Why SxSW is Wrong.. and so it a lot of the web

But I’m a vegetarian……

I was just over at  Buzzmachine.com, Jeff Jarvis’ blog – which is on my daily morning ‘must read’ list.

I was astonished to read the opening sentence:

Please vote for my session at South by Southwest; I’d be most honored if you do. Here’s the description:

Apparently, Jeff has to campaign to get on a panel as a speaker at South by Southwest (sxsw).

That, is crazy.

A quick visit to the SxSW website explains that this is perceived as a kind of ‘democracy’ in which the participants at the conference get to vote on what they want to hear panels about. I suppose it’s a kind of focus group to make sure everyone likes the conference.  This may work when you are deciding on what kind of breakfast cereal to market (which goes a long way toward explaining things like Cocoa Puffs or Count Chocula, but does not do much for increasing the intellectual nutrition of the nation.

Sometimes it is good to hear things you don’t really know much about, or in fact might not like at all.

This is one of the greatest problems with the web.

We have, over the past few decades, become a nation based on a simple principle:  Have it your way.

If you are old enough, you will recall that this was both the theme song and the driving force behind Burger King, the fast food giant.

The idea was that when you went to a Burger King, you could order the burger any way you want, ‘special orders don’t upset us’ (how this crap gets drummed into your head).

We always try to have a sit-down dinner every night.  It brings a sense of order.

If there are children at the table, they might not like fish… They might only eat spaghetti.  I don’t care. We don’t cater to special needs.  No child ever died (at least around here) of starvation. Sometimes its sashimi.

In some households, each child’s (or adult’s in some cases) food preferences are carefully catered to. This is particularly true in a world of take out or take-away (as we say in the UK).

It’s the end result of a ‘Have It Your Way’ mentality.

Well, the problem with ‘have it your way’ is that you are never prepared to have it anyone else’s way.

And as a result, can end up living a very sheltered and parochial life, never being exposed to what might be a bit ‘uncomfortable’. As a culture, we are strongly adverse to making anyone feel ‘uncomfortable’ in the slightest.  This is a tragedy, really.  A few days ago, I wrote about the Professor who changed my life, Bob Gaudino. He specialized in putting people in uncomfortable places. So did another Professor who had a big impact on me: Fred Friendly.

There is nothing wrong with being made a bit uncomfortable.  It can be a great learning experience. In fact, I would argue that it is often the only time you really learn anything at all. Otherwise, you are preaching to the choir.

In the old days, when there were only three television networks, we all shared a common experience – we were forced, by the technology, to have it everyone else’s way, as well as our own.

The web solved this problem.

Now, through judicious searching, you can ‘have it your way’ pretty much all the time.

That may make you feel better, but you’re never going to learn a thing.

I find it a bit insane that someone like Jeff Jarvis has to campaign to have a spot on SxSW.

I find it a bit insane that anyone would have to campaign to get a speakers spot – or have a subject covered.

What is the point of only having discussions about things people ‘want to hear about’. What about the things they never thought about? What about confronting them with entirely new ideas.

Surprise me!

The web lets us escape discomfort, and in doing so, escape from having to think too hard.

The organizers of SxSW also are able to escape from having to think too hard.

“Let the people decide” in this case is a bad idea.

I am not going to SxSW. I can see already that it would be a waste of time.

If I want to hear about what I already know about, I can do that on my own or online.

There are plenty of places I can go where I won’t have my world disrupted by being made uncomfortable.

But if I want to learn something, then I want to be made uncomfortable.

I want my assumptions challenged.

I want to be pushed to what Fred Friendly used to call ‘the agony of having to think’.

It’s not going to happen at SxSW.

And increasingly, I fear, it doesn’t happen too much in our society anywhere else either.