Just Add Social Noor on social media

If you follow tech gossip then you’ve probably heard by now that the highlight of yesterday’s SXSW panels/talks was the Zuckerberg/Lacy trainwreck keynote.  I was fortunate (?) enough to be in attendance and here are my impressions.

The keynote was awful and boring. It was a combination of Zuckerberg being over-prepared/over-coached and Lacy being under-prepared. I believe the audience reacted so harshly because there was a lot of anticipation and excitement about the keynote and it was a total letdown. The largest ballroom at the Austin Convention Center was packed, as was the adjoining overflow seating ballroom. People were looking forward to hearing Zuckerberg talk about Facebook.

Things were headed in the wrong direction even before the interview started. As Zuckerberg and Lacy came on stage, several attendees in the front shouted out “ZUCKERBERG” - almost like we were in a rock concert. Lacy seemed annoyed and stated something along the lines of, “Hey! What about me?” At this point, I was thinking, “What about YOU? Who are you anyway?!?” I’d never heard of her before the keynote and I don’t think anyone was attending just to see her.

Lacy was an extremely poor interviewer. For one thing, she was just rude. She repeatedly cut off Zuckerberg and even when he was talking she kept adding “right” and “aha.” She also didn’t seem to understand the SXSW audience at all. Most of her questions were pretty flat and focused on business topics - nothing that was really of interest to this audience of geeks/devs/designers. Zuckerberg wasn’t really all that engaging either - he kept going on tedious rambles about nothing. He repeated himself over and over again and kept saying that Facebook was about “communicating efficiently” (he probably said “communicating efficiently” at least 10 times). As the interview progressed, lots of folks started filtering out early and there were a lot of people sitting next to me groaning and complaining about her questions (or lack there of) and interview style.

Throughout the interview, Lacy kept interjecting herself into the conversation, which was really inappropriate and unprofessional. She was essentially pulling an Oprah but very few people can pull that off and not a lot of people knew who she was or cared. She kept talking about her book (and how you can pre-order it on Amazon) and acting like she and Zuckerberg were old friends. She also mentioned a few things that were just inappropriate - that he sweated through his white t-shirt during their first interview and that there were bongs and pot all over the FB office during another interview. You could tell he was really uncomfortable with those comments and it was really uncomfortable to witness the whole thing as an audience member. Her body language was extremely unprofessional and flirtatious. She kept twirling her hair and emphasizing her legs. As a professional woman, I found it all pretty offensive. It was a total trainwreck and the only reason I stayed was just to watch it unfold.

The keynote was awful and one of the weirdest things I’ve ever witnessed - especially at a professional conference. If I were Zuckerberg, I’d fire my PR people. I have no idea how the SXSW folks let it happen - did they not rehearse this beforehand? Did Lacy change her style at the last minute?