Here's a shot of Team Newman in the wild at SXSW 2007. Many thanks to Joe Flood for the documentation.

This is the first year since 2006 that one or both members of Team Newman are not making an appearance at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), the geek conference in Austin, TX.

It’s not that we haven’t loved it. Our SX adventures of yore enabled us to be among the first to try Twitter, discover Ze Frank, meet our good friend Joe Flood and give Gowalla a go. It also did wonders for our sticker collection. But after AT&T’s Great Network Failure of 2009, and attending one-too-many Twitter panels, we’re taking a break.

We wish many a Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki sighting, much fabulous swag and free beer to those thousands of social media guinea pigs in attendance. Have fun and consume tons of Stubbs BBQ for us!
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Here's me putting OtherInbox's Mr. Spam in a headlock. This is what I wanted to do to Mr. AT&T, but he was a no-show at SXSW.

We did it! Team Newman survived the fifth and final day of South by Southwest Interactive. Not to be confused with the music portion, which starts today. Many of you emailed, Facebooked and Twittered me with great SXSW Music folks to check out…unfortunately, our geek lanyards don’t get us into those music venues. Sorry!

Anywho, Day 5 was great and included everything from getting work done, to tacos, to watching intoxicated dudes attempt to ride the mechanical bull. I managed to sneak in two SXSW panels, which is tough to pull off on the last day of any conference. I even wore red on St. Patrick’s Day in hopes of winning Gowalla’s Flip Mino HD. No, (sigh) I didn’t win.

I really enjoyed the “Non-Profits: Be the Web You Wish to See!” panel with Stanley Jones of Diligent Creative. I was quite underwhelmed by the “Surviving Scandal” panel though. I think the gal knew what she wanted to say, just couldn’t find a way to say it. Her awkward struggle with public speaking made me very sad/uncomfortable/sorry for her so I had to get up and leave.

The Media Temple closing party was fabulous though; easily the most fun party we attended during our six days here. We had free grub and LoneStar and had a great time giggling at the bull riders.

All in all, it was a great experience. Though, this was the last SXSWi trip for Team Newman for a while.

When we first attended SX three years ago, it was much more intimate (say, 3,000 folks) than the SX of today. I love to think about 13,000 geeks in once place, but I don’t enjoy what a mass o’ tech-addicted laptop lovers does to AT&T and my iPhone. And it certainly wasn’t good for our hotel internet connection either. We always try to work, blog and write while we are here. With the massive internet and iPhone failure, we simply couldn’t do any of that. And that sucks.

Of course, none of that is the fault of the SXSW organizers. We’ve no issues with the festival itself. Still, we’ll be looking for the next, slightly smaller geeky gathering for 2010. Suggestions?

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Creepy ATMs a plenty

Even though our beloved iPhones and their data connections have been rendered virtually useless for three days because folks at AT&T can’t find a signal to save our lives, Team Newman managed to find our way around Austin, consuming many a free beverage on Day 3.

A few observations:

1. Austin = ATMs. It’s very odd, but about every 20 feet you stumble upon a creepy, if not sketchy, ATM. See photo.
2. Every restaurant serves some sort of taco.
3. Cupcakes are the official dessert of Austin.
4. This year’s SX has more non-Apple products than I’ve seen in years past. It also has more Apple-haters. And they REALLY don’t like Steve Jobs.
5. 5 p.m. sessions are well attended when it’s freakin’ cold in Texas.
6. Men at SX look at you like you are a freak if you are a woman WITHOUT pink/green/blue hair.
7. Geeks like black hooded sweatshirts.
8. Geeks like girls with blue hair.
9. I’m so happy I’m one who enjoys learning new stuff.
10. Although we are glad we are here, with so many folks live blogging and Twittering what they are learning at SXSW, you really don’t have to be here to feel like you are here. But if you don’t come to SX in person, you can’t drink the free beer. So, there’s that.
11. AT&T is royally screwed. I feel sorry for them, actually. After an unacceptable (and stupid) failure like this, these geeks are gonna be all over the Palm Pre.
12. The new Sierra Mist with grapefruit is actually pretty good with vodka.

