Some Thoughts on SxSW Interactive 2009
There’s a different air about this SxSW, that’s for sure. Last year, we had the Zuckerberg/Lacey disaster, where the audience was tweeting away while the oblivious panelists just kept yammering about irrelevant stuff. This year, we had panel after panel (including mine, “Your First Year in Freelancing”) using Twitter to gather instant feedback and questions from the audience.
The Small World Labs guys did it right — Sam Eder served as e-moderator (twitterator?), keeping the panel moving along by gathering and sythesizing tweets. I had a much smaller group (a room for 20 had 40 folks in it) and had set up a few hashtags (#geektopeak and #g2p) and at some point, the questions and conversations with those hash tags got too much to follow, so I went back to the audience directly.
Here’s another thing I noticed: everyone is talking about ROI in social media. Realism. Pragmatism. It’s quite energizing, really. We’ve had these tools for a while, now we’re trying to make sense of them. Some of us are working at places where social media is the next big scary thing, and just being with folks who are also grappling with all this stuff fills me with hope. We’re on to something important here, and now there’s just this confident air that we will get it right, eventually.
In the “Selling Social Media to the Man” panel, I loved what Peter Kim had to say: “Either be the catalyst for change with social media, or get a new job.” I think he’s started something interesting. There’s going to be a huge shift of people and talent from old, stodgy places that put their thumbs down over to more progressive firms that embrace not only these new tools, but the new outlooks and DNA that these tools represent.
One of the things I’ve said since the beginning of Triple Dog Dare Media was: Fail fast. Don’t linger and dawdle. Figure what does and doesn’t work. Throw out what doesn’t. Move, move, move. And social media is like that, which I deeply respect. However, most corporate cultures don’t allow (or reward) failure. These places are going to have to deal with all of us out here who have been imbued with these technologies and philosophies.
SxSW Interactive 2009 is only half over, and I’m already brimming with ideas, plans, and thoughts about the future. After such a crappy 2008, it sure is good to feel good.
