experience matters

Before:
The recycled air on this SouthWest Airlines flight to SXSW– or Austin, TX as the city is usually known – is filled with an excitement similar to what I remember of the bus-ride to summer camp. The parallels are unmistakable. Rows in front of me, I hear two people becoming fast-friends and exchanging stories from years past. Two dudes in the row behind me are engaging in what I can only term a game of “who knows more about what happened in social media and tech in the past three hours,” often peppering the conversation with, “Oh yeah I saw that” and “That happened like three days ago, dude.” To my left, in the window seat, an Austin native just sold me on his friend’s start-up, Tabbed Out and I’m already ready to evangelize the brand.

I can almost guarantee the 80 percent of us are attending the conference have started a conversation with, “I’m so excited.” These “kids” are going crazy and I expect them to break into song at any moment. Maybe that just happened at my camp.

Singing or no singing, as a SXSW newbie, I feel wide-eyed. I think the guy from Austin sees it on my face. He keeps asking me about the conference in that 30-minutes-before-a-first-date way a roommate asks about a guy.

I’m on board with these excited, laptop-filled rows of professionals sent away to camp for the weekend by our bosses. I am so excited, but when I’m excited, my attention span gets shorter and I flit around like a hummingbird, so I’ve set some objectives for myself. Further down, you can see how well I did in meeting them.

1. Document everything: Everyone I meet, every new tool I hear about, every blog someone tells me I have to read will be placed into a spreadsheet. Every time I see something outlandish, I’m going to snap a photo with varying levels of secrecy.

2. Remember what I’ve learned: I know this seems intuitive, but sometimes there’s a takeaway from even the greatest talk that gets lost as soon as something shiny comes along.

3. Eat for free: Full disclosure, no one at CM told me to do this. However, I’ve heard it’s possible and I live for a good, frugal challenge.

After:
The flight’s collective energy is more of a “we lived to tell the tale” sort of quiet exhaustion. It’s not all hangovers and sleep deprivation, though. In my row, two men are currently competing in the first of what they claim will be a series of iPad, in-flight song creation races. Seriously. Read more about that here: #skysoundshowdown

In-flight DJs or not, it’s palpable that people are returning to their offices with new insights and intelligence. I may be jumping to a conclusion here, but as a result, there’s a lot more work taking place on this flight than on the outgoing flight to Austin. You never know, though, they might just be really hungover and staring aimlessly at their laptops.

Am I returning with insights and intelligence? Definitely. But it didn’t necessarily happen via the type-A kind of plan I laid out. Let’s check back on my goals.

1. Document everything: Those spreadsheets are looking pretty weak right now. Don’t get me wrong, I took notes, I live tweeted, I learned about new companies, I met people, but that information is as scattered as the conference itself. I’ll rein it all in eventually and it might end up in the spreadsheet after all. However, I did great at capturing the outlandish stuff in photo form.

2. Remember what I’ve learned: Success! But it’s all going back to point 1. It’s all somewhere, but I’ve got to categorize. Then again, I haven’t necessarily remembered what I’ve forgotten yet.

3. Eat for free: This was a great, great failure. This challenge died a sudden and untimely death as soon as I saw a lobster omelet on a menu. I lasted a total of 18 hours. Better luck next year, Anderson.

The takeaway: maybe goals and lists aren’t the right way to do South by. Maybe it’s a great big opportunity to Crowd-source your conference destiny by listening to what’s trending on Twitter and walking out when a talk isn’t what you thought it would be. As an aside, walking out was the most difficult SxSW reality that I had to come to terms with. Walking out of anything makes the polite Minnesotan in me die a little. However, The most enchanting sounding conferences were some of the largest flops, while some of the small, unassuming group discussions left everyone feeling enlightened. There’s too much going on to stick around for something that isn’t going to inspire. I found that allowing for adjustment is the key to SxSW success, but what do I know, I’m just a newbie.