Brand Camp University | Personal Branding 2.0 - Hajj Flemings

South by Southwest (SXSW) 2010 Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas is in the books (March 12-16, 2010). I am sharing my experience of attending SXSW as a Newbie. Not knowing exactly what to expect I jumped in feet first for it was inspiring and overwhelming all at the same time. I ran into Kevin Rose (Digg), rode around with Tony Hsieh (Zappos CEO) and the Zappos Crew on the Happiness Bus and got an advance copy of his book to name a few of my adventures.

There were over 15,000 people who attended SXSW Interactive. Imagine a city full of techies, interactive enthusiast with laptops, iPhones, Flip cams, video cameras, and mobile devices active all plugged up at all times.

My Reasons for Attending

• Online/Offline Relationships – Connecting the dots. The value in developing online relationships is solidified when the online world meets the real world face to face.
• Productivity – It is one of the easiest ways to connect with the movers and shakers in the interactive community. There are not too many other venues where you will have access to the majority of major players in the interactive communities all in one shot.
• Networking – Just like in college I felt like I learned as much outside the classroom as I did inside the classroom. Attending sessions is important but doesn’t trump connecting with people.
• Create Touch points – My focus was not to solidify business deals there unless something fell into my lap but to create a non-forced touch point to build trust. This creates a comfort level for future engagement when a non-threatening conversation happens with no strings attached.

Favorite Quote During the Conference

“It took me 8-years to get a 100 readers for my blog.” @ChrisBrogan

Lessons Learned

• Favorable Introduction – I talked with @WayneSutton and others who created favorable introduction. A favorable introduction is when someone introduces you to someone within their network as their friend or on their behalf. The favorable introduction is the most powerful way to meet a new contact. It removes the ouchwereness and creates a layer of trust.
• Always Keep your Devices Charged Up – You have to capture the moment. You have no idea who you will run into people from @GuyKawaski to @scobleizer (RobertScoble). If your devices cams, iPhones, Laptops are not charged and ready you may miss the moment.
• Don’t try and meet everybody – Following the #sxswi stream and foursquare it was easy to keep a pulse on what was happening. It also created the anxiously of wanting to jump from place to place, but fight the urge. You can’t do everything. Create valuable interactions with a few people versus lots of meaningless interactions with the masses. What does it mean to be at the Mashable party with thousands of people if you don’t leave meaningful engagement with key people.
• Don’t jock – The quote on quote rockstars get overwhelmed with business cards, requests, business offers and opportunities that they are not interested in. Jocking, brown nosing, or sweating the influencers is a no no.
• Be a Sponge – There is always something new to learn, be open to new experiences.
• Register Early – Hotel reservations are critical you want to be close to the action.
• Don’t Fill your agenda with only Panels – This is the real world you learn as much from listening and engaging off-line.

I hope this post was helpful. I look forward to seeing you next year at SXSW Interactive 2011.

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