Over the weekend I attended the South by Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSWi) in Austin. For those that don’t know, SxSWi is the tech/social media conference the week before it’s more famous music-festival sibling.
The depth and variety of topics, panels, presentations, activities, and conversations eclipse what you’d even imagine to find anywhere. Blogging for fun and profit? Check. A pile of Legos the size of your local coffee shop? Why not? A debrief on the future past of CSS 3.0. Check. How about a solar-powered, photo-snapping, flickr-bike? You bet. Or maybe you want a deep dive on best practices for privacy tools on social networking sites? Of course. And … so on, and so on… Yep, SXSW has gotcha ya covered.
Such richness nearly tempted me into four full days of blogging. Luckily for you, I instead found a way to spend the bulk of my time watching, talking, and thinking. Well, actually, that path chose me… but let me back up a step.
First of all, this was my first SXSW and frankly it completely overwhelmed me. Sure, ALA Annual is big, but it’s a little (LOT) more focused, and moves at a slightly (MUCH) slower pace. SXSW absolutely FLIES. Every day and every hour I fought conflicts sometimes two and three deep. Did I want to attend a talk on lessons in community management headlined by the Flickr team— something I’ve already done some research into—or skip it to dig into online accessibility at the trade show? Needless to say I had to make a lot of choices (and I hate making choices).
To help prepare for the expected overload, I read deeply in the “how to succeed at SXSW” genre (owing to the music roots of the event, most of the articles were titled “How to Rawk SXSW“). coming away more confused than ever. Some said schedule everything to avoid missing out. Some said to leave lots of room for serendipity. When one advised leaving your laptop in the hotel; another gave pirate tips for charging the “always essential” computer at the convention center.
Who to believe?
I had no idea. The one thing that kept echoing through my head was the advice from (self-proclaimed?) hug evangalist, John Halcyon Styn:
…I would say “photo, blog, or twitter” the event, but I don’t think it is a good use of your time. In fact, I would recommend updating minimally while you are there. Engage & absorb. Then, later, reflect & share.
The first time I read it, it didn’t stick. I felt like I had to keep my shiny new netbook at the ready and blog the heck out of everything.
So, first day in, I tweeted up a storm, action that unfortunately coincided with full-scale adoption of Facebook’s new design. It seems I forgot to kill my Twitter-to-Facebook connection and abosultely buried my Friends with a big ol’, Texas-sized pile of 140 character updates. I then got the message to to turn off the linking, but didn’t bother to check and see if it “stuck.” Lesson learned (and sorry about that folks).
The next day, I thought I’d save my friends from the heavy tweets and do some of that live-blogging all the hip webkiddies are talking about these days. Well, that was the plan, anyway, until I lost that shiny new netbook.
Oops.
So that left me with plan C. You know the one I was supposed to be paying attention to from the start?
Engage & absorb. Then, later, reflect & share.
That’s right… engage & absorb. My lack of technology left me no choice, so that’s what I did. I listened to some people, thought a bit, talked a bit, and thought a bit. It felt pretty good.
I’ll admit that I picked that nasty Twitter habit right back up then next day when I was reunited with my computer (yes, a happy ending but note to self: Put name and phone number ON computer), though I really tried to keep a respectful distance from my absorption while keeping the volume to a reasonable level.
I was surprised how that one break changed up my conference experience. Even now that I’ve been back home for more than a day, the reflection is still coming.
Sure, it could just be coincidence—maybe my post computer-loss perspective was really just me gaining my conference/sea legs. Or maybe not. The vibe was noticeable enough to convince me that I should take a connection break during my next conference experience, too (though I think I’ll volunteer this time; losing and finding one computer is enough drama for now). Maybe then I’ll have the data to decide if it works. Or maybe I’ll just think about it for a while.
How about you? Have you found that blogging and the constant “on” of a connected life added, detracted, or other-ed your conference experiences?
Great post, Tim. When I engage in any learning, I like to give my undivided attention to the presentation or workshop or whatever, and I take minimal notes–the notes I DO take are just the in-the-moment “a-ha’s” I might have and any essential facts that the presenter provides (that aren’t already written down elsewhere).
Afterwards, I reflect on what I may have learned, go over my a-ha’s, and see which ones (if any) are interesting enough to share outwards. Sometimes that lightbulb I had during the presentation turns out to be a dud when I read it later. Others may turn out to be more than a lightbulb but a whole chandelier after I’ve thought about it a little more.
I don’t see much value in real-time blogging or twittering except as a note-taking device (and definitely don’t want those notes spamming other twitter or Facebook walls). I don’t care much to read someone else’s unedited, unvetted, stream-of-conscious thoughts. Don’t tell me what you heard; tell me what you learned.
What a great reflection! Thanks for sharing.