Wow! What a week. After an absolutely spectacular SXSW round one in 2008, who thought it would be possible to replicate, nevermind exceed, last years experience. Well, I did that in spades and even lived to talk about it. Two days later, I’ve finally caught up on my e-mails and had enough sleep to bring back some semblance of coherent thought. So my goal is to channel that into my top ten moments at SXSW.
- Dinner at the Salt Lick with friends Jim Storer, Heather Strout (also my sister), Rachel Happe, Natanya Anderson, Jeff Cutler, Bill Johnston, Kyle Flaherty, Adam Cohen and Mike Langford [note: major apology to Lionel Manchaca who was supposed to join us]. What’s better than ribs, sausage, brisket, beer and all the fixin’s with great social media friends. That’s right, not much!
- Podcasting with Ms. Dishy Mix, Susan Bratton. We absolutely killed it over the course of two days with our #CommunityPowered. Interviews included:
– Patricia Martin (mp3)
– Guy Kawasaki (mp3)
– Angela Benton (mp3)
– Lee Odden (mp3)
– Henry Jenkins (mp3)
– Dave Taylor (mp3)
– Cathy Brooks (coming)
– Peter Fasano (coming)
– Tara Hunt (coming)
– Chris Brogan (coming)
– CC Chapman (coming)
– Rohit Barghava (coming)
– Yours truly (mp3) - Tony Hsieh‘s keynote. Great write up here by Twitter friend @RSomers.
- Guy Kawasaki‘s podcast with Susan (and Jim) for two reasons:
a) Our conversation following the podcast led me to throw out a challenge to Scott Monty of Ford via Twitter– if Ford could get Guy a GT, he would be happy to blog about it. Things got interesting when two minutes later, Christopher Barger of GM jumped in and offered up a Corvette. Scott replied. I’ll keep you posted on how this one turns out.
- The #sadmadglad photo meme with Jim Storer. I’m not sure how we came up with this (I think Jim and the #iroadtrip gang started this on their trek down from Detroit) but it was damn funny. The goal was to grab anyone – friends, social media rock stars and even strangers and get them to pose with us doing a sad face, then a mad face and finally a happy face. My three favorites were with
Brian Solis (mad)
Cali Lewis (mad)
Robert Scoble (drunk) and Pete Cashmore (snide)
- TechSet party Friday night courtesy of hosts Brian and Stephanie Agresta who really outdid themselves on this one. It was a blast finally meeting Zena Weist (who is good hugger), reconnecting with Lionel Menchaca, Geoff Livingston, Jeremiah Owyang, Pete Cashmore and his lovely girlfriend Michelle DeForrest, Charlene Li, Eri
ca O’Grady and many many more.
b) As a result of our podcasts, Guy invited us to his private Alltop party up at AllenBoots. While there, I got to meet Conej whom I had followed for a while. I also bumped into Zach of Quiverandquill fame. Oh yeah, I got to catch up with Scoble and Tony Hsieh for a couple minutes while were there.
Great list Aaron and recap Aaron!Can’t remember whether we are laughing at you or with you in that first pic though. Going to go with the former./kff
Oh, I’m quite sure it was “at.” You and Kevin are good like that. DB.More goodness to come. 😉
Hi Aaron -So much fun…all compacted into such a brief time. I loved hanging out with you and the gang – and appreciate you guys introducing me to The Salt Lick – yum!You are definitely getting the hang of working the room at #sxsw – thanks for showing me how it’s done 🙂 Looking forward to next year!
If they’re all like this, I’m making my hotel reservation now. Great time. Thanks for the tour-guiding and amazing times!
Nice summary you have started here. Honored to be a part of your top six moments at SXSW. Looking forward to reading about the next four. Thanks for rolling out your Texas hospitality for all us SXSW first timers!
It’s 6:30 pm….AH! What party are we going to tonight? Wait! Damn, it’s over. Thank you for being a great host Aaron. While it may seem to the outsider that SXSW is all play, I think we all agree the real business relationships that were created or enhanced during our time in Austin were well worth the trip.
Great round-up Aaron really gives a flavor to what happened at SXSW.
Thanks for the recap! Great for folks who missed it. Even those who were there gain, as it’s impossible to do everything (or remember everything that happened!)Thanks for the shout-out as well!