It's been nearly a week since I arrived back home and I've recuperated enough from the festivities, work and recording to make this post. Never mind that I saw Billy Bob Thornton and his band play, I was working angles!
What I can say is that it was an event that was really about connecting with nerd brethren. My BlogTalkRadio cohorts and I recorded tons of content and did multiple live shows. But at the core of all of it was connecting with people that we typically only interact with online.
Aside from connecting, I did have another experience worth mentioning here. Like every other conference I have attended there is a simple take-away if you keep your eyes open. Much like TechCrunch40 and the hand washing lesson. That was a great one.
The lesson learned from SXSW interactive was this:
Thousands of attendees, very few media makers.
That's it.
The AMD B5media Bloghaus was filled day after day with the same people. They were a minority of the attendees numbering around 100 I would say. Of that number, even a smaller amount were making media of any kind - blog posts, audio or video. I would guess 40, tops.
I was left wondering why there weren't more attendees outside of the Bloghaus posse making media instead of consuming it. I don't know the reason.
I am having trouble articulating exactly what it meant and means to me. So I will leave it at that. Lots of people at a media making conference and only a handful actually doing it.
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