Business Blog: Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

. . . but with SXSW-induced thoughts very much in front of me.

Pending the refinement of those thoughts into something more useful, here are a few notes:

• Joshua Porter offers an interesting take on the tenor of this year’s SXSW, and on what it means to embrace social media in business. His basic premise: it all goes back ten years, to The Cluetrain Manifesto.
• Kathy Sierra is a rock star for the SXSW Interactive crowd, and her keynote this year didn’t disappoint her fans. I didn’t think it was quite as good as her talk last year, but that’s comparing it to a very high standard. Rex Hammock has a quick but complete recap of the session; Banky pulled out some key tidbits here. When I talked to Kathy briefly after the session, she hinted that she might make a return to blogging, which will bring great joy to readers of her (so far erstwhile) blog Creating Passionate Users.
• Sunni Brown is the sister of my Hoover’s colleague (and all-around good guy) Rocky Brown. She captured several SXSW sessions in real time with her amazing illustrated notes. Here, for example, is her version of the opening keynote session featuring Henry Jenkins and Steven Johnson (which I recapped here).
• My friend David Parmet chaired a panel called “Self-Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing.” I thought it was excellent, but then again I’m such a fan of the folks who were on the dais — Tara Hunt, Hugh Macleod, et al. — that I’m probably biased on that score. I will definitely be writing more about the ideas in this panel later. Meanwhile, there’s a good overview here, and detailed notes here. I was particularly pleased to get to talk with Deborah Schultz and Chris Heuer after the panel — wasn’t familiar with their work before, glad I am now.

More anon.

(Photo by pittsinger.)