My own private SXSE

Note: Apologies to RSS subscribers, as the videos aren't showing up in your feed readers, so I've added links to the videos.

Those of you that have never had the pleasure, just don't know how exciting the dial-up experience can be. The other day I saw where Karl at Experience Curve had posted a video from the Threadless founders about how they created 'Online Awesomeness'. Now normally, a 5-min video on YouTube takes me 15 mins to download, so you can imagine how long a 40+min video would take like the one from the Threadless guys. But it sounded so cool I had to try. So I set it up to start downloading a few nights ago right before I went to bed, and quickly discovered that it was still going to take over 12 hours to download! Are you serious?!? So I scrap that idea, and decide to make a trip over to my local college library the next day where they have high-speed internet.

As I'm downloading the video, I figure while I am here that I might as well see if there were any other videos I wanted. I started searching through Google Video and found plenty of gems by speakers such as Seth Godin, Joe Jaffe, Jackie Huba, and Robert Scoble. For the other 99.9% of you that have broadband (ie, real internet), enjoy. Do yourself a favor, take a few hours out of your day or weekend, and give these guys a chance to make you smarter.

Jake Nickell and Jeffrey Kalmikoff discuss creating 'Online Awesomeness'(BTW I post about this presentation at Daily Fix as well):


These guys are easily the most unpolished of the speakers I mention here, but they are also the most entertaining. Their excitement is infectious because you can tell that they are speaking as community members, on the topic of building community.(RSS readers click HERE)


Joe Jaffe speaking on Life After the 30-Second Spot:


Jaffe is clearly in his element here, and the constant questions at the end from the audience shows that he challenged and spiked their interest (and probably scared the hell out of them as well). RSS readers click HERE.


Seth Godin speaking to Google:


Some of you might have seen this one, but it's worth another look. Way too many wonderful marketing nuggets here, make sure you watch with a notepad handy. RSS readers click HERE.


Jackie Huba talking about Creating Customer Evangelists:


Possibly my favorite moment out of all these presentations was when Jackie started talking about evangelists for Krispy Kreme, and how they have to tell others about the product, then Krispy Kreme evangelists in the crowd start running up to the stage telling Jackie they want to share their story on why they love Krispy Kreme! Perfectly proves the point Jackie was making! RSS readers click HERE.


Robert Scoble at Lift speaking on corporate blogging:


Wonderful insights on the benefits of corporate blogging from someone who (at the time), was a blogger inside one of the most powerful corporations in the world. Very interesting account of how some at Microsoft resisted his blogging, and how it changed Microsoft's culture. RSS readers click HERE.


Armano's Blog's Eye View presentation:


Great account from a relatively new blogger (at the time) on what he encountered at the start of his blogging journey. RSS readers click HERE.


I cannot stress enough how much smarter you will be after watching these videos. Seriously. All of them are 40+ mins (except for DA's, which is about 15 mins), so it might take a while to get to all of them, but again, time very well spent. And every one is on a different topic, from 'new marketing', to creating online communities, to corporate blogging, to customer evangelists. The amazing part for me was, even though I rarely/never read Seth and Scoble's blogs, their presentations were amazing, so I have found myself spending more and more time reading both of their blogs in the past few days.

So I missed SXSW again this year, but at least I have SXSE.