Posted by Jessica Dennis on Fri, Mar 26, 2010 @ 09:02 AM
Reflecting on my time at SXSW 2010 I am so thankful for what the event offered me both personally and professionally. I can’t stop thinking about the people I met, the Twitter personalities I was finally able to connect a face with and all of the great presentations I attended. To say it was an insane, crazy, mind-blowing experience is an understatement. In my last blog post I talked about the unexpected things I encountered like the SXSW culture
and how it reminded me of summer camp. Since I already talked about the culture, I want to share with you the biggest lesson I learned at SXSW.
Pay attention to the backchannel. While this was one of the most talked about topics at SXSW, it was completely disregarded in one of the most talked about and much anticipated keynote presentations. The keynote featured the founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, and it was supposed to be the highlight of the event. The keynote presentation was a question and answer format, with the interviewer being Umair Haque
of the Harvard Business Review. What started off as a sneak peek and announcement of the new @Anywhere feature for Twitter quickly turned into a monologue of Haque’s traveling mishaps, blog and his interests. It quickly became apparent that the audience was losing interest as SXSW attendees left the large exhibit hall in droves and shared their thoughts on Twitter via the hashtag #Mondaykeynote. It was quickly turning into a “fail whale.”
So where did this disaster of a presentation go wrong? As one attendee put it, “A train wreck it was not, that would have held my attention.” For starters, a keynote presentation should be just what it says, a presentation. The question and answer format doesn’t work well when presenting to thousands of attendees who are all there to hear the thoughts and insights of the featured presenter. The interviewer choice was also wrong. Someone like
Gary Vaynerchuk, PRSarahEvans or Chris Brogan would have made a much better interviewer because they understand social media and Twitter specifically. They would have also listened to the backchannel and re-adjusted appropriately.
Which brings me to my last and most important take-away from the event, LISTEN TO THE BACKCHANNEL! The backchannel is the conversation that takes place about your presentation in real time as it is being given. With social media tools like Twitter, people are providing valuable feedback about how the presentation is going, what questions are un-answered and blasting their messages out to thousands.
What Haque or the event staff of SXSW should have done would be to monitor the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag they provided and make adjustments accordingly. Unfortunately, there were many questions left unanswered during this interview. But in true Twitter fashion and which we would expect nothing less … Evan offered to answer questions after the presentation had ended… on Twitter. Haque responded to the backlash in his blog post, Twitter, SXSW, and Building a 21st Century Business.
Posted by Jessica Dennis on Sun, Mar 14, 2010 @ 03:15 PM
SXSW started in 1987 with the film and music festival. It has since grown to encompass Interactive/social media and brings more than 17,000 people from around the globe to Austin, Texas, read more background here. The people who come to this event are as diverse as the event itself. I have met a lot of people from England, other European countries and all over the U.S. There are celebrities in the traditional sense as well as social media celebrities such as Sarah Evans and Chris Brogan. The events and sessions are also as diverse as the attendees themselves, which makes perfect sense. I have attended topics on how to set up a business,the E-food revolution and very specific topics such as open source video. To be honest though, my favorite part of the event is the culture. I have been referring to the entire event as SXSW Camp.
I think back to my summers spent at camp and the energy and excitement that I would experience. SXSW feels very similar to the culture I can remember. The kind of culture you can only achieve through a large group of like-minded people working toward a similar goal. The mission or goal of SXSW is to better the planet through technology. This mission is felt throughout panel discussions, keynote presentations and lounge designs. A couple good examples of this environmental, sustainable culture are the keynote presentation by Valerie Casey and the Aol Seed lounge.
The other large part of the culture is this idea of policing the social media space and making sure we're all acting responsibly. Social media is not new any more, it's constantly evolving, therefore we need to make sure we're using it responsibly. There are many examples, good and bad about the use of social media for business and personal use. The keynote on Saturday, Privacy and Publicity by Danah Boyd talked about how privacy still exists even with the rise of social media and it is the responsibility of everyone involved in this space to respect this. Just because we're all using the Internet and much of our lives are being recorded on sites like Facebook and Twitter does not mean that everyone is entitled to our personal information. Just because something is public (on the Internet and shared with friends) does not mean that it can be publicized. This was a very interesting keynote presentation.
All in all, the event culture has surprised me and it's what will pull me back again next year.
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 @ 02:20 PM
Day two of the conference down in Austin, Texas. I have to admit my love affair with Texas continues and in particular, Austin. It's been an intense two days of learning
but we wanted to get down a few thoughts on some social media highlights to share. Here's a list to ponder:
1) Put some flexibility back into that rigid social media plan. It's all about experimenting and seeing what your customers respond to.
2) Watch out desk top computers ... you are on your way out. Mobile technology is coming up right behind you and poised to take over.
3) Keep an eye on that Backchannel... What's that you say? That's the conversation taking place online while you are up there speaking. Do you respond? Do you acknowledge the backchannel conversation? Presenters need to monitor and respond in real time.
4) It's no longer acceptable to say you don't know the regulations of social media. It's come a long way baby and it's time to read up on FTC regulations.
5) Privacy is not dead. People care about it more than ever. Privacy is about having control over information so make sure you offer opt-in/opt out. And don't mess with people's perceptions of privacy.