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SXSW: how one skeptic was converted to the geek tribe
I had heard of SXSW. I was curious because it was always surrounded by buzz, but I wasn’t convinced it was the place for me. I’m a late adopter of technology, a fearful participant, so I’ve left the deep thinking to people like our interactive practice lead, Norman Guadagno. Norman is one of the smartest people I know, with a knack for making tough tech topics easier to understand. He said we had to go. So I signed us up, with skepticism—didn’t it make more sense to send someone from our interactive team, someone with more knowledge in this area? He said no. It was time for me to learn more.
Day One left me concerned
When we landed in Austin, I was excited but still skeptical. Although the city proved amazing, the first day of the event left me very concerned about the coming days—the content seemed weak, and I didn’t feel the special energy I had at other conferences like Sustainable Brands.
Things started to change when I listened to Andrea Phillips’ talk about sexism in alternate reality games (ARG). Phillips is a kick-ass smart woman who designs ARGs. She is girly, giggly, nervous, opinionated, heartfelt, and witty. (She says she hates pink, but I sort of doubt it.) She opened my mind to a world I never knew about that deals with the same old male vs. female issues that every other aspect of society deals with. More important, Phillips made me feel like I was part the conversation, that my thoughts and feelings mattered. It’s easy to be intimidated in a room full of people who know a great deal more about technical subjects than you do, but suddenly I felt more like the attendees at SXSW than different. I had caught the SXSW buzz. I left her talk wanting to be a kick-ass girl gamer. I want an Xbox for my birthday. I hope my boyfriend is listening.
After Phillips’ talk, I pushed myself to go to sessions with titles I didn’t understand, like Google Hackathon: Maps API, HTML5, Android TTS and Objective C Crash Course for Web Developers. I sprinted to a session called Cyber Sex 2.0: Is Social Networking Ruining Your Sex Life? (come on, you’d go too).
Facebook and Google don’t make privacy easy to understand
And then I had a very emotional moment. I heard danah boyd (lowercase is intentional—here’s why) give the most human and thought-provoking talk on privacy and publicity. She’s one of the world’s foremost authorities on social media and youth practices. She travels the country talking to young adults and parents about their experiences with social media, some of whom have been in danger because of it. She made it very clear that Facebook, Google, and others don’t make privacy an easy thing to understand, and they don’t help us protect ourselves in our journey to participate in the online world. Sounds like many things in life: we all have to be an active part of the discussion and make sure we look out for ourselves and those we care about. (I ran into danah at a party later that night and didn’t know it was her until about 10 minutes into the chat. Of course, I made a gushing, starstruck fool of myself, but she was a delight and made me feel like we’d known each other for years.)
No, I am not a gadget!
My final moment of conversion came when I discovered Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not A Gadget. I was browsing the conference bookstore and stumbled upon his book. The title alone stopped me, but this paragraph made me fall in love:
A Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980s, Jaron Lanier, in his first book, talks about how the current design and function of the web have become so familiar that it is easy to forget that they were made out of programming decisions made decades ago. The web’s first designers made crucial choices (such as making one’s presence anonymous) that have had enormous—and often unintended—consequences. What’s more, these designs quickly become “locked in,” a permanent part of the web’s very structure. Lanier discusses the technical and cultural problems that can grow out of poorly considered digital design and warns that our financial markets and sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are elevating the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and judgment of individuals.
I bought the book, started reading, learned an hour later he was a featured speaker, and promptly put myself front and center for his talk. When he finished, I marched right up to him, thanked him for making interactive more accessible to me, for giving me permission to be a skeptic, and teaching me that we humans matter most in the larger discussion about technology.
Everyone has a place in the technology discussion
SXSW and its amazing people taught me a lot and got me in touch with an inner geek that I had no idea existed. But SXSW also taught me that it’s OK to be a skeptic—in fact, it’s needed and encouraged in this technology discussion. Those of us who are traditional non-geeks have something to add, and people care about what we think and have to say.
So ciao bella until next year, SXSW. You introduced me to new peeps, made my brain hurt from content and parties, opened my mind to the genuine beauty of your followers, and better prepared me for this interactive world!