Recently in sxsw Category

"Can't understand the words of half of the stuff I'm saying" - Phoenix, Everything is Everything

Molly asks. I'll answer. Seemingly we can't get enough of sxsw.

• Which was the most memorable panel you attended?
  • Where are the Women in Web Design? was incredibly useful for me as was Building a Community Blog and the Decentralized Social Networks talk because danah boyd wowed me.
• The most memorable keynote?
  • The only keynote I attended was Zeldman.
• Do you think that SXSW is more a social or content-oriented event?
  • More social with the potential for better content talk.
• What would you like to see more of at SXSW?
  • More breakout sessions after panels to get into the nuts and bolts of things that were discussed.
• What would you like to see less of at SXSW?
  • It's my first time. I want to see more of everything.
• How would you describe your experience overall?
  • Fantastic.
• What will you remember about the food and drink you had while in Austin?
  • That I ate too much and drank far too little.
• Do you have a “best moment” or two (or ten) that will stay with you forever?
  • Participating in the Blogging While Black panel. Getting my "-ist" on with the other "-ist" kids. Meeting everyone. That MJ wasn't the first woman to kiss me at SXSW. Serious conversations about the adult film industry with Halcyon and Tassy.

"You don't need to emerge from nothing" - Fischerspooner, Emerge

Michelle is annoyed at a conversation kottke overheard so I decided to amuse her with a conversation I listened in on in Austin as well.

This was heard as Sleater-Kinney set up for their amazing and amazingly too short show to close the night at Emo's on the first night of the music festival.

Girl 1 (after kissing girl 2): you're so cute.

Girl 2: then why do you keep laughing?

Girl 1: because I want to make out with you...but I'm not gay.

Girl 2: you're not?

Girl 1: not gay...but gay enough.

Girl 2: gay enough?

Girl 1: we can be makeout sluts but no sex.

Girl 2: you do realize you kissed me first right?

Girl 1: you're so cute.

"All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces." - Gary Jules, Mad World

These allergies are truly kicking my ass today. It is the last night of interactive and there is a party but all I'd like to do is go to sleep. I have to stay up though. Music folks are arriving and I'm going to finally make it to a film festival movie - Scratch: All The Way Live.

I attended two panels today both of which are related to one aspect of my job that, unfortunately for me, takes up more of my time than I would like it to. The managing of a social network (in this case, a message board) and how to deal with Spam, Trolls, and Stalkers. The first has to do with issues of privacy that we all need to be aware of online. You do not live in a vacuum. You cannot be anonymous if you post something on the internet. As soon as someone links to it or reads it and can parse who the author is and announce who you are to the world, you're no longer anonymous. This is important. What you share in places like friendster, orkut, or a message board or mailing list puts it into a space that you have no control over. If you announce where you live, that you're going on vacation, and that you just bought a new plasma screen TV to some kind of public online social network, you've given a house thief everything he or she needs to know.

I wish my board members would think about that. It is one thing to share and talk about the issues in your life in an abstract sense, in a way that doesn't get into the specifics of who you are. It is also one thing to share intimate details of your life with people that you have an expectation of trust with. It is quite another to broadcast it to the world in a message board post that everyone can read.

I have less anonymity on the message boards we maintain than I would like because I shared more information than I should have well over a year ago (a case of too much transparency from the administrators of a tool) and because my name appears in the credits. Fans of this particular show and the boards we run visit here, send me emails to my personal account, and attempt to contact me through messaging tools...all of which are far too close for comfort. I have this public presentation of myself at this site but I need to be able to separate the access that people have to me as a professional and as a private person with a public personal site.

Wow, that last sentence is convuluted.

"Yo bailan en Puerto Rico. Yo bailan en Nuevo York" - Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Che Che Colo

Lawver.net has the wiki of our panel and I want to expand on something I said.

Jason: It doesn't just apply to hiphop. You can talk about the music, but when you talk about the issues of the culture - it applies to black people. If you're coming from Harvard as a white or asian male, you're not the right voice to be the "official" voice of that issue.

