SXSW Interactive 101 – Ask Questions

I got schooled at South by Southwest last week.

There we were, drinking Fireballs and Fireflies (something about cinnamon whiskey?) at Molotov, standing in a social little circle on the rooftop patio, loving life, making toasts, arguing the virtues of Foursquare vs. Gowalla (I’m Team Foursquare, by the way) and other geeky things.

Get off your high horse

I consider myself someone who at least is aware of newish things in the social media space, at least in my not-in-the-bubble-that-is-SXSWi life.  But someone mentioned ChatRoulette and was met with my blank stare.

“What’s ChatRoulette?”

Let me tell you – it’s a little humbling to be in the middle of your geeky counterparts and get a little ridiculed for having no idea what they were talking about (this particular website was just one example).  However, since we were at a tech conference (aka Geek Spring Break), a laptop magically materialized out of a backpack somewhere, and oh yeah.  We went there.

Lesson learned

I have ZERO desire to participate in any chat roulettes now that I’m back home, but I let this quick and simple conversation set the tone for the rest of my experience at SXSW.  ASK QUESTIONS.  So what if everyone’s talking about someone like you should know who it is.  If you don’t know, ASK.  So what if everyone’s talking about this tool or that app and you have no idea what it is – ASK.

You’ve heard in every classroom growing up, “No question is a dumb question,” and I made that my mantra so I could learn as much as I possibly could from the people around me.  Instead of bookmarking things to look up later (I have enough of those as it is), I just asked.

And when you realize how much you can learn from the people around you, swallow your pride, and just ASK – well, you’ll be amazed at how much you can learn.  Obviously, this has real life implications, and my already insatiable curiosity just got blown out of the water.

SXSWi Takeaway

One of the common themes that came up in all of the conversations I had with all of the people I met was how crazy curious everyone is about what we could learn from whatever present company we were graced with.  In yoga, when we apply life lessons from our practice, we say we’re taking it “off the mat.”  As someone who loves to learn and grow, I want to take this lesson and curiosity “off the mat” that was SXSW and keep this momentum rolling in my own life.

What can YOU teach me?

What are you afraid to ask?

Tagged as: chat roulette, sxsw