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Just returned home from another year at SXSW.  After finally settling down and reading the notes and random observations I took from the panels,I figured I would dispense some insight.

For those of you who have not yet been to SXSW (South By Southwest), it really is something you should make an attempt going to.  Some of tech worlds brightest people attend the event, and the environment makes it conducive to approach them and gain some knowledge.  Although it seems expensive to travel there, pay for lodging, and the actual conference, there are experiences that happen at SXSW that you cannot put a price tag on.  One of the main things you will notice right away at SXSW, is how organized they are, and how many happy faces volunteer to help you navigate around the convention center.  I applaud the organizers of SXSW for their obvious efforts in making SXSW one of the best events I have been to.

One thing that I find mind boggling, is that most bloggers chose to hang out with each other instead of getting out of the blogging rooms, and meeting the actual companies that are attending.  There were some amazing startups wandering around the halls that they could have interviewed and learned about, and helped support with a review.  Instead, most of these “a list” bloggers or “wanna be a list bloggers” chose to just hang out and stroke each other.  I am not exaggerating.  After going into the blog room once, I realized it did me no good to isolate myself from the rest of the convention and stay in the room.  All my writing could be done after the events, or at the hotel before I went to bed.  It was quite evident that the same people who I saw in the press lounge, were the same people i saw over and over again as I was heading to panels.  Why bother coming to the events, if you are going to segregate yourselves?  Trust me, you are not well known enough to worry about walking around the halls.

Throwing a party at SXSW is kind of silly.  Since there are up to dozens of parties to choose from, most attendees just get the free drink tickets, down a couple of pints, and head to the next party where they can get more free booze.  Doubt anyone even remembers who sponsored the parties they went to on the first night. Having a party is as effective for branding as chewing bubble gum during an algebra equation (thanks Mary Schmich for that quote).

If you are going to have a booth in the trade show, you really should send your extroverts to work the booth.  Having people who really don’t seem to want to be there is just depressive, and will not get me interested in your product.  Google seems to get this right, sending a bunch of young energetic employees who have constant smiles on their faces.  Just made their whole booth seem interesting.  If you are going to give away schwag, at least make an attempt to be unique.  Everyone gives away pens, everyone gives away pins.  I saw more homeless people walking around downtown Austin with Trade Show schwag then people at the events!  I must say the “titty bingo” stickers certainly made for interesting conversations.  Think of something to give away at these events that people will remember and want to use.  Unfortunately I must use Google again, but Google gave away yo-yo’s, which my son is already playing with and seeing Google everytime he plays with it.  Great way to build up brand loyalty at a young age.  I am actually drinking out of the Small Business Development Program from Austin Drinking Bottle they gave out.  Another effective marketing hand out.  Try to also give away schwag that has some relevance to what you do.

The hotel lobby is one of the best spots to meet new people.  Instead of hanging out in your hotel room, try going downstairs and striking up a conversation with someone else sitting there with a badge.  This year I met some awesome people doing this, and found a constant number of people in the hallway in between the amazing panels to say hello to.  Most people attending these tech events are kind of shy, so if you are the aggressor, and can help bring them out of their shells, you will be shocked at how cool the other attendees at SXSW are.

Not sure why many panelists insist of saying the same things at each event they attend.  Personally, if you have the chance to see Jared Spool or Sandeep Sood speak, always try to attend their panels.  They are comical, enlightening, and always sound unique from other speeches they have given.  I walk away each time I see these guys speak, a bit smarter.  I even found Jared Spool at the airport and made him do a magic trick for me.

Another thing you will notice at these tech events, is that everyone there leaches onto the person they think will help them.  Attendees must realize that they are more talented then many of those they seek help from, and if they just focus on their product, they can make themselves internet famous as well.  I couldn’t believe I got hissed at and boo’d from the crowd when I said Go Dolphins to Gary Vaynerchuck.  Since he is a Jets fan, the entire audience are now Jets fans?  Sometimes, people must think for themselves, and not change their values or likings because they think it will help them be friends with others.

I think next year I will try to get onto an Outsourcing or Freelancing panel, as I felt there was a need to address some issues that weren’t covered, and would be found interesting.

Hope this helps!  SXSW defintely helped me, and I look forward to attending the event year after year!

As we all approach SXSW, or any other conference that you might spot Blaine at, it seems only relevant to bring your attention to this site now.  This is a fun site concept. Sort of the social networking equivalent of Where’s Waldo? Instead of thumbing through a bunch of photos, peering at the collages and hoping to find a little guy in a striped outfit, this is a website where Blaine’s “friends” attempt to locate his current whereabouts.  Anyone who has met Blaine knows he is as un-egotistical as they get, and doesn’t like the spotlight.  Where’s Blaine is just for fun, so be nice!

