This is a bit late, but I am finally getting back online after a holiday so I think I need a bit of a final summary for my South by Southwest closure…

Ajax Kung Fu Meets Accessibility Feng Shui

I figured I would know most of this stuff, but I always enjoy both Derek Featherstone and Jeremy Keith presenting so I decided to see what they had to say. This was a condensed version of their presentation for Web Directions North, and it was an entertaining hour.

It all started pretty basic, Jeremy ran through the concepts of progressive enhancement and Hijax, then Derek took over and discussed concepts of accessible scripting with Ajax in mind for the presentation.

I think where these guys always shine is during the question segment. I always leave with some extra info on screen readers or javascript from this bit, so it was a great presentation all up. Good start to the morning.

Convergence Culture: A Conversation with Henry Jenkins

This was one of my favourite sessions by far. I had never heard of Henry Jenkins before, but I decided to attend on some of the buzz and recommendations of fellow SxSW attendees.

All I can say is that Henry Jenkins is a legend. His critiques of emerging technologies or more importantly, people and governments reactions to them, were so well articulated I could have easily sat there for another couple of hours listening.

I am a bit scared that things like the DOPA act actually are being widely supported across the States. We can all laugh at the insanity of it, but in the end it’s just another book burning session that is being supported by the government.

I can’t say I agreed with all of his visions for the future of media and technology, but it was just great to hear all of these ideas and laugh at the ignorant people who really “just don’t get it”.

Subscribe to this man’s blog, that is all I can say.

Dan Rather Keynote

This was pretty interesting. I figure Dan Rather is the American version of John Pilger in some ways. Dan Rather was met with a standing ovation and then continued to impress everyone with stories of Richard Nixon and stating, “What we need in American journalism is a spine transplant”.

He briefly discussed the internets impact on journalism but most of this one was just war stories from a grizzled, old school journalist.

Legend.

Javascript: The Big Picture

Peter Paul Koch led a really interesting power session (1/2 hour only) on the social aspects of javascript. Great idea and didn’t get into the technical aspects of the language at all.

His argument discussed the divide between javascript (front end) developers and traditional app developers that are now emerging because of technologies such as AJAX.

The summary was that javascript will never be taken seriously compared to other server side languages and that we should all learn from each other, but unfortunately the AJAX hype will die soon and all the server side guys will retreat back into their own worlds and that will be that…

Great to see a different perspective on the usual javascript talks.

How to Create A Kickass In-House Design Team

I didn’t expect much from this panel, but I think it was the best I had seen in the four days of the conference in the end.

How do you build a kickass in-house design team? This is real stuff I have seen at every place I have worked so I thought it was a great, topical panel that everyone could relate to.

My biggest question coming out of it was, “How do you get corporate buy-in when you have created this kickass in-house design team?”. How long until you are not challenging those great teams and they all just start leaving the company? How do you keep them motivated?

This was not addressed but I will have to write up on that one seperately I think.

That’s is for SxSW coverage… time to move on and get back to the day-to-day stuff. Until next year!