SXSW Anticipation and Twitter
After having been signed up to attend since early October, it just dawned on me yesterday that I only have one full “work week” left until SXSW. This will be my first major web conference, and to say I am excited about going is a vast understatement. I believe my wife is probably looking forward to it as much as I am, if only for the fact that once it is over she no longer has to hear every little update from me about panel programming and new social events.
I can only imagine that being surrounded by that many people who are passionate about the web for 5 days will be quite inspiring and reinvigorating. While this is the first conference I will be attending, I hope that there will be many more.
In fact, ideally I’d like to go to several each year. Listening to the presentations and having the chance to mingle with other web-minded folk seems to me an incredible way to keep in tune with the trends of the industry, and an effective way to find new techniques or skills to pursue.
After having looked over the panels roughly 100 times, there are several that I am particularly excited to check out.
Secrets of Javascript Libraries
I was excited for this back when I thought only John Resig, he of JQuery fame, would be presenting. Now that I hear people who either created or contributed other major libraries like Dojo, Prototype and Scriptaculous are also going to be there, this panel has really shot up to the top of my list.
Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again?
Finally, a question I have long wondered about will be answered: What happens when you stick major players at Firefox, Opera, and IE in a room together? Cage match anyone?
Design Eye for South By
I’ve heard nothing but great things about this panel from year’s past. Can’t wait to see what they come up with this time around.
Everything I Know About Accessibility I Learned From Star Wars
Honestly….Derek Featherstone had me at Star Wars. The fact that the presentation covers such an important topic like accessibility is really just gravy.
Design is In the Details
Actually not sure what to do here. Naz Hamid’s presentation sounds fantastic, but Slideshare is also talking about the lessons learned about AJAX and Flash while creating SlideShare.net during this time. Decisions, decisions.
I could name many more that sound great, but then you would just get bored and move on if you haven’t already.
In addition to the panel programming, from everything I hear, the networking opportunities are amazing at SXSW, and I am quite excited to have the opportunity to meet some people in person for the first time. I always enjoy running into another passionate web developer or designer. The discussions are always interesting.
I am amazed by the amount of social events currently scheduled. Should be a good time, but I am quite curious as to how people actually manage to stay at these things the whole time and then be ready to go again in the morning? I hope there is a Starbucks near by.
For anyone interested, I did break down and sign up for Twitter recently, in no small part because I hear last year it turned into quite an essential tool to stay in the loop as far as where to meet up with people and such. So, if any of you are going to be at SXSW, you should follow me on Twitter so we can meet up some place. I’d love the opportunity to meet some of you in person.
And for those of you who aren’t going to be there, but want to follow me anyway, feel free to. I’m going to do my best to keep up with the updates there and I may even have something interesting to say from time to time.