Archive for the 'SXSW 2006' Category

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SXSWi 2006: Day 1

Published on March 13, 2006 in SXSW and SXSW 2006. 2 Comments

Since it’s already the end of day 3 here and I haven’t had a chance to blog a lot about the events here, I’ll try a retrospective of my first day at “South by Southwest”. All I can say is that I’m really overwhelmed by the crowd and especially the friendliness of everyone. It’s just like Molly described it, a real geek fest.

Panels I went to:

10:00 Beyond Folksonomies: Knitting Tag Clouds for Grandma

11:30 How to Be A Web Design Superhero

15:30 How to Bluff Your Way in DOM Scripting

17:00 How to Create Passionate Users

Originally I had the idea to pick out one panel, which in my opinion was the highlight of my day and write a bit more about it. After the first day I had to realize that all (or at least most) of the panels are highlights and I couldn’t pick just one.

In the first panel I went to, the discussion revolved more or less around taxonomy, folksonomy and how content could be tagged, classified or labeled in a more efficient way than it is already done by such well perceived and highly frequented services as del.ici.us or flickr. First of all, we have to realize that tagging is only done by a minority of internet users (mainly because the tools are still too complicated to use) and therefore doesn’t really mirror the average experience of the people out there. Secondly, one of the main challenges is our different ideas of the same term. Since tagging is done by humans, there will always be differences in opinion about the meaning of terms like “web development” or “web technologies”. What exactly do they include? In addition, people might use different tag for the same term: “webdev”, “webdevelopment”, “web development” etc. Let alone spelling mistakes. But that is o.k. since tagging as a form of folksonomy should reflect the ideas of different users and should not be influenced by anything. What we need are tools that fill that need for an easy interface.

Then I went over to the Andys’ humerous comparison of web designers and superheroes. I guess there isn’t much I need to say about Mr. Budd and Mr. Clarke, or about their presentations. As Brits, they have an innate witty humor, which might not find the linking of everybody. But I really like it. They already made their slides available online. They are worth ebery bit of the 13.5MB.

Who else would be perfect to give a brief wrap up of the document object model (DOM) than Jeremy Keith and Aaron Gustafson? In a tour de force they showed off how you can show off and make people’s mouths stay open in wonder. May the DOM be with you.

Now on thy Kathy Sierra. Can you believe that she actually made us participate? How could she do this to us? I was hoping for some laid back presentation but instead we had to talk to our neighbors. Is that what I paid my hard earned $ for? I guess it is. It was a great experience and an awesome presentation. The title says it all. I just hope it’ll soon be available online.

After getting back to the hotel room I had problems logging on to the freely provided internet access. Without success. So I called the hotline and they promised to send someone to replace the modem in my room. I’m not sure if that someone actually came because I was hit by the jetlag about an hour later and fell asleep. So I also missed all the famous parties going on. But at least I had a very inspiring day.

SXSWi 2006: Getting there

Published on March 11, 2006 in SXSW, SXSW 2006 and Travel. Closed

After being pulled down by a massive jetlag, I’ll try to sum up my travel from Germany to Texas’ capital, Austin. Here’s the timeline from March 10th:

03:33 leave Nuremberg train station

06:43 arrive at Frankfort airport

10:50 flight AA71 takes off from Frankfort airport (delayed by 20 minutes)

14:30 flight AA71 arrives at Dallas Ft. Worth

16:20 flight AA416 takes off from Dallas Ft. Worth

17:19 flight AA416 arrives at Bergstrom airport in Austin

On the flight from Dallas to Austin I had the pleasure of meeting Markus Rill, a musician from Wuerzburg, who’ll be performing at SXSW Music. He was picked up at the airport by a friend, who was so kind as to take me to my hotel (La Quinta – Capitol). Thanks Maria.

After my arrival I took a stroll down to the Convention Center to pick up my badge. On my walk back to the hotel I took a detour past the Ginger Man Pub, where the famous “Break Bread with Brad” was in full swing. But it was just too crowded for my jetlagged self, so I walked down the famous 6th Street, to get some more taste of Austin’s crazy nightlife. It really is crazy here.

Leaving on a jet plane

Published on March 10, 2006 in Events, SXSW and SXSW 2006. Closed

But different to the lyrics of this song, I know when I’ll be back again. Anyway, I’m sitting at Frankfort airport, waiting to board my flight to Dallas and then on to Austin. I’ve been corresponding with a few interesting people so far and I’m very excited to be there, especially since I’ve enviouisly observed last year’s SXSWi from afar.

If you’re there, drop me a line. I look forward to meeting many new and interesting people.

And if you haven’t yet checked out “The (Last-Minute) Unofficial Geek Guide to SxSW-Interactive 2006“, make sure to do so now.

SXSW, I’m coming

Published on January 14, 2006 in Events, SXSW and SXSW 2006. 4 Comments

After weeks and weeks of pondering and evaluating and re-evaluation my monetary situation I decided to go for it and booked my flight as well as registration for this year’s SXSW Interactive Festival. I just didn’t want to sit here and watch from afar as so many great people have so much fun in Austin. This is the place to be when you’re in the web developlemt business, or so I’ve heard. Just look at the confirmed speakers list and tell me this is not an event worth the travel from the Old to the New World.

It might be unfair to many of the other great speakers, to just name a few of them. But I have to release my excitement about the prospect of meeting people whose books and/or blogs I’ve been reading. First of all there is Molly E. Holzschlag. Her book “Web by Design” was my very first web design book and it not only got me hooked by its content but also by the witty and straight forward way it was written. Now my bookshelf prouds itself by holding more of Molly’s writings.

I could go on for paragraphs on end, writing about some of the speakers at SXSW Interactive, but instead I’ll present you my “Top 10 list of people I look forward to seeing/meeting at SXSW Interactive” (not really in any particular order):

Looking forward to learning new stuff, meeting interesting people and sharing experiences of life and work.

If you’re also going to be there, please drop me a line.