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Business Technology Travels

“Aerodynamic Efficiency in Paper Airplane Design” or Thoughts on SXSWi 2011

This year marked my second visit to Austin, Texas, for the South By Southwest Interactive conference. While I enjoyed myself and had only been once before, I can tell you that things have changed, perhaps not for the better.

When I attended in ’09, I went to presentations almost every hour; nearly all sessions were in the Convention Center, and all were high quality. The close-knit experience made it easy to navigate which panel I wanted to go to and easy to get there.

This year there was simply too much. You could scroll through long listings picking out sessions and then realize all of that was just the 2 PM hour, and a large number of sessions were scattered in offsite hotel conference rooms. It’s bad enough that walking from one end of the conference center to the other takes about 10-15 minutes; some of the sessions I wanted to go to were as far as a mile away.

To make matters worse, many of the sessions were redundant panels with poorly prepared presenters, too many of which were still fixating on the importance of “social media” and other buzz words. The kind of stuff you would already have to be aware of if you’re attending SXSW in the first place. By the end of day one, I had decided that most panels were pretty much a waste of time.

The idea of having a conference devoted to the abstract concept of “interactive” is starting to feel short-sighted. It’s grown so large that it’s simply untenable. Bringing marketers, designers, programmers, and “content creators” together under the banner of “interactive” with the common thread of “the Internet”—something quickly becoming ubiquitous to American life—seems absurd.

Imagine if we held a conference for all the industries that use paper in any way, shape, or form. There would be panels on restaurant menu design, proper cardboard box construction, and buzz-worded up bullshit like “Aerodynamic Efficiency in Paper airplane Design.” This is what it felt like to browse the schedule of sessions at SXSWi 2011.

Simultaneously, the split between the Film and Interactive portions of the conference seems more and more arbitrary as the line between amateur and professional creators continues to blur.

More me, this year’s focus was less on the panels and more about the partying, networking, and actual human interaction. This is perhaps evidenced best by the plethora of panels discussing how to best party at SXSW. I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a bad thing. It seems the label of “Interactive” has taken on a new meaning, and it seems to be less about the technology and more about social interaction. Which, from a humane perspective, is better. But if that’s the case, why even buy a badge when I can party for free?

Categories
Chicago Design General Pop culture Technology

Planting the ‘Seed’

Roman Coppola

Keeping in my ‘seeking out inspiration’ kick, I just registered for the ‘Seed’ conference with Jason Fried, Jim Coudal, and Carlos Segura on October 29th.

I’m looking forward to it; I hope to learn a lot. I’m also really enjoying networking as of late. I’ve been astounded by the people I’ve been meeting lately, and it started with An Event Apart.

Coming out here to Chicago has been a huge opportunity for me. There is always something new and inspiring going on that fascinates me. So many opportunities to learn.

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a screening of Wes Anderson’s Hotel Chevalier at the Apple Store. The screening was hosted by producer Roman Coppola. Afterward, Roman stuck around for Q&A. The crowd was excellent, and his rapport with them was phenomenal.

While filmmaking is not my field of choice, listening to Roman was very inspiring. He spoke about starting a project, from research to making compromises to achieve a vision. I’m really looking forward to ‘The Darjeeling Limited.’

It’s weird, but I spent years in New York, the “cultural center of the world,” and somehow, I missed opportunities like this. I think I’m just more in tune with the world around me today.

It’s exciting.

Categories
Chicago Design General

Waking Up

Late last year, I noticed I had lost a few things from my life. I had fallen into a rut; I wasn’t happy. To make matters worse, I’d fallen into a routine, and this routine excluded doing a lot of things that were important to me: Things like designing websites.

Ultimately this discovery lead me to try something drastic and pick up and move to Chicago from New York, where I had spent my entire life until that point. While I miss NY and I miss my friends, I’m happier now, and I’m carving out a new niche for myself here. I’ve missed web design a lot, and I’ve lagged behind. Well, I decided to do something about it, and last month I attended An Event Apart: Chicago with the hope it would get me back into things.

Boy, was I right! Since the conference, I’ve had design on the brain non-stop. I found myself creatively inspired in particularly by Jason Santa Maria, Jeremy Keith, and Liz Danzico.

I’ve been fussing over a site design for this site here for over three years, and it gave me the guts to finally scrap everything I had and start rethinking. I’ve found myself re-energized. The new header graphic treatment is hopefully a taste of things to come as I plan to be a much more active participant in the design community, so stay tuned.