I love Austin, and spend three months out of the year there. But, I avoid it like the plague during SXSW, especially the tech portion. I spent part of the winter there, and will be arriving back in town in a couple of weeks, just in time for the SXSW people to be gone. SXSW brings nearly everything I don't like about Silicon Valley and Los Angeles and New York to a town that I love and is normally refreshingly free o…
So what are those traits? After all, I'd hate to offend you the next time I visit Austin.
While the close of the story is the most fun - I find myself drawn to the beginning. I haven't been to SXSW but have paid attention to the writings coming out of it over the last few years and increasingly the opinions are that "it's getting mainstream" or that "the new people are ruining it". It reminds me of when I was in High School and everyone started listening to Nirvana. The "early adopters" were pissed when t…
Every band that's ever gotten popular, every community (online or off) that's ever gotten big. Lamenting that the scene was cooler back in the day seems to be a deep-seated human behavior.
That's correct - or at least it's correct for a certain type of personality and I believe the number of people with that make-up is relatively small.
Ironically it's those very people that love finding what is new, different and very often great - the early adopters - that dislike when their discoveries hit the tipping point.
Without the early adopters the masses might never discover the greatness the world has to offer. Perhaps the reason they can't stand the critical mass is so they can discover something new. Begin the process again.
I love Austin, and spend three months out of the year there. But, I avoid it like the plague during SXSW, especially the tech portion. I spent part of the winter there, and will be arriving back in town in a couple of weeks, just in time for the SXSW people to be gone. SXSW brings nearly everything I don't like about Silicon Valley and Los Angeles and New York to a town that I love and is normally refreshingly free o…
So what are those traits? After all, I'd hate to offend you the next time I visit Austin.
Khakis and blue shirts? Annoying capitalist and entrepreneur attitudes, talking about the next big thing, etc. People who focus too much on social media, people who actively spam social media and spam real-life in some twisted definition of "marketing".
All I know about Diogenes is that he lived in a trash can and told Alexander to move because he was blocking the sun. What's this story you're referring to?
I love Austin, and spend three months out of the year there. But, I avoid it like the plague during SXSW, especially the tech portion. I spent part of the winter there, and will be arriving back in town in a couple of weeks, just in time for the SXSW people to be gone. SXSW brings nearly everything I don't like about Silicon Valley and Los Angeles and New York to a town that I love and is normally refreshingly free o…
I was following two different twitter feeds coming out of conferences last week: DrupalCon and SXSWi. It was interesting to me how different the tweets were. DrupalCon's were mainly from developers looking for info, or excited about some presentation or technology. SXSWi was mainly people promoting one thing or another. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but speaks to the very different audiences in attendance, which might also explain why the more technical among us is put off by SXSW. I didn't go to SXSWi, am I wrong in thinking it's more of a marketing event then tech event?