I spent 4 nights in Austin Texas for SXSW 2009. It was my first trip to Austin and my first SXSW. I have known of this conference for about 5 years and even joined Twitter immediately after they won an award there in 2006. It wasn\u2019t until I was chatting with Scott Beale of LaughingSquid at a tech party in August \u201908 that I decided to go. Scott said, \u201cyou have to go. Austin is a mini-San Francisco and the geeks come there to play for 1 week in March.\u201d Following Scott\u2019s advice I went but I didn\u2019t buy a pass. I attended SXSW without a conference badge and I would do things exactly the same next year.<\/p>\n
Day of passes to the conference are $495 and I believe they\u2019re as cheap as $375 in September. The price of a badge admits you to the exhibit hall and to sessions. Sessions are a miss and there\u2019s a few reasons why. SXSW Panelists are chosen as a popularity contest. The cook kids submit panel ideas and they ask their blog and Twitter followers to vote on their contest. It\u2019s a democratic system that ensures the popular tech personalities get their time in the spotlight as an \u201cexpert\u201d but in actuality, not everyone is a good speaker or is able to deliver useful information off the cuff. I\u2019m not saying that I would do any better but a lot of SXSW attendees warned me to simply skip the sessions and not one person was sorry for me when I mentioned not even buying a pass.<\/p>\n
The reason for going to SXSW isn\u2019t the conference. It\u2019s the social events after the conference. There is a value to bringing everyone together in this kind of setting and maybe there\u2019s a solution for people that aren\u2019t there in person to virtually enjoy the social aspects but, for now SXSW wouldn\u2019t be a good fit for a virtual attendance solution because it thrives on the human interaction. I wasn\u2019t completely thrilled with how SXSW carried out but I understand it\u2019s meant to be one big party.<\/p>\n
My plan? Stay up until 6AM every morning with friends, sleep until 2PM and after some work in the bloggers lounge I\u2019d start hitting parties at 4PM. I did this for 5 days and boy am I exhausted. That was the most exhausting vacation I\u2019ve ever been on but it was worth it. Many of you that follow my tweets would agree. I managed to stay completely sober the entire time which was perfect because I strengthened existing connections and forged new friendships with some very unlikely personalities. There were people who lived in SF who I saw at parties and thought, \u201cwe\u2019d never be compatible enough to hang out\u201d and here I am sitting around a hot tub, eating BBQ or playing pool with these people. On Sunday, Guy Kawasaki hosted a party in the backyard of a cowboy apparel store. The party had catered BBQ, pit cooked stew, local beer called \u201csteiner bock\u201d and live country music. I honestly couldn\u2019t stop smiling because it felt like a down home BBQ that I used to experience often back in Florida.<\/p>\n
To give you a taste of SXSW, let me recap the last day (Monday). I woke up at noon and worked at the Bloggers Lounge brought to you by Windows Mobile \/ TechSet. I worked and caught up with old friends and was interviewed for a few blogs. I saw the new Dell Adamo notebook (Thanks Brian Solis) and at 4PM I went to the RackSpace party. They had belly dancers, fancy finger foods, drinks and hookah. I camped out with a dozen friends by the hookahs and soaked up the warm Austin weather. Afterwards, I had drinks with the writers of Wired Magazine and got some awesome schwag. Then I hopped on a chartered bus that First Round Capital (A VC Company) sponsored. There was beer on the bus and we drove 25 miles out to \u201cThe Salt Lick\u201d which is a world famous BBQ place. After stuffing our faces, the bus dropped us off at The 32Bit Party which my friend Scott Beale helped host. I hopped back and forth between that, Mashable\u2019s party and The Brightkite party. Afterwards, I went to a hotel party sponsored by Famer and closed out the evening with my own Hot Tub party on the 8th floor of the Hilton hotel. I bought ingredients for mimosas and friends joined us at 5:30AM as the sun came up and we relaxed in a hot tub. Even Robert Scoble tweeted out about it. After the sun came up, I came back to my hotel room, packed and hopped on a plane. It was the perfect day full of friends, lavish parties and fun. I met some awesome people and the value of this conference is apparent to me now.<\/p>\n
The downside of SXSW, which is just a personal peeve, is the amount of unprofessionalism inherent with the event. People for which I had high respect for were drunk, puking and making complete asses of themselves. Others who were total friends were hooking up with each other\u2019s girlfriends. Everyone went back to the hotels each night with a different girl or guy and I was in the hotel lobby as young tech entrepreneurs make the walk of shame at 5AM back to their hotels. It was embarrassing and I want\u00a0no part of that. Fun doesn\u2019t mean having a hangover and having anonymous sex, at least in my book, and that\u2019s my primary gripe about the event.<\/p>\n
The parties weren\u2019t extravagant but they were fun and it was basically a transplant of everyone from San Francisco into Austin to hang out in a relaxed environment. I also got to catch up with friends from New York, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and Texas. I even have some new friends from all over the US who will make excellent connections in the future. Austin has the same population as San Francisco but the physical size of the city is 10x larger. Downtown has an excellent bar district. The police shutdown 6th street every night and live music plays in every venue. This is not the Texas I knew and I never saw a cowboy hat or an SUV. There were Obama Stickers and rock music which was so not Texas. So overall, Austin was very pleasurable. It\u2019s the state\u2019s capital, is home to one of the largest colleges in the nation and has a very vibrant tech community. Honestly, it\u2019s an ideal location to maybe one day settle down but that\u2019s 30 years in the future so let\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n
SXSW is a must attend conference even if you do it once. The debauchery, parties and drunkeness is universally loved it appears but for those of us aiming to strengthen our connections and make new ones, it\u2019s a perfect show for that. Skip the conference badge, follow the crowds via Twitter and don\u2019t be afraid to talk to the \u201cWeb 2.0 Celebs\u201d. It was a conference to remember and I\u2019ll try to go again next year. I may not go for 5 days but I\u2019m certainly staying at The Hilton again and I\u2019m certainly going to organize more micro-parties. Austin, I barely got to know you but you are pretty rocking and if I ever take a vacation, you\u2019re on my list. To all of my existing and new friends, you guys made the trip remarkable. I have to go through hundreds of photos taken of me and I have to go through a ton of Twitter followers that I gained and I certainly have to include this experience in my next book. More details on that very soon :)<\/p>\n
Geeks. Book your flight now for next year. It\u2019s the worst conference of the year but the place to be if you want to make real connections and build friendships. I\u2019m ecstatic and can\u2019t wait to go again next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I spent 4 nights in Austin Texas for SXSW 2009. 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