Hello BarCampers, my name is George Huff, but on twitter, my name is georgehuff - nice to meet you.  Over the course of this weekend I attended my first Barcamp.  Well, actually it was my second, but only on the technicality that I caught the tail end party at SXSW in Austin.  This was right before we played Urban Frisbee on the way to another party. Anyhow…

BarCamp is a (geek) conference built like a wiki, we can have a democratic schedule built on the fly.  Want to discuss a topic?  Any topic at all?  Come to BarCamp and paste your topic and name in one of the many timeslots.  At first I decided to be a fly on the wall and sort of take it all in, but then I changed my mind and decided to join up with Bram Piyoto and be an “assistant” presenter where design meets tech.  Hopefully I come across as being less of a jackass than I really am, here’s to hope.

And then came Sunday, while sitting in on a panel discussing hacking existing Wordpress themes I decided to address a need of how to build a theme from scratch. Because I once wrote a post detailing how to simply build a wordpress theme, I decided to build on the basic idea.  But instead of discussing building Eleven3, I discussed my most recent project, HomeSkillet Records.  As I did it last minute, I had a little tiny room with about 8 guests, it may have been light, but it sure was a captive audience! You’re sort of forced to listen with numbers that small - but I hope it was useful for people.

Mmmm Brain Power

Anytime a bunch of geeks get together there is a lot of brain power getting kicked around, so that’s pretty awesome.  What’s great is the general goodwill everyone has.  People are happy to be here and love a chance to have their thoughts and ideas expressed or learn new ones.  Traditionally, other conferences are a little bit idol worshippy feeling, which is fine (cause I am so into Shaun Inman and Jon Hicks), but this one is the opposite.  There are a few “names” here, but generally speaking everyone here is just here to geek out, prettttty awesome.

I had a blast and met many people who I have seen on Twitter - it’s always good to meet people in real life. I am not a stalker.

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Just like most mornings, I woke up and checked my Twitter. The night before put us at the Gingerman where we drank a couple of pints of Lonestar and conversed with several geeks - doesn’t get much better. Dustin Diaz, of JavaScript and Google fame, brought his big camera, to which I proceeded to make obvious “your lense makes me feel inadequate” jokes. Yep, that’s me - taking the obvious one-liners and using them for personal gain. It may have garnered a chuckle, I’m not sure.

Jeff and I got back to our room and I use the words “passed out” here, although it was somewhere between passing out and going to bed - do you know the difference? Anyhow, the alarm came quickly and we got up, showered, and headed down to the complimentary continental breakfast. We’re staying at the Hampton - shitty wi-fi, fantastic continental, take your pick. One more good thing about the Hampton is it attracts a lot of the industry “rockstars.” Shit, Jeff and I were there, and we’re pretty important. I jest, but the highly talented Shaun Inman was there and I did get to pick up the size medium American Apparel Mint T-shirts he brought. Thank you Shaun - it was an awkward moment, but it was never dull - my name is George.

After all this we made our way to the conference, what follows are my notes from the different panels/presentations, enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

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As many people know, SXSW is coming up this week and as all should know - it’s pretty much the place to be for a geek. Where else can every random conversation be about topics like design, user experience, and community building - geekgasm!

Anyhow - I’m staying at the Hampton Inn with my good friend Jeff Reynolds - we will be kicking ass in one way or another (but mostly just representing the up and coming group, We The Media). I’m also looking to get invited to some really pretentious, exclusive parties - like I would be ok being the only one that is allowed to enter the room. That would rock. If you’re staying in the Hampton Inn or close - let’s greet up - it’s time to meet some geeks baby! Oh yea, be sure to get our grey (purple) buttons - they are pretty much fresh to death.

If you aren’t going to SXSW and are disgruntled, sulk the entire week at your current job so that your employer really knows how badly you want to go for next year - or - come to this site and I will be posting daily updates and pictures of all the crazy happenings.

Hope the world is treating you well.

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It’s funny, there were a few prominent questions that were asked during conversations which really told more about the person asking the question, than the person who gives the answer. For instance, I was so giddy, I kept asking, “What do you do?” People kind of roll their eyes or look at you like you just pissed yourself. Not only was I pointing out the fact I was a complete n00b to the conference, I was asking a question as obvious as, “What’s your major?” in a college atmosphere. Great way to pick up chicks.

