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Alex Jones

I lead teams at the intersection of strategy and design. Autodidact. Polymath. Barbecue acolyte. I start fires (the good kind).

South by Southwest

SXSW: Organize Groups, Maintain Your Buzz

I’d like to invite those of you coming to SXSW Interactive, to my “Salon” (Monday, March 16th, from 6:30pm – 7:30pm) focusing on how to organize real world groups around topics that you’re interested in. The conversation will lean towards technically-oriented communities like Refresh Austin, but will also provide the foundation for groups that are interested in other subjects.

One of the best aspects of the Salon/Core Conversation format is that it is meant to be a two-way dialog instead of a panel – everyone is encouraged to contribute. This is an ideal way for us to share tips, tricks and stumbles so we can all improve our groups when South-By is over.

If you have specific subjects you’d like to discuss, please leave them in the comments or use my contact form and I’ll include them in my topic list.

The Salons are held in the evenings from 6:30 – 7:30, which makes them the latest bit of programming in SXSW’s lineup, but they’ll have some food and drinks to balance it out. Hopefully we can turn this into a lively discussion for all.

Here’s the panel info:

SXSW Year Round: Organize Groups, Maintain Your Buzz
Date: Monday, March 16th, 6:30 – 7:30
Location: Downtown Austin Hilton (located just across the street from the Austin Convention Center)

SXSW Accelerator

The folks at SXSW are starting a new program this year dubbed Accelerator. It’s aimed at up and coming, under-the-radar companies, allowing them “to present their latest products and services to industry experts, early-adopters, bloggers, mainstream media reporters, and leaders of the venture capital community.”

If you recall how Twitter catapulted onto the scene a couple of years back, you know what this type of exposure could do for your product or service.

Categories

  • Online Music-Related Technologies
  • Online Video-Related Technologies
  • Social Networking Applications
  • Innovative Web Technologies.

You can enter up to five products/services across the categories as long as they were launched since March 16, 2008 or are scheduled for release within no later than three months after March 16, 2009

Winners of each category “can receive two badges for the 2010 SXSW Interactive event, a write-up in the April issue of SXSWorld magazine, plus additional prizes yet to be announced.”

There’s a $100 non-refundable application fee, though finalists will receive two passes to the SXSW Interactive Festival and those who do not qualify will be allowed to register for SXSWi at the early bird rate ($375).

A lot more info can be found at on the site and you can contact Chris Valentine at (512) 699-3467.

If you have friends that you think might be interested, please let them know about it. The SXSW crew want to see the best of what’s happening out there.

If you or a friend decide to register, I would appreciate it if you would let Chris know that you heard about it from me.

Turn Out the Lights…

While South by Southwest 2008 continues to rock Austin, the mass influx of geeks have made their way back to their domiciles in cities near and far. The Interactive conference is over, but we made our mark on the city, doubt you not: Tex-Mex and Barbecue were eaten in vast quantities, liquor, beer and wine were ingested in copious quantities and many a breakfast was consumed at the crack of noon.

Yet again, I met some outstanding people and count myself lucky to have participated in amazing conversations.

Our community is vibrant and strong because we have held onto the expectations that we have a world to improve, and that the changes we need to make require the concentrated effort of a diverse and passionate team.

While so many technologies exist to make it easy for us to work together from disparate locations and time zones, South by Southwest 2008 demonstrated yet again that physical presence conjoined with social interaction forms mighty bonds, reenergizes the community and breeds new ideas. I can’t wait to see the projects that launch in the coming months, nor can I wait to interact with and learn from the friends I made at the conference this year as I have with those I met in years past.

Thanks to everyone who came to Austin this year and thanks most especially to those who took the time to strike up a conversation with friends-to-be.

Oh, and yes, my voice is coming back, though I rather like the deeper, Tom Waits-like guttural undertones it picked up in the last few days. It makes me sound ten times cooler than I really am.

Time for South-By

My badge photo for SXSW 2008 South by Southwest officially starts tomorrow, though some of us are kicking things off a bit early, so I wanted to post a quick note for anyone who may be attending. South-By is the king of Web conferences, but the best part for me is meeting so many great people and the amazing conversations the occur between panels and during the parties.

I’ve posted my badge photo so you’ll know what I look like – if you see me at the conference, say hi. For that matter, make sure you start conversations with total strangers, especially if they’re one of your heroes on the Net. Everyone is approachable, and unbelievably friendly.

If you’re in town tonight (Thursday), c’mon by the Gingerman, where a few of us will be raising pints in anticipation.

The Beatles, Radiohead and Our Musical Tastes

Michelle has posted a great wrap up of Tim Westergren’s speech at Pandora’s Get Together here in Austin. Pandora sent me a number of reminders about the event, but I chose not to go, which is a shame because it sounds like it was fun.

Michelle’s post reminds me of the Ultimate Music Recommendation Smackdown panel I attended the last day of SXSWi ’07, which added a lot of interesting pieces to my understanding of music consumption on the Net as well as how the comparisons and matches are made. The most interesting takeaway from that panel was the fact that four of the five services (Pandora, Last.Fm, iLike and I believe Bryght (site may be down)) had to add filters to their systems after discovering that their services were recommending The Beatles and Radiohead for almost every other song or artist. “We see you like Hank Williams, we think you would like Creep from Radiohead”.

That’s pretty damn interesting if you think about it. People are naturally ranking Radiohead at a level of interest as high, or higher as The Beatles by their natural listening habits. Some of this should be attributed to the average age of people using their services, which I assume skews to the younger side, but that’s still a major point when you think about the popularity of the two bands, and the legacy of Radiohead.

The other interesting point I took away from that point of the conversation is the fact that in order for those two connections to be made listeners included the two artists amongst a wide variety of bands and genres. A quick view of my own listening habits and those of many of my friends provides some reinforcement, but I can’t wait to see the types of connections being formed world-wide. It would be amazing to have a “map” or some other form of visual analytics of these musical connections.

Thanks for sharing the experience Michelle!