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March 18, 2006
SXSW wrap up
Another SXSW has come and gone, and of the four I’ve been to, I think it’s been the best. Unlike last year’s, which I thought was nearly 100% content-free and somewhat dead, this year has been marked by tons of enthusiasm and real joy. It was also ridiculously crowded, by some accounts three times the size of last year’s. (I suppose if I had looked hard enough, perhaps I might have found pockets of boredom and disinterest three times as deep as last year.)
As ever, the best parts were over dinners, poolside at the San Jose, or other inbetween times. But the panels and talks were overall much much better this year than in the past. The first thing I saw Saturday morning was AIGA’s Liz Danzico’s panel on “Traditional Design and New Technology,” which was simultaneously frustrating and compelling. The panel seemed to be saying that ‘someday, the technology will be there so designers can start creating truly emotional experiences.’ Someone from the audience who pointed out that huge numbers of people seem to have very strong emotional connections to sites like eBay and MySpace was dismissed: apparently eBay would be doing so much better if it were a little prettier. Riiighht. I look forward to having a chance to talk to Liz again (we spent most of the weekend running into each other as we were heading somewhere else)
Speaking of designing for emotional connections to sites: last year, I really enjoyed the “Design Eye for the Usability Guy” panel, but for whatever reason didn’t go to this year’s version “Design Eye for the List Guy” video available. That “list guy” turned out to be Craig of craigslist, which the design guys redesigned and presented to Craig. The accessibility and code-weight improvements aside, it’s hard to imagine craigslist adopting this redesign, though it’s perfectly nice. The site’s current lo-fi look is its brand. There’s almost no quality more important to craigslist than personal authenticity and neighbor-to-neigbor interaction. Blue links and HTML-text logos—the actual material of the web—still manage to evoke those qualities. And even non-design is a design: what else looks like craigslist?
Jason Fried didn’t have a lot new to add to the talk he gave last year on doing “Big Things with Small Teams”. But 37 Signals’ Getting Real manifesto, not to mention a year’s more proof that, indeed, great stuff can be done by small teams (at 37S and at many other small startups), gave his stump speech a lot more weight. DIY was everywhere, from panels on finding funding (or renouncing it) to “Bluff your way in DOM Scripting”. You honestly could feel people itching to leave the conference and get building. Along the same lines, Kathy Sierra gave a fantastic talk outlining what’s become her own manifesto: “Creating Passionate Users.” One of the lest tech-specific talks of the weekend, it was also the one that had the most practical, implementable advice in it. Articulate, funny, presentations like Sierra’s or Dan Gilbert’s were in much greater supply this year, compared to last year’s embarrassing number of tedious duds. Adam’s talk on “Everyware” was standing-room only, proof that even a complex and abstract talk ranging through technology, ethics, and culture can still pack ‘em in. (Take that, blogging panel, other blogging panel, and bloggers in love panel!)
Which is not to say there weren’t some low points. Peter Morville has a compelling message somewhere in “Ambient Findability”, but he’s got to find a more dynamic and less by-the-book way to present it. The keynote “conversation” between dooce.com’s Heather Armstrong and Jason Kottke was an exercise in utter self-indulgence. There are surely interesting facets to their still-unique “jobs” as professional independant bloggers. Those facets, when raised at all by Armstrong (basically: how did accepting money change your writing and relationship to your audience?), were met with Kottke’s shrugged indifference. He seemed either uninterested or unprepared to talk about what you’d think would have been of great personal importance. He suggested he’s been occupied for the last six months planning his wedding and unable to devote time properly to writing. How nice for him. But a mildly snarky conversation between two friends does not a Sunday keynote make.
Overall, some of the panels are indeed “glib and unorganized”; it’s obvious many panels were proposed simply as a way for panelists to get their registration costs waived. There’s still an awful lot of entitlement in the air: speaking at a few SXSW’s in the past should be a guarantee of a free presentation slot. The quality filter needs to be set higher. SXSW could probably be cut down to three days from four with no real loss. Although since it costs something like a third of what most conferences cost, it’s hard to complain.
Of course, it was great to see Design Engaged folks like Thomas Vander Wal and Tom Coates, and to actually hang out with Erik Rodenbeck (who was great on Jeff Veen’s panel, despite insisting he was out of place on it). Best of all, Heather and I welcomed Adam and Nurri for a tired but lovely dinner at our house, definately the weekend’s higlight for me. Peter Merholz dragged a group out to see some of the real Austin outside the shadow of the convention center. After the pace of Saturday and Sunday, it was an easy choice to miss much of Monday’s conference to spend a pleasant couple of hours eating pounds of Rudy’s BBQ meat and sunburning on Spider House’s patio.
Posted by Andrew at March 18, 2006 11:31 AM