2011 SXSW Interactive Conference

This year six Boston Interactive team members attended the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive Conference held in Austin, Texas. As always happens, everyone came back with different takeaways, experiences, and stories.

Overall, many of the conferences that he attends are industry specific, so he enjoys the opportunity to focus on the purely interactive theme at SXSW. 'The three main benefits of SXSW for me were validating that BI is in line, if not ahead of the curve in our process approach; learning and sharing trends of the industry; and getting a chance to network and make new relationships with people whose geography may have otherwise prevented me.' Chuck expects that each team member that attends a conference will put their new knowledge to use for Boston Interactive. He encourages the new ideas and believes implementing the correct ones is the best way to continually improve and succeed.

A conference veteran, Jim always uses the opportunity to listen, watch and learn from other colleagues. 'I always attend these types of events hoping to get answers to burning questions. However, they generally raise more questions than they answer. Everyone has their own approach, perspective and philosophy.' So Jim takes the time to listen to what everyone is saying and doing then adapts it accordingly to a situation. His big tip to new conference goers - 'Don't expect to get any sleep!'

One of the perils of any large conference is choosing which workshop or discussion to attend since there are always several going on at once. Jackie had attended SXSW last year and was familiar with how the schedules were set up as well as the layout of the conference, a definite aid in outlining her few days there. 'At SXSW one should always have a backup plan.' Starting one of her days at a session called Brave New World: Debating Brands' Role as Publishers Jackie heard a heated debate on whether news needed to be supplied by a journalist to be considered credible. Forming her opinion that companies are the leading authority in their industry and passing on key information to customers better educates them about their buying decision (although it can be biased and thinks customers should perform additional research), she headed out of the session early to another on How Print Design is the Future of Interaction. This session highlighted what is true for print design in principle is also true for interactive design: hierarchy, structure, and grids. It emphasized that we still need the visual aesthetics for branding to build credibility and to keep users engaged, while moving closer to simplicity.

Rebecca was this year's SXSW rookie of the team. 'It took a day to get into the swing of things - how to navigate through the huge crowds of people, figure out which conference room in which hotel I should be in, and how to map out your day in advance to get to the sessions you are most interested in. Not every session turned out to be as relevant as expected, but through the course of the day, I took away new ideas or a new way to look at something - a different perspective than I came in with. Overall, I left the conference with a greater appreciation for all the things that are happening within the interactive industry.' Rebecca is already looking forward to next year's SXSW conference, this time with insider knowledge of how things work.

Scott came back with three very important points to share with the team:

1. There is a big push towards mobile web apps vs. native apps (i.e. platform specific apps such as iPhone only)
2. People are realizing that the world is addicted to social applications and they are coming out in full force. However, like anything this is a 'hot topic,' many will surface, but only a few will survive.
3. As more interactive companies emerge and technologies continue to grow, process is becoming more impactful and important.

'I got so much out of my SXSW experience!' says Virginia. The most impactful session that she attended was on the value of supporting cognitive diversity by being inclusive as a project team. 'The idea of cognitive diversity is that there is significant value in members of a team having different perspectives, where not everyone sees things in the same way.' As a team player, Virginia always appreciates the different perspectives that her team members bring to the table and thinks it creates tremendous value for any project.

The Boston Interactive team had a great time at the SXSW Interactive Conference. Between learning about the new trends and meeting all the great people, they took home new perspectives and valuable information and they managed to have a little fun along the way!