i have a confession to make. out of all the panels that i went to, i enjoyed very few of them, and even when i enjoyed them, i didn’t think i was getting my money’s worth. why?
for noobs by noobs
don’t get me wrong. just because i didn’t enjoy the panels doesn’t mean you won’t - depending on who you are. sitting there in the conference rooms, panel after panel, i kept wondering to myself, why is everything so dumbed down? at first i thought that the so-called ‘experts’ were dumbing down their presentations so that the average attendee could understand them (with the assumption that the average attendee knows very little about the topic), but ultimately i decided that the ‘experts’ were basically bullshitting their way through the panels. let me explain.
every panel i went to, i looked up the credentials of the panelists and what i noticed was that 1) most of them were marketers, 2) most of them had old media marketing backgrounds and worked for big companies, 3) most of them had little or no social media presence. yes, you read that right, the ‘social media experts’ had little or no social media presence. the lack of presence works for many industries where you can preach based on what you’ve learned through reading and researching, but in my opinion, it is very hard to fake social media expertise, and the panelists were no exception.
i’m not boasting when i say this, and there is definitely something to be said about being one of the smartest people in the room, but when you go somewhere to learn, being one of the smarter people in the room is kind of a drag. that said, as far as my overall sxsw 2008 experience is concerned, i absolutely loved it and i think the fact that i hated most of the panels actually contributed to my enjoyment of the convention. why?
hello, my name is…
walking out of the panels or outright skipping many of them gave me an opportunity to mingle and meet a lot of great people outside the conference rooms and spend time with the propeller team (i was there as a part of the team). i got to spend many priceless hours with the propeller developer-anchor-scout team and not only got to look at the upcoming design and features but also got to ask questions and give my input regarding the design, features, and direction that the site is going to take. that alone made the whole trip worth taking.
outside of the team, i got to spend time with many other exceptional people including: darren rowse, brian clark, wendy piersall, tris hussey, jeremy wright, jonathan fields, a large group of the b5media team, ryan travis, tim ferris, gary vaynerchuck, veronica belmont, the weblogs inc. and blogsmith teams, tamar weinberg, mg siegler, mazy, pete cashmore, robert scoble, tony adam, shama hyder, kevin kelly, neil miller, peter sciretta, alex billington, and jody gnant (if i missed your name, please email me and i will add it).
ultimately what made south by southwest great for me was meeting all these people and the conversations i had with them rather than the panels i attended. hopefully i will be at the convention again next year and will be presenting something useful and actionable to the audience.
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