Innovation Rebels

It has been a marathon few days here in Austin. Lots of panel sessions, networking and partying.

This event has been all about the parties and they were great. I didn’t get to make it to most of them because I did need to get work done in the evening, but I have learned from this experience and it will be different next year.

Lessons learned from SXSW 2006:

- Pay for Interactive Only – There was not enough time to go to all the films I wanted to see since the Interactive stuff was so packed and interesting. The Henry Rollins interview was worth it but I only saw two movies and loved them both – American Gun and Darkon. I will get tickets next time and take my chances.

- Make sure you don’t have work to do in the evening – Lots of parties that are much more fun than the “white guy tech conference” ones I have been too. That is why I didn’t even think about planning for it.

- Bring a larger laptop bag – Lots of stuff to carry. Enough said.

- Bring more business cards – Brought 200 and I am out.

- Bring video camera – Video blogging will be essential way to capture everything

- Stay closer to the convention center – My hotel was nice but too far for multiple cab rides. The Hilton is the place to stay and is reserved first. If I stay farther away I will rent a car, but for around $150 a night it is an even pass.

- Leave the morning after the last day – Many other sessions and parties I will miss.

Much of this would have been cleared up by publishing the schedule earlier. That was the only logistics problem that irritated me.

Otherwise this was a great experience and I met some great people and got some great business leads.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.