As you may have heard, Substance will be at SXSW 2010. We’re stoked to be a part of it again this year, and want to make sure we can provide and gain as much knowledge and inspiration as possible. In that spirit, here’s some stuff we’re thinking about as well as some recommendations on where to get coffee, a sandwich and a good beer when you’re down to Austin. In exchange for these brief and potentially useful bits of information, we hope if you have some tips, suggestions or comments, that you leave them below and share with the world. Like a good place for BBQ that isn’t way out at the Salt Lick.
You talkin’ to me?
SXSW is an opportunity to meet new people and have interesting conversations. So if you’re curious about Substance, want to talk about what “interactive brand strategy” means, want to hear what we were going to discuss about in our The Traveler’s Journey: From Clicks to Packed Bags panel and solve the future challenges of travel and tourism from an interactive and brand standpoint, please let us know. Email us at sxsw@findsubstance.com and we’ll set something up, or follow us on Twitter to find out where we are: twitter.com/substance. You can also follow us individually for personal impressions on the events that occur… Stephen on Twitter / Erin on Twitter
Looking good on the red carpet.
Have we mentioned that our work on IAmATrailBlazersFan.com is up for an award in the Community category for the SXSW Web Awards? We’ll give you a high five as we’re walking the red carpet for the awards ceremony on Sunday night.
SXSWLesson.com
Last year we were so inspired by our time at SXSW that we rushed back to Portland and created SXSWLesson.com: a place where you can post and comment on your lessons from SXSW. One of the aspects we really enjoyed at SXSW was the opportunity to talk with different people about the ideas and topics that came up during the day. SXSWLesson takes this idea online and allows people you might not have the chance to talk with in person the ability to contribute to the conversation. Since the site wasn’t live last year during the conference, we’re really looking forward to seeing how people use it. It’s simple to contribute: hashtag a tweet with #sxswlesson and it automatically is added to the site. Comment on lessons on the site by using Twitter OAuth. It’s just that easy to share your ideas with the world.
Outside the Sessions.
A couple of the students from the University of Oregon told me there’s an exhibit of Hatch Show Print work at the Austin Museum of Art. Todd and I had the pleasure of touring Hatch Show Print when we were in Nashville a couple years ago and it was a type designer’s dream. So if you’re looking for some screenprinting/letterpressing/typographic awesomeness, make sure to go check this exhibit out.
Food and drink to power through the days and nights.
This is an extremely limited list of some of the places we had food and drinks last year. We’re not including all of the fancy places we ate or all the bars and parties we attended late into the night as that’s part of the mystery and adventure of SXSW. On the flip side, sometimes you just need to know where to get a cup of coffee that isn’t Starbucks.
Jo’s Coffee Downtown
We had good coffee and breakfast here last year, as well as a pretty good dinner (it happened to be between our hotel and the convention center… or only slightly out of the way).
242 West 2nd Street
Halcyon Coffee
Okay, I’ll freely admit I’m a Portland coffee snob. That being said, Halcyon makes a pretty decent latte (from what I remember).
218 West 4th Street
The Ginger Man
Holy moly, a beer lover’s nirvana. So many awesome beers on tap (last year we sampled all three variants of Dog Fish Head IPA – 60, 90 and 120 minute varieties – on tap). Somehow we ended up here practically every night, not that we were complaining. Same thing will probably happen this year.
301 Lavaca Street
Which Wich
Okay, it’s a local sandwich chain. They still make a decent, quick sandwich that’s better than Subway.
259 West 3rd Street
Jimmy John’s
Our friend Ross Scott (who we met at last year’s SXSW) introduced us to another sandwich shop that was also quite delicious. I’d put money on us going there for lunch with Ross again this year.
515 Congress
Hog Island Deli
We stopped by here one night on the way back to the hotel and got cheesesteaks from the takeout window. They were delicious, though I’m not sure if it was because they were actually delicious or because we’d had a few drinks beforehand. We’ll put it back to the test this year.
