South By Sunday

Sunday at SXSW ’07 was an eventful one for a number of reasons: a good mix of panels, the Web Awards, Selection Sunday games & bracketology, and some nasty, nasty weather. Here’s my report.

My first panel of the day was Using RSS for Marketing, a mildly interesting look at a web technology just now surfacing with the non-techy types thanks to IE7. It’s particularly fascinating to hear marketing types spin the greatness of new techniques to reach customers. The most telling aspect of the entire discussion was how we promote adoption from something that is still so confusing to most people, both in name and in use.

The consensus was that it takes browser support and in-site education if we want mass adoption. The other take on it was that it’s really just a value-add for those who use it, meaning that it’s just another marketing venue that will reach some, but not all of your potential customers.

Next up was a chance to get inside the minds of some of today’s great web designers. Design Workflows at Work: How Top Designers Work their Magic, featuring Jeff Croft, Veerle Pieters, Brian Veloso and Kelsey Ruger was a frank, casual discussion about each one’s work style, environment, and methodology.

I found it quite comforting that I’m not the only one who has trouble being creative early in the morning, working standard hours, working with distractions, etc. And the information wasn’t limited to the four on the panel: they interviewed tons of other fine examples and put it all on this great website. Lots of tips, tricks & reassurances here that I’m on the right track.

My afternoon begain with Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Mobile Web…but Were Afraid to Ask, hosted by Blue Flavor’s Brian Fling. I’ve not done any mobile development, but went to this one out of sheer curiosity. The key information I culled from this presentation was that the mobile web is about context in the 3-dimensional world. We don’t want to provide people everything on the mobile web, just the kinds of things they’ll need out and about. I began to wonder though, that with the advent of the iPhone and its elegant Safari-lite browser & multi-touch interface, that people will forget all those things and try to stuff the full experience back into this tiny little screen. Let’s hope not.

After taking a nice afternoon break to wander the halls (and play a little DS), I hit my final panel of the day, Uniting the Holy Trinity of Web Design which in the program was supposed to be about HTML, CSS & Javascript, then became more about Users, Business & Designers… then evolved into something even more interesting: a look at development environments big (Sally Carson & Yahoo!), medium (Dustin Diaz), & small (Jonathan Snook). Much like the earlier Design Workflows panel, this became a frank discussion about the industry, the types of people who inhabit it, and how designers & creatives work amidst the rest of the world.