Joni Cobb of Pipeline wrote this post about her experience Saturday at South By Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas. For more about Cobb and SXSnippets, see the note following this post.
Joni Cobb captured many of her experiences Saturday at South By Southwest in photos and video.
11:30 a.m. – Head to Austin Convention Center in style. Sister lives here and takes me by her cute Fiat convertible door-to-door where I need to go. Cool!? Except it’s raining buckets here. Why did I leave 70 degrees in KC?
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12:40 p.m. – Fascinated by the characters everywhere. People in sumo outfits, light up blue hair … whatever it takes to grab already limited attention span of the tech/entrepreneur crowd. Wowie.
Afternoon – Attend Startup America Media Panel with Steve Case, reporters from Inc., TechCrunch, Fast Company and Entrepreneur Magazines. Watch entrepreneurs pitch to media to learn the difference between pitching with a hook or angle — versus telling your company story. Good stuff for our entrepreneurs to hear. Note to self, add more of this to communications module.
5:30 p.m. – Catch up with PIPELINE Innovator of the Year, Kyle Johnson (Audio Anywhere) and head off to Lightbank Happy Hour. Catch up with cool friends. Great to meet Ben Huh (Cheezburger) and even more cool Microsoft-ers.
9:15 p.m. – Fast Company party. Groovy music and by this time everyone is really ready to talk. Such a great atmosphere here where networking is just easy. Everyone is curious, everyone is having a great time and the vibe is all positive. Love it. Really enjoyed conversation with David Wright (NPR) about the new face of design for news
Midnight – Took crew we gathered at Fast Company party to the best, underground honky-tonk in Austin. Man it’s great to have a hip sis living in Austin. There is no excuse at this place not to dance, so we did. Kyle says he’s going back every night. Cowboy hats, tattoos, open minds, cheap beer, no cover and the best music around. Closed it down and daylight savings time made next day … Interesting
All in all? SXSW is overwhelming, cool, and eventually addictive if you crave constant connections, visual and auditory stimulation, making new friends and being completely immersed in the entrepreneurial mojo. So needless to say – I loved it and will be back. This time with better shoes.
Credits: Video courtesy of Cobb. Photo of Cobb courtesy of Cobb.
About the author: Joni Cobb is the founding president and CEO of Pipeline, an entrepreneurial fellowship for entrepreneurs in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.
About SXSnippets: SXSnippets are posts from residents of the Silicon Prairie chronicling 24 hours of their experience at South By Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas.
