My daughter, who grew up in Brentwood but who now lives in Austin, was shocked to learn that I was able to get a press pass allowing me to cover SXSW.
“Do you even know what SXSW is?” she asked when I first told her I was coming to visit.
Since this was my first time, I can’t say I fully knew what I was in for – but now that I’m back I can say I loved every minute of it.
Everyone at SXSW says the same thing: “There is so much going on here, it’s impossible to take it all in.”
Indeed, I tried to think if I had ever been in one place with so many people in the same location for some related purpose, and I couldn’t think of a single instance.
Several square blocks of downtown Austin were wall-to-wall people, walking from seminar to rock concert to beer hall to speech to movie screening (and then starting the cycle all over again, but likely in a different order).
As a representative of WestsideToday.com, Brentwood News and Santa Monica Mirror, my focus was on companies from the LA area who were in attendance, with a particular focus on Westside tech companies.
Some of the companies I discovered were from Greater LA, but all say they have clients on the Westside, so that’s close enough.
It might actually be easier to bump into a Westside local at SXSW than to set up a meeting here in LA. I think many attendees from LA went to SXSW specifically to connect with fellow Westside music, movie and tech companies.
The Film people (the slickest and prettiest of the bunch) didn’t look like the techno-geeks who were there for the Interactive part of the show (these guys were a little more dweeby).
The Music crowd sported more tattoos and mohawks than the others. And the corporate types (SXSW is considered a great “branding” venue) all looked the most shark-like, wearing far nicer shoes.
There was a fairly prominent anti-authoritarian vibe running throughout the event. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, journalist Glen Greenwald (who all gave keynote addresses via Skype) were considered by most there to be heroes.
But the establishment was in full force as well. Chelsea Clinton gave a great talk on the need for clean water in Third World countries; Mark Cuban was all about the deal; Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber did their things; Doritos, Chevy and Subway had marketing promotions going on everywhere.
Big media was everywhere, trying to look cool.
One media company had a very cool idea indeed, presented at an event sponsored by Rock the Vote, which is heavily promoted by Santa Monica-based MTV. Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan group that works to boost voter registration (and actual voting), particularly among the young.
Naja Nielsen, a Danish television journalist, said her company, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, created a non-partisan website that allows users to fill in a form that captures that user’s political views. Then it takes the user’s answers and matches them with answers provided by all the candidates running in a particular race. The site then shows the user which candidates best match the positions of the user.
The idea behind this, according to Nielsen, is that many voters don’t really know who the candidates are – or what their positions are. With the results of this online “matching” tool in hand, voters come to know better who “their” candidates are.
This Rock the Vote session was moderated by Heather Smith, president, who is stationed in Washington, but who gets to LA often. MTV and other companies targeting Millennials are big supporters of Rock the Vote.
Everywhere you turned at SXSW, there was a new idea, a new movie, a new product, a new band. It was all pretty overwhelming.
I took what I thought would be a one-hour break between presentations in order to check out the Exhibition Hall and stumbled out of the place – completely dazed – six hours later.
I went back the next day to walk the remaining one third of the exhibits I couldn’t visit the day before.
If you ever attend SXSW, I suggest that when you reach that point when you just can’t take any more stimulus – and you surely will – go out for some Texas BBQ. I highly recommend a place called Stubbs.
Be sure to order a big glass or two of 512 IPA to wash down the ribs (512 is the Area Code for Austin). My wife didn’t come with me on this trip, so I was free to chow down on all the good stuff.
I saw a few films – they provided a merciful break from “convention overload” – but I didn’t attend any music events. I’m sure I missed out on tons of great filmmakers, entrepreneurs and musicians from Los Angeles, but here’s a quick briefing on those I did find. And there’s always next year!
COMPANIES WITH A WESTSIDE CONNECTION
WannaGo, Beverly Hills
WannaGo’s founder, Ben Nazarian, says WannaGo is an easy-to-use mobile solution that helps you track your favorite places to eat, stay, shop and travel. WannaGo helps you share your favorite places with your friends and discover new places based on the recommendations of your own personalized network.
WannaGo provides the phone number, address, website and directions for places you add to your GoList. You can view the menu and even make reservations at select restaurants. You can also take notes to remember what you loved about the place.
