I’ve just spent an age trying to write an in depth blog post about the chaos of this place. About the sprawling parties at so many venues, you stand in the street and go nowhere. About the conversations made up of one word.. ‘Brand’.. about how wonderful it is to meet old online friends only to find you are in a space not conducive to connecting. About how there is so much good food and beer you could quite easily die of the most delicious over indulgence before the week is out. About how this is all just too big and every where you go there is talk of the ‘old days’ of this and when ‘that’ was just so much better. About how there is nothing new really. Just old stuff with advertisement bolted on. About how focus is important but everyone has forgotten how to do it.
It’s strange. This may be my sleep deprived – still jet lagged mind talking but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This is all too interesting. There is change in the air and it’s not sponsored, backed or popping up to make a quick buck. It’s manifesting itself in the spaces where we can still talk. The corners where we have air, where we don’t need a pass to lift a camera, or batteries to talk. Where we are not being sold to, and where for a moment we are honest with each other.
Something stinks and the fresh ideas that are here are in danger of being tainted.
With this in mind I’m now on a mission to find the good stuff. To follow a tributary only a few here seem to be taking. I think there will be some amazing realisations come out of SXSW. They are not all going to be expected. Some even go against everything this place had begun to stand for.
A revolution in these fascinating times would not necessarily be unusual. A burning of the stubble is needed so we can start again.
You can’t just join this insurgency. No. Like everyone else here. You will have to queue for the wristband.
Always on a mission to find the good stuff, you offer us great stuff too. The next good thing maybe laying in the different layers of all you are gathering, publishing and sharing, I can sense it (and I am the lucky one, not too sleep deprived or over-indulged who will collapse after such a hard work cropping all the essential!)
There’s a 1-on-1 somewhere just around the next corner where *great* stuff happens, connections are made and lives are positively energized and impacted. As the crowds grow ever larger, those 1-on-1’s increase in value. They’re everywhere, even SXSW, as you’ve already discovered and shared. Enjoy!