SXSW 2008

We’ve been back from SXSW for two weeks now and haven’t had a chance to post anything about the week in Austin. We had a great time this year, much due to the fact that many of our ITP friends joined in the fun this year so it was a nice reunion of some of my favorite brains.

Overall we just had a better approach to the conference than we did last year. Particularly we tried to attend panels when we knew a good speaker would be presenting. Some of the highlights included:

- 10 Things We’ve Learned at 37signals
- Postsecret Presentation by Frank Warren (Have you seen his site? AMAZING.)
- Worst Website Ever: That’s So Crazy, It Just Might Work
- Content Boundaries (with the hilarious Heather Armstrong)
- Opening Remarks with Henry Jenkins and Steven Johnson
- Everyone’s a Design Critic
- 10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment

I even enjoyed the mess that was the Zuckerburg/Lacey interview simply because I have never seen anything like that unfold so quickly before. What a disaster. I knew he would be a snooze.

Seriously though, if you haven’t checked out Postsecret, check it out. Amazingly funny and some sad stuff. And Frank Warren was a great speaker. So incredible he moved someone to get engaged. I would be so irritated if Alex proposed to me at a tech conference. That’s taking the nerdy tech thing too far, but maybe this woman liked that.

And somehow Dennis, who arrived at 4 a.m. on Friday night, thanks to some excellent convincing im’ing on my part (you’re welcome), also ended up on a gaming panel on Saturday morning.

Another thing that we did well this year that we skipped out on last year was EAT. We actually sat down for group meals this year and I can’t tell you what a difference that made. It was fun to sit down and chat with people and have a real dinner rather than running from event to event trying to catch free drinks.

Some of the non-panel highlights of the week included:

Surprise 4 a.m. guest panelist, Dennis Crowley!