It’s basically a twitcast (somehow that sounds wrong) in which several people are actively “searching” for Blaine Cook, the beloved architect of Twitter, reporting his current whereabouts, and (often) hamming it up. All you have to do in twitter is make a posting about @blaine and hashtag it like this #wheresblaine and it will be posted to the WheresBlaine site.  Announcements of Blaine spots include things like: “I saw blaine 12 hours ago at McDonalds. He was eating a cheese mcgriddle no meat no eggs.”

So far, Blaine has been spotted shaking his fist as John Stewart, runway modeling, drinking tea in Starbucks, piloting a beach blimp, and more. The site is http://wheresblaine.com and is open to anyone who wants to tweet it. Fun for the whole family!

Seriously, this is a fun little app and I expect to see this kind of site pop up fairly regularly as copycats grab the idea and run with it. It won’t be long before blog hosts start adding widgets for this sort of thing either. It’s a huge step up from Facebook shouts and Myspace bulletins, that’s for sure!

I must note that although I thought up the idea of this site just as a gag during FOWA, I never realized that the guys from Done21 would build it for me in an hour!

It seems like forever now that Joe I.T. Worker has been pacing the widow’s walk, waiting in vain for our technology jobs to come home from India like longshoremen’s wives keep watch during Ophelia crab season.

And despite the fact that your 55-year-old neighbor’s sweet software engineering gig was just lost to a 20-year-old in Bangalore, India – where household income has surged 10 percent each of the past five years – the winds of change are blowing from east to west.

Here are three reasons why Americans can expect a reversal of fortune in the outsourcing of their jobs, especially to India.

3. The Obama factor: The President-Elect has been adamant in saying he’ll keep jobs stateside. In fact, Barack Obama is a proponent of nixing tax breaks for companies who keep jettisoning jobs way out east. That would definitely count as “change.”

2. Wage inflation nation: A number of official-sounding organizations boasting confounding acronyms have come to the same conclusion: Wages are rising about 15 percent annually for India’s IT workforce. That can only continue for so long before domestic companies’ bottom lines can no longer justify marginal human capital savings in the face of rampant negative PR. This is especially true when taken in tandem with the possible tax incentives an Obama administration will offer.

1. Our own pathetic economy: The fact that we’re in recession brings a couple of wildcards into the outsourcing discussion. First of all, the Indian rupee is worth much more now against the American dollar than when the first 100,000 jobs were shipped overseas. Second, with our unemployment rate at nearly 7 percent, IT workers are willing to work for less right here at home. Forget about Silicon Valley perks like kegerators and free massages; U.S. workers just want jobs.

The outsourcing flow won’t switch to ebb overnight. The Oracles of the world won’t put a stop-hold on shipping jobs overseas tomorrow. But the stage is set. As Forbes said back in February 2008 “The cost advantage for offshoring to India used to be at least 1:6. Today, it is at best 1:3. Attrition is scary.  Jobs that are low value-added and easily automatable should and will disappear over the next decade.” They further point out that as the 1:3 cost structure becomes 1:1.5, it will soon become inefficient to use Indian labor. Why not Kentucky or British Columbia? For many Europeans, Eastern Europe has already become more compelling than India. The pure labor arbitrage equation will no longer balance.

One last interesting point to note.  Salaries in India have risen over 15% last year (2007), which is almost a full percentage point higher then the previous year.  This year India’s wage inflation is expected to rise up to over 15%.  That makes their fifth consecutive year of salary growth above 10%.  Now if you add this to the appreciation of the rupee against the weakening dollar at the beginning of 2008, and assume that a 15% salary hike rate, with a cost advantage last year of 1:3 in favor of India, it doesn’t seem likely that India will have any cost advantage in the next decade.  This of course, is also assuming that the wages in the United States remain constant.  What happens to India should their cost advantage disappear?  Already, I have spoken to dozens of companies and creatives who have stopped using India for their web development, and have since switched to using designers and programmers in other countries.  Countries like Indonesia, Argentina, and Eastern Europe pose a great threat to the Indian IT market. Sites that used to cost $1000 to build in India now cost $3500.

My advice to anyone thinking of outsourcing is simple….There is a big world out there and many of the countries in this world produce over qualified developers who speak several languages perfectly.  India is not your only option, look around a bit, you will be pleasantly surprised.  If you don’t know where to start to find these type of freelance rock stars, I will input a shameless plug here and suggest you look on www.vois.com.  There is an amazing group of talented developers from numerous countries, even in America, who are ready willing and able to work.

So who knows, the next time you call a virtual help desk, Joe might answer the phone. And his name might really be Joe.

Although this happened after I finished writing the article, I wanted to point out the recent developments at Satyam, which I believe is India’s 3rd largest outsource company, the chairman has just admitted that his last 5-10 years of financials are bogus, inaccurate lies.  Satyam is the word for truth when translated into English, which is ironic since it is anything but the truth.  It is easy to recognize that India’s corporate giants can now pull off huge scams and scandals not much unlike American giants like Enron and Worldcom.  If business wasn’t falling off, they wouldn’t have to falsify this information in order to maintain their steady foreign inflow.