Some Critical Thoughts on South by Southwest

And so, it ends. The halls of the Austin Convention Centre gather dust, Twitter is full of people saying they are “home / on the way home / have caught the mythical SXSars virus/ planning next year / have scored an upgrade on their next flight to San Francisco” (although that last one might just be me).

There are some conferences where the payback for attending is pretty obvious. There are other conferences where I can go and know I can get some work, commissions or writings for various sites and cover costs. SXSW is different. I’ve been in Austin to foster good relationships, be it starting new ones, or continuing old ones. I did have something to talk about this year (The Daily Dust) but as it is mostly UK based and targeted on a non Web 2.0 crowd, I wasn’t shouting about it too loudly. I focussed this year on introducing my friends to each other, making connections from different areas of my online life, and finding out what everyone else was up to.

At the same time I did discuss a number of upcoming projects and ideas I have. While “being on show” is a bit too heavy handed, I was as SXSW because it’s where the people in the various industries I work in (interactive, film and music) were all here. Will anything result from all this? Probably, but it could well be months down the line, with SXSW being just the first step.

I really like SXSW, and I’ll be back next year, so these following comments should be taken as constructive criticism, because it cannot rest on it’s laurels.

Interactive never really had any strong beacons of products on display or new services, Twitter being the exception that frankly proves the rule. I know various people are making noises about location based apps being the winners, but I honestly didn’t see that. Perhaps you need to have an always on data plan and a list of ‘friends’ numbered in the tens of thousands to make Latitude and FourSquare (to name two) actually work for you.

If any application can walk away as the social glue from interactive it’s Tweetdeck.

But SXSW Interactive has problems, and they’re problems that really should have been addressed after last year. The panels were incredibly poor, and the evening parties were over-subscribed, packed, and impossible to be anything more than a shoulder to shoulder jam of people shouting “hello, how are you?” to each other.

The panels are guided very heavily by the SXSW Panel Picker, where people submit ideas and they are voted on. A great idea, but the flaws were on display this year. If two people submit an almost identical panel pitch where one is an academic, with strong (and potentially differing) views from the online community, and the other panel is submitted by a noted Web 2.0 star (eg Chris Brogan, Tara Hunt, Robert Scoble, Steve Garfield, etc), then the panel picker becomes almost a popularity contest, and the latter is likely to win out. As an aside surely a panel picker should give representative splits of male and female speakers… discuss.

As a panel moderator, you’re going to stuff the panel with people that can get the votes in, and make sure you all get to SXSW, and get your free ticket provided by the committee. You’re not going to pre-announce a new product for launch or demo in nine months time, and with panels submitted in early June, for a conference in nine months time, it’s incredibly difficult for SXSW Interactive to be anything more than an affirming conference, rather than an innovative conference,

The panels need a serious overhaul, a thinning out of the number off speakers and sessions, and a lot more duration and guidance from the SXSW interactive committee to create something people want to attend, as opposed to the appearance of being a raffle to get a free ticket.

In 2008, the situation with the evening parties looked worrisome. A handful of parties had long queues (namely Digg and Google) but people found alternatives. With the increase in attendance this year (between 25%-30% by some accounts) most parties and venue spaces hit fire limits incredibly quickly, and started a one out-one in policy. The rain on Friday night didn’t help, reducing the capacity of the Mix at Six, and left many people bouncing around Austin wondering where everyone else was.

With only a few ‘cool kid/rock star’ parties demanding attention from everyone, it felt like an ordeal to get in to the advertised ones, and the number of off-the-grid (non-twitter) parties which required you to be in the right social circles must have made SXSW newbies feel incredibly lost.

Incidentally, it’s great fun at Interactive parties watching the dolled up women in their party dresses unable to skip lines because “they look nice, and what sort of parties won’t let pretty ladies skip the lines?” Next time, try carrying an Apple Netbook rather than a plunging evening gown.

I don’t think there’s an easy answer to the party question, although discovery might be one area to look at. When people are making posts pointing out the people that know where the good parties are, where I am asked (thanks to those posts boosting my reputation) where to go, there is a serious disconnect on show.

One problem could be that SXSW Interactive runs pretty much on rails. The same events are in the same place at every time each year. There will be a “How to Rawck SXSW” panel, Mix at Six will be packed out as the official first night meeting point, Scott Beale will do something secretive on Monday night (and it’ll probably be called 64-bit in 2010), there will be a quiet word of mouth making sure people know about Fray, and so on. Shake that up, and you get people out their comfort zone and interacting more.

It’s one of the reasons I love doing the SXSW Podcasts – with thirty minutes to fill each day, from all three conference strands, I have to find the new things, to find stories beyond the popular Techmeme links… Bringing the stories of Kaboom (open sourced playground building), Denki (games company working on set top boxes) and the Social Media tools used by Cirque du Soleil was great.

I’m still banging my head against a brick wall at the huge disconnect between Interactive and Music. Especially at the music panels, I feel the input of some of the smarter Interactive heads would have made great contributions, and conversely some real world legal issues could seriously boost the discussion and impact of the interactive panels.

What I’d like to see is that Interactive badges let people into the music panels on the first day of music (the Wednesday) while the Music badges will give similar access on the Tuesday. Film and Interactive already offer mixed panels, so let’s gett music involved as well. I’d encourage anyone to do the whole SXSW week, or at the very least stay over an extra day (something CC Chapman did, and I can’t wait to see his thoughts on the Music/Interactive issue).

The big news from music was Metallica playing at Stubbs – no I didn’t queue, I had a bucketload of smaller bands I wanted to hear, with a view to getting them on TPN Rock either on the regular show or as a TPN Rock Session. To be honest I was more excited on the Iron Maiden: Flight 666 film, documenting their circumnavigation of the world in their own 757, playing 21 dates in 41 days. With a wonderful audio mix, stunning visuals, it”s probably the best live concert film in the world.

To go from Iron Maiden to Belladonna was an amazing rush on the Wednesday. As everyone from Interactive tweeted they were home, I went from interviewing Kevin Shirley at the Paramount, to running across town to see an Italian Rock Noir band I played on TPN Rock some three years ago, continued to follow, and was only now getting the chance to see live.

From the biggest companies, bands, films and organisations, to the smaller start-ups, struggling artists, visionaries and dreamers, SXSW is all about people telling stories. The medium changes, the emotions may vary, but they are all true. Put all of that passion in a single place, even if it means taking over the delightful city of Austin, and you have a very special event that acts as a year long catalyst for everyone who attends. Sure it needs regular maintenance, but SXSW earns its place in my schedule every year, and I want to come back every year to a better event.

I’ll be landing in Austin on Thursday 12 March, 2010, and be in town until Sunday 21 March. I hope to see you there too.