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Okay, I know I expressed a bit of concern about whether SXSW would be this big I Heart Twitter! fest or if I would actually learn something new. No worries! I attended three fabulous panels and a keynote address on Day 2. In all honesty, the speakers most certainly did teach/encourage/motivate/challenge me, so if I had to go home today I would feel like I got my money’s worth.

I very much enjoyed hearing from Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, his keynote address was packed out and even spilled into three simulcast rooms. The great news about Tony is that he’s relatively young, extremely successful and absolutely understands that THE BEST way to have productive, customer service-oriented, on-message employees is to create a culture that fosters those things.

If you want your customers to be WOWed, as Hsieh does, then you’ve gotta take great care to hire employees who enjoy WOWing folks. And, “fire quickly” those who do not. Nice the hear that Zappos’s priority is creating and maintaining that culture. “If we hire for the culture fit,” Hsieh said, “the rest just takes care of itself.” He also said that Zappos considers money spent on WOWing customers and training and motivating employees as marketing dollars. It’s billiant, in my opinion.

The panel on Internet privacy was also fabulous. It wasn’t so much that I learned new stuff, you already know how I feel about the importance of knowing your online self. It’s was really just nice to have my obsession validated by really smart folks who are just as freaked out as I am about how little the average person cares about what personal information of theirs is floating around on the Web.

Anyway, there were so many great nuggets of geekdom crowding their way into my head that I thought I might explode a little. You can see my schedule over there…except for that Obama/Dean one. I skipped that to hang with hubby. And that’s okay because the keynote for Day 3 is the same Obama Web-ness, so it’s all good. The topics and converstaions spurred many blog ideas for me, so look for those in the coming days!

In the meantime I’ll leave you with this video of Dave stripping down at the trade show to get a cool t-shirt. We do what we have to do, friends:

For your viewing pleasure, the Team Newman SXSW Interactive video montage:

Seriously! We showed up at 6:58 (registration started at 7 p.m.) and we breezed through the line and secured our lanyards. We go back downstairs to find at least 500 folks standing there like dominoes looking at us like we’re walking by them wearing The Precious. And we were. SUCKERS!

I love being a dork.

Woo Hoo! Team Newman is just three days away from descending upon Austin for South by Southwest Interactive.  Although it’s not a total vacation (we’ll still be working on the road) we are ready to get out and about and learn something new… an expectation that makes me a little nervous.

See, SX has traditionally been a predominantly male, Apple product lovin’, geek haven. As attendees, we’d feast our eyes on new technologies, books and ideas that would debut there. And here’s the catch: the stuff really was new. Three years ago, Twitter launched at SX as a way for festival peeps to keep up with each other as we moseyed about Austin. It fell off the radar for a while and then suddenly, about 16 months ago, Twitter popped back up to the surface. And now CNN and MSNBC are hailing Twitter as a “new” social media site. But, you see, it’s not new. At least not to SX-goers.

Which brings me to my point about this year’s SX — there’s a lot of social media stuff on the slate and I just PRAY there is something new, something fabulous, for me to learn this year. I will just DIE if I get there and sit through six days of “How to use Twitter” or “Social Media 2.0″.  What if I get there and instead of the geek crowd it’s nothing but normal people? What if the “new” stuff is nothing more than the popular/mainstream stuff? I really think I’ll cry.

So, I’ve got this little bit of fear going on; that said, I simply can’t wait to touch down on Austin soil, stand in line for two hours to get my prized lanyard, drink free beer, meet fabulous new friends, find my online peeps, hold hands with my hubby and learn new stuff.

Oh! And I’m sure I’ll also do something completely random this year like dance at a goth bar and put temporary tattoo on my forehead just to get a free t-shirt (a la SX 2007). No worries, I’ll be blogging, taking photos and rolling video from SX so you’ll totally feel like you are there for every odd and geekish thing we do!  Stay tuned!

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