David Herrold

Some SXSW 2008 high points

Posted by Dave | Filed under Networking, Technology

1. Talking with Junyu Wang, an interaction designer from Google China, over dinner at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant.  We talked about the prodigious use of TOR, Google translate and other proxy services that allow the people of China to surf the web uncensored.  He also spoke about how the majority of the population doesn’t really care about the censorship. More importantly, he enjoyed Harry Potter and his cat doesn’t have a name.

2. Hearing Jason Fried & Jim Coudal speak frankly about their businesses and the creative process.  These guys are bright.  I took notes.

3. Frog Design party.  Fire dancers from Sangre del Sol Fire Troupe.  Neato.

4. Meeting a ridiculous number of fascinating technology professionals in various stages of inebriation.

I’ll be posting some of the things I learned after I decompress and read my feverishly-scratched notes.

It’s good to be home.

Tags: SXSW, sxsw2008

Trainwreck 2008: Mark Zuckerberg & Sarah Lacy SXSW interview

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication

If hair-twirling and vapid questions qualified one to interview internet superstars, Sarah Lacy executed a 360 slam-dunk today. Between shameless self promotion of her upcoming book (pre-orders on Amazon *giggle*), name-dropping of her past Silicon Valley interviews (Kevin Rose *twirl hair*), bragging about her journalistic credentials throughout the interview, Sarah Lacy managed to drive the interview so far into the ground the crowd reached the boiling point in the last 15 minutes of the 60 minute epic torturous interview.

After verbally battling with the crowd for several minutes (bad move for any interviewer) Lacy turns to the audience and asks if someone would tell her what she did wrong.

A young man shouts “Give me your email address!”

Another one shouts “Check Twitter!”

(The Twitterverse was filled with angry and puzzled tweets from the audience, yours truly included).

I was really looking forward to hearing Mark speak at the keynote. He is possibly one of the most interesting self-made men on the internet, with 60+ million users on Facebook in 2008 and some amazing ideas for where Facebook is headed.

The audience was extremely interested in what he had to say. Some of their jobs depend on Facebook as a platform for development. Unfortunately, what the audience got was a pretty shallow interview from a hair-twirling, name-dropping, Silicon Valley groupie. We didn’t get any insight into who Mark Zuckerberg is as a person. What does he do on a daily basis? How much influence does he have in the development, design process of Facebook? What’s the last good book he read?

Note to Sarah Lacy – the next time you are in a room filled with thousands of nerds, don’t try acting coy or cute.

Try acting smart.

We’ll love you for it. Honest, we will.

Tags: mark zuckerberg, sarah lacy, sxsw2008

More SXSW2008 Fire Dancers

Posted by Dave | Filed under Personal

Video link

Tags: fire dancers, fire dancing, frog design, south by southwest interactive, sxsw2008, sxswi

South by Southwest Photos Day 2

Posted by Dave | Filed under Personal

Some photos I took at the South by Southwest day two. The fire dancers at the Frog Design party were amazing. See the short video I took of them below.

Photo link

Tags: fire dancers, fire dancing, frog design, south by southwest interactive, sxsw2008, sxswi

Fire Dancers at Frog Design party

Posted by Dave | Filed under Personal

Video link

Music by the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets

Tags: fire dancers, fire dancing, frog design, south by southwest interactive, sxsw2008, sxswi

South by Southwest Day 1

Posted by Dave | Filed under Technology, Web design

The first day of South by Southwest was great.  I met a bunch of cool people from all over the United States who are possibly nerdier than I am.  Very cool.

There is a small area of the convention center filled with LEGOS called the “Interactive Playpen”

I posted a few photos here.

The highlight of the day was hearing Jeffery Zeldman and his crew at Happy Cog.  Hearing Zeldman speak is like hearing Yoda address his cadre of young Jedis.

Mmm…wise designer he is.

Tags: south by southwest interactive, SXSW, sxsw2008, sxswi