I found this in my luggage when I arrived. Now Uncle Sam knows what brand of lube I use!
Category: Uncategorized
Today’s the big day! On my itinerary:
Oh-dark-thirty EST: Get up and get to Pearson Airport- 6:00 a.m. EST: Fly to Dulles
- 7:43 a.m. EST: Land in Dulles
- 8:36 a.m. EST: Fly to Austin-Bergstrom
- 11:11 a.m. CST: Arrive in Austin
- 11-ish: Catch up with my “hipster half”, Edward Ocampo-Gooding
- Noonish: Make way to fabulous AirBnB condo
- Afternoon: Make way to Austin Convention Center, get badge, possibly rent bike, make new friends with accordion
- Later afternoon: Rendezvous with Mark Hayes
- Evening: Freshbooks party, featuring barbecue from The Salt Lick
- Later: Sleep of some sort
Shopify is going to be at South by Southwest, and we’re throwing a little warm-up party on Saturday afternoon for our customers and friends! Join us at Stephen F’s Bar and Terrace at the Intercontinental Hotel (a.k.a. the Stephen F. Austin Hotel – 701 Congress Avenue, at 7th Street) this Saturday, March 10th between 3 and 6 p.m. for drinks and finger food on us!
The Shopifolks who’ll be in Austin are:
- Cody Fauser (@codyfauser), Chief Technical Officer
- Daniel Weinand (@danielweinand), Chief Design Officer
- Edward Ocampo-Gooding (@edwardog), Developer Advocate
- Harley Finkelstein (@hfizzle), Chief Platform Officer
- Mark Hayes (@allsop8184), Marketing and PR Guy
- Tobias Lutke (@tobi), Chief Executive Officer
- …and Yours Truly, Joey deVilla (@accordionguy), Platform Evangelist
We purposely picked that time and place so it wasn’t too far from the Convention Centre and wouldn’t happen at the same time as all the big parties. Think of it as a way of warming up for the crazy Saturday night bashes. We’d love to see you there!
You see, I am the real-life Most Interesting Man in the World.
According to this article, Austin (I’m headed there tomorrow) is number 7 and Tampa (I’m headed there on, of all days, Steak and BJ Day) is number 2.
If you’re not wasted, the night is! That’s Robert Scoble and me, partying it up in 2008.
There are a whole lot of guides, how-to and whats-going-on articles on the South by Southwest conference. As a public service, I’ve collected a few that I found helpful and have posted them here. Enjoy!
Survival Guides
Check out slide 13 of this slide presentation. You’ll see someone familiar!
- 4 Ways to Help You Survive SxSWi 2012, From a Veteran
- 8 Tips on Preparing for SxSW
- 9 Tips to South by Southwest for First Timers
- Citizen Taco’s 2010-but-still-relevant guide to SxSW
- Guest of a Guest’s SxSW 2012 Party Guide
- Long Straws: The A – Z of SxSW (A Beginner’s Guide)
- Austin Eavesdropper: The Neurotic’s Guide to SxSW
- A South by Southwest Guide to Surviving the Nerdpocalypse
- SxSurvival
- SxSurvival: 10 Tips from Jess3
- SxSW Expert Advice: The One Thing You Need to Remember
- SxSW Primer for the First-Timer
- The Unofficial SxSW Insider’s Guide
Sessions and Happenings
Anthony Bourdain will be speaking on Tuesday. Expect the hall to be packed to the gills.
- Austin Chronicle’s Guide to SxSW
- The Definitive Digital Author’s Guide to SxSW 2012
- Gary’s Guide: The Definitive Guide to SxSW Interactive 2012 Parties
- Guide to SxSWi 2012: A Pinterest Experiment
- IBTraveler – SxSW 2012: Experiencing Austin Through the Festival Events
- Lanyrd’s SxSW session listings
- Partaypeeps: What’s happening in Austin
- Republic of Austin: 25 SxSW Free Party RSVPs
- Showlist Austin
- Yelp’s list of bike rental places in Austin
Food
Austin is famous for its food carts – make sure you stop by a couple and try their stuff!
