So I AM going to Austin in March with between 2 and 3 dozen members and friends of Indy Hall. Some are first timers, others are veterans like me (this will be my 5th). I’ve been asked quite a bit about what to expect, so here’s my take:

SXSW Interactive is 2 separate concentric events: a Conference and a Festival.

The conference is about things like “learning” and “networking”, regardless of your industry. Over time, it’s become more about one and less about the other, as is evident by the quality of the panels and the presentation selection system. So much to the point where I’d say it’s no longer about learning and it’s ALL about network – but the conference unfortunately parades as an educational opportunity.

The attendance is simply too large and too diverse for anyone to know what they’re there to learn – or who they’re presenting a lesson to. The conference suffers from the “tragedy of the commons” between industries represented.

The festival is about things like “reunions” and “serendipity” and “tacos” and “chaos”. The festival is fundamentally about gathering great people and seeing what happens. That was the ethos of what made SXSWi the conference so magical, and unfortunately, seems to have many people increasingly morose about the event.

My take on SXSW Interactive is that I’ve outgrown the conference – but still crave the festival. As the radius of the conference has swelled – with the convention center at the epicenter – the festival has been pushed to the physical fringes of that radius.

So this year I’m experimenting – I intend to stay a mile away from the convention center. Just far enough from the blast zone, but not so far that it’s inconvenient for friends to bump into each other. A number of us from the Philly contingency have booked up a significant ratio of rooms at a couple of amazing boutique hotels just off south congress, not far from the river.

We’ll be there, kibitzing, enjoying music, drinks, tacos, and friends. Geoff and his crew at P’unk Ave have been doing this for the last couple of years and during my visits with them on their South Austin “campus”, have had some of the best times I’ve had at any SXSW.

If you’re comfortable with being done with SXSW the conference – as I am, I feel some form of closure in the relationship with the event – maybe consider visiting SXSW the festival.

I’ll let you know how this year’s festival is – if you’d like to join me, send me a note when you’re in Austin. I’d love to meet you or catch up.

I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, a LONG while. I’ve got just as many questions about journalism’s future as I do ideas, so I’m looking forward to learning. But before I walk to the registration table, I wanted to get something off my chest. Hopefully this is able to spark some conversation over the weekend.

Right before the holiday, I shared a link to what I still would consider one of the worst articles about coworking I’ve read. SO bad that I was publicly critical of it, dubbing it “vapid and misplaced”. It raised some eyebrows across the industry, so I thought I would take a moment to explain my stance.

My criticism wasn’t a commentary on Office Nomads or Coworking Seattle, but lazy journalists everywhere. This article is just one of many that I’ve read, the ones that turned my stomach because they continue to tell an inexcusably misunderstood version of the story of coworking.

I could bullet point the misplacement of facts, but that’s not the point. I could harp on the focus on office space instead of social impact, but that’s not the point. There’s no singular mistake, this article simply embodied the most I’d seen at once in a long time.

All of that said, I felt that I needed to speak out because if we don’t raise the bar for the stories journalists choose to tell, who will? The fact that it’s a mainstream article and had no substantial content is all the more reason to raise question. The fact that the mainstream media is publishing anything about coworking puts the responsibility on those of us active in the coworking community to make sure that they cover it to the best of their ability.

If we don’t hold journalists to a higher standard and simply thank them for the free publicity, who WILL keep them looking for the real stories, the ones worth telling, when new “co-working offices” continue cropping up?

This isn’t about insuring our (yours and my) place in the industry. It’s about having respect for our (yours and my) hard work, which this article didn’t display in the least.

There are always journalists who tend to “creep around” looking for lowest common denominator stories and then editorialize, or repeat what others have said, taking no time to understand the context or purpose of the story they’re telling. Worse, it distracts from the real, hardworking journalists and their stories, and distracts the people with stories worth telling by making it unclear who they should tell them to.

If the question is, “wow, Alex, don’t you think you were harsh on that article?”, this is a longwinded way of saying, no, I don’t think it was harsh. I think we’re being irresponsible by not holding writers, publishers, and other storytellers, to a higher standard.

If we don’t who will.

We record the call, and then publish it at TheCoworkers.com as well as to iTunes.

Technically it’s not a “show”, as we’ve decided on no guests and no post-production, but instead a window into a weekly dialogue that we agreed we should have been having in the first place. We talk about observations, ideas, and experiences of the week. And if all goes well, we will find some topics that we disagree on and get to debate.

Tony is one of my friends with whom I always have great conversations with. Sometimes they’re inspiring. Sometimes they’re refreshing. Often times they are lots of fun. No matter what, time spent together is time well spent. In the wake of his re-opening of New Work City, and my re-launching of ChoiceShirts.com, we decided that setting aside some time every week to talk…and then sharing the contents of those discussions, would be fun and valuable.

We also wanted to use it as an opportunity to talk about some of the meatier — and maybe even more risque — topics related to coworking that the mainstream media and most blogs simply aren’t talking about.

Whether you’re a coworking space owner, a coworker, or even someone working 9-5 and hoping for a better workday tomorrow, I think you’ll find things of interest for you. No topic is off limits, and we’re 100% candid and honest. Remember, this is a phone call, NOT a show.

So if you’re interested in what it’s like to sit down with the founders of a couple of coworking spaces and eavesdrop on their conversation, I hope you give The Coworkers a listen.

The prompt, from Ashley’s essay, is:

“We’re taught what to think, not how to think”.

