SXSW

2005 SXSW Interactive's 10 Most Significant Ideas(incomplete)

(Note: this is a work in progress that is likely to change dramatically over the next day)

1. "The actual is the new virtual"- Bruce Sterling [transcript of keynote speech]

2. Podcasts: Geeks have always liked pods. However, it wasn't until this year that we observed multiple geeks frequently arriving to SXSW events with pods fully ready to cast.(1) [picture on left:: two ubergeeks prepare their pod to be cast]

3. The Fabject. Bruce Sterling writes: "Scan a human hand into 3-D, shrink it in proportion, and print it out in a thinly layered pancake of solidifying plastic. The "Rapid prototype machine." The "3-D printer." Or just -- The Fab. Shake hands with a disruptive innovation in the means of production.

4. Blogging for Cash, Business & Political Power. My prediction for next years weblog focus: How to save blogs from the destructive influence of cash, business, and politics.

5.The tech economy will forever oscilate between boom and busts. This appears to still be a holy dogma.

SXSW: Epilogue

I decided to leave the party, and thus, said good bye to SXSW. But first, I wanted to make sure I said good bye to everyone. I went upstairs, and saw a bunch of grown men and women sitting around a table playing with toys, and giggling. It was then, that I realized that I had found the perfect ending for SXSW Interactive. There was something so poetic about all of these drunken CSS designers playing with plastic toys that were rated from age 8 and up. I wanted to get a final quote from them, but then I saw Bruce Sterling, the man who hosted the party... I said, "Hi, Bruce". Bruce replied, "How are you doing Nick?(sneaky bastard caught my name off of my badge.) I commented, while pointing to the table of SXSWi attendees playing with toys, "I couldn't think of a more beautiful way to end SXSWi". Bruce replied, "I love toys, I just love playing with them..." I mentioned that his talk had changed my ideas on the future. Then, in an attempt to be clever, I pointed out that China invented the steam engine in 1000 a.d. , but had not realized that the steam engine could have driven a raiulroad. But by that time, Bruce had run off to look at his mini-distilary, and was clearly at play.

Evolving the PBA Through Empowering Its Members

Today has been one incredible panel after another. The last panel, Are Political Parties Obsolete? was very inspiring. Over the past few months, I've been unable to think of any realisitic ways to take the Progressive Blog Alliance to the next level. I've been talking with several people in the back channels; unfortunatly, the ideas discussed stalled, generally for two reasons:

1. Executing the idea would require us to dramatically increase the PBA leadership's level of control over the members.

2. The idea assumed that our 200+ bloggers would actually do what we told them to.

Now, there are a few Jacobians in the alliance who might disagree with my insistance on keeping the PBA as non-hierarchial as possible. I'm open to debate on that, however, I strongly feel that we should not respond to our growth by creating stronger power structures. Rather, I think we need to change the focus of our organization, and begin to expand upon our current function as a blogroll and a decentralized news/opinion collective. The PBA has always been about empowerment, community, and mutual benifit. Though we've made mistakes, deep down we've always strived to create an oasis of intelligence and humanity, in this bizarre and vulgar world we call the internet. Its time we take our legacy a step further. So here is what I propose:

A Miracle and a Sexy Party

As turned the corner of 5th street I expected to see a nice little pink ticket that read, "pay us money, or some guys with guns will break into your house, kidnap you, and take you to cold place with crappy lighting (I think the actual pink piece of paper claims that it has "warrent" to "arrest" you). Anyhow, there was no pick piece of paper... there was something worse. In my rush to get to the awards, I left my lights on -- for three and a half hours. This was bad: Jumping a car, when you are boxed in on both sides on both sides, on one of Austin's busiest streets is not an agreeable situtation. Though my lights were still shinning, my car, obvious, refused to start.

 This was bad, for I had just told my date to meet me at spider house before we went to the party. Making matters worse, I had no phone, and for some reason pay phones are in short suppy in that section of town. After about 30 mins, I finally let her know whats up, and told her that "I'd figure something out". I came back to my car, and asked for a miracle. As ridicolous as it felt, I decided I'd give starting the car another go. It sputtered, and refused to start. Then, I thought to myself, "I wonder if Heaven has given Dewey any miracle granting priveledges." I tried again, and it started. Thanks you for the favor friend, I owe you one.

The Dewey Awards, a parking ticket, and an evil monkey who lives in my closet.

Last night, at about 4 in the morning, I decided to slack off and set my alarm for 10:30am. "Six and a half hours of sleep is going to hit the spot!" I said to the evil monkey who lives in my closet. The evil monkey said nothing to back, and so I drifted off into dreamworld. 11 and a half hours later, I woke up. For about 30 seconds, I staired at my clock reading 2:30 PM. "Damn it, now I have to get up and set my clock to read 10:30am." The evil monkey began to laugh hysterically from my closet. It was at tis moment, that I realized my clock wasn't a time machine.

Gradually, I came to understand that those numbers "2:30" meant something. It meant that I missed Wonkette, and Al Franken's talk... which is just as well. I'm not particularly interested in public personalities and celebrities; if the speaker feels a need to escape through the back of the building, than I could care less about what they have to say.  I'm interested in the conversations, and the world changing minds at this conference.

Then suddenly it hit me, "I have an hour and 30 mins to get to the Dewey Awards ceremony", the monkey cackled in odd sort of forced way that was becoming of a bad actor. "Hope you win!", said the monkey.

I got to the awards ceremony with 15 mins to spare. To be honest, I was embarrased to be there. They introduced the nominees, and phrases such as, "Has raised tons of money to help underpriveledged youth get access to technology", or "Has worked for over 15 years, selflessly, to get at risk youth interested in the artistic possibilities of digital film making."  Then, they introduced me as someone who helps "host" the progressive blog alliance. The ego in me wanted, to yell, "I was just being humble! I didn't want to put "founded, organized, maintains and keeps order" on the Progressive blog alliance's homepage! It would have looked egotistical!" But, I then I caught the delicious irony.

SXSW Interactive as Described by Three Pictures

All photos taken at SXSW by dreadfuldan. Reader, repeat after me: "Screw reading Nick's blog, I want to explore the rest of dreadfuldan's work."

SXSW Quote of the Day

"...the last thing I remember or saw was standing in front of MTV’s “Real World” Austin house (which they are starting to film this week, apparently), shouting: “I got sum, ‘Real World’ fo’ you, mutha.fukka!” - [Agendacide]

@The Blogging Showdown

9:58 | The showdown is set to begin in about a minute. A coupe of initial observations: I'm estimating that the press makes up nearly 10 percent of the audience (that is highly unusual). The room is not nearly as packed as I expected it to be; its maybe only half full. Me thinks a large section of the conference goers must be experiencing the painful wrath of sixth street right now.

10:05 | Panel has begun....

Dear Stalker:

Starting bright and early morning(I have to get up at 8:30.... eh...) I'll be "covering"(1) several events worth mentioning. Here are portions from the SXSW website's panel and speaker blurbs. I can already tell that tomorrow will be a bit more interesting than today:

10am: Blogging Showdown -- Representatives of top personal publishing companies talk about the strengths and weakeness of their applications, as well as discuss where this medium is evolving to in future years.

Anil Dash  VP of Professional Network  Six ApartJason Goldman  Prod Mgr  GoogleMatt Mullenweg    WordPressMike B Slone  Founder/ Creative Dir  InkNoise IncHalley Suitt  Blogger

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