shooshee

I don’t care to get in a pissing match even though it’s pissing me off. Piss on all the trees and signposts, claim all the territory. Go ahead. Be the alpha dog. Clamp down and take it all for now.

I have the scars to prove I’ve been in this fight before and I don’t have the fight in me right now to do it again for a while. I am angry but I am tired and I’ll get my play date at the dog park later with less snarling and with people who clean up their shit. I’m just going to sit back for a while, hang in my own yard and watch the butt-sniffing from over here.

Now that sxswi is considerably larger than it’s ever been before, I think a few procedural changes are in order… or a least it’s time to start considering some changes for next year. Yikes, this post vaguely tip-toes into almost slightly professional territory.

1. we need a freakin’ plan
There are too freakin’ many panels that are entirely too spread out to make a snap decision. The geeky part of sxsw used to be all segregated in one area of the convention center (ACC). There used to be maybe 4 or 5 panels to choose from at any given time. And at least one year, they were divided more or less into different tracts.

I understand that there is more complexity to our industry now. I understand that we have to think about more than if we build something in tables or use the pure pristine goodness that is clean code and css. I get that. But holy moley there were too many panels this year. And not all of them all that useful. And then they’ve got clever names and even more clever descriptions - it makes me think that some panelist/moderators put more thought and effort into the description of the panel than the panel itself.

I don’t want to bitch just to bitch here though. And yes I know that my failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on your part (or however the saying goes). But if there are going to be that many panels there needs to be a better way for attendees to filter all this down and pick the right thing to go to so that they can make the most of their investment - both time and money-wise.

Much like the conference has nearly outgrown the convention center, it has also outgrown the structure of the website. I’d need to look at that a little more in-depth to have concrete suggestion on that. But I can say that it needs to support tagging, offer filtering, sorting, saving, etc. so that I can plan out my conference experience before I get there.

Some of this is part of a bigger problem for me, and one that I know I seriously need to work on and fast. I need to figure out how to take things one thing at a time instead of getting overwhelmed when there are too many things and shutting down. This is a bad pattern of behavior anyway. But I know I am not the only one (I heard it from a few people actually) that felt that this year, sxswi was just almost totally paralyzing in the amount of choices it offered.

I like to go with the flow some. But I also like to have a plan. It’s oddly comforting. And yes, the week before south by generally seems to go nutzo at work anyway, but this year it really did and I didn’t have much time to study the panels before the conference started. And when I did - I didn’t know where to begin - there were too many.

So what I want for next year is this. I want the panel descriptions to be tagged - appropriately tagged - with tags like: legal, design, music, drm, ux, moderated, q&a, etc. that would let me filter down to the panels that most match what I am interested in. Then I would like to read, mark as favorite and save my own little personal conference schedule.  Even better and cooler would be if I could save this in some sort of iphone and/or web app that had *my* schedule and alerts and even a little walking map of the convention center that would get me from panel to panel. Wouldn’t that be cool? Don’t we have a few geeks at this conference that could build such a thing?

well fuck, that was a long-winded number 1, on to number 2…

2. not all free things are good things
There is a crap overload in the schwag bags now. I know that companies are paying for placement in these bags, but geez that’s a lot of wasted paper. I’d really like to see huge recycle bins either inside or just outside the convention center so that we could bag-purge and recycle right there.

Yeah, some of the people that paid to put their stuff in the bags might be pissed, but hey - they can look at it this way. It’s a focus group - one look in the recycle bin and they’ll know if their schwag was a flop. A few notes… Adobe, your fortune cookies were insulting and quite frankly, food in a schwag bag scares me - I have no idea if you over ordered for a conference months ago and these were just the ones you had to get rid of. Those cookies could have been ancient. Buttons again this year seems to be the cooler schwag to get - I’m amassing quite a collection. Pens an/or sharpies also good. As are notepads, sticky notes (c’mon think of the interaction and user experience designers - we keep sticky note people in business!) and cool business card holders. Another shitty, poorly designed postcard? Toss.

The other free (or cheap) bit that I need to remember next year is the alcohol. Just because it’s there and free does not mean that I need to drink all that is offered to me. I had too much this year. Luckily, oddly, not enough to ever really be hungover, but enough to have some brazen moments - some of which I remember. *shaking my head*

3. transportation exasperation
I did okay with this for the most part. I didn’t drive when I really shouldn’t have, but it was a pain in the ass to manage a car a few times. I need to have a better plan (yikes it’s ALL number 1) for next year. Maybe I can park at someone’s house who lives closer that I do and just rely on cabs for the week.

4. location, location, location
Maybe I can alleviate number 3 if I am just closer in general to downtown during sxwi. Maybe I can go in with some locals and/or conference attendees to get a vrbo.com rental near downtown for the week or chip in on a hotel room. It so much easier when you’re right there and not worried about getting home. Which leads me to number 5…

5. extruded plastic dingus*
“You know, for kids.” I have a slightly different issue, well, not an issue - my kid is not an issue. But I have a different, well, situation with my kiddo because he’s older. But I noticed, and talked to, a lot more parents at sxswi this year.

For me, it was a little straining to try and balance time between the conference and hanging out with my kiddo. He’s old enough that he has his own social calendar and is always on spring break during south by. But I still wanted to make sure that we’d see each other and get some time together every day. Next year, I may see if I can find him entirely alternate plans like going to my parents’ house or an extended stay with friends. In my first several sxswi’s he was with his dad during the conference, but dad is AWOL and so that’s just not an option.

I want to do more thinking and collaboration on this subject with other parents though. Especially the ones that have younger children. We all agreed that it would be too big of a liability for the conference itself to take on as - to provide child care or alternate family-friendly programming BUT if enough of us get together and do some planning I’m sure that we can come up with something that answer the needs of us aging old skool sxswi vets that have kids now.

*name that movie and you can be my BFF for a day or maybe two.

6. work-life balance
I’ve realized this more and more the past few years during sxswi, it is damn near impossible to balance life with work. Body aches plus brain aches plus increased alcohol consumption and minus sleep makes for less than normal productivity which leads to way too much stress. I am starting to be convinced that there cannot be a balance during sxswi week - the whole scale needs to tip to the all-consuming “life” that is south by. Next year, I’m scheduling vacation, way in advance, for sxswi and the days that follow it - the entire week.

7. why doncha take a picture? it’ll last longer…
Yeah? Why didn’t I? I didn’t take a single photo this year. That will HAVE to be remedied next year. And another one in general - I really need to get back into it and using my toy cameras.

8. remember what else I was going to write about.
I know I had a few other big (and little) ideas. I’ll add them here, if and when I ever think of them again. They might have something to do with avoiding the SXSW Flu™ or as it has been renamed - SxSars.