Blog

Day two began with a team breakfast at Cisco's, then continued with panels during the day and a couple parties at night.

The TradeMark team met at Cisco's on east 6th street for a hearty breakfast and some SXSW motivation. We all discussed what panels we would be attending and made a plan to divide and conquer.

After breakfast we headed over to the convention center. My first panel was Emerging from a Recession with Emerging Technology. The panel showcased several examples of emerging technology and wrapped up with innovations that we may soon be embracing, such as t-shirts with embedded QR codes and visual search. Before the panel was over, David Polinchock (one of the panelists) turned his Web cam-enabled Mac toward the audience which proceeded to play a collective game of brick-break controlling the paddle by physically moving left or right in our seats. It was pretty amazing.

The 11:30 panel was How to Talk to Programmers, a round-table discussion about designers and project managers working with the personal idiosyncrasies of programmers. After a quick lunch a group of us attended the opening remarks with Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. The talk was motivating but not much different than the speech he delivered last year.

My 3:30 panel was called From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small and featured the much respected Jeffrey Zeldman among 3 other panelists. The speakers gave advice to freelancers and small agencies trying to make it.

After the 3:30 panel, I made my way over to the BBQ tent, but only after all the BBQ had already been eaten. Then it was over to the Registrant's Lounge before heading to the EllisLab party at Moonshine. The EllisLab party was outstanding featuring a wide variety of drinks and excellent food. At about 9:00 we trekked over to the Mexican-American Cultural Center where the Frog Design party was happening. As usual, Frog managed to fill a very large venue with excited guests.

Although there were no groundbreaking panels, day 2 was a great way to get the SXSW Interactive festival started. I'm looking forward to day 3.