WannaGo’s search and filter functionality lets you easily find a place in your GoList. You can comment and add your friends’ favorite places to your GoList to also try. With WannaGo, according to Nazarian, you will never have to look anywhere else for your favorite places.
Tech Cocktail named WannaGo one of its eight favorite startups at SXSW. Check out www.WannaGo.com.
DeviantArt, Hollywood
DeviantART has 30 million registered users (and 65 million monthly unique visitors) who like looking at cool new art. It’s the largest social network for artists and content creators, according to Ron Martino and Daniel Bornstein of deviantART.
I was unaware of this company but got a personalized tour of the website and it really is quite fascinating. DeviantART is a microcosm of popular culture on the web. I could try and describe it in words, but you’ll do better simply by going to www.deviantart.com.
DeviantART was the winner of two SXSW interactive awards, including the coveted People’s Choice Award – kind of an “Oscar” Award for websites.
DeviantART believes its authenticity is what makes it such a hit among Millennials. If you want to understand the younger set better, spend some time at deviantArt.com.
TaskUs, Santa Monica
TaskUs founders, Bryce Maddock and Jaspar Weir, have been business partners since their teenage years at Santa Monica High School. In 2008, they left their jobs to start a virtual personal assistant company that would allow busy professionals to outsource their lives, one task at a time.
They started working with service providers from over a dozen different countries and testing out skill sets that ranged from data entry to blog writing. They found the highest quality work and had great experiences working with teams in the Philippines. With a highly educated English speaking population and modern infrastructure, the Philippines is the number one destination in the world for outsourcing business processes, according to TaskUs.
Today, many of the biggest and most companies in the world trust TaskUs with their daily business processes, freeing them to focus on their core businesses.
TaskUs family has grown from two childhood friends to an international organization of hundreds. See TaskUs.com.
TakePart (a division of Participant Media), Beverly Hills
I saw several signs around SXSW broadcasting Participant Media’s presence at the festival.
Jacob Soboroff, who grew up in the Palisades, was there hosting a TV show called TakePart Live. I tried to find the Participant Media hangout but couldn’t. Or maybe I got distracted on my way, I can’t remember.
TakePart Live is a source for news that also offers advice to progressive viewers on how to get involved with today’s issues in a way that will make a real difference to society. Check out takepart.com/live.
Comedy Gives Back, Los Angeles
Comedy Gives Back partners with celebrities to create comedy events that raise funds and awareness for their passionate causes.
Comedy Gives Back originated when three best friends, Amber J. Lawson, Zoe Friedman and Jodi Lieberman created an online destination that in turn will result in global good for important causes. Malaria No More is one of CGB’s many good causes.
Comedy Gives Back was at SXSW in order to broadcast Comedy Gives Back (CGB Live) @SXSW, a live comedy show benefitting Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.
The standing-room only event, which was live streamed by Yahoo, featured comedians Adam Pally (The Mindy Project, Happy Endings), Pete Holmes (The Pete Holmes Show), TJ Miller (How To Train Your Dragon) and Nate Bargatze (Conan).
The event received over 2 million impressions on Twitter, raising a tremendous amount of awareness for Feeding America, which was CGB’s mission at SXSW. Find out more at http://comedygivesback.com.
AroundWire, Reseda
We all prefer to network and do business with people we trust, according to John Fickewirth, president of AroundWire. The AroundWire platform allows you to buy and sell products and services, send proposals and information requests, introduce people to one another and evaluate the reputations of others – in a safe environment.
At AroundWire, each member is asked to verify his or her identity, which helps prevent fake accounts, scams, and other annoyances that you would normally find on many of today’s websites. AroundWire offers built-in secure payment system and member verification. More information is available at www.aroundwire.com.
Ebyline, Sherman Oaks
Ebyline is a platform that connects professional journalists with publishers, brands and agencies. Ebyline was by two former LA Times executives, and started out serving the traditional news industry by making it easier to manage freelance staff and stringers.
The company has been expanding rapidly into helping companies large and small become publishers of great content, using its network of nationally published freelance journalists spanning all 50 states and a full-service agency that produces ready-to-publish articles, white papers, videos, graphics and more for Fortune 500 brands. Check out Ebyline.com.
