A Conference Like No Other — Key SXSW Takeaways

Gowalla and Foursquare were the most use­ful and the most frus­trat­ing apps of SXSW.

Dur­ing SXSW, I used Gowalla and Foursquare more fre­quently then I ever had in the past (and I’m a heavy user).  Not only was I check­ing in to every room, bar, and hall­way I stepped foot in, but I was also using it to keep up with my friends and keep track of where the con­fer­ence hot spots were (this became par­ti­carly use­ful dur­ing SXSW’s night time activ­i­ties).  That said, nei­ther app could keep up with the vol­ume, which led to many an appli­ca­tion time out and restart.

And on a side note — Whrrl was the dark horse mobile app of the con­fer­ence.  It re-​​emerged from the mobile appli­ca­tion grave­yard with a quiet but smart con­fer­ence pro­mo­tion that empha­sized new func­tion­ally and encour­aged imme­di­ate usage.  Friends Cameron Gaw­ley and Eddy Bad­rina got a chance to speak with the founders and they have some very inter­est­ing ideas in the works.

Inter­est­ing fact — I used these mobile apps much more than I used Twitter.

Where’s the meat?

For the most part, SXSW pan­els were  disappointing.

I think this is the prob­lem with SXSW’s Panel Picker vot­ing sys­tem.  It seemed as if every­one spent so much time craft­ing per­fect titles and sub­ject pitches that they for­got to cre­ate a com­pelling pre­sen­ta­tion to go with it.

I’ve had my fill of high level the­o­ret­i­cal strat­egy — I want to learn how to actu­ally do the stuff.

Where’s the innovation?

Have we run out of new ideas?  It seems like most of the social speak­ers were still spend­ing more time try­ing to con­vince you that social media is impor­tant (and how to com­mu­ni­cate that to your boss) then try­ing to chal­lenge us.  I don’t know about you, but I want to be challenged!

The many faces of SXSW

Many peo­ple echoed this sen­ti­ment (another hat tip here to Eddy & Cameron), but as a first time SXSW par­tic­i­pant, I thought it was par­tic­u­larly evi­dent.  There’s two very dif­fer­ent faces to SXSW — there’s the clean cut aca­d­e­mic (pan­els) and the urban socialite (par­ties). Both are use­ful in their own rights, but I feel like I should have lis­tened to Chris Brogan’s advice early on and skipped the panels.

The top dogs aren’t that dif­fer­ent from the rest of the pack

If you know me very well, you know that I’m dri­ven to be as suc­cess­ful as many of the SXSW head­lin­ers.  So it’s no sur­prise that I look towards them for insight on how to get there.  But if there’s one thing SXSW taught me, it’s that we all get it, and we’re all think­ing the same things.  In my case, the A-​​listers have just been doing it for longer, so they can bring a bit more insight and expe­ri­ence to the table.

Step out­side your niche

I avoided almost all of the pan­els about social media and how to use it for your busi­ness.  I came to the con­fer­ence to learn new con­cepts — not be re-​​exposed to mate­r­ial I already knew.  I got more value out of pan­els that were out­side my niche then from those within.

Gary Vayn­er­chuk and Chris Bro­gan deserve to be at the top

I’ve had more of a chance to talk to and inter­act with Chris Bro­gan then I have with Vayn­er­chuk, but each are very gen­uine in their actions.  They def­i­nitely prac­tice what they preach.

By the way — make it a point to see Gary Vayn­er­chuk present live — he’s every bit as good as you might think.

The best pan­els were on the last day

Is Too Much Math Killing Mar­ket­ing?, Web Video Thun­der­dome and Twit­ter­ing Through Chemo all knocked my socks off.  I wish the rest of the con­fer­ence had been this good.

Long live organic networking!

What is it with con­fer­ences and forced net­work­ing?  You know what I’m talk­ing about — it’s when you’re sup­posed to get up from your seat for some pre-​​ordained length of time for forced socializing.

Forced net­work­ing has never worked for me — I pre­fer the organic nature of SXSW, where net­work­ing just kinda hap­pens.  In fact, I’d say that the net­work­ing was the most valu­able part of the con­fer­ence for me.

Con­nec­tiv­ity sur­passed expectations

There was plenty of power, wifi, and AT&T net­work cov­er­age to go around.  Kudos to SXSW, the Austin Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, and AT&T.

Austin taxis are way cheap

You can take one around town for less then $10.  This is a steal com­pared to what I remem­ber in the North East.

The Salt Lick is every bit as good as every­one says it is

Deli­cious BBQ.  Worth the trip to Drift­wood, even if it added an extra 2 hours to our drive home (Austin traf­fic is that bad).

Dal­las needs a Haly­con, pronto

At the end of a long day — who doesn’t like a cof­fee inspired adult bev­er­age and a plate of DIY smores?

Top 5 SXSW Moments

1. Hav­ing Gary Vayn­er­chuk pour me a glass (or two) of wine.
2. Awk­wardly pitch­ing Pete Cash­more on writ­ing for Mash­able (like hun­dres of other schmos must have done).
3. Pre­sent­ing at arguably the biggest con­fer­ence in my indus­try (Team CJ rocked the house, by the way).
4. See­ing Michel Gondry & Robert Rodriguez talk
5. Meet­ing tons of new peo­ple and spend­ing more time with those I already knew

Did you go to SXSW? What were some of your take­aways and favorite moments?

Related posts:

1. Team CJ Is Headed to SXSW 2010!
2. The Sin­gle Most Effec­tive Tac­tic For Online Mar­ket­ing Success
3. What will you lever­age in 2010?