You're so cool.

Contrary to what we sound like when we talk about kerning, content strategy, or how much we hate x rebrand of y company, a lot of us are pretty cool people.

It’s sort of puzzling how we tend to alienate so many people with ultra insider language and closed circles of communication. What alienates us even more is how quick we are to dismiss things we don’t think are cool so publicly.

If communication is so important with what we do, try to relate to the people outside of your every day life. Understandably, surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals is more comfortable. But being comfortable doesn’t always support you becoming a better communicator. Turn away from your best pal who is also an art director, and share a quick word with the construction worker on the other side of you.

When did SXSWi become uncool?

TR1CK has been going down to sxsw since 2010 when we were nominated for their web awards in the entertainment category for a nice little flash site when those were also still cool. 2010 was phenomenal. As a designer, it was the first time I'd seen so many mediums, devices, ideas, concepts intermingled. Location based apps were launching, and SX was the perfect place to test it out. There were delightfully interactive and weird parties that still felt intimate.

In 2011 more app launches. Apps for messaging, apps for networking, hell, even apps for specific shit like making your SXSW experience easier. The event had become a fine wine, the perfect mixture of learning and networking.

2012, not as much happened. It had begun to be a place where it's okay to put your brand on a pedestal. It's the place to treat the tech minds of the world to a good time if you're Pepsi, or CNN, or whoever you happen to be. No huge launches, no big mind blowing surprises. Also, years of companies like happy cog being huge mainstays, putting on fun events started to feel forced, so they even stopped. Parties started to obviously look like they cost LOTS and lots of money. Even local businesses had started to change to accommodate these excessively huge, overcrowded events.

You could say it's because SXSW got corporate, it turned into a spring break for jaded programmers and creatives. But really, the days of having a physical event or pedestal to launch your product are over. You can launch your product on any given day and, relative to 3 years ago, get a reasonable amount of PR behind it. Apps built specifically for launching products have been built, networks and services have been created to fund and promote, and even the stores the sell the products have systems to elevate the success of the products. So a physical place to launch something doesn't make as much sense anymore. That used to be a big part of what SXSW was about.

Not so much these days. But that doesn't mean it's uncool. It means it's something else. It's no longer the incubator or the launch playground for an app or a service. It's a networking and collaboration event. If the pure technological aspect of SXSWi has receded a bit, the amount of people willing to speak and collaborate with has exploded. People come to have conversations. They talk about the apps that have launched throughout the year, they compare notes on the uses of them, they talk about how they could be improved, and they have a few beers while doing it.

SXSW is now less about the iconic Twitters, 4SQs, Gowallas, or Facebooks, and more about the people who use them and the people who are responsible for building them.. How exciting is it that you could talk to the guy who created your favorite app at a party with relative ease? How cool is it that you can share a beer and talk about how awesome it was to work with X company?

Where there was the perception of roadblocks before, when launching products, there are now hundreds of opportunities that don't require an event to get to market. If people are looking to have their minds blown over new ideas and services, go check out a little thing called the the APP store, or do a quick search on twitter. But if you want to actually have some meaningful conversations past 140 characters or a like on Dribbble, meet up with someone. Have a beer. Get a taco. Or go to SXSW.

Change

You have found Change!

Hack, slack, evade, run! Jump! Smash! Your princess is in another castle. I remember when that’s all that mattered. Video games, whether they like it or not are tools that teach young people that what you just did isn’t good enough, you need to keep going because something better is just over the horizon.

The landscape you quest over may change, but there’s always something better than right now. As you progress it gets ever more challenging. Games understand that after they’ve taught you a basic set of skills, you’ll hone them yourself through trial and error. They can throw bigger obstacles at you that you would never be able to defeat were you to start there. Most games begin with a character that’s not so different than the person holding the controller. You’re new, weak, armed with no knowledge of what you may become. You have to begin somewhere. You gain strength, smarts and experience as you continue. Things that were hard become easy. You find equipment along the way that helps you reach places you couldn’t before. You defeat demons and go from boss to boss, until there is peace in the land.

They’re easy lessons that can be told in a short paragraph. When you think hard enough, games teach you as much about life as any hippie uncle ever could. What they tend to not do so well is the story of failure. The dangerous thing that games have built in is forgiveness. Chance is something that exists in real life but most of us don’t get rewarded with new chances after we’ve failed. We’re met with even more challenges. We have to work extremely hard to get more chances. We pay for our failures. “Try Again” doesn’t really exist in life. People more often “Try Something Else.” Something completely new.

Also, what happens when you’ve rescued the princess? Slain all your dragons? Had your happy ending? Well from what I’ve found, you start over. You never stop being challenged. You’ve been promoted as high as you can go at your company. Do you look elsewhere or start your own thing? Which one is more rewarding? What path do you take? At the end of one path are rattlesnakes and alligators. At the end of another is a fire spitting, hammer tossing dragon turtle. Both are terrifying. But neither as terrifying as the choice between the two.

Games haven’t taught me the gravity of my choice. Defaulting on my student loans did. Being poor for 2 years did. Proposing to my beautiful wife did. Choice is tough because failure is frightening. But success, when you made the choices that got you there is the most rewarding thing in the world.

I don’t really play games much any more. It may be because the challenges I’ve faced recently have been much more interesting. I’m accomplishing goals and getting rewards in real life. I’ve found a princess and we’re working on buying our own castle. I’ve accumulated a full pack of equipment that will take me far. When you’re met with change, whether it be your station in life, in landscape, in your relationships or social status, or even something as innocuous as your taste in music, I figure you have the opportunity to either take that path, which will be met with great success or terrible failure, or you deny it, which means you’ll stay on this level, unable to move forward until the next opportunity presents itself. Change is tough, but essential to getting to the end of the game.

But, to me it’s exciting. I for one can’t wait to see what the next level looks like.

Patrick.

Goodbye

I've said a lot of goodbyes in my life and it never seems to get any easier. I'm lousy at it.

I said goodbye to all my friends when I moved away to start a career and find a new home. I said goodbye to my mother, to better my life. I have to say it every time my parents call. One of the hardest things about it is goodbye usually means you don't get to say hello the next morning. Goodbye calls into question everything you've taken for granted, and all the opportunities you squandered over the time you knew the person.

When you work at such a tight knit place as I do, the word goodbye is all the more difficult. This person I rely on, who I care about, who I see more than my wife, my dog, or my cat just isn't going to be there anymore. And it happens over and over.

It's an odd feeling to think that you now have no obligation to this person. You have no reason to see them other than friendship. You now have to work, and it won't feel as natural, and it won't be as easy. It's not a lot different than moving away from your family, or them moving away from you.

But one of the things that goodbye does present is one of my favorite things: Hello. You get more opportunities to say Hi. Hello will mean more when you say it. It'll mean "I missed you." It'll mean "Finally."

It presents the possibility to say hello to new people and new opportunities. The more you say hello, the more goodbye doesn't seem so bad. You just have to make sure to say hello every chance you get.