Day 1 SXSW

Today was the first day of SXSW. It's the biggest interactive conference in the Country. I've never seen so many interactive/tech geeks in one place. There are speakers and events on the interactive side Friday-Tuesday. Today I attended two sessions and Chevrolet was also here and I got to drive a Chevy Volt.

Here are my take-aways from today's sessions.

Fireside chat with Tim O'Reilly and Jason Calacanis

hashtag #psych
@timoreilly

Tim O'Reilly is one of my biggest role models in the digital space. I've seen him speak a number of times at the Web 2.0 conference.

These are great quotes from the presentation. I didn't really learn anything new from this talk, but it just reiterate why I love what I do and the career that I'm in. If anything, it reminded me to think more about innovation and not to chase the $$dollar.

Do interesting work for interesting people

Chase the idea and not the $$$

Innovation happens when people are having fun

Tell stories+make heroes+be inclusive+truth=good brands

sensor driven apps driving collective intelligence

Web 2.0 is harnessing human intelligence

Big ideas need to belong to everyone... Think open source

Nat'l Hwy bill = 20+pages. Nat'l Health bill = 2,000+ pages. "Simplify & let people innovate"

If I suddenly owned Microsoft, I'd quit like Gates did & go do something interesting"

Ronald Regan is the father of foursquare. He opened up GPS to the masses
about

Do agencies need to think like software companies session

hashtag #agileagency

@malbonnington
@rickwebb
@allimooney
@robras
@mg

This was of particular interest since I work for an agency and it was good to see that all agencies are struggling with how to deal with the rapid tech environment and need to "create". The biggest takeaway from this presentation is that what we are doing at Risdall is working. Everyone spoke of the need to have someone bridge the gap between marketing and developers and luckily I'm in the role. I don't have to know how to code, but I need to have ideas that can span the marketing and development role.

Quotes from the presentation

Innovation happens at the intersection of skill sets: That's why software and ad agencies need each other.

New Amex & Foursquare is a great example of marketing and tech. You get a discount when you check in & swipe your credit card.

I don't write code. All I do is come up with shit.

Not everyone needs to do it all - that's why you build great teams.

Agencies need "translators" who understand tech, marketing and strategy.

Everyone at the agency should know tech, but they don't.

Not only does Don Draper need to tweet, he needs to know how how to integrate the API