I was going to write some kind of super-badass summary about the SXSW festival, but have come to a single solitude realization:
You don’t need my damn opinion.
Oh, the shock and horror, you can imagine, to those who would be disappointed at missing out on yet another pull-string banter about all of the great panels I attended, all of the great parties that got me drunk, and all the weary mornings that left me wanting for more sleep. “Really…?” I ask. “When so many before me have written about it better and in greater detail, why would you want the salt rubbed into the wounds of those who didn’t attend?”. So, if you want to know about it, just ask me. I’m more than happy to talk about it with people who give a damn.
So, what should our subject matter be, if we choose to avoid the obvious rigamarole? Easy. Let’s discuss those times when we don’t attend conferences. The days that we grab our coffee, head into the office, and do whatever it is that pays the bills. The days that we nearly do the same things that we do during the conferences, just in a virtual environment. The articles in our feedreaders, giving us just as good information in a little window on our computer. Our email client sends information to and from many of the same people that we see in person once or twice a year, but gets more done (suspect to question). Our IMs pop and bristle with chatter about best practices, accessibility, and how someone can help you out (or vice-versa) with that frustrating javascript or IE hack question.
We work. We create. We communicate. All the time. So, why do we pay to go to these things at all? Aren’t they just like getting some kind of mini-vacation, paid for by the company? Not at all!
Allow me to make a quick analogy for those who are gamers. Let’s say you can game online with your buddies, or you can all go over to one guy’s house, and do the LAN-party thing until late the next morning. Which of the two do you think would get more out of? Be more immersive? More interactive?
So when we’re working, we work to build relationships with our peers, be they next door, or a world away. We accomplish most of what we want done, but as long as we’re sitting there drinking our (now semi-cold) coffee, reading our feeds, checking our email, and cracking stupid jokes to a guy 3000 miles away, we still need that level of interaction that only a face-to-face meeting can provide. A beer, a microformats joke, and a comment about the hot waitress just seems to complete the day like no other.
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