Hello, my name is Mike Gowen.

SXSW 2007: The Beginning

This time Friday of last week I was a SXSW virgin…but now, like a teen on prom night, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world, and I’ve been left thoroughly satisfied.

Now I’ve been to all type of conferences, but never one with this sort of grouping of backgrounds (interactive/music/film). But this creative ménage à trois is one of pure genius. While I couldn’t stay for the music portion, I really dug the overall vibe that was created as a result of the three mediums coming together. Here are the photos I took.

Starting with the panel discussions, I’d have to crown Khoi Vihn and Mark Boulton as my heros of SXSW. I’m a big fan of Khoi’s grid technique as I am obsessive about visual organization. Seeing it applied first-hand to a well-known and established guinea pig was priceless. I can listen to theory about design all day, but the golden donut is seeing those theories directly applied to tangible examples.

It was great seeing Cindy Li make her speaking debut in Tags to Riches: Life After Code. She stole the show in a way that only the internet rockstar can, and I’m sure this just the beginning of a long and prosperous speaking career.

I was pleased to be able to catch Jason Santa Maria and Rob Weychert speak at After the Brief: A Field Guide to Design Inspiration. Sadly, Cameron Moll came down with the flu and couldn’t make it. I love hearing Cameron speak so this was a bit of a dissappointment. While the panel itself referenced some excellent suggestions for getting inspired, I think the true inspiration for me came from simply witnessing two individuals who’s lives are so permeated by design. Unfortuntely the panel happened to fall at the same time as Dan’s panel on The Influence of Art in Design which I was really looing forward to. I hear it went really well, so kudos to Dan and friends.

Design Workflows: How Top Designers Work their Magic was fun and light-hearted and really reiterated the the reason why we all do what we do. In most cases, how you work is up to you, and since we’re lucky enough get paid doing what we love, we inherently have fun and goof off in the process. I’m currently working with Veerle and Bryan on a couple projects, so it was nice to get a glimpse into their world. I also have to give a special a thanks to Bryan for showing Tick some love during the panel.

Another highlight was Scaling Your Community. Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress fame has a really strong grasp on what makes communities tick and how to nurture them and adapt as they grow. I took away a lot of new information that we’ll be able to directly apply to Scrapblog.

And finally People-Powered Products was another great look into the world of fostering and nurturing healthy communities.

Now for the real reason everyone goes to SXSW, the parties. Alex, Brian, Xavier and I bounced around quite a bit, so we weren’t in any one location for very long. We started out at the Frog Design party which featured an amazing interactive projecter installation. I wrote about it on the Scrapblog blog here. The Ze Frank party was probably the highlight of the first night for me. I had a number of great conversations, and Ze Frank was nothing short of comedic genius as always. The 2nd Annual Avalonstar Bowling Extravaganza was kick ass. We represented South Florida with the Infinimedia/Scrapblog team. We didn’t have any real hopes of getting very far, but to our surprise we placed 5th!

But overall the true reward of any event are the relationships that are born. I got to chat with a lot of new faces including Jason Santa Maria, Alex Giron, the Blue Flavor guys, and Josh Williams, who’s work with Firewheel never fails to inspire me. I also had nice chat with Shaun Inman, who is one of the few people that I’ve met who writes music in addition to his design and development work. He definitely puts the “jack of trades, master of none” proverb to bed. We discussed some possible collaboration work on the music front which I hope we can make happen once we both come up for air.

So as I sit on the plane, on my way back to Miami, I feel a little lump in my throat as my freshman SXSW experience comes to a close. But rest assured, like that teen on prom night, I’m bound to become a SXSW slut