Tag Archives: nerdxsw

NerdXSW: Day 2… 3… 4… 5!

I’ve arrived home after 6 days in Austin for the SXSW Interactive Festival. It was, as always, a whirlwind of content, people, and parties. It was really nice to meet up and spend time with other Minnesotans while enjoying the beautiful city of Austin (and the beautiful weather)!

What I love about SXSW (the conference) is the amount of choice in content. Having attended for the past 3 years, I’ve learned that it works best to just “go with the flow” when choosing which sessions to attend. One of my rules for a successful SXSW is to check out a wide variety of content. This year that included a lot of nerdy stuff like web typography, html5 & css3, user experience and wireframing, and a panel on the awesome ExpressionEngine CMS… as well as some totally nerdy-in-a-different-kind-of-way content like DEVO (yes, that DEVO), and my favorite: karaoke!

There were a bunch of Minnesotans doing some awesome panels this year, including Kristina Halvorson (president of Brain Traffic), presenting on content strategy, Greg Swan (who runs perfectporridge.com) on a panel about music blogs in 2010, and Adria Richards (butyoureagirl.com), with her take on how sci-fi shapes the internet.

And this was all but just a small sampling of the content available at the Interactive conference. SXSW really is a great place to hear interesting people talk about interesting things. Equally important to the content, though, are the connections and new friendships that I make every year. This year it was especially great to connect with fellow Minnesotans, and that’s something I hope continues (and that the Minnesota contingent grows) at SXSW in subsequent years!

Well, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and time to go out and celebrate being home! Then I will begin trying to fit in as much sleep as possible before 9AM Saturday morning, when my team, Pollywog Stew, will come together to dominate at the Overnight Web Challenge.

Signing off,
Gillian

NerdXSW: Day 1 Recap

Well, it’s the first session of Day 2, and I made it only 10 minutes late! (I had to finish my breakfast of crepes–sustenance is key to a successful SXSW). I’m currently in the front row of “Web Fonts: The Time Has Come”, listening to some history of web fonts and writing up this update about my day yesterday.

For the first session of SXSW, I found myself in “History of the Button.” Bill DeRouchey presented a really fascinating look at the history of the button, from its original mechanical incarnation (the lever) to where we are today (flat surface, digital buttons on touch screen interfaces) to the future of buttons (dynamic surfaces that can raise and lower on demand to provide tactile buttons – cool!). Overall, it was an eye-opening presentation about something that we all take for granted in our everyday lives.

Next up was “Jacks of All Trades or Masters of One?,” a discussion about generalists versus specialists in technology. The panelists presented many of the characteristics of generalists and specialists, and walked the audience through a series of yes/no questions illustrating the difference between each. I found the panel quite interesting and engaging at the time, but even better was the discussion that it prompted over dinner later that night. Speaking of dinner…

I spent the last panel of the day camped out in back of ”Time + Social + Location. What’s next in mobile experience?”, tethered to an outlet, furiously twittering to organize dinner plans. While I was thinking about food, the panelists discussed where we are with location-based social media services (like Foursquare and Gowalla, the darlings of SXSW 2010) and what the future might hold.

Once the final session of the day let out, 20 or so Minnesotans at SXSW got together for dinner at The Boiling Pot, a cajun restaurant where they dump shrimp, crab, and crawfish in front of you right on the table. Dinner brought a lot of Minnesota camaraderie, as well as follow-on conversations about the panels each of had attended and what we had taken away.

I’m looking forward to what today holds–it’s shaping up to be a nerdy day for sure, including the web fonts panel I’m currently sitting in, and then a series of workshops: wireframing, CSS3/HTML5, and more web fonts! Wee!

Until next time,
Gillian

NerdXSW: Reporting for duty

Greetings!

I’ve arrived in Austin, TX for the famed nerd mecca, SXSW Interactive. I’ll be blogging a bit from here–sharing some of my experiences, thoughts on panels I attend, and hopefully convincing at least a few of you fine readers that Austin and SXSW is the place to be in mid-March!

All the nerdly goodness starts tomorrow at 2PM. Until then I’ll be emptying my swag bag, charging my mobile devices, reviewing the schedule, and attempting to choose which panels to attend (already there are no less than 5 sessions I’m interested in for the 2:00 time slot).

My most pressing decision at this moment, however: food and margaritas in downtown Austin or the last full night’s sleep I’m likely to get in the next 6 days?

Your faithful reporter,
Gillian