Free stuff from @KingOfShaves

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Just had this arrive. How the hell am i going to get rid of all of this! If you are at SXSW and want to be less hairy.. Come see me.

I will also be slipping this into people pockets and bags in a reverse pickpocket kind of fashion..

http://www.Shave.com/SXSW

Posted March 13, 2011 by Documentally 
 

Into Texas (Day One)

I was washed, dressed and out the door with my bags at 20 past 4. The street was dark and all curtains were closed. They were the lucky ones.
The drive to airport parking was full of tail light tracers and forced listening to songs that annoyed me, just so I could stay awake.

The garishly purple poster saying Purple Parking told me nothing of the great service I was to get and the whole experianced left me impressed. I just hope my car is there when I get back.
I was glad to get to the airport and find my checkin desk infront of me as I entered departures. I was not so glad to be met by airline staff shaking their head in a "Computer says no" kind of way, telling me they don't fly to Austin.

Strange because my ticket from Netflights said Austin and the flight numbers were the same. After some asking round I found out that the Austin flight I am booked on does in fact stop in Houston first and I will have to do the immigration thing there.
I had also forgot to purchase my American visa. I remember having to pay for a visa for Turkey once and a group of Americans in the queue told me that it was because they were third world.

I popped open my laptop, turned on the Vodafone mifi and forked out the £14 needed before breezing through security and making my way to the gate.
The shiny objects in Dixons had me distracted for a while and I nearly bought a pair ot Dr Dre in-ear headphones after googling a review. I resisted though and settled for a coffee and sandwich from starbucks. It was about the same price.
The flight was empty for a while then only a few boarded and I was glad to have a row to myself. Many of the others went to sleep. I should have really. I guess I was getting a little excited.
The forced offline-ness on the flight allowed me to get my head down and do some work. I also managed to mash together this video..
Working also allowed me to ignore the rude Continental flight service staff who seem to be biding their time to retirement whilst having a go at customers that have an English accent.

I was glad to get off at Houston and stretch my legs. My relief was short lived though as upon reaching immigration It was looking like I would have to do another kind of stretch.

There were the normal questions.. fingerprints.. photo.. humiliation.. But then I got some bonus adrenalin inducing fear when an officer of US border control took me into a police station style holding room and told me to wait. I was surrounded by 'Do not use your cell phone!' and 'No Photography signs'..
I felt like an extra in the TV series 'Breaking Bad'.  I was the only non-Mexican in the room and with no passport and a connecting flight in less than an hour I was more than a little fearful that I would be going home before I arrived.

I popped to the toilet (no signs) and sent a tweet.

Immigration_tweet
With minutes to spare my passport was returned with a form for me to rate their service.. It was swift and efficient I will give them that.. But I am fed up of this now. I get stopped way to often for it to be 'normal'.. I was so relieved to be free and asked why I was stopped as I ran out the door.. Apparently my passport did not match my suspicious travel history. (That is my take on what he said). He told me it was because it was a replacement passport. I could have told them that.

Customs wanted to know why I had a kilo of stickers in my bag.. LoveFre.sh, CatGun, Documentally, Black Rapid, King of Shaves ..and so on.. I said it was because I was a Geek. In fact that is the answer I gave to all his questions. It's amazing how much a Carbon Fibre Micro scooter looks like a folding shotgun when in an over sized holdall. The customs dude was momentarily not impressed. Then luckily he was.

I ran to the flight like a lunatic on fire.. got lost.. then got to the gate in the nick of time only to be herded onto an overheating, overcrowded plane. The flight was only 30 mins long but we sat on the tarmac for almost an hour while babies screamed almost as much as I was in my head. I restrained myself through a dehydration headache. It was not the kind of flight you get drinks on. Just disease.

I was so glad to touchdown in Austin. The people are always nicer here.

The first person I saw was Alison from @PeskyPeople at information. We arranged to catch up for lunch and a chat one day here as she has some interesting projeces on the go and I left to get a Cab to where I am now. The locals call it 'French Place'. Twitter location services calls it the slightly less posh 'Upper Boggy Creek'.