Creative Commons photo by Noah Jeppson. Click to see the original.
- 6 Must-Try Food Events at SxSW 2012
- Austin 360: 50 Places for Brunch
- Austin Food Carts
- The Austin Vegan Guide
- Culturemap Austin: Where to Eat in March – Nobles, Olives, New Chefs and All That Jack
- Epicurious’ Top Five Places to Eat in Austin
- GQ: The Short Order – Chef Larry McGuire’s SxSW Guide to Austin
- Serious Eats: Where to Eat in Austin
And Finally…
Remember to make some memories while you’re there!
One more thing: Kevin Cheng’s guide is so short, it fits in a tweet:
The only SxSW guide you need: have fun.
Intro: My 3rd Trip to SxSW
Hello, Austin! I made a splash at my first SxSW (2008) by playing accordion at the “How to Rawk SxSW” session.
Once again, I’m going to Austin, Texas to attend the South by Southwest conference, the annual get-together of techies and creatives in the music, film and interactive industries. I’ve gone twice before:
- In 2008, as a newly-minted employee (project manager) of b5media. In fact, it may have been my best first day on the job ever, flying to Austin and meeting up with my new coworkers at the ranch that b5 had rented.
- In 2011, as a ready-to-leave employee of Microsoft and a ready-to-start future employee of Shopify. I went to help out with the launch of Internet Explorer 9 and talk about Windows Phone. I also met up with the folks from Shopify, signed an employment contract with them and filed my resignation from the country music-themed bar at the Austin airport. I consider it to be my best “Sign me up / I quit” day ever.
This year, I return as Shopify’s Platform Evangelist and also as a speaker! I’ll be part of the BarCamp Tour Panel in the session 5 Brands Travel the US Inspiring Entrepreneurship. Along with my friends from Batchbook, Grashopper, MailChimp and Wufoo, I’ll be talking about our very active participation in and sponsorship of BarCamp events across the United States. My session will be on Sunday, March 11th at the hangover-friendly time slot of 3:30 – 4:30p.m. in the Omni Downtown Hotel’s Lone Star room.
I’ll be filing dispatches about SxSW from all over the place: on my way there, while in Austin, and even when I high-tail it out of there and head to Tampa to spend some time with the New Special Friend. Keep an eye on these blog entries – I’m sure they’ll be pretty interesting!
Doing SxSW Like a Local
Do It Like a Local is a new video of SxSW survival tips and recommendations created by locals – the founders of the creative agency Flow and Bobby Johns, the general manager of Hotel San Jose — who’ve done the conference and know the ins and outs of Austin. The suggestions within are worth the seven minutes and seven seconds to watch this video!
As a reader of this blog, you’ve probably seen the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster, as well as the numerous parodies:
You probably also know that the posters are from World War II. What you might not know is that they were never seen by the general public during that time; they were held in reserve just in case things went really badly. The poster was never officially issued and would’ve remained in obscurity if Stewart and Mary Manley, the proprietors of Barter Books in the northeast of England, hadn’t found one in a box of books bought at an auction. Mary like the poster so much that she framed it and displayed in their shop, and soon came the requests for copies.
The posters that people did see during the war were this one:
and this one:
The short film above, The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On, tells the story of how that poster went from unknown to nearly ubiquitous.
If you’d like to find out more about the “Keep Calm and Carry On”, here’s Robyn Schneider with more about the poster.
She points out that the poster was under crown copyright, which lasts 50 years, meaning that it had passed into the public domain by the time the Manleys found it and started reproducing it. However, a sleazeball named Mark Coop has acquired the EU copyright for the slogan and has been suing people – but not the Manleys, oddly enough – who try to sell Keep Calm and Carry On merchandise.