SXSW > day 1
March 7, 2008 – 10:48 pmToday was the first of my 10 day visit to Austin, TX for the famed South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, Film, and Music Festival. I’m staying rather far out of the center of the city since I only decided to come here at the last minute, but my hotel room, like most everything in Texas, is HUGE! It’s also incredibly clean and comforting to arrive back here after today’s adventures downtown near the convention center. It’s a Holiday Inn Express which I expected to be small and dingy, but what do I know? I’m not a frequent guest of hotels, and when I do need a room I normally go for the small boutiques rather than the huge chains. And they’re most often small and dingy. So, maybe this is one part of American mass culture about which I’m needlessly snobbish? Yeah it’s generic looking on the outside, but really, for the price this place is d-lux inside!
Ok, so I awoke after a 2 days of no sleep and 1 night of amazing sleep. I considered working out since there is a gym, but - well - maybe tomorrow :) I got downtown in time for a nice lunch at the Old Pecan Street Cafe, where I had a tasty cajun chicken salad and listened to some Texas oil billionaires discuss some business. One guy on cell, “It was the best deal I ever made. Brought $3-400 million to a couple guys. I don’t drill dry holes.”
After lunch I headed to the convention center to get my badge. The line was long but I got finished in time for two book-readings and a panel discussion. The book readings were Subject to Change, by a few guys from AdaptivePath, and Radical Transparency. Both interesting and relevant, but I must say mildly boring slash “yeah I already knew this stuff.” The panel, too, reinforced a lot of stuff I know and have experienced but included some valuable tips for getting the non-web folks to respect the web-folks (us/me)… it was called, “Respect!” and dealt with the fact that in most organizations, even huge web companies like Google, there are endless problems getting other parts of the organization to respect what web / interface designers and info architects do. There was some amount of engineer bashing in all of these, and that made me feel funny because I consider myself both an engineer (not really a great engineer, but it’s often been my “role”) and a designer (again, not the best… but I have worn many hats in my day). I hope I’m not a dilettante. More like a jack of all trades…
After these I headed to a mixer but the line to get into this place was absurd so I decided to take myself out to dinner. I chose parkside because the posted menu had the most delicious sounding fish dishes I’d ever seen. The prices seemed somewhat high, but I figured I’d treat myself and went inside. I was seated right away and the waitress was adorable. I asked whether the items on the right side of the menu (”…of the day”) were considered entrees or not, and she wisely took the opportunity to warn me that the portions were quite small as the food was very rich. I started with a blue cheese, beet, and pistachio salad and some raw snapper with chili and lime. She wasn’t kidding about the portion size (and the prices were certainly entree-sized!), but I have never had a more delicious fish dish. Next I had the pork loin with apples and brandy sauce, and for desert I chose, on my waitress’ confident recommendation, the donut holes. Amazing. Eat at this place if you don’t mind throwing down some cash and having a light but incredible meal.
I was able to see one film tonight as well, Second Skin. Here’s the trailer:
This is gonna be a big hit. In the same vein as Trekkies and other documentaries that focus on radically obsessive fans, this film explores the lives of some of the people who are ADDICTED to MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). I mean ADDICTED. There is a guy from Philly who even decides to go to a half-way house for gaming addicts run by a woman whose son, also a gaming addict, committed suicide in front of his computer which was still running WoW when his devastated mother found his body. There are couples who found each other in-game, including a couple who got married simultaneously in the real world and in Everquest. Of course there are also some physically handicapped people who find freedom from their broken bodies in synthetic worlds, PhD game designers who wax philosophical about the implications of these games, and socially inept ubernerds who are able to transcend their awkwardness when inhabiting their virtual selves. The editing is fantastic, documentarians should take note… particularly the fast round-robin cutting in the beginning of the film when interviewing several couples who found love in the virtual world. The inserts of statistics were well done, too.I am exhausted, but looking forward to tomorrow. Trying hard to be a sponge here, as I have a massive project in front of me to dive into when I return to Los Angeles… certainly my biggest and most important professional challenge yet. I would say more on here, oh how I want to talk all about it! But we’re in stealth mode right now… so mum’s the word. Hasta luego!