On reflection, day one was a blast. Well I can say that now.. I love my studio.. and the local Cherrywood Coffee House I also remember now that a sandwich here in the US can last you just over a day and they DO have great beer. You just have to find it. And at the moment.. It's in my fridge. :)

This will probably be the only big blog post from me till the chaos of SXSW is over.. I'll be updating http://Shave.com/sxsw with regular micro updates and @RichardMackney will be modifying as the days progress.

Posted March 9, 2011 by Documentally 
 

Just been shopping

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I should probably stock up on other stuff tomorrow.

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Posted March 9, 2011 by Documentally 
 

Staying connected at #SXSWi

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I have made my feelings very clear in the past around data roaming and the costs that can be run up almost by accident.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10475608

Things are slowly getting better with new overseas packages and devices having easier to find 'data roaming' off switches. I still feel there is a long way to go before we can just wander abroad and not think twice about using our mobile devices.

The availability of wifi hotspots is also helping the travelling data user, but unless the mobile comanies keep up they won't be getting any roaming revenue as we all switch to wifi. I'm sure they realise that if they made roaming data more affordable and convenient everyone would win.

According to my Texan landlord, Austin is the second most wifi connected city in America. The wifi is also mostly free.

There will still be those moments when I'll be out of range from a node and options to stay online can be hard to come by. 

In the past I've bought a data bolt-on but it's hard to gague exactly how much I'll use as apps evolve and my use changes.

I dropped a couple of tweets out asking about mobile data options and @VodafoneUK along with their WebRelations team kindly dropped this SIM in the post. They are going to supply me free data throughout SXSWi and monitor my usage in order to study the needs of a blogger at a festival like SXSW.

I have wifi at my accomodation and aparently the festival is pretty well covered so I'm not expecting massive numbers. Still. It will be an interesting study.. not just because I won't feel any data restrictions.

Big thanks guys!

Posted March 8, 2011 by Documentally 
 

Evidence of Shaving

(download)

Just in case you were wondering about the random nature of my SXSWi sponsorship from @KingOfShaves.. And yes I have been asked a few times.. I am not a full time beardy and do shave every couple of months. OK, so this video was after last years Movember but still.. I do shave occasionally. Although I normally shave it all off and don't usually opt for the Lemmy.

In fact the dog gets shaved around the same time i do..

That said. I'm thinking Will King is more interested in my content than my facial hair. Although I'll be keeping my wits about me as apparently the @QueenOfShaves is a known beard assassin and can strike at any time.

Posted March 7, 2011 by Documentally 
 

Preparation for #SXSW

There is only a week to go. That crept up fast. I haven't really had time to think about it.

I'm after some lightweight kit to work with. Last time I was there I was weighed down with tech. I am hoping to pick up the Fujifilm X100 this weekend but it looks like it's not available in the UK till April. Fuji had promised a review unit but that has failed to materialise as yet.  I have a feeling though it won't be officially out till later in the month. Which means I may be grabbing the Panasonic GF2.

My tech choice isn't the dilemma. It's what to see and do when I get there. I downloaded the SXSW app and it shows Austin to be more than a little packed with possibilities. 

I'll take some pointers from the video below while I ponder some more. :)

Posted March 3, 2011 by Documentally 
 

Micro Pro Carbon Scooter

Thanks to @BornExtreme I have acquired a rare set of wheels to keep me mobile during SXSW. There have only been 500 Micro Pro Carbon Scooters made. Created as an experiment to see just how lightweight they could go, the use of carbon fibre has got the weight down to 2.1kg. Not bad for a strong and compact form of green transport.

Scooter_photo

In Austin I will be living just over 2 miles from the convention centre and although I'll have a pushbike and cycle path to get me in.. I'd like the option to jump in a cab when needed and have my transport with me. If this turns out not to be practical and 2+ miles is much harder going than expected (i.e road surface etc) then I'll just use it for fun and exercise.