Another question people (me) asked was “Is this your first time here?” This wasn’t so much of the giveaway as the previously mentioned, but it still is a subtle detector of a person’s conference going experiences. A more relaxed approach to this question is, “How many times have you been to SXSW?” This isn’t as assuming in a negative way as the first question and can be answered with a, oh this is my first time. And usually a conversation can be engaged after that.

Just a few surface level tips, from a surface level guy.
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When people think of Texas, I don’t think rain is something that comes up in their minds, yet that’s what it did Sunday night, rain. It was unfortunate this happened our last night of the conference. We didn’t get to meet many new people and most of the night consisted of drying off between stints of running in the rain, a lot. It’s ok though, we still managed to catch a few shows and play some foosball on the way home from The Fray Cafe. Let me just say, Leslie couldn’t handle me on the table (-; After wringing our clothes out, we went to sleep. It was a nice memory that escaped me the night before.

We woke up to a sunny Austin morning and wished we had a few more days to stay, but work called, so we had to get all we could out of that day. It turns out chance favored us.
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Somewhere in the conferencing 101 handbook is a blurb about going out and meeting people at the conference sponsored events. That blurb also details how to drink at a conference, or how not to drink. There was an open bar at the place I went to and next thing you know things got a bit hazy.

So hazy in fact that I was supposed to call my girlfriend, and when I woke up in the morning I called her to apologize for not calling, and it turns out I did call her. Oops. Now she’s onto just how much I was drinking. You can take the kid out of Alaska, but you can’t take Alaska out of the kid.

The cool part about this whole SXSW thing is all the conversations that occur away from the event itself. I had no idea how much value would come from just meeting and talking to people. Last night I got to meet some of the people whom I respect and follow on the web. Welcome to Geek’s Paradise.
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After a late night at a Deerhoof concert, we all awoke fairly sleepy. I am surprised I have made it this far without a nap. Today was the first day of the SXSW panels. As with any conference, there are times slots and multiple panels available. Thankfully they release podcasts of each panel so that I still may get the information I missed out on.

There were five panels I attended. Each of them offered a different insight into the topic they were covering. More than anything they made me inspired, warm, and fuzzy. I think SXSW draws all of the rockstars in the industry and they do as good of job being in the audience as they do on their panels. It’s refreshing to know that they are still out there seeking knowledge from their peers.
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We got in late last night and I went on a little stroll. Stumbling upon sixth street, I proceeded to have my mind blown. Austin is nuts. Portland has nothing on the Austin nightlife. There were hundreds of folks partying in the streets, and I must say warm weather does good things to people. After grabbing some pizza, I headed back to the Radisson, where we are holed up.

Today we started off with breakfast at a Mexican Cafe. I got some chorizo, very good stuff. We then walked up to the capital building and checked out how Texas does it. It was a trip going to the place where GW got his start. I sat on a bench right under his portrait. Jeff took pictures of kids. Leslie wanted to go on a tour and I wouldn’t do it. Probably the first of many of my shooting down the poor girl. What can I say, I am grouchy.
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In the last week I have signed up to attend the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas. The dream would be to hit up all three aspects of the festival, Film, Music, and Interactive, oh well. The interactive part of the conference has me super stoked. There will be three of us attending from our lil agency here in Portland. We are staying at the Radison a few blocks from where the conference is located. Did I mention I am super stoked?

The other conference I signed up for is the RailsConf 2007. Now I would be the first person to admit that I am a Rails n00b, even a programming n00b. But the quickness in which stuff seems to get off the ground and the design-minded development community have me bound and determined to add it to my webdesign batbelt. RailsConf is here in Portland which happens to be very convenient for me. I think I can hit the conference center with a stone from where I sit typing this.

Now if only all conferences were in Portland, then I could attend them all. Just kidding, I want to visit the Austins of the world. My professional development budget has now been capped out. Wahoo.

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Ok, so that title is so played out, but what can I say? I am sitting in my office and it’s 102 degrees outside, in Portland. I forgot to mention, my office is my garage, my garage has no AC. I am sitting in here cooking. No worries though, the tail end of this week was spent at WebVisions, which is conveniently located across the river from my day job.

I went and saw four different speakers. From the four that I went to, nothing groundbreaking, or new to me was presented. However, I think it was a huge value to the majority of the audience there. Out of the four I attended, I got ideas for more posts, found I was thinking in the right direction, and thoroughly enjoyed the celebration of geekdom that is webvisions.

What follows is my account of the minority of speakers I saw.
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