Therein lies a problem. The education model being experienced today (K-12 & much of higher ed) has been built on top an old process designed to produce two things: workers, and more academics.

If we’re willing to put aside the “more academics” part and focus on the “workers” part of the product of education, we need to consider what’s changed. Through at least one lens, changes exist in workplace and the expectations it has.

Rather than go down the road of “I paid six figures for a college education and now I can’t get a job, EFF YOU America” that many young professionals are doing right now, there’s a huge, huge, HUGE missed opportunity to improve the educational system using mentorship, and refocusing on learning skills instead of just the learning of skills.

When the industries with the highest demand were focused primarily on manufacturing, someone who came out of school not only had basic skills, but had the proficiency to learn some more basic skills in order to accomplish a task. Manufacturing and the industrial workplace provided a very specific, guided ladder to continue learning skills, leading to promotions, opportunities, better pay, hours, so on and so forth.

Times be-a changing.

Now, with another industrial shift fully swinging away from manufacturing (sorry Detroit) and towards knowledge work, the ability to just learn new tasks isn’t enough.

You’re expected to synthesize new, unmarked tasks.

You’re expected to create, not just produce.

If you can’t create, you’re going to have to try a LOT harder to get a great job. And that thesis ignores the increased likelihood that you’ll work for yourself, start a company, be a great leader of your industry or workforce. Maybe more.

And speaking of great leadership, mentorship seems to have been lost almost everywhere with the exception of artisans, and craftsmen (craftspeople, for the gender sensitive). And even there, art schools are stacking students high with skills, and until the last minute, very little REAL WORLD practicum.

Take a look at this video from IgnitePhilly I, where University of the Arts’ President Sean Buffington eloquently explains how as a university administrator he KNOWS that things are fucked up, and even how, but doesn’t know to go about making steps in any new direction.

From IgnitePhilly2 (4 months later), Chris Lehmann of the Science Leadership Acadamy talks about how schools need to stop being run like businesses, find new metrics for success, and a general lack of responsibility and accountability in the system despite the quality of the educators. Science Leadership Acadamy is an empowerment-based educational system, experimentally created in partnership with The Franklin Institute. One of my favorite points he makes is: you can’t learn when you feel the subject is more important than you are.

“What happens when school is real life, and not just preparation for real life”.

There’s still a massive amount of distortion in the continuing debate about my posts, mostly circling around the assertion that “bottom up” is better than “top down”. That wasn’t the point, unfortunately. My two attempts to articulate what I was feeling were largely misinterpreted, thanks to fragmented conversations.

Someone will inevitably make the statement that if I’d participated in the summit, the fragmented conversation could be unified.

In the words of Billy Joel,

You’re may be right. I may be crazy. But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.

My point was to make some observations about concerns that I have based on things that I see in front of me, through my own lens. My goal was to encourage people think for themselves, not to agree or disagree with me.

That’s a hard thing to do without a little radical expression.

I’ve had conversations like the one on my  blog at least 50 times in the last 2 years with various members of the community. Many times with different conclusions, often times resulting in more questions than answers. Rather than continue having it behind closed doors, it seemed like it could be helpful to discuss things in the open.

I’ve spoken with a LOT of people about the posts, and the resulting discussions, in private. It seems that’s where a lot of people are more comfortable having difficult conversations. I understand why, but I think it’s a damn shame that people aren’t comfortable being honest in the open. Smart people. People I respect.

I’ve had some of those people tell me I am an unreasonable douchebag. I’ve had some of those people tell me they are happy that I spoke up. I’ve had some of those people tell me that they don’t really understand what all of the fuss is about.

I’ve had moments where I said to myself, “Why’d you even bring that it up?”. Then I remember, “because nobody else would”.

I guess there’s another Billy Joel song worth remembering. For all of the ego I slung in the “controversial” essay I wrote, I hope those of you who know me realize how reality tempers my words.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks.

Today is day one of the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, and I’m still not attending. But a lot of you are, either as a presenter or an attendee. Or a sponsor. Or a volunteer.

My honest to goodness hope hope is that this discussion over the last 3-4 weeks has heightened your senses about what you might, or might not experience in the next two days.

I’m not a fortuneteller, so I don’t know what you’re in for. Nobody does. But if you’re reading this, that means you’re paying attention.

If you’re a presenter, I congratulate you, and hope that you’re met with a welcoming audience and an opportunity to make an impact.

If you’re an attendee, I implore you, to look around at the people and their actions and interactions as they are happening around you.

If you’re a volunteer, I hope this experience proves valuable experience and you take lessons learned and organize your own events as well. This city is ripe for them.

If you’re a Philadelphian, I hope you show our out-of-town guests what makes Philly truly awesome.

If you’re visiting from out of town, I hope you enjoy your stay, and you get to see more of our city than our Convention Center. A lot of us like it here, and I hope you get a glimpse into why.

And everyone who is participating on any level, I hope you spend more time those two days listening than talking. There are a lot of great voices here. I hope you spend more time building new relationships than slinging business cards. I hope these relationships tighten (or begin to form) your bond with Philadelphia.

I look forward to hearing from everyone who IS attending the event about how it went.

Final thoughts, Billy Joel? Who started the fire is still up for debate, but when we’re gone, it will still burn on, and on, and on.

Disclosure: neither Billy Joel nor any of his staff actually supported this post. My lyrical references were for only effect. As far as I know, Billy won’t be at the summit either, but not because he’s angsty about it. I’m sure he’s just busy.