Either way, I just want to assure you that if you are also at SXSW and see a grown man on a carbon fibre micro scooter, He's not having a midlife crisis. (I have much bigger plans for that.)

This is the kind of thing you can do with a Micro Scooter. I will just be commuting.. ;)

My content from SXSW will be going to http://Shave.com/sxsw

Posted February 20, 2011 by Documentally 
 

SXSW 2011

A week ago I randomly tweeted that I'd like to go to SXSW 2011 and asked if anyone would like to pay for me to go.

Cheeky I know, but the only other time I went to SXSW was in 2008 ..and that was sponsored by Jeff Pulver. That trip was with Phil Campbell and It turned out to be a whirlwind of meetings, realisations and education stretched across five almost sleepless days. Seesmic video was in full swing and all the people you knew online seemed to descend on Austin Texas.

It was a social media circus.  With all the clowns, jugglers and techo-freaks you could ask for.

It's been 3 years and I really wanted to get back there, to see how things have moved on. To see if the practitioners and innovators have taken a similar meandering path to mine. To actually go to the talks this time and try to absorb some of the latest and greatest developments in interactive technologies.

So the direct message I got from Will King of @KingOfShaves was very welcome indeed. All it said was.. "I'll pay you to go."

Now I know Will owns Shave.com and has just commenced an epic marketing battle to take on the big razor names in Shaving  but I failed to see how I could help in all that.  After all, I have a beard.

Yes I do shave it off every time it starts getting in the way of my food but i'm hardly the poster boy for 'That clean shaved look.'
Sxsw_logo
So for the next few days we played email tennis as I tried to work out his motive at the same time as feeling like this was a golden opportunity.

Me: Will, you know I have a beard right?
Will: Yes, but I won't hold that against you. You have already said that when you shave you use my shaving oil. So you know me and my product.
Me: True. And it's good yes. But I was wondering what it is you would want me to do for the sponsorship?
Will: Just do what you do. Maybe you could take a sack of my product... Launch a competition for me. I don't know. Let's call this an experiment.

This was the point I got excited. I thought, here's a guy who effectively want's to be my Patron. He's not asking me to sell my soul, to shave his logo into my head or to do anything outside of what I normally do. Granted what I do is pretty varied and he knows I'll see he gets value, but still It very refreshing to meet a guy who likes to experiment with mobile media making, with brief-less projects where some kind of marketing for what he does is the welcome side effect.

Well, I will certainly see what I can do. Initially I have been busy buying flights and sorting accommodation. Not easy when many of the hotels in Austin have SXSW week fully booked up to a year in advance. So as hotels drew a blank  have managed to pay the same inflated price that a hotel room costs and got a studio apartment 2 miles out of town. 
Sxsw-studio
All I need now is a plan. I have notes. Lots of notes but I know that once I drop into the Texan circus anything can happen. I aim to concentrate on audio and photos. Video, unless you are streaming is just too demanding if you want to do it right. I like to produce content on the fly and tell stories as they happen. As well as captured scenes and conversations going to my online spaces, I plan to use the page http://shave.com/sxsw as a hub for my content so I can do what I do and it ends up in it's entirety, visible through Will King's site. Massive thanks to @RichardMackney for setting that up.

There are a few more covert operations and experiments I've outlined in my notes that may or may not hit the feeds. Either way I'd be happy to share all my news and stories in person if you happen to bump into me in the streets of Austin. Old and new friends alike. I look forward to a cold beer in a warmer clime and of course a catch-up with old friends as well as the meeting of new ones.

So, if you happen to be in Austin Texas for SXSW Interactive.. Come and say hi. I'll be the techno-freak emanating wifi and sweating noughts and one's.

(..and if you want to be included in my SxSW twitter list please leave your twitter name in the comments below.)

Filed under  //   austin   king of shaves   shave   sxsw   texas  
Posted February 11, 2011 by Documentally