Retrieved from "http://www.lawver.net/wiki/index.php/Blogging_While_Black"

I use the example Aaron used a few years ago. I might love Kabuki theatre or Bollywood films. I might read everything there is to read about those subjects. Hell, I could be a Ph.D. in the subject. As a black American, however, I can't truly understand it in the same way that someone who grows up and lives in the culture that brings forth those art forms understands them.

I could go to Kabuki with a person of the culture or attend a Bollywood film in the same way and we would experience completely different things because of who we are.

I don't want to come across like I want to limit what people can and should talk about. I just want their to be an awareness that, perhaps, when we talk about cultural issues, the most relavent voices are the experts within that culture and that we should seek them out.

"Maybe there is only love if you're honest." - Nuspirit Helsinki, Honest

Austin has me coughing and sniffling something fierce. It is 2:16 AM, I've ordered room service breakfast for 8:45 AM and I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to talk about the day I've had.

Our panel, Blogging While Black, was kind of spectacular. I think I talked too much but we said a lot of things that I think we've all been wanting to say; we got some black folks in the room that normally wouldn't have been at the conference at all; and, we started a conversation.

I haven't had such reasoned, genuine conversations about race, social constructs, common ground and identity since my days as the diversity program clearinghouse coordinator back in college. I loved it.

Truly, I'm amped. I got even more amped during the Where Are the Women in Web Design? panel later in the day. I want you at SXSW next year. There's no excuse. We're going to start a Road to SXSW initiative and get all you weblogging tech heads, music critics, filmmakers, and web designers to Austin, Texas for at least a few days.

Even more than the dialogue that has occurred in the last 15 hours or so regarding issues that matter to many of us, the most important parts of SXSW for me has been the fellowship that I feel when talking with web nerds and geeks about tags and folksonomies and web standards and accessibility and the tools we use and the audiences we reach and the commonalities and differences between us. I'm also attending the film festival and have gotten great ideas for my professional content goals on my work sites (and beyond) just by attending a few of those. I've made great professional connections and, more than that, I've made new friends and all of that energy has me with goals, ideas, and challenges for the spring simply exploding from my head.

Your people are here. I'm here. Tiffany is here. Lynne is here. George is here. Cecily is here. Tony is here. Ernie is here. Min Jung is here. Molly is here. Malcolm is here. Jackson is here. Prentiss is here. David Dylan is here. Hell, Black Texas is here. Most of us will probably be here next year as well.

We're already waiting for you.

I'm giving you a year to get it together and be in Austin for interactive. If you're a web professional dealing in design, social and community tools, or are just interested in how we all get together and get down in the blogosphere, this is where you have to be.

I want to know what subjects would interest you as panel discussions. I want to know what excuses you're already forming. I want to know how we can get you here.

I was at a party hosted by blogger and google tonight and then went to hang out with all the blog kids and the folks of the nick denton empire. I got kissed on my forehead.

What were you doing?

Yeah, I thought so.

"I don't get the message so you got to run the pigeon." - A Tribe Called Quest, Check the Rhime

Working for gothamist has it's priviledges, Jake buys the beers and the pretzels.

Beer though? Really? Breaking Bread with Brad at the Ginger Man was fun but it has been so long since I drank brewskies. I can't remember the names of the beers I drank. I had two. I also can't remember the names of anyone I met but I do remember the url echoditto.com. I spent a lot of time with the DC contingent. I should have taken pictures of everyone like George.

Malcolm Gladwell came to the party and I experienced what must be my first web celebrity moment. The crowd murmured and swelled with excitement. It was odd.

I won a dvd called "High Risk" that stars James Brolin, Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, and Lindsay Wagner. It looks positively awful. As the name of my site (or some proximity of it) I was left to wonder, how many people read "negro" as "nigga"? And this isn't a race thing, I've had family do the same. What's up with that?

The opening party for the Film Festival at Buffalo Billiards featured some rockabilly band and roller derby girls in one room and a pretty mellow DJ in the other. And lots of bad white people dancing. Like really bad. Like too scary for me to get up and show them how to get down bad. And that means it was really bad because if the beat is right, I need to get down. I left when Rapper's Delight came through the speakers and the entire crowd tried to get funky.

And now it is time to kick balls.