What Were Those Birds?

(pictured left to right: me, Casey, Elaheh and Dianne)

Update: Read Elaheh's recap here and Casey's recap here.

Growing up in Nashville in the 1980s, I vividly remember when the cicadas hatched after their 13-year slumber and their collective cries from the trees became this buzzing white noise for the city. I think I experienced a bit of deja vu in Austin this weekend. Between the 90 degree heat and these huge groups of birds (too many to even fit on a particular tree) screeching and calling out, and 6th St. reminding me a lot of Nashville's Elliston Place (except with many more live music venues), I could have been back home.

Getting there:

I just got back around midnight last night and am still tired from the non-stop weekend. It started on the plane where I ran into a colleague from Current (he was sitting in front of me), and another conference goer was sitting next to him. As soon as we said we worked for Current, the guy, who I think was from another online video play started in on how he thought Current was supposed to be a political news network, and how he couldn't understand why a base jumping video fit our format. Since I was in the row behind him I had the luxury of leaning back and talking to a woman across from me headed to Austin for a rowing competition.

On the L.A. to Austin leg of the flight, I sat across from Evelyn Rodriguez, a very cool woman I was on a panel with about citizen journalism at last summer's Blogher conference. Evelyn had been a CTO for a tech company and was blogging mainly about business stuff until she went to Thailand in December 2004 with her boyfriend to veg on the beach. The Tsunami happened, she and her boyfriend survived (although the relationship didn't), and it appears to have been a life changing event, dramatically altering the way she blogs and what she wants out of her career.

Newsletter Readers: Come to Ypulse.com for the rest!

Friday night

I went to the Blogher dinner and party at the legendary Stubs BBQ where I had yummy beef BBQ, yams, collard greens and the kind of white bread you can squeeze in your hand and make into dough. I listened to this cool music blogger Paige talk about how she and other military wives cope when their husbands are gone for long deployments (fascinating to me). And I met my new SXSW best friend - Laina, a bad-ass black woman blogger from Canada who also happens to be a metal fan. We bonded over razzeritas (raspberry marguerite) on the back porch as the crowd around us swelled and then receded. I also got my second lecture from someone in the "digarati" on what we're doing wrong at Current. It was kind of a buzz kill.

Saturday

I attended the Blogher panel "We Got Naked, Now What?" in the a.m. and was especially taken with Elaine Liner aka The Phantom Prof and her story of being "Dooced" for anonymously blogging the real deal about being an underpaid adjunct, "'helicopter parents' threatening lawsuits over kids' grades and students hobbled by eating disorders and drug addictions" at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. I can't wait to read her blog…and her upcoming book (she definitely landed on her feet).

I had tasty Mexican food with Lynn and Laina (our lunch conversation is recapped nicely on Lynn's blog) and then returned for a couple of press interviews. The first was with the Houston Chronicle about young people and mashup culture. My spontaneous epiphany:

- Mashing up content is a natural extension of being a content creator using the digital tools this generation has grown up on. For teens, it's not a consciously subversive act to challenge old media, copyright or authority. It's just cool and fun, and if it happens to do those things, too…

I also did an interview with CBC News about Current — the camera man promises I looked "great," although standing in the hot Austin wind, sweating, hair in my face, bra strap probably showing…well, let's just say I can live without ever seeing that interview - and because I don't live in Canada, I probably don't have to.

Saturday night

I met my Judy Jetsons (Casey and Elaheh), their incredibly supportive moms, and my trendspotter on the panel Dianne (from the Intelligence Group) for thai food downtown. I'm pretty sure this was the first thai food experience for the girls and Elaheh's mom, but they bravely tried the spring rolls and put on great game faces. After meeting everyone I was very confident the panel would go off without a hitch (despite all the obsessive dreams I was having about what could go wrong). We talked graduation, college, hometowns and of course, shopping in Austin.

I then met my old friend and blogging inspiration Robert, who I will always call "Duffy," at the empty lounge atop my hotel. We worked together at Netscape a few years ago so we caught up on old times and reflected on where our own blogs have taken us…We hooked up with Laina and headed to the Frog Design uber party.

Sunday: The Panel

The moms took pictures so I'll post them as soon as someone sends one to me. I think it went really well. The girls were amazing. Clickable Culture has already recapped the gist of it here. I'm told it would be podcast so I'll post a link as soon as I get one from SXSW.

The rest of Sunday included:

- Mongolian BBQ (aka stirfry) for lunch and an interesting conversation with Pam Sellers who works at CNN

- Hanging out at the Current TV trade show booth

- Doing another interview with the NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) for a film they are making on young people and environmental activism

- Chatting with Kristy, my old boss at Netscape who goes to the music fest every year

- Having a young filmmaker from Nashville mistake me for my younger sister, who he knew from high school

And finally, heading to the airport for what seemed like an endless flight home.

Technorati tag: SXSW

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