A Singular and Unique Experience: SXSWInteractive 2006
I got back late last night from five days wonderful tech geekery that was SXSWInteractive...
I could've flown in just for my panel and left immediately after--but I wanted to make the most of the experience.
This could be the beginning of something more--or it could be my 15 seconds of fame. Who knows? One never really knows, actually, and even if I got back to Austin sometime later this year, it probably will be for something un-blog related.
I started meeting up with fellow bloggers the minute I got there--connecting first with Sean Coon, who also attended and blogged the film festival (Go over to connecting*the*dots and go into the SXSW stuff to see how much he blogged! I have no idea how he did it...I think he's got that Compulsive Bloggers disease ;-) )
Ran into Halley Suitt, first as she was going up the escalator, and I was going down-- a bunch of times, including right after she had her picture taken with Michael Eisner (boy, is he tall!)
Met up with fellow panelists .Bill Anderson and then Jimmie Bice (whose "Technology Yay!" observation summed up a lot of what was going on at the festival--and who then went on to shoot a spot on Jeopardy!. Seriously. I now know somone who made it thru to tv, not just the qualifying rounds)
On Saturday, we gathered up Nancy White and Grace Davis to round out the panel, and started pulling things together.
I was in and out of a lot of different panels, and talking with all sorts of people--running into Sean now and again...here and there...met and spent a lot of time talking with Evelyn Rodriguez. It's really strange how sometimes I think there's someone I will have absolutely nothing in common with, and she turns out to be someone I have things in common with that I have in common with only a few other people (yeah, bad grammar, I know--but you get it)
Had a very fun dinner with a bunch of folks that is captured short-and-sweetly by Travis Smith (a very funny guy and astute observer of many things.)
Ended up going to bed early most of the nights--I don't travel well...on top of having a number of things on my mind that kept me a bit out of sorts and more introverted than I usually am (I say this because most will say "you? introverted?" but the fact remains that if I'm not one step away from dancing on a table or putting a lampshade on my head or setting someone straight about how they're totally wrong about something--without having had lots of alcohol--I'm definitely feeling introverted. I think, though, that I was mostly overwhelmed by all the people and didn't know what to say to meet any of them.)
It was, I think, some residual stuff around my Mother--whose 89th birthday would have been on March 14. I think I'm going to feel some basic "Disturbance in the Force" for a few years....kind of like I used to feel around the 13th of June, which was the day my ex disappeared. Eventually, things will change, but not right away...
(will write more about the panel in another post)
Also chatted with Ronni Bennett about how women often are identified by the men they are with--and that it is very, very different to be single and to forge an identity that doesn't have anything to do with a guy. I saw a lot of women at SXSW who were there with boyfrineds/spouses, some of whom contitute Power Couples in the tech/blog world, and I just kept thinking about how I was very happy to be there on my own.
Monday I was starting to feel more like myself, but still not myself. Sat in on a bunch of tech and business panels. Later, ran into Ponzi--where we both looked at each other and said "hey! I know you!" and I did a very fun interview with her (hoping to find the link to it soon.)
Went to the EFF party (the only one I felt like going to) and talked to some of the EFF folks as well as Jeneane and George Sessum and Liz Henry, who told us all about the chick who attended her panel, then commented how it was full of lesbians who didn't like girly-girls.
All I could think of was "que??" very weird.
Tuesday was more panels, a serious case of burnout, and a very nice conversation with Xian Crumlish, who I'd met last year at BlogHer. I always love running into people I've met at some time or another, just to see if they remember me. And he did. It was during the panel he chaired that I realized my compulsion to re-design every single crochet pattern I work is an indication of some semblance of geekery. Who knew? (yes, I crochet. I've been crocheting since a time when it wasn't cool. I even crochet doilies--those things grandma always made. but in weird colors. like red.)
I left on Wednesday morning. It took me the entire day to get home because of bad weather....and I thought that I would have liked to say an extra couple of days so I could take in the music festival. Esp. since I only started to mellow out enough to enjoy myself on Monday and Tuesday.
But such is life. I can, at least, say that I've been to SXSW, and that I spoke there--my first time speaking and my first time there. Quite an accomplishment, I guess. In some respects I don't quite know what to do with the Experience just yet. In time it will make sense, I'm sure.
Meanwhile I'm thinking about how I'm going to continue bolstering that "Lefty media monitor" title I got for Snarkholic from Time Magazine...when only a couple of months ago the National Journal thought I was right-wing--when all I'm really doing is media watching for whomever commits the most egregious faux pas of the day...
It's hard trying to keep the center...esp. when you are an awful lot like warm caramel...
SXSW SXSW06 media, Blogging, Blog, Blogs, Weblogs
SXSWi
I could've flown in just for my panel and left immediately after--but I wanted to make the most of the experience.
This could be the beginning of something more--or it could be my 15 seconds of fame. Who knows? One never really knows, actually, and even if I got back to Austin sometime later this year, it probably will be for something un-blog related.
