Cut to the chase — SXSWi really blew me away. I cannot recommend the event enough. I only managed to attend 2 days, by the time I had to leave on the Monday I was seriously gutted; a glance through the program for the final 2 days revealed dozens of very interesting talks and events. Fortunately, many of the events are available to download as podcasts from the SXSW site. Wish I could have caught this — at my new favourite Texan billiard hall.
And that really gives you an idea of how great SWXWi really is. It is the most exciting and comprehensive event I've personally attended. What impressed me highly, was the sheer diversity of the schedule and quality of content. A previous conference I attended last year kept referring to web design from 2001 as being ‘back in the day’ and the term Web 3.0 was dropped on several occassions. Yawn.
SXSWi wasn't like that at all — it was refreshing to attend an event with such an open attitude from both the speakers and the audience. Not once did I feel it was trying to be too cool for school, or self referring.
So I've come away from SXSWi utterly inspired and excited at the future for digital media and for the future of TAK!
I'd like to notably thank the SXSWM team who I went over with. Everyone was really friendly and let each other do their own thing whilst at the same time re-group and share experiences and thoughts. Digital Central and Stef Lewandowski who organised the trip should be commended for their enthusiasm and commitment to getting 7 differently skilled individuals together to document their findings. I'd like to thank Stef in particular as he had the foresight to create the SXSWM central reserve for us to use during our time at SXSWi which proved invaluable whilst over there. Really great stuff.
Each of us will certainly bring back something unique from SXSWi and this will ultimately raise our own and Birmingham's offering.
