10 Things I Learned at SXSW 2004

1. The Next Big Thing will Happen Here. I’m not the first one to say it since pretty obvious. New York bloggers are getting their shirts in knots about whether there is an A-List Cabal of Bloggers or whether Blogging is a Movement. Attendees of SXSW had this debate in 1999. The discussion has shifted to how personal publishing will interact with the world at large instead of simply with itself. The cross-currents of Social Software, Multi-Platform Content and Aggregation, File Sharing and Political Activism are about to collide. No one’s quite sure how it will play out but I want to be at the center of that whirpool (SXSW 2008?) when it does.

2. Growth can be both emotional and intellectual. I didn’t learn much at this year’s conference that I didn’t already know. I didn’t do as much frenetic theorizing about the future as I’ve done in year’s past. I felt let down at first but now I’m ok with it. Its my fifth year at SXSW, my third actively following technology trends. I don’t get as wowed as easily and thus spent more of this year reflecting, on my role in this conference and amongst the friends I’ve made here, on how I want the Internet to be part of my life in the archaic mills of literature production and how much I’ve changed since I started attending in 1998. This wasn’t the year I spotted the Next Big Thing and babbled about it incessantly. This was the year I grew up.

3. I like tradition. While I more than appreciate Mr. McNally’s brilliant assessment of conference crowds as “Dumb Mobs”, led about by spontaneous bursts of enthusiam, I also love the ritual of it all. I spent much of the week with the same core of people, whom I only see once a year. I have to take them to the Castle Hill Cafe, to Magnolia after Fray Cafe. It wouldn’t feel quite like the last night of the conference without Bruce Sterling’s house party followed by a 3 A.M. nosh at Katz’s Deli, followed by the walk home in the fog of morning.

4. As Mr. Wasilyk put it, “This year is notable by who isn’t here.”. True. Many from the earliest class of SXSW were not in attendence either by choice or unforseen circumstance. I don’t know quite what to make of this. I missed them. I hope they still see value in coming to the conference. But if they are ready to move on, that’s probably ok too. Mostly it says that the conference is growing up and changing, which is never easy but always necessary.

5. I’m a veteran now and its no big deal. Nikolai Nolan, whose been coming to this conference longer than just about anyone and should be named Official SXSW Historian after accomplishing this remarked “Kevin, you just showed up one year and now you’re a star.” If he means that I speak on panels and organize group activities then I guess I am. But it’s not because I’m some sort of genius. For example, when Dave asked me how I got started doing panels, I told him “I asked Hugh if I could.” It’s no harder than that. Hugh has said to me repeatedly that the best ideas for panels come from the attendees, not him. So if you felt something missing at this year’s conference, an idea unexplored, a trend overlooked, change that. Give Hugh your idea (Hugh at SXSW dot com) in the form of a panel idea, complete with perspective panelists. The worst he can do is say no and even that he does nicely.

6. If you can, experience SXSW with an old friend. That old friend is a little pool of normalcy and reflection in a week that feels like a year-long dream.

7. The more I reach out to new people, the richer my experience is. While I wouldn’t trade the time I spend year in and year out with my conference posse for anything, I can’t picture this year’s festival without Kevin and Kimberly from AOL and the old friends brought along by James and Jessa. They see SXSW with an openness that’s both infectuous and humbling. Sharing whatever wisdom I’ve gathered over the last five years makes me feel like I have a reason for coming here each spring other than hearing my own voice on panels and eating too much rich Texas cuisine. It makes me feel useful, instead of merely satiated.

8. South by Southwest is my New Year’s Day. I get into the whole champange and resolutions thing as much as the next person. But my year ends in certainty when I leave California for Austin and begins in earnest when I get home from the conference. It’s where I get inspired, recharged and like being born, ready to be the best me I can.

9. Someone has to be willing to sponsor the *nap room* proposed by Min Jung? C’mon.

10. Practice what you preach. I gave a whole seminar this year called “Where Do We Go From Here?” aiming to get attendees to channel the energy of SXSW to serve them throughout the year. I can’t stand the idea of how I feel at this conference being temporary. I want to feel this way most of the time. But I need to hold myself to those standards as well. I need to invest the energy that creativity and community deserve in order to reap the rewards. And not just in the weeks following the conference. In the summer, fall and winter, when it feels like forever until I get back to Austin. I can only come once a year. But I can try to be inspired, impassioned and alive as I can be the rest of the time.

I know I won’t do it perfectly. But I will try. And I’ll help anyone else who wants to as well.

So here we go. Future’s just ahead. You coming?

Previous Versions: 2003, 2002.

• Category: Our Web, Ourselves.