Buster McLeod: SXSWi 2006 post-mortem

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Thursday, 16 March 2006

SXSWi 2006 post-mortem

What causes change?

My last 2 weeks have been so wacky and weird... in a crazy and changing and barely sustainable way. San Diego, Ensenada, Corona del Mar, Redlands, Austin, and back in 10 days. I'm spending way too much money and probably drinking too much and not really sleeping. This is okay, however, since it fits with my 2006 mottos of "Going For Broke", "In It To Win It", and "Puppets Are The New Monkeys". My weekly goal is to have a week that's more exciting than the previous (since I believe that there's a huge untapped world of excitement ahead of us and we have a long way to go before actually running out of exciting things). It'll be difficult to beat last week, but I'm going to try anyway.

South by South West was SO AMAZINGLY FUN. I met, slapped, and hugged so many great people. A few of the superstars and personal heroes I met for the first time included Roomie Willo, Dodgeball Dennis, Dodgeball Alex, Dodgeball Harry, Wine Box Dealer Helen Jane, Drinking Aubrey, Austinist Justin, Erisfree Eris, Dancing Martine, Dancing Jeremy, Findlaw Jeremy, Photographing Buzz, Socialite Danny, Technorati Ryan, Hackdiary Matt, Odeo Ev, Spongebob Diane, Armadillo Sierra, Dooce Heather, Dooce Husband Friendly Jon, Monstro Lane, Wacky Why, and oh so many others. Not to mention all the great friends I got to see who I know from previous years at SXSW or the Greater Interweb at large. Everyone! Hi! SXSW is made out of people! I love them all. Willo, my roomie, did a FANTASTIC job of taking a bunch of pictures, and even tossed up a couple videos of the dancestage.

I see a story emerging out of the yearly episodes at SXSW... it's really interesting seeing this ragtag group of passionate bloggers and friends evolve and change over the year. It's like reality reality. The last four years at SXSW sort of follows this narrative arc in my opinion:

2003: Bloggers were the underdogs on the scene. Lots of panels about how to set up your blog, how journalism compares to blogging, and responses to traditional media. The bloggers were working on tools and plugins and aggregation sites in their spare time while paying the bills with regular day jobs at bigger (less interesting) companies. Party at Bruce Sterling's house.

2004: Movable Type and Typepad emerge on the scene. Blogging is big time. Big companies are beginning to notice, especially since everything sort of fell apart with the bubble. Maybe there's something to this grassroots revolution after all. The A-list gains a lot of sway, and we root them on. This is the future! Party at Bruce Sterling's house again! But maybe too many people show up.

2005: Flickr and del.icio.us rule. Tags and secondary blogging tools for links, photos, etc are the future! We can take over the world... but our sites are sort of struggling to stay up. And everyone needs money to grow. Party is sponsored and is at some non Bruce Sterling's house venue.

2006: Acquisitions galore. Yahoo and Google have bought all of our favorite sites! Great people put on a slew of great startup parties backed by big corporate dollars. People drink Greygoose and Red Bull, because they can. Everyone is busy porting their sites over to their bigco's platform. I wonder if anything new will happen this year? But finally our hobbies are front and center rather than on the sidelines. We're getting paid to work on things that used to be our hobbies. How is morale? It seems high. Nothing is better than working full time on your pet project.

Curious to see what it's like next year. Will we start new things in the sidelines? Will the corporations take these pet projects to the moon or swallow them whole? I HOPE the former. If not, well, there's now time for people to start new pet projects and start the cycle anew.

I'm really interested in figuring out how to make life and the world change. I'm sort of working through a bag of personal experiments to see how things work. Asking people to say "I experience life as a highly emotional person". Asking them when they last cried. Slapping them. Almost getting beaten up. Hugging them. Pointing to them and asking them to come dance on stage with you. Dancing on the roof. Telling people the expression that's on their face ("You look happy/bored/drunk right now"). Asking people for their first memory.

Constructing an elaborate and pleasing daydream with evolving characters, objects, and events is also one of my new daydreams. It's postmodern daydreaming. Objects that I'm currently working with include: a fox, a mint and chip ice cream cone, a motorcycle, a hot air balloon, a white scarf, a champagne glass, a space elevator, a bell to pull and ring, grass to roll in, sunshine, and a whale. I mix and match them into different scenes in my head, sort of like playing with G.I. Joes as a kid. It's all about setting up the scene, capturing some wonderful moment. I think I may try to draw out some of these scenes and perhaps write some music for my daydream. I started experimenting with this a bit here and here (with Willo's excellent illustration assistance).

I'm working on a movie with some friends... it was all filmed in my house during the few days before I went to Mexico. It involved making my house completely dark and projecting K's paintings as a slideshow onto the actors who are in elaborate garb and mostly still. It will be silent and it's now my job to splice it up into 2-second chunks and recombine it all into 45 or so minutes of narrative.

I have some new goals coming out of the last few days, and am going to put some renewed energy into a couple that I've been dilly dallying on:

Yeehaw!

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Comments

I think change is caused by either a realization of inadequacy or a desire for greatness. Being around so many people who have done so many amazing things, people who I've read for years and (internet) idolized, people who were that inspiring...well, I think in assessing others (be it a moment, a week or a lifetime) we get a glimpse of ourselves from afar, a moment to see us as THEY see us. And in doing that, our goals change, our perception changes, our opinion of what we actually want - amazingly, wonderfully - changes.

I, too, can't wait to see what next year brings (besides more boxed wine, monkey dancing and slapping, of course.)

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