Lively, Seattle
Lively is a music technology company based out of Seattle. The company partner with artists to capture their live performances using high-quality audio and video. Lively then puts those recordings on its free mobile app. Lively is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phones and on all tablets.
At SXSW Lively partnered with major labels such as Universal, Sony/RED, CherryTree, Pledge Music, Mtheory and INgrooves to record more than 120 artists in five days. So people from Lively visit the Westside often. All of those sets (audio and video) are available now on Lively’s app.
Skeletonics, Japan
This company produces big robotic skeletons that humans can climb inside and then use to start walking, waving, punching, grabbing – perfect for movie studios doing their next robot, zombie, alien or monster movie. Check out http://en.skeletonics.com.
MOVIES
Veronica Mars
This crowd-funded favorite made a comeback at SXSW.
The Internet’s Own Boy
This was a very disturbing movie by Brian Knappenberger about Aaron Swartz, a child computer prodigy who grew up to be a leading Internet activist fighting to make access to information more open and available to the public.
He was accused by the Federal government of downloading millions of documents from academic publisher JSTOR using an MIT account, but Swartz didn’t do anything with the documents. And many of the documents were research papers funded by taxpayers.
Facing years of jail time – even though Swartz and his attorneys were convinced he did little or nothing wrong – coupled with the fact JSTOR did not want to press the case – Swartz finally succumbed to the pressure and took his own life.
A very bright light indeed was snuffed out; this young man, among other things, helped invent RSS feeds, contributed to the Creative Commons (which provides a way for participants to overcome thorny copyright issues) and was a co-founder of Reddit.
If the measure of a good movie is that makes you think, this one scores way up there. The movie does a thorough job of shining a spotlight on what many now view as prosecutorial overreach, which many think led Swartz to hang himself.
As a result of the publicity surrounding this case, Congress is now revisiting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, with a goal of replacing it with something now referred to as “Aaron’s Law.”
This movie, backed in part by Participant Media in Beverly Hills, should be “required viewing” for all.
May the Best Man Win
On the other end of the “Does it make you think?” scale, I saw something perfectly shocking – in a teenage boy kind of way – called “May the Best Man Win.” This gross-out film was directed by Andrew O’Connor, with screenwriters Matthew Robinson, Lee Hupfield and Andrew O’Connor. It made me cringe a lot more than it made me think.
In this movie, two Borat-like (or maybe Jackass-like) pranksters, Whit Thomas and Drew Tarver, compete against each other in a series of increasingly outrageous stunts to win the affections of the girl they’ve both fallen for (Rosa Salazar).
If you want to be a big hit with your teenage son, take him to this movie. Or let him go with his buds, you might not want to be there yourself (and chances are your son won’t want to be seen with you).
If you do go, be ready to cover your eyes. Some of the scenes and situations are pretty darned unforgettable. I won’t spoil any of them for you here.
TRADITIONAL MEDIA ALSO THERE
As a representative of a company that still chops down trees in order to print newspapers that are quickly discarded, I was happy to see a few more print dinosaurs at SXSW. I didn’t feel quite so lonely.
Even the U.S. Postal Service – “America’s Original Interactive Medium” – had a booth at SXSW.
I got invited to an Associated Press party, where there was ample gray hair in evidence. Executives from companies like Hearst and CNN were all over the place, covering the event and trying to figure out how to become – or at least appear – more digitally savvy.
That describes me, too, of course. But maybe now, because I went to SXSW, I can drop a digital tidbit or two on my younger colleagues at WestsideToday.com and dazzle them a tad.
HOME AGAIN
Now that I’m back home and I’ve caught up on my sleep and I’ve had a chance to think about it, there actually is an overarching consistency to this huge, fertile and combustible mix.
It’s where old meets new, culture meets commerce and where the only thing that’s predictable is just how unpredictable it all is.
SXSW is a mass celebration of innovation, creativity and commerce. It’s a big bang waiting to happen. Or maybe lots and lots of smaller bangs. But it’s all incredibly exciting and if you ever get the chance to attend, you definitely should go.
On the flight back home, I sat next to Amber J. Lawson, founder of Comedy Gives Back. We exchanged a few pleasantries, but I think we were both too exhausted to be very clever or very communicative.
Maybe I’ll get to sit next to Amber on the plane to Austin next time, when everyone on the plane is fresh, excited – and heading back to SXSW.
