SXSWi 2010: T-minus 12 Days and Counting
I’m getting more excited about SXSWi with each passing day. My wife pointed out to me yesterday that I’m now counting it down in days rather than weeks. We’re under two weeks now so I’m going to defend my geekness. Daily feels right. T-minus 12 days and counting…if you’re wondering.
Twitter is starting to swell towards critical SXSW mass. I’m clearly not the only geek who is having a hard time focusing on anything else. I’m also not the only geek who misses ye olden days of “south-by” when it was just us geeks. I work in a marketing department. I’ve worked in an ad agency. But I wish the marketers would have stayed away.
The hype, the spiels, the venture capitalists, the wannabe venture capitalists, the wannabe entrepreneurs (real ones are okay), the new celebrity culture… You’ll here a lot of this from folks like me over the next few weeks but the festival just isn’t what it used to be. Everybody has something to hawk now. Everyone has something to sell.
The geeks will still be there—I’ll be there—but it’ll be a little bit harder to find them in the crowds this time. Just like it was a little bit harder last time. There are a lot of great apps to help people organize though and the panels you pick offer their own kind of organization. There probably aren’t that many marketing types sitting in on JavaScript sessions. So there’s hope!
Browsing through Twitter this morning, here are few SXSWi quick hits to help with your organization:
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The SXSW Interactive Mobile Thriving Guide (iPhone)
Want to ditch the laptop this year? The IMTG offers advice and a collection of iPhone apps to help you. -
South By Texas State
The tagline for the site is “New Media Students Chronicle SXSWi 2010″, which looks to be a fairly accurate description of what they’re doing. So far they’ve written up various top five lists and several individual panel previews. -
SXSW 2010 Guide: Balancing Film and Interactive
If you only have a Film badge or an Interactive badge but want to be more involved in the other part of the festival, these guys did the legwork for you and found out which events of the other track you can cross over to participate in.
As it turns out, when I actually looked at the film panels, I found a lot of stuff I’d like to see. My company pays for my interactive badge but I’m considering paying to upgrade to a gold badge. And not just so I can go to the premiere of Kick Ass. Not just for that reason. There’s also the panels.
My wife and I are both fascinated by title sequences. They can be amazing works of art in their own right. This year there are least two film panels entirely devoted to them.
I most likely won’t pony up the $200 though. We’re trying to be good and save, to the point where I’m even considering putting off purchasing an iPad for a few months. (My wife was duly shocked by this pronouncement.) Then again, it’s only $200…