13th
Okay, so I’m not the first person to write this post (hat tip to Mike Chapman).
That said, David Armano’s announcement last week that he is moving to Austin (the culprit: the resistance-is-futile tractor beam that Dachis Corp. has spent the last 12 months building) has me stepping back and remarking that we’ve got a seriously amazing community on our hands, people.
SXSWi is bigger than ever. We’ve summarily recruited all of Boston’s social media talent to relocate to sunnier environs. Interactive Austin looks to be a great show again this year. Dachis and company are up to big things, but we’ve also got a bevy of smaller shops of national renown (Michelle Greer and Co., Connie Reece and Co., etc.). UT is churning out smart, social media-savvy students thanks to Paul Walker and others. Allen Weiner and Peter Kim are splitting time here, and there are a few big names bouncing around that I won’t mention now — but that I expect to make the move sooner rather than later. And we’ve got social media groups and events up the wazoo.
BUT more importantly, in my mind, we’ve got real meat-on-the-bone social media people — in Austin we’re all about rubber meeting road, and bigger-picture cultural changes, as opposed to tool-level conversations and the shiniest new toy. That is a huge and remarkable difference as compared to other social/digital scenes. And I think that it is a huge differentiator ongoing.
Congrats to David on the move. I’m very interested to see who is next. I think we’re very close to the proverbial tipping point.
I’ve also put together this Google spreadsheet to track digital/social talent here in Austin. I’ve only just started it this morning and will add as I go — so please don’t take offense if you’re not on here yet. Help me figure out who am I missing?
[This list will NOT be used for recruiting purposes, and will remain freely available at this URL. If you’d like to be added as a contributor/editor of the list, just let me know. The idea of the list is merely to a.) entertain my penchant for list-making, and b.) merchandise Austin’s expertise to the rest of the world.]
