SXSW: Day Two
Wow! If the first day of SXSW was a little slow, then today certainly made up for it. I feel like I’ve already gotten my money’s worth, and there’s still three more days left.
There was so much going on today and I took so many pictures that I don’t even know where to start. I guess I’ll tackle it all in chronological order (or at least as in order as I can remember).
A little learnin’ in the morning
After enjoying a fabulous hotel continental breakfast of Lucky Charms, strawberry-banana yogurt and the world’s bitterest orange juice, I got myself up and over to the convention center for a couple of panel discussions.
Catching up with Accessibility: The Basics Quickly – Shawn Henry (a woman saddled with two male names) from the W3C’s WAI group gave us an hour-long run down on the challenges and issues facing disabled, aging and lower-tech web users. It was a good reminder that everyone’s web experience is different and that some simple steps can help guarantee that people from all segments of the audience can see you content. How serious is Shawn about accessibility? She has braille business cards.
The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007 – It was actually more like that worst 13 social media moments of the past year, but this panel discussion was a hoot. The panel, which included Jeff Jarvis and Steve Hall among others, talked about some truly horrible ideas that were actually implemented – HP paying a mother to sell her kids’ souls, Wal-Mart creating a fake fan road trip blog, Cisco creating advertorial articles on Wikipedia, Sony insulting an entire generation of gamers… the list went on and on.
Eating is good too
Then it was time for lunch and unfortunately the pickings were a little slim. Apparently the eateries in downtown Austin didn’t care if a giant convention was going on this weekend or not – it was Saturday and they were closed. After a little walking, I came across The Boiling Pot. Hungry, tired of walking and somewhat curious, I went in.
It was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, and like most holes-in-the-wall, it was incredibly good. I avoided the crawfish and seafood (things I detest) and opted for some sausage and red beans and rice. Everything was brought out from the kitchen in a big metal bowl and dumped directly on to butcher paper on your table. And you ate with your hands. Bibs were standard issue. And it was good.
The best part about the place was something that I didn’t even notice until I was leaving. A motor was connected to a series of pulleys which in turn powered the ceiling fans.
After lunch, I wandered back to the convention center and along the way, found the headquarters for the Texas Lottery. For a while, it’s been a major source of contention for me that the great state of Texas doesn’t have a nightly lottery drawing show on television like Illinois does every night on WGN (and that I watch religiously for some reason). Apparently though, you can watch the drawing in person, provided that you’re willing to mosey up to the hq building at 10:12 p.m. on a drawing night. And that you have no life.
Afternoon silliness
Upon returning to the convention center, I stopped by the gaming festival that’s going on in conjunction with the interactive convention. There were plenty of kids playing games and some serious gaming competitions going on. Gaming’s not really my thing, so I kind of just ducked in and out quickly.
The big event (at least convention-wise) for today was the “official” opening remarks at 2 p.m. with Steven Johnson and Henry Jenkins. It seems odd to label something that happens a full 24 hours after your convention programming starts as the “opening event”, but the room was packed anyway. The talk itself was really good, focusing mainly on how social media and new technologies fit into society and are quietly launching a revolution of personal expression. It wasn’t just a rah-rah speech though – some real issues were brought up and discussed.
After that, I decided it was just too beautiful of a day to spend locked inside conference halls, so I headed out to a meetup of flickr users in south Austin. The venue was described as the “Cathedral of Junk”, so I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect.
When I got there, I understood completely. I can’t even begin to describe how truly odd and awesome this structure is. It’s just an homage to crap. I spent an hour there taking photographs and talking with fellow amateur shutterbugs. It was so freaking cool.
If you have the time, you should really browse through the whole gallery so you can see just how weird this place is. No words can do it justice.
A big evening for an old man
I headed back to downtown to try and catch at least a couple of the evening events. First up was the dorkbot gathering – a group that describes itself as “people doing strange things with electricity”. It was pretty cool – they had web-controlled robot rovers, a ping pong ball printer, mice made from mice and some other assorted freaky things.
After that, I headed over to the Google party. It was Google and free drinks were promised, so of course people were lined up around the block to get in. After about an hour of waiting in line and watching other people have fun, I managed to get into a very, very packed party. So packed that it was more like a very slow stampede as opposed to a party.
Being an old man with no patience for such things, I just grabbed some Google swag and made my way out the door.
And that was day two.
Also seen today: