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If you missed any of the sessions at NTC, you can download the session materials on NTEN’s web site. Browsing these materials won’t replace being there, but can give you some good reference materials.

What happens when you mix technology and design with the biggest names in the web industry, throw in a dash of geek-idol worship, and top it with a few thousand of the smartest and most creative people in the world as the cherry? South by Southwest Interactive, that’s what.

It’s taken me 2 weeks to digest everything I saw, read, heard and experienced, but here’s one designer’s attempt to document my trip down the rabbit hole in Austin.

As a newbie to “South by”, it just took a glance at the session list (five days of pure geek glory) to know this was going to be one wild ride. With the latest in cutting edge design, technology and creative thinking as my goal, I took a deep breath and plunged headlong into the conference, hoping I’d come out the other side of the in one piece. And without a tattoo on my…. But I digress.

I am happy to report not only did I survive the mosh pit (un-inked, thankyouverymuch), but I crowdsurfed my way to a new level of creative enlightenment and passion for this crazy little thing we do called The Web. With huge heart-felt apologies to David Letterman & Jon Stewart respectively, I give you my Beaconfire Top Ten South By Moments of Zen:

10. Bearing witness to the Mark Zuckerberg keynote train wreck heard round TwitterWorld.

9. Nibbling a cheeseburger and laughing myself stupid at the icanhascheezburger panel.

8. While walking through the convention center, meeting someone who reads (and comments on) Beaconfire Wire.

7. Adding up Jim Coudal’s General theory of creative relativity, and learning how organic projects like “Booking Bands” keep their agency creative.

6. Giving my business card to Derek Powazek.

5. Mike Rohde’s interactive sketchnotes.

4. Jared Spool doing magic tricks onstage to highlight the idea of using illusion to simplify designs.

3. Adaptive Path’s fascinating comparison of creative web environments to worlds of theatre, orchestras, restaurant kitchens and screenwriting.
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2. Watching Jeffery Veen and Gary Koepke almost come to blows while debating the eternal question “Do web analytics help or hurt design?”. Oh, and Clement Mok as icing/moderator didn’t hurt.

And my Beaconfire number ONE South By Moment of Zen …

1. Frank Warren’s astounding keynote about PostSecret’s amazing journey from art project to Internet sensation, encouraging everyone to “Free your secrets and become who you are.”

I could go on and on (and on and on and on) with more lessons learned, inspiration found, tales of creative eureka, and large hand gestures trying to explain that really-cool-thing-that-this-amazing-person-did. But I’ll spare you the multimedia interpretative dance version of “What I Did on My South by Southwest Adventure”, and leave you with this one thought.

We all have the best jobs in the world, hands down.

Last week, a whopping 10 Beaconfire employees headed down to New Orleans to learn about how nonprofits are using and can use online technology, and also to connect with others doing work like ours. Here are some of our reactions to the conference:

1. “This year’s NTC had an energy and edge more than any other. The conference reflected the reality that space is changing fast…innovations are popping everywhere and integration isn’t just something to talk about, it’s getting down. It felt very familiar, like 1999 all over but this time smarter, more focused and intentional.” - Michael Cervino
2. “Always a rewarding experience. An interesting spread of perspectives from the most basic to the most advanced.” - Eric Eckl
3. “The major vendors such as Convio and Kintera are making real headway on open APIs since last year’s NTC. And, new products coming on the market seem to know that having an API is an important element of their marketing collateral, even if the API is not really written or just partially written, just waiting for a partner or opportunity to really flesh it out. While the goal of making it easy to connect different systems and exchange data is still far away, it’s encouraging news. On the downside, it’s also clear that the progress on the API front has not helped to answer the fundamental question for nonprofits who experience the pain of siloed data but need to make the case before making the leap: what will it cost me and what are the benefits of integrating my organization’s data? If I invest in a data integration project now, what is the ROI in organizational efficiency and effectiveness? There is much interest in how organizations can better use their data – for example, interpret their web site statistics using Google Analytics or present their data using dashboards and rich media. This year’s NTC confirmed for me that this issue is still relevant and in need of answers.” – Jennifer Stuart Bagnell
4. “Bigger and better than ever. Sessions were solid and many of the speakers were experts in their field. Nice to see more large organizations. I’m continually amazed at the diversity of the nonprofit sector in terms of subjects, size, and maturity of online programs, however they all share a passion you don’t find in other sectors. Great fun.” – Jeff Herron
5. “On the tech side - less buzzwords and more substance. Vendors have begun delivering on their promises of opening up their systems and new start-up products know they can’t compete unless they offer extensive APIs and data exchange components. Unfortunately, non-profits are still struggling to figure out how it applies to them. Next year, look for more real-world examples of how organizations are benefitting from the freedom of owning their data.” - Alan Gallauresi
6. “NPO’s are experimenting more effectively with social networks and how they can be leveraged to further their goals. However, results often are still more qualitative than quantitative, with strategies for success and effective campaign execution still being worked out…Many NPO’s are continuing to leverage the ever-growing, free, and powerful Google tools on the Web (Search, Google Analytics, Google Checkout, Google Sites, etc.) and within the organization (Google Apps, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.)…More players are ramping up constituent based software that allows for modules to be plugged in and provide integrated features for donations, advocacy, email marketing, fundraising and CRM.” – Mark Leta
7. “In our world of email and IM, it was a great opportunity to connect and put names with faces!” - Kristin Niemi-Gillig
8. “With the rapid advancement of online technology, nonprofit marketing and communications strategies are (or should be) reverting back to basic principles of human communications. With more and more constituent and donor touch points from blogs to mobile advocacy to social networking, successful efforts will be those that are the most simple, tangible, authentic, high quality, and those that empower their supporters by giving them an unfiltered voice to connect and relate to a community. These are some of the concepts we’ll help nonprofits think through.” – Ali Cherry

This was Beaconfire’s first year sending people to South by Southwest. Eve and I went to get connected to the buzz on the latest web 2.0 apps, meet with non-profits interested in incorporating more rich media into their online outreach and to recruit contractors to help us with design, development and production.

After being here all week, I think it’s worth sending a much bigger delegation next - there’s just too much for two people to cover. For example, while I was attending Findable Rich Media and Eve was attending Design is in the Details, we missed AJAX and Flash mistakes, Accessibility: Basics Quickly, and What Teens Want, all of which would have been valuable panels.

The tendency to stack useful panels on top of each other was something that I heard a lot of folks bemoaning, and hopefully it won’t be as bad next year, but it would still have been good to have had an information architect, functional consultant, and software engineer with us to attend some of the sessions outside our areas of expertise.

Just as there were too many concurrent events during the day, there was also too much going on at night for us to cover everything. The evening festivities were great chances for us to network with others working in the nonprofit space, and hopefully we’ll be bringing some of the folks we met onto projects as clients, contractors and partners.

There were also a few events that we really didn’t get the chance to participate in. The core conversations were a new feature this year that I missed out on, due to session conflicts (not sure about Eve), but hope to try next year. Similarly, there were a variety of design and dev competitions that we talked about participating in in future years. And I wasn’t able to make time to attend book readings or demos at the Adobe Day Stage, except when they coincided with a lunch break.

In the end, I think SxSW is a valuable conference for non-profits and the consultants who work with them to attend. The applications and ideas presented were for the most part universal, and it’s a great look at where the web is going in the next year. While, as I’ve noted, it is to some extent a gathering of early adopters (note that percentage of Twitter users and iPhoners), it’s also a chance to get to meet the super-activists, those top-shelf constituents who will make use of the advanced features of your site that make them evangelists for your cause.

And let’s not kid ourselves - the people attending the conference were activists in addition to being technologists. Jokes about voting in Texas got a good reaction, many a MacBook sported an Obama, Clinton or "Stop Global Warming" sticker, and every time I told someone about Beaconfire’s nonprofit portfolio, there was at least one organization that caused them to say "I know them - they do great work." Many of the startups that are just pioneering an idea were excited by the possibility of partnering with leading nonprofits.

I’ll continue to followup with takeaways on the individual sessions - for Beaconfire, next week we’ll have a significant presence at NTC, so look forward to seeing posts from there.

I’ve added a few more pictures below the fold.

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It’s only a week away and I’m sure you are already setting aside clothes to dress to impress, or at the very least thinking about what sessions you’ll be attending. This year, there are 5 reasons to come see us at the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference, where more than 1,000 people come together to “talk about what works, what doesn’t work, and what is in the works for those using nonprofit technology to further a cause.”

1. We’ll be at the Science Fair from 3-8pm on the first day of the conference, Wednesday March 19th. As organizers point out, the NTC Science Fair isn’t a typical conference exhibit hall as it’s only on the first day to avoid competing with everything else on the agenda. Come visit us at booth #60 to get a special gift and hear about all what we do, and more importantly, what we can do for you. Also, since we’re a Silver Sponsor of the conference, we’ll have a table set up throughout the conference where you can catch us during the breaks.
2. Our CEO and the Board Chair of NTEN, Lynn Labieniec will be speaking on Thursday, March 20th from 1:30-3 on “Getting the Big Picture: Using Dashboards to Track Your Data.” A great way to start the afternoon.
3. On the same day at 3:30, Alan Gallauresi, a Beaconfire tech lead will talk at the session “Will Your Data Be Yours? Evaluating Data Exchange in Software.” Don’t miss it.
4. Eric Eckl from our marketing team will follow that by “swallowing a flaming a sword while riding a unicycle, blindfolded!” and also speaking on “Now You Have a Lot of User Generated Content: Tracking and Using It?” from 3:30-5pm. Sure to be entertaining.
5. And finally, last but not least, Vice President Jeff Herron will talk at the session “The Joy of CMS: Implementing Sustainable Content Management Systems (The Painless Way to Keep Your Web Site Current)” on Friday, March 21st at 3:30pm. Any session with the word “painless” in it is worth going to!

See you on Wednesday!

Howdy from Austin. Today’s the last day of the conference, and I’ll be taking my camera in again to get some pictures of what’s going on at the convention center. Once again, for more up to the minute updates, check my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/johnbrian. Previous updates on days 0, 1, 2, and 3 here. -John Brian

• 11:52: As I pack up to leave, I’ve got a bunch of pics I haven’t posted yet. I’ll upload a few now, and save the rest for the wrapup post:

Even for a tech conference, in a paperless society, there were tables set up to capture the massive amount of junk lit. It reminds me of what a friend once said to me at a rally, "When someone hands me a flyer, I feel like they’re asking, ‘Could you throw this away for me?’"

One thing I was surprised not to hear such a libertarian group discuss was the massive number of cameras in the convention center. I mean, it makes sense, but they were really obvious and omnipresent - you’d think that there’s at least be something on Digg asking Ron Paul to do something about it.

Yes, even Judge Dredd uses Twitter. Okay, not really - the guy in the costume is Adam Lavis, who made a film about John Hicklenton, pictured on left. Here’s a blog post with more if you’re interested.

There was serious work going on with regard to the Legos. I considered building a Beaconfire logo, but saw very few standard 4×2 and 2×2 red and white blocks. Oh, and there were panels to attend. Feel free to discuss in the comments how Legos have morphed from when you were young.

That’s all for tonight - I’ll write a wrapup on the way home. Earlier posts from today are below the fold…

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Howdy from Austin. I’m going to be using today’s space for larger thoughts than can fit in Twitter (140 characters cramps my style. Though some would argue it could use some cramping), along with links. But for more up to the minute updates, check my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/johnbrian. Previous updates on days 0, 1, and 2 here. -John Brian

11:41: First, I just got back from the Facebook party, where I was interviewed by ABC News as part of their partnership with Facebook. Let’s hope I talked too fast for the 5 minute segment to be used; after being at the conference for almost four days, I may be looking pretty grizzly. I’m not seeing it anywhere on Facebook or ABC yet, but will post a link if it appears.

Second, the party itself was also pretty excellent - for anyone staying for the music festival, they have another party later this week for you, but pre-register to avoid the line.

Third, tomorrow’s the last day of panels, and I’m not as impressed by the lineup; there’s general consensus that they frontloaded the good panels, and I’ve heard grumbling that they scheduled panels for similar interests at the same time (to be fair, some of that grumbling was coming from me). Any insights on panels that I shouldn’t miss? Check the list and leave a comment.

Lastly, one BF Wire reader today suggested I post these updates in chronological order rather than reverse cron, since I refer to things from earlier. I pointed out that I run them this way so you don’t have to go below the fold to see if there’s new content. What do you prefer? Leave a comment with your opinion, which we’ll use to format our blog coverage of NTC next week.

Post-lastly, if you’re going to be at NTC, sign up to our Facebook event invite so we know to find you - there’s a good portion of the Beaconfire team going, and we don’t want to miss seeing you!

2:23: Here are some more photos from this morning (I’ve moved the others below the fold to allow for easier scrolling to earlier posts; check flickr for full size):

The corridors were filled with masses of hallway bloggers - maybe there were power outlets on this wall?

The Dell lounge - like many Dell products, it has proprietary hardware that keeps you from adding your own peripherals, like a roof. But there were regular live acoustic performances, which was cool.

The Opera booth was the place to be, and I don’t think they were even giving out swag. Buzz there was mostly around Opera mini and the Opera install as the browers for Wii. Firefox didn’t have a presence.

I shot this walking into True Stories from Social Media Sites. It was a pretty popular panel, with some pretty well-known names. When asked who here used Twitter, about 75% raised their hands - I’d be interested to see what that percentage is at NTC.

The Zappos guys were handing out rain ponchos at all the exits at noon. Smart way to get their brand out there - my #1 rule of swag is "Make it something useful to me, not just branded placement for you." As a result, ponchos and shot glasses get kept, stickers and T-shirts get tossed. I’d like to think that BF’s booklights and Magic 8 Balls are in the "keep" category.

