My Top Things To Take Away From March
So I’m now back in Edinburgh, after the crazy four weeks of travel (incidentally, if you call the US mobile number I’ve been giving out, it will no longer reach me, I believe it is back in the hands of the AT&T press relations department), and while I’ll talk about the events and suchlike later this week (subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss those musings), I wanted to start with the more emotional side of things and some of the things that happened to me and my psyche on the trip…
I Really Hate The Las Vegas Strip.
I know a lot of people describe Vegas, or more specifically The Strip, with all the Casinos and entertainment, as Disneyland for Adults, but there’s something hollow about the place. Just a few yards off the road and it’s a non-descript, concrete jungle, a facade of lights and shapes, and every single one of them paid for by people who thought they could beat mathematics and win big. The sheer volume of cash that just feels thrown away is immense.
On a previous trip to Vegas I watched [a prominent blogger] play five $100 hands of Blackjack, loosing all five in about two minutes. Which is enough ‘daily expenses’ money for me to keep myself going on a ten day trip when bouncing around the US. The waste, greed, and extravagance just leaves me unhappy.
I found something inside me in Austin.
I’ve already written about my experience at Barcamp Austin 3 and Fray Cafe, but it still is one of the biggest take-aways from March. Fray was also one of the very few times when I’ve been in public that the ‘web persona’ called Ewan has slipped, and the real me has shown through.
It Comes Down To Wanting to Hug Your Friends.
While we have our social networks, our Twitterati, blogs, pingbacks, tacks, emails, IM’s, etc, etc, etc, the real value of conferencing and making sure I meet as many people as possible while traveling is you can hug them. Or in more general terms, it’s about the need for real face to face contact.
I made a specific point on this trip to get to the Computer Outlook studio and hang out with John Iasiuolo and the team in Las Vegas (see there are some good things in that city!). I first met John at a Palm Developers conference some three years ago. While the online chats and skype to radio hooks ups worked sometimes, actually getting face time was worth x100 on the electronic version.
And there are all the new people to talk to from the events (especially SXSW), some with business ideas, some with products to sell, some that are going to be the most valuable resource in the world. Friends. You all know who you are!
We’re Not Talking Outside the Web 2.0 Bubble Enough
Here are some sessions at SXSW you might have missed… Selling Music As A Service, Resolving Webcasting Fees, The Blog Factor, Enhancing Digital Retail, Is Fair Use Fair?, Pimp My Website, Press and Bloggers …any of those sound interesting or relevant to you? Wondering why you missed them? Because they were part of SXSW Music and SXSW Film. After you all left the industries making megabucks were talking about real world impact and legislative change that could scar or enhance web 2.0 services as we know. While we all spent days talking on the Lacy/Zuckerberg car crash, we lost the chance to talk to people outside of our circle, who could make massive use of what we do.
Next year, don’t fly home on the Wednesday if you’re at SXSW for more than the parties.
(as a side note, this looking outside the Valley is one reason I think this year’s Emerging Technology was so fresh and exciting than previous years…)
Keep Being Impulsive
Pretty simple this one, take a few moments to weigh up all the options and arguments, make the decision, and then implement it 100%. I regard that as the key to anything – there are those who say that I’m impulsive but I do weigh up decisions as much as I can, but in a short space of time. Life is to short to agonise over decisions, if you do there’s every chance the moment will have passed (or someone will have flown home). And if in doubt… stay positive and just do it.
I need a BIG wide-screen monitor at home.
Going to blame Mike Rowhel and Kevin Rochowski for this one, because the Apple TV and HD screen at Kevin’s pad, and the two days crashing at Mike’s place, both saw me do my GTD catchup work and writing via a 21″ TFT at 1920×1200 and 42″ HD monitor respectivly. Have it, like it, need it, want it, now. Anyone got a lead on UK surplus stock I can pick up?
I can do video well, but I love audio
While this year the daily video show I put together with the help of Seesmic (a big thank you to them btw) was only on a smartphone video camera, I think it’s fair to say that no matter what device is capturing the video file, I can edit together video, tell a story, and package it up on a daily basis while on the road. But online video is not really suited to where I think my current strength is, namely the longer interview format (ie the 10-20 minutes of edited one on one interview ). The other thing that was different in this format is that the story of the show is much more focussed on the host, rather than the people you are talking with – while I’ve been told previously to make sure that there was ‘enough of Ewan’ in my audio podcast interviews, focusing the story 100% on me in the video series was one of the big differences of focus that I noticed, and that took a while to bed in. I still think The Race For Breakfast was the best episode…
I like traveling, but I like coming home as well.
Pretty obvious this one. You can;t spend 4 weeks on the road without (a) not enjoying it, and (b) not getting a lot of value out of it. Truth be told the profile raising, business cards, and one to one meetings that I can now follow up from SXSW and the rest of the March events will keep me going for a good six months to a year. But at the same time, hotel suites, futons, spare rooms and 17,000 miles in the air is not how to put your roots down or maintain them. I’ve spread my wings, now it’s time to extend the glide, make it home, and make it all worthwhile.
March 24, 2008; March USA Trip 2008, Microsoft Mix08, O'Reilly Etech 2008, Personal Posts, SXSW 2008, VON.x Spring 2008;
Possibly Related posts:
- What I Thought of my March Conferences and Events (Part One)
- Where I Will Be During The March USA Trip
- Mega March Conference Trip – I’m Looking For Suggestions
- VON.x Spring Added to My March Conference Schedule
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