SXSW Day 1: A Little Overwhelming

This post is a cross-post from a SXSW blog series I’m posting for Grafik.

Everything I had read prior to arriving in Austin for SXSW had warned me that for new attendees, the conference can be a little overwhelming. I think this forewarning is a bit of an understatement – it’s downright crazy. Imagine 10,000-15,000 people swarming to a 4 block section of town. Then take about 70% of those people, and imagine they are walking with their nose buried in their smartphone. These people could be wearing shorts, jeans, sun dresses, leather, plaid, sport coats, ties, and more leather. They might look like Barbie, Mr. T, members of your favorite punk rock band, or your CPA. They might have died hair, earrings, shaved heads, mohawks, glasses, or look like you and me. In other words, any and every type of person is here – from all over the world.

After I processed the initial shock of being surrounded by such colorful people, the first order of business was check in and get my coveted SXSW badge. And after standing in the wrong long line for 20 minutes (for a swag bag rather than my badge), I was kindly directed by one of the very nice and energetic SXSW staff to the badge collection line. And as I entered the long, winding line, it reminded me of my honeymoon in Disneyworld, waiting in line with high expectations for a crazy ride ahead – except no children.

Waiting In Line for the Ride of My Life

So, after picking up my badge, I walked around the convention center to get my bearings as well as a sense for where I would need to go to attend the various panels. As with most conventions, there are booths set up by every possible tech vendor that you can imagine, from Microsoft hawking the new Windows 7 phones, to Nintendo promoting the Wii Kinect.

A Challenging Bout w/ Wii Kinect

And if I hadn’t just showered and gussied myself up for the conference, I might have jumped into the ring with these guys – I have a nasty right hook.

And after walking around for a bit, it was time to take a little walk around downtown and find a nice watering hole to grab lunch – after all, it had been a long, tough morning. I think what I found the most fascinating on my walk was the transformation taking place around the convention center. Buildings that had stood empty a mere two days before were now “it” spots for parties, or in the case below, what was once just a normal restaurant had become the CNN SXSW Grill. As you can see, the old signage had been replaced with a sign specifically made for CNN for this week. And this was taking place all over the city.

CNN Preparing for Their SXSW Takeover

Finally, after satiating my appetite with a delicious taco salad, it was time to venture back to the conference area and sit in on a few panels. First up was a Fireside Chat with Tim O’Reilly. For those of you who don’t know Tim O’Reilly, not only is he the founder of the O’Reilly suite of tech and programming books, he’s probably one of the smartest guys out there when it comes to emerging technology. He has had a track record of knowing what the next big thing is going to be, before the Googles and Facebooks of the world do.

Tim O'Reilly and Jason Calacanis Take the Stage

Tim O’Reilly has always been a big advocate for “open source.” He and a group of folks actually coined the term “open source” back when programmers were trying to determine what to call their efforts to share programming knowledge with one another. And what I found interesting was how he is now trying to use his experience to apply that concept to evolving our government. He believes we should view the government as a platform, rather than a service provider. He referenced how the government using their abilities to develop GPS technology in the 60′s and then making it available to the public to in ’87 to innovate against is what has led to the thousands of products that now use GPS technology. Imagine what our lives would be like without turn by turn directions from our Tom Tom, or not being able to check in at work to claim your mayorship.

But in all seriousness, Tim is advocating for more people to think like startups, rather than big corporations. Think iteratively, collect feedback, and evolve often. Imagine what our government would be like if bills were 20 pages long, rather than 2600… He has even started a non-profit, Code For America, where he is recruiting the best and brightest programmers, and using their skill sets to help our government evolve, all over the country. Amazing and powerful stuff.

You can learn more about Tim O’Reilly by reading his blog or following him on Twitter @TimOReilly.

And as fascinating as this discussion was, the following panel that I attended was not nearly as much. The presentation, led by Mint.com‘s VP of Product, was billed as an opportunity to hear how companies were using analytics to help determine whether they should build a mobile app versus a web app, versus a mobile-optimized website. This is something we wrestle with every one of our clients – what is the right solution based on who their customers are and what types of information we want to present to them? Sadly, what had so much promise turned out to be an hour long infomercial about the history of Mint.com and how great it is now. The only tidbits worth passing along are pretty obvious to anyone who has worked with mobile products:

1. Pick your platforms carefully. Know who your customers are, the types of devices they use, and build towards that platform.
2. If you choose to develop an application, don’t waste your time on any of the peripheral distribution mechanisms. Take advantage of the iTunes App Store and the Android Marketplace.
3. If you are delivering a lot of data (as in the case of Mint.com) an application gives you much more presentation control than the mobile web does. If the information you are offering is simple, a mobile-optimized website may be the quickest and easiest solution. Less headaches.

Two other random anecdotes which I found interesting were:

• 20% of Mint.com’s user base is now mobile only. They registered via their mobile phone and view all of their data through their smartphone. Which to me, as a Mint.com user, is fascinating given how rich the web experience is, but it goes to show you how we are evolving.
• When Pandora first started, they were trying to develop apps for every single handset, and for the life of them, they couldn’t figure out why Pandora worked on the black Motorola Razr but not the pink one. Come to find out, the pink Razr used a different chip set than the black one. Consequently, they had to modify their app just for the pink phone. He mentioned this anecdote as an example of how complicated developing an application can be if you choose to go down that road

If I learned anything from the Mint.com panel, it’s to be prepared for some to be worthwhile, and others to be less than so. But as someone mentioned, SXSW is what you make of it. Don’t be afraid to walk out if you’re not happy. Message received.

So, let me summarize the day with a few tips that I learned first-hand:

1. Register for the conference early, and get a hotel downtown. Driving in or catching a shuttle is a pain and doesn’t allow you the ability to take a break when you need one.
2. Have your phone charger with you at all times. My battery was on life support by 3pm, which makes it challenging to do much of anything.
3. Be careful when you are trying to walk and check-in on Foursquare at the same time or you might trip over a sand bag.
4. Drink lots and lots of water to balance out the copious amounts of caffeine and other free beverages you’ll be drinking.
5. Wear comfortable shoes.

You can keep up with the latest by following me on Twitter @psubuzz or Foursquare, reading my SXSW blog series, and catch some of the sights and sounds of SXSW on Flickr.