Austin360 interviews Roland Swenson about SXSW’s battle with day-parties
“Knowing that our continued existence is far from guaranteed makes us willing to fight (when we can) what we see as damaging to SXSW. The struggle is over who is ultimately going to control SXSW, our organization or guerrilla marketers backed by corporate interests. If SXSW loses, then SXSW eventually disappears. SXSW exists only because more entities choose to pursue a symbiotic relationship with us rather than a parasitic one. However, every year more marketing groups representing huge multinational corporations and their local proxies choose to feed off of us.” - Roland Swenson
He makes a good point, but I fundamentally disagree with the way SXSW approaches this issue. Most of the commenters to his interview do as well.
Read the entire interview here.
Cody Marx Bailey wrote:
I find that SXSW as a conference is more of a ego-trip for the speakers and a great way for people who have never blogged, but want to learn. As for the “seasoned” blogger/programmer/what-have-you… it’s sort of a waste of time. I’m going to come to Austin for those 5-6 days and just hang out around Austin. I know of a lot of get togethers, so that will keep me more than busy.
Plus I enjoy drinking heavily while there so I can crash till 1PM the next day and not miss a beat!
Posted on 07-Feb-08 at 12:50 am | Permalink
Ryan Joy wrote:
I don’t consider SXSW a waste of time, but I do see some panels as a way for the speaker to get a free badge and pulpit. There are not a lot of those, however. For the most part I view each of the panels as re-energizing.
The most important aspect of the whole Interactive conference is by far the networking that occurs in the halls and at the evening events. For that you actually need to be an attendee and it will continue to be worth it for me.
Posted on 07-Feb-08 at 11:46 am | Permalink