SXSW: Where were the Europeans?
Written on March 16, 2008 – 12:43 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
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This is a guest post by Stefan Fountain from Dutch start-up Soocial.
By now most will have read about the Zuckerberg revolt (video here, and more), the release of Clickpass, and all the other big news. Yet I noticed something equally remarkable at the SXSW conference in Texas last week.
Building Portable Social Networks Panel - with Jeremy Keith, Chris Messina, Leslie Chicoine, Joseph Smarr, David Recordon
My impression of SXSW has been generally very good, the quality of the panels outstanding, yet the most important part of visiting this conference was - surprise! - meeting people. Walking around and having conversations with the likes of JavaScript heroes John Resig (jQuery), Thomas Fuchs (script.aculo.us), Sam Stephenson (Prototype), Chris Messina (OAuth evangelist), Simon Willison (OpenID evangelist). At parties I met people from Google, Microsoft or Yahoo! in various stages of intoxication. I even got some quick peeks at Billy Bob Thornton and Moby.
It wasn’t until the last day at the closing party when I was talking to a hard-to-understand German that I realized something. This was the first European I had spoken to. We met the great guys from Brighton-based Clearleft and quite a few other British guys, but where were the main-land Europeans? Perhaps I missed them, yet I’m judging from the panels, parties we went to and after speaking to over a hundred people. The statistics support my theory. My contact at SXSW confirms that 3 percent of the attendees came from the European mainland. Although the statistics on traffics to sxsw.com probably don’t say much, cumulative European visits is around 16 percent.
For what is arguably the most important tech event of the year, is the lack of European involvement a sign of something greater? Is it the current political climate, lack of European startups, overkill of our collective chauvinism or <enter any far-fetched reason here>? I don’t know, but what I do think it’s important to be present either to influence someone’s views, or to be influenced and inspired yourself.
So I would encourage European startups and established companies to head over to SXSW next year as it is well worth the money, jet lag, the occasional loud Americans, fat food and other pre-conceptions largely encountered on this trip. I think it’s time we head over the pond to learn, meet and share our own wealth of knowledge.
LinkedIn is aiming for (not so geeky) Europeans TheNextWeb2008 Update: A 17 year old entrepreneur European companies and outsourcing isn’t a match Some German start-ups at Next08 just don’t get it Another law in Europe to regulate online content: this time anti-terrorism
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13 Responses to “SXSW: Where were the Europeans?”
By Alper on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
When I asked around on Twitter about who from NL was going, I got a resounding silence. @erwblo seems to have gone last year, but didn’t have the VPRO anymore to foot the bill. There were some marketing dudes who wrote something up on marketingfacts.nl as well.
Partly to blame may be the lack of global ambition of many mainland European startups. Another reason could be that most Dutch people have a hard time integrating into an English language environment. To many events I go to I usually see clusters of Dutch people talking Dutch to each other.
Some unforeseen circumstances prevented me from attending this year; the life styles of the self-funded startup are not that glamorous, but I plan to see you next year in Texas.
By Richard on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
As far as I know, Austria’s European main land. Since you mentioned Thomas Fuchs, I take it you actually talked to him. Hence, he was the first European you talked to ;)
By Steven Carroll on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
Its about networking and meeting like minded people, but rather than traveling to far flung places we in Europe should just have local get-togethers IMO, and keep costs to min (make more of an effort on email and keeping in touch with the people we already know etc.). In my last business there were lots of exhibitions around the world that we attended (largely out of curiosity), and soon learned there was not much to be gained from a business perspective but for the fun of it. The real business had a couple of main markets and the effort / costs of exhibitions often canceled out any gains.
By Robert Gaal on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
SXSW is a pretty US-based event as far as I can see it, with a lot of US speakers and stuff, so it goes both ways.
By K on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
I’m from Europe, and haven’t heard about it until now. It looks like an event that is most useful for extending your network.
If you are a startup, a trip to the US costs a lot of money, so they might prioritize differently
By cedric on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
If you’re not a native or fluent English speaker, it’s hard to justify the expense for SXSW, so I’m not really surprised by the low attendance.
By Alper on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
@Robert, judging by the speakers The Next Web is also a very US centric event. It’s still the place where a lot of cool startups stuff happens.
By Robert Gaal on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
There’s a lot of startups on stage that aren’t from the US, so not really the same but I get your point. Yet this is a US based event, so you need something to appeal to worldwide folks.
By Florian Bailey on Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
I actually thought about going but it’s basically like taking a vacation, it’s cool and there are a lot of interesting things, but I will go home with zero useful contacts for my german based projects. Add to that that it just takes a lot of time. still … I’ll probably go next year :)
One other thing is a lot of european startups are not financed that well, so the cost really might be an issue for them.
By Jeroen on Mar 17, 2008 | Reply
Interesting the thought that comes to my mind is that do we need to go to the west to get inspired, see innovations, meet interesting people, see cool stuff, learn, and have fun. I believe not seriously!
By Michiel on Mar 17, 2008 | Reply
Check out http://blog.mangrove.nl which did a nice report!
By Chris Obdam on Mar 17, 2008 | Reply
I think it’s to much of a US driven event and don’t forget that it is a very wide oriented one. Films and Music too. I Don’t blame people for not going, there has to be work done too you know.. and there are really a lot of conferences and meetings. I don’t see this one as the most important one..
By Peter Boersma on Mar 17, 2008 | Reply
I must say a lot of interaction designers from the US tell me it’s great fun to attend SXSW Interactive. And everybody mentions the parties. I am not entirely sure the contents is high-quality enough to attend, but I will look into it with ever increasing curiosity next year. Who knows when I’ll actually go :-)
This year I hope to spend my educational budget on the IA Summit next month in Miami (missed the IxDA event in Savannah), The Web and Beyond: Mobility (Amsterdam), Euro IA (Amsterdam) and possibly IDEA (Chicago).