I started meeting up with fellow bloggers the minute I got there--connecting first with Sean Coon, who also attended and blogged the film festival (Go over to connecting*the*dots and go into the SXSW stuff to see how much he blogged! I have no idea how he did it...I think he's got that Compulsive Bloggers disease ;-) )
Ran into Halley Suitt, first as she was going up the escalator, and I was going down-- a bunch of times, including right after she had her picture taken with Michael Eisner (boy, is he tall!)
Met up with fellow panelists .Bill Anderson and then Jimmie Bice (whose "Technology Yay!" observation summed up a lot of what was going on at the festival--and who then went on to shoot a spot on Jeopardy!. Seriously. I now know somone who made it thru to tv, not just the qualifying rounds)
On Saturday, we gathered up Nancy White and Grace Davis to round out the panel, and started pulling things together.
I was in and out of a lot of different panels, and talking with all sorts of people--running into Sean now and again...here and there...met and spent a lot of time talking with Evelyn Rodriguez. It's really strange how sometimes I think there's someone I will have absolutely nothing in common with, and she turns out to be someone I have things in common with that I have in common with only a few other people (yeah, bad grammar, I know--but you get it)
Had a very fun dinner with a bunch of folks that is captured short-and-sweetly by Travis Smith (a very funny guy and astute observer of many things.)
Ended up going to bed early most of the nights--I don't travel well...on top of having a number of things on my mind that kept me a bit out of sorts and more introverted than I usually am (I say this because most will say "you? introverted?" but the fact remains that if I'm not one step away from dancing on a table or putting a lampshade on my head or setting someone straight about how they're totally wrong about something--without having had lots of alcohol--I'm definitely feeling introverted. I think, though, that I was mostly overwhelmed by all the people and didn't know what to say to meet any of them.)
It was, I think, some residual stuff around my Mother--whose 89th birthday would have been on March 14. I think I'm going to feel some basic "Disturbance in the Force" for a few years....kind of like I used to feel around the 13th of June, which was the day my ex disappeared. Eventually, things will change, but not right away...
(will write more about the panel in another post)
Also chatted with Ronni Bennett about how women often are identified by the men they are with--and that it is very, very different to be single and to forge an identity that doesn't have anything to do with a guy. I saw a lot of women at SXSW who were there with boyfrineds/spouses, some of whom contitute Power Couples in the tech/blog world, and I just kept thinking about how I was very happy to be there on my own.
Monday I was starting to feel more like myself, but still not myself. Sat in on a bunch of tech and business panels. Later, ran into Ponzi--where we both looked at each other and said "hey! I know you!" and I did a very fun interview with her (hoping to find the link to it soon.)
Went to the EFF party (the only one I felt like going to) and talked to some of the EFF folks as well as Jeneane and George Sessum and Liz Henry, who told us all about the chick who attended her panel, then commented how it was full of lesbians who didn't like girly-girls.
All I could think of was "que??" very weird.
Tuesday was more panels, a serious case of burnout, and a very nice conversation with Xian Crumlish, who I'd met last year at BlogHer. I always love running into people I've met at some time or another, just to see if they remember me. And he did. It was during the panel he chaired that I realized my compulsion to re-design every single crochet pattern I work is an indication of some semblance of geekery. Who knew? (yes, I crochet. I've been crocheting since a time when it wasn't cool. I even crochet doilies--those things grandma always made. but in weird colors. like red.)
I left on Wednesday morning. It took me the entire day to get home because of bad weather....and I thought that I would have liked to say an extra couple of days so I could take in the music festival. Esp. since I only started to mellow out enough to enjoy myself on Monday and Tuesday.
But such is life. I can, at least, say that I've been to SXSW, and that I spoke there--my first time speaking and my first time there. Quite an accomplishment, I guess. In some respects I don't quite know what to do with the Experience just yet. In time it will make sense, I'm sure.
Meanwhile I'm thinking about how I'm going to continue bolstering that "Lefty media monitor" title I got for Snarkholic from Time Magazine...when only a couple of months ago the National Journal thought I was right-wing--when all I'm really doing is media watching for whomever commits the most egregious faux pas of the day...
It's hard trying to keep the center...esp. when you are an awful lot like warm caramel...
SXSW SXSW06 media, Blogging, Blog, Blogs, Weblogs
SXSWi
posted by Tish Grier at 4:24 PM
1 Comments:
doc-t:
acronyms! they're a riot, aren't they...and the tech world is as full of them as the military (does that then make it a geek military--the place where all the folks with flat feet and asthma end up? ;-)
As for what SxSW stands for: South by SouthWest. like 2x4. It started as a music festival, added the film and the interactive (interactive 6 yrs ago). I think the name has to do with the location of the city...the convention center though is sxsw or the Capitol building (I think) so that might have something to do with it too...
you're right that it's kind of strange they don't have anything explaining it on the site. then, after 20 yrs, they might figure out that everyone knows already.
Post a Comment
<< Home