Between March 12 and March 17, I attended the interactive portion of this year’s South by Southwest Festival.
Along the way, I was able to post some thoughts about an interesting session on piracy, summarize a panel looking to establish what the the brave new world of book publishing might look like, and offer a content-centric point of view about the rise of location-aware technologies.
This was my first trip to SxSW, and as a result I don’t feel established enough to offer a credible perspective on the full event. For that, I point you to two retrospective posts from people I’ve been lucky to get to know over the last couple of years:
Lorraine Shanley of Market Partners International was first out of the box last week, and she offered a nuanced look at whether SxSW makes sense for publishers to attend; and
At Booksquare, Kassia Krozser has written an extensive, perhaps definitive post that captures SxSW, at least from a publishing perspective.
You’ll particularly want to invest some time in the Booksquare post. Krozser identifies several important themes, including practical implications in the areas of content, context and community. She goes on to talk about what developments in these areas may really mean for publishing.
Finally, if you want to gain an immediate sense of how important SxSW can be, read the text and view the video of Danah Boyd’s keynote address on privacy in this increasingly connected digital age. Hopeful, sobering and incredibly well-formed, her remarks made for a conference highlight.