More pics from the conference tomorrow.

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Howdy from Austin. I’m going to be using today’s space for larger thoughts than can fit in Twitter (140 characters cramps my style. Though some would argue it could use some cramping), along with links. But for more up to the minute updates, check my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/johnbrian. Previous updates on days 0 and 1 here. -John Brian

• 12:14: I haven’t had a chance yet to catalogue some of the cool stuff we saw on the trade show floor. Here’s a sampling, based on what I’m taking out of my bag:

1. Utterz.com, in addition to being proof that yes, every web 2.0 domain name has been taken, allows you to blog remotely using a combination of voice, video, pictures and text. I actually saw the demo at the Google party on Saturday first, but wanted to get more info before posting. It’s free and ad-free at the moment, and they indicated that when they do go ad-supported, they’ll have an enterprise version for NPOs that don’t want to share branding. Could be cool at conferences or for companies that spend a lot of time on the road where it’s tough to blog.
2. Izea.com has a pay per post blogging program. While I’m still not convinced that it’s not conceptually a bad PR move, it does provide some opportunities for quick SEO. They also indicated that they now require disclosure, to the level specified by the client, which reassured me a little.
3. Mapquest was located right across from arch-rival Google, and had some interesting things to say. Their API is free and unlimited, and allows programmers to work in a variety of languages. Mapquest really pioneered online maps, and while most of their work seems to be in static maps, they’ve since expanded as a serious competitor to Google and Yahoo.
4. Zappos also had a pretty significant presence - I was a little confused, since they don’t really do any B2B, but I guess they’ve been having a big presence for years. They were also there to recruit talent.

• 11:33: Almost everyone here at the interactive festival seems to be with a company of some sort - very few independent contractors here. Is that because of the cost or some other factor? I’d also be interested to hear how big a delegation came from some of the giants in the field - I’ve met folks from Apple (one of whom stood in line next to me earlier tonight, defending flaws in the iPod/iPhone before finally revealing that he was an Apple developer) and Google (who indicated that their grants/.org folks weren’t here - maybe they’ll be at NTC?) - wonder how big a delegation these folks sent.

This post is getting long so I’m updating it to add a fold - check below for more from Day 2.

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Hello from Austin! Eve and I are here at South by Southwest Interactive to scope out the latest innovations, meet with potential partners and non-profits, and check out all the conference has to offer. I’ll be updating semi-live blogging from the conference from today through Tuesday - be sure to check back regularly for updates (assuming the wireless holds out). Day 0 here. -John Brian

• 11:52: Lots of good sessions tomorrow morning - I’m weighing A/B Testing: Design Friend or Foe?, Scope Creep and Other Villains, Social Design Strategies, Wireframing in a Web 2.0 World, and Increase Revenue by Mobile-Enabling Your Services. If you have any insight here, leave a comment.
• 11:31: Back at the hotel now - couple of thoughts from the interim:

• The session of social media metrics was fascinating - it’s going to take some time to digest, but of particular interest was what one speaker had to say about the frequent desire to measure success in impressions, which paraphrases to "If all you care about is impressions per dollar, just buy some really bad Google Ads, which will get you a million impressions for no money." They then went to talk about ways to quantify social media success, which I’ll go into in a separate post.
• Google throws quite a party. The line was out for about a block even an hr after it started, and it was not clearing out even after the official ending.
• I’m impressed by the number of nonprofits here - there’s quite a few with a commitment to new media, particularly with NTC coming up later in the month. That said, most folks I’ve talked to have said that the line production and pm folks are here while the execs are going to NTC.
• Tomorrow is daylight savings, which means I’m basically back on Eastern time. Well, it was nice while it lasted. Also, according to the front desk, if I want to move my clock back, I need to disassemble it. Boo.
• Going through my collected stuff for the day, I found the lit piece from Angelsoft, which says "$1 buys access to 1.2 angel groups for entrepreneur funding." Attached is a $1 bill, which seems legit. I’m not sure if this is a good tactic, since it guerentees that everyone will pick up your lit, or a bad one, because your gimmick is gone as soon as I get thirsty.
• Also notable swag: Adobe had a fortune cookie in a Chinese food box. Cool enough, but the fortunes are only half written, and if you match your’s to the person who has the other half, you win a complete Adobe suite. Makes people not just keep your chum but also discuss with others.
• What both these have in common is that they’re something of value to the attendees. On the contrary, most of the bag with filled with generic lit and stickers - why should I advertise your product with something that has no other value to me? I’ll hit the show floor tomorrow to see what other swag I can accumulate.

This post is getting long so I moved everything else below the fold.

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