We’re back from another week of SXSW Interactive. Another week of non stop panels, eating our meals from food trucks, street vendors and overcrowded restaurants, and what little sleep we could grab back at the hotel. The festival itself was an opportunity to hear the latest on everything from web design and development to technology tips and trends. The streets of Austin were filled to capacity (did anyone else feel like they doubled the size of the festival this year?) and I hear they are going to cap attendance next year. If you missed SXSW this year, don’t miss it next year.
Four of us from the Intervals team were able to make it out to Austin, Texas, for the festival this year. When we got back I asked everyone to share a few thoughts from their experience. Specifically, I asked them for their top 3 panels, the best place for food, the best place for drinks, total hours of sleep, and any random thought or experience that had while at SXSW. Here is what we came up with…
Michael
Top 3 Panels
- Future Fitness: The Power of Personal Data
- Q&A With Google & Bing On Website Ranking
- The Politics Behind HTML5
Best place for drinks
- Hotel bar after getting stranded in Phoenix overnight
- The Ginger Man
Best place for food
- Champions ~ location, location, location
Total hours of sleep
About 5 a night with about 4 the last night in Phoenix
One random thing you’d like to add, perhaps something you saw or experienced that could only happen at SXSW
Cameron
Top 3 Panels
- Real Tech Rockstars: Engineers or Designers? ~ Solid gold!
- Web Anywhere: Mobile Optimisation With HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript ~ Concise, informative, comprehensive.
- Community Engagement Strategies: Rational Debate or Herding Cats? ~ Fantastic panelists, entertaining and informative.
- An Open Internet: The Last, Best Hope for Independent Producers
Best place for drinks
- The Ginger Man
- Champions ~ Surprisingly good selection of beer for a hotel restaurant/bar and good food, too.
Best place for food
- Moonshine ~ Best chicken-fried steak I’ve ever had
- Iron Cactus
Total hours of sleep
Probably around 5 hours a night, but that was slightly skewed by about 2.5 hours each on the first and last nights, and the time change didn’t help either. Something to add: Stay downtown!
One random thing you’d like to add, perhaps something you saw or experienced that could only happen at SXSW
Overheard: “Javascript is really hot right now.”
Jaime
Top 3 Panels
- Mistakes I Made Building Netflix for the iPhone (Slides)
- One Codebase, Endless Possibilities: Real HTML5 Hacking (Slides) ~Really liked the freebeernear.me app
- The Politics Behind HTML5 ~ Amazing look into the inner workings of the W3C. They have tough problems to solve, lets hope they work them out!
Best place for drinks
- The Ginger Man ~ The Boddingtons was great!
Best place for food
- Iron Cactus ~ The tilapia was awesome!
- The Best Wurst
Total hours of sleep
4-6 hours a night.
One random thing you’d like to add, perhaps something you saw or experienced that could only happen at SXSW
I found it very eery the panelist Paul Cotton looked very much like the architect from the Matrix, coincidence? I think not!
John
Top 3 Panels
- A Bootstrapped Geek Sifts Through the Bullshit ~ Great advice for entrepreneurs with a technical background
- Worst Website Ever II: Too Stupid to Fail ~ Be sure to click through and listen to the audio. Some of the worst and funniest business ideas I’ve heard
- Scalability: Covering Your Rear with a Good Backend ~ Any web designer/developer considering developing a web-based application needs to listen to this panel
- Startup Marketing: It’s More Than a Twitter Account ~ The remote location kept the crowds away from this one, but it was a gem. Saul Colt from Freshbooks is a quirky, marketing genius.
Best place for drinks
- The Ginger Man ~ Deschutes Black Butte Porter and Inversion IPA on tap!
- Whole Foods ~ The walk-in-refridgerator beer room is awesome
Best place for food
- Chi’lantros BBQ ~ Cheap, fast, healthy and delicious
- Moonshine ~ Anywhere I can get sweet potatoes as a side, I’m there.
Total hours of sleep
4 to 6 hours per night. Should have gone to bed earlier each night.
One random thing you’d like to add, perhaps something you saw or experienced that could only happen at SXSW
Nerdist Podcast #69: John Oliver ~ There is a lot of free and cool stuff going on in Austin. Seeing Chris Hardwick live was fun, having only seen him on TV. Seeing him live with John Oliver made for the best night of the whole trip.
That’s a high level recap of our week at SXSW Interactive 2011 in Austin, Texas. Stay tuned for more blog posts on what we learned, and our thoughts looking forward to next year’s festival.
