
There’s so much said about social media, very much the center of nearly every discussion. One intriguing axiom reiterated was that there isn’t a distinction between your personal and your professional “brand”. Also funny to see the focus of social media manifest with an audience with their heads down on mobile devices and laptops while listening. I’m an oddball in that I don’t have a twitter account. So far, I haven’t felt a compelling need to have another vein of social media to maintain (while I ought to be working or developing my direct professional skills)…for the moment, anyway. I get tempted to apply myself to it for awhile, or rather I think I’d spend more time following and pulling design and technology information out of it.
There’s not a chance I could relate all that got my mind going, in a single blog anyway. Though I hope to expound on those new lines of thought in future posts as I start to follow up on what I jotted down. For now, I’d better hush up and get back to some design work.
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