407 Lavaca Street
There are of course a variety of iPhone apps like Yelp to help find your gravy train, along with a new one I haven’t tried called Foodspotting that looks interesting.
Final tip…
Hydrate. Bring a reusable water bottle, fill it up from one of the water fountains at the convention center, and drink it. Your body will thank you.
Our SXSW Schedule
Some events, panels, and activities you may find us attending while at SXSW. Yes, there are multiple panels at the same time on here… there are two of us so we can divide and conquer.
Friday, March 12th
2:00pm — Content Strategy: What’s in it for You?
2:00pm — History of the Button (with our PDX friend Bill DeRouchey)
3:30pm — Understanding Content: The Stuff We Design For
3:30pm — How Your Brand Can Succeed in the New Web
4:30pm — The Happiness Project
5:00pm — Networked Love, Bonding, Intimacy: Our Interactive Culture Clouds
5:00pm — Time + Social + Location. What’s Next In Mobile Experiences?
Saturday, March 13th
9:30am — Add Some XBOX to Your UX
9:30am — Re-Inventing the Wheel: Sketching your own IA Process
11:00am — The Future of Influence
11:00am — The Right Way to Wireframe, Part 1
12:30pm — The Right Way to Wireframe, Part 2
12:30pm — Mind Control: Psychology for the Web
2:00pm — The Ten Commandments of User Experience
2:00pm — Opening Remarks: Privacy and Publicity
3:30pm — Content Strategy FTW
3:30pm — User Experience Design Deliverables: Expert’s Choice
5:00pm — New Publishing and Web Content
5:00pm — Open Leadership: The Upside Of Giving Up Control
5:00pm — Does My Sh*t-Talking Really Help Your Brand?
Sunday, March 14th
9:30am — Story.Next: Narrating the Crowd
9:30am — Exploiting Chaos: How to Spark Innovation During Times of Change
11:00am — Gaming the Crowd: Turning Work Into Play
11:00am — Blah Blah Blah: Why Words Won’t Work
12:30pm — Persuasive Design: Encouraging Your Users to DO What you Want Them To!
12:30pm — Social Media and China: Different Than You Think
2:00pm — Your Design Process is Killing You
3:30pm — Experimental Design: Your User Interface Is Your Laboratory
3:30pm — It’s Time to Save the World with Design Thinking
4:00pm — Beer Sphere
7:00pm — Annual SXSW Web Awards Ceremony (have we mentioned one of our projects – I Am A Trail Blazers Fan – is up for the Community award?)
8:00pm — The Barbarian Group and StumbleUpon present Final Frontier!
Monday, March 15th
9:30am — Interactive Documentaries: A Multidimensional Narrative
11:00am — Making Content Relevant To Me, Here And Now
11:00am — Results Only Work Environment (ROWE): Why It Works
12:30pm — The Life Graph: You Are Your Location
12:30pm — Freedom by Design 2010: Creating Democratic Organizations & Workplaces
2:00pm — Evan Williams Keynote Interview
3:30pm — Beyond the Desktop: Embracing New Interaction Paradigms
5:00pm — Augmented Reality: Gimmicky Trend or Market-Ready Technology?
Tuesday, March 16th
9:30am — Prototyping Web Apps: Nobody Loves a Wireframe
9:30am — Do Evolutions In Design Thinking Promote Innovation?
10:30am — Journalism Next: Thriving in the Digital Age
11:00am — No Straight Lines: Straight Line Thinking Stops Here
11:00am — The Chaos Scenario
12:30pm — Getting Better: The Designer’s Path From Good To Great
12:30pm — Swarming Plato’s Cave: Rethinking Digital Fantasies
2:00pm — Welcome to the State of Now
3:30pm — Get What You Want, Whatever It Is
3:30pm — Screw Brand Equity: Connected Brands Rule
If you’re looking for good BBQ head over to Uncle Billy’s on Barton Springs Road. http://www.unclebillysaustin.com/
9:51 am / 9 March 2010