Photos: On the ground at South by Southwest
Jennifer Moss is the co-founder of Waterloo-based startup Plasticity, a workplace engagement platform. A speaker at the 2014 SXSW festival, for the third year running, she shares experience through photos.
Inside the Conference: The interactive conference starts to wind down as the music festival ramps
Bands – Startup House: All the bars in Austin turn into startup and corporate houses. From the Yahoo house in a cool loft space to the iTunes Festival that had entire infrastructures built just in days, just in time for the festival – every brand that matters is represented in Austin during the festival.
Filling up our talk: We were thrilled to see the turnout. By the time the talk started the room was full and the audience was highly interactive.
Sixth street chaos: Parts of this historical street in Austin are closed down for festival goers. The place is full of techies, gamers, musicians and artists all day and night.
Sixth street chaos: Music fills every corner as buskers perform outside and bars compete to get patrons inside.
Wolfman Violinist: South By is like Burning Man meets TED meets CES. From mascots to science-fiction-like wearable gadgets to Bill Schmidt to Wolfmen playing violins on the streets; everything goes.
Happy Hour Sign: The “Keep Austin Weird” culture abounds in its art and food and drink. It really pulls together such a hybrid of interesting, smart and passionate people into one place.
Still broke: The East side of Austin is grit and warmth blended like soup. I felt like the sentence wasn’t finished. Like it should read…”Still broke…but who cares cause I got soul.”
HipChat Guys: Atlassian sent out their coolest HipChat guys. So many hilarious startup mascots filled the streets to hand out paraphernalia and get their name out.
IBM Blue Party: IBM kicked off their new Social Business branding with the coolest interactive installations placed in various parts of the conference. Community Guru, Seth Marquart and Social Biz exec, Sandy Carter were on hand at the booth and at the party to talk about what’s next for IBM.
Selfies: Rooftops patios are everywhere in Austin. They’re set up to watch the streets during the festival and to make the most of their space in the typically warm, dry climate.
Jenga: Another name for SXSW could be Hipsterland. Grownup games, outdoor food trucks surrounded by picnic tables and patio lantern, lineups of bikes, hip t’s, retro art and killer music make this a play land for the urban cool.