4 Things I Took Away From SXSW (minus my presence in Austin)
March 13th, 2008
When it comes to social media I just tell myself, “baby steps, crawl before you walk”. So that’s what I’m doing, I’m crawling around to learn me up some Social Media!
1. A Definition: This was a little challenging but Andrew Hyde, who majored in New Media, claims it’s hard to define social media. I just hope I’m in the ballpark with mine:
Organized chaos that is addictive, informative, humorous, and always molding with the new age technology. I just started twittering, blogging, facebooking, and I’ve gotta say that I’m addicted. It’s really intriguing, people provide links to valuable topics such as news going on in the media world, and when it’s part of your job it’s a good idea to stay informed with it all.
2. SXSW–what is it? Other than an acronym for South by Southwest, the FAQ page at http://www.sxsw.com says, “The SXSW Interactive Festival offers five days of panels, keynote discussions, Trade Show, and exciting evening events. Attendees benefit from hands-on, how-to training as well as long-term, big-picture analysis in an atmosphere that charges creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.” So whether you’re a technical person or not, you are bound to learn about the new upcoming media that keeps our tomorrow interesting. Or how to get addicted to it!
3. Social Media impacts companies, so I went from blog to blog to learn about it. I kept clicking on links to learn more, and more, and it never stopped. Companies link to other companies; you get quick responses, fast information. It just continues to market itself; your companies name will be seen, and hopefully recommended. While I was bouncing around blogs I came across Jeremiah Owyang. He provides great information on web strategy. Jeremiah and I share the same excitement for Twitter; he mentions three points on why he classifies Twitter as social media: “you have a profile, you are in contact with tons of people, and it has some utility.” This gave me another understanding for social media, it really is a hoot!
4. The cool thing about SXSW is no matter your level of knowledge in this field everyone attends to learn more or contribute what they already know. Like I said earlier, social media is new to me, and the fastest for me to learn is to crawl in and actually use the applications. There are so many to use, it can get overwhelming, but if I have any questions I know I can Tweet and get a response from the vets. If you want to learn more just network and talk to those that know more. Micah Baldwin took his first trip to the SXSW and writes about his adventure. Micah gives great advice. The one I like is, “Know what you know; and know what you don’t know.” It may take some research to find out more about a topic, but thanks to the quick response, links, blogs that social media provides, you will be walking before you know it.
2 Responses to “4 Things I Took Away From SXSW (minus my presence in Austin)”
By Tom Whittaker on Mar 13, 2008 | Reply
Tania – I am glad to see you have dove head first into the social media pool.
By Jamie on Mar 14, 2008 | Reply
Me too. You are my leader.