South by Southwest 2007 in Review: Trade Show/Interviews/Award Show (Part 3)

Continuing with my 4-part SXSW review is the Trade Show, interviews and 10th Annual SXSW Award Show I and AgencyNet's Larissa Meek, Marcelo Pereira, Richard Lent and Mark Bernstein attended Sunday-Tuesday at the Interactive Festival.

The Trade Show
This is where vendors and companies were allowed to strut their stuff. I picked up tons of business cards, met lots of people and got to see some of the stuff Sony, Seagate and Ubisoft had in the works.

Coincidentally, I met some people from Broward County's film commission, who had a booth set up in the trade show. It turns out that their office is three blocks from ours! Small world, I guess. I talked to this girl and got some information that will help me in a few projects I'm working on. On their opposite side was the film commission for Asheville, North Carolina, near where my parents' retirement home is. That'll also come in handy for some of the same projects.

I also met two editors at Peachpit/Safari and Apress/Friends of Ed. I told them a little about the (ERT) book I'm working on and both were very interested! One asked me to send him a letter by this (past) Thursday, which unfortunately I was unable to do since I only had a day to work on it after I got back (ack!). Either way, I'll be sending them my proposal kit in the next month or so and see where it takes me. If all goes well, I'll have a book deal in the next 3 months!

Interviews
While we were there, we were interviewed by various people. Namely, Amanda Congdon from ABC News interviewing Richard about our winning Best in Show and the Gold (at 2:40 in the clip). Even Rich hosted (surprise!) an interview (Quicktime clip/MP4 clip) between him and Social Saga's Josh Millstein about where this next wave of interactive sites are heading. (Social Saga won the SXSW People's Choice Award (congratulations guys!!!)).

Rich is quick to point out that his warm up interview with Amanda was Dan Rather. Nice one, Rich!

The days after the awards, we were definitely recognized by the larger portion of the attendees (funny how that happens) and were each asked questions about AgencyNet and ownyourC.com. As always, we were very happy to discuss our projects and company life, and hearing feedback is something we all appreciate. It's hard to imagine how prominent our name is in the industry when you're stuck in an office most of the year, but once and a while when you break out and go to these sessions, it hits you. Wow!

The 10th Annual SXSW Interactive Awards Show
The show started at 7:30 or so at the Hilton by the Austin Convention Center in a giant ballroom. As we walked in, it was pretty much dark except for the stage area and they had this ambient soundtrack in the background to set the mood. It certainly did fit the environment, with a nice bass line and some acoustic guitar with delay effects up the wazoo (thumbs up!).

We took our seats reserved for the finalists near the front of the stage, second row, center. It came time for the show to start and Interactive Festival coordinator Shawn O'Keefe introduced the MC of the night, Ze Frank. (You know, that video blog guy that got famous in a hurry during his one-year blogging experiment... coincidentally ending its run this week and getting sponsored by Dewar's and all? Yeah, that Ze Frank.)

Honestly, as far as MCs go, Ze was spot on! The perfect amount of twisted humor, inside jokes that only us nerds would get and the right amount of tongue-in-cheek insults. It definitely helped the ceremony go by smoothly, and many of us were laughing throughout most of it.

At one point, Ze was telling us about some of the "crap" in his swag bag. He was quick to note that since he was a Platinum pass holder for the interactive, movie and film festivals, he got 3 times the amount of crap we did" as he dumped it all over the stage. From the music (or maybe film) festival, the swag bag contained condoms. "Then they knew you guys (us interactive folk) wouldn't be needing these so you didn't get them," causing the crowd to erupt in laughter and embarrassment. He then told us about the nicotine hand-gel, and the possibilities of combining that with the condom. He was also quick to point out that during our laughing at the thought, we were all thinking exactly the same thing.

All in good timing, we were called to pick up our Gold for ownyourC.com under the Business: Green/Non-Profit category! We got up on stage, accepted our award and Rich gave his little acceptance speech.

After we got off the stage, they whisked us back to do our interviews. We were just about to leave (after not eating since about 12 that day and we were all extremely hungry) when I headed back into the auditorium, followed by the rest. Seconds before Mark sat in his seat, Ze announced that we were the winners for Best in Show! We were floored and were in disbelief as we walked back up to the front! We did it! We won the night!

That does it for Part 3 of my 4-part review. I'll be posting the final part tomorrow!