Part of going to SXSW is going to the parties. After going to four different tech parties, one thing was clear the most important part for putting together a good party is the people you work with. I am amazed at how many times people think of picking companies to do the work, and miss the point that is all about what people specific get assigned to the project. A good or bad project manager can make all the difference in your schedule, budget and performance in a data center. The same idea applies to many other complex things, like throwing a popular party.
One of the funnest parties was the Dyn party on Tues night at Cedar Street Courtyard.
The venue was the location for GroupMe and FourSquare as well, and my vote goes to the Dyn party with 11 live bands and an in crowd of tech and music people.
This party had lots of people.
Same venue opposite angle.
Which party would you like to be at? The first one or the Dyn one?
The Dyn party above had 11 live bands vs. the 1st one had a DJ with dancing audience. The 2nd one had a bunch of the musicians hanging around to watch the headline act, Dawes.
Talking to some of the event people it was interesting to see how much work Dyn spent thinking about how to throw a good party at SXSW. Here is a blog post from last year.
Last year, I flew to SXSW Interactive on a mission. I hit Austin, TX, to take it all in and see what campaign slogan of ours had more legs: ‘Tweet Nerdy To Me’ versus ‘DNS Is Sexy’.
I was also super excited to check out trailblazing people and brands from the Web congregate for five days of networking events, parties, schmoozing, boondoggling, drinking, BBq’ing and concert going. The truth is that it was an epic week of hanging with clients and partners like SimpleGeo, Twitter, Media Temple, Mashable and Revision3.
It was the center of the Internet universe and we were right in the middle of it. Well, almost…
The only problem? I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, hustling but alone, rogue and tired with no event or home base of our own. I traveled with two great friends and Dyn supporters, who both agreed that our disruptive and unique company could make great noise at an event like this.
What became clear as I listened to the 11 live band line-up and chatting with the folks there, there was a lot of time spent to make sure the right people worked on the event. A typical approach would be to pick a budget, pick a venue, and allocate the money to support the event. A smarter approach is to find the people who have hosted many events at the venue and at SXSW and ask "what works?" What does it take to pull off an awesome event that people will twitter about? Then, you look at your budget and see if there is good value. If it is a good event, it is much easier to get sponsors to support the event.
One recurring theme even in data center discussions is getting the right people. People who understand how important people are to the solution are much easier to work with.