Day three at SXSW greeted us with a massive thunderstorm and torrential rains. It was an adventure getting to the convention center without getting soaked. We saw another day of great content and filled a few more pages of notes. The day ended with the annual Nuclear Taco Night. For the uninitiated, Nuclear Tacos are an Austin staple and one of the spiciest things you'll ever eat. They look like a typical taco with ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream; but they taste like molten lava - the kind of spicy burn that continues to burn even after it reaches your stomach (Even several hours later - it's after 10:00 pm as I write this ;). They're definitely worth the hurt.
As before here are the programming highlights from today:
The Care and Feeding of Your Startup
This one leaned a bit more toward business than I would typically like, but it did address lots of issues regarding the motivation of creative workers and creating an effective corporate culture. In many ways this was the opposite view of Jason Fried's thoughts on the topic earlier in the week. That said, it did extend a recurring SXSW theme of creating passion inside your organization for your product. That's a lesson that can't be taught enough in my opinion.
Social Networking and Your Brand
This panel discussion concerned personal branding both in terms of self promotion and the caveats of sharing too much. It was interesting to see how large companies like Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Apple encourage their employees to actively develop their online persona.
Monday Keynote: Frank Warren
Frank Warren is the founder of PostSecret, a community art project with roots in social networking both online and off. The project consists of post cards anonymously sent in revealing secrets by their authors. During the keynote, Warren shared many examples of the cards along with touching stories of community and changed lives. It was an inspirational hour that truly exemplified the power of community.
10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment
Presented by Adaptive Path, this panel explored they ways that creative industries (other than the web) foster the creative process and create an environment where creativity is at its most effective. There were lots of ideas here to take back to the office.
Core Conversation: Feeding the Creativity Beast
Our last session of the day was our first opportunity to explore the core conversations format which is new to SXSW this year. The core conversations consisted of four independent discussion groups happening simultaneously in one room. The popularity of this format made getting in close enough to hear a little tough, but the content was great and was a nice break from a standard presentation.
Tomorrow leaves us time for a few early morning panels, then it's back on the road to Oklahoma City.
Posted on
Monday, March 10, 2008
by Jason Zimdars
filed under