It’s very obvious to me that I’m getting old. The annual trek to Austin is something that I’m beginning to have a love/hate relationship with.

Great people and great info make the time there really worth attending and it would seem that each year the brands are getting smarter and smarter to court the influence of the tastemakers by bringing out the big guns.

This year went above and beyond. CNN, Pepsi, AOL and Samsung all went to the wall with big offerings. Overall the actual panels and speaking was great – however I thought the panels this year were lacking. During the conference I asked around to see if it was just me or a greater problem. Turns out it wasn’t me, I asked around and we all had the same feeling – many panel speakers seemed unprepared or out of sync with each other, like there was zero prep time.

Highlights and Tips:

Apps, Apps, Apps
I don’t know what the square footage of the Austin Convention Center Exhibition area was but 90% of the booths were hocking an app. It makes sense because Apple has paid out over $2 Billion to developers but none of them really stood out to me. App Developers – How are you standing out?? The secret is not by offering a drawing for an iPad2 (everyone’s doing it!)

Print is not dead
The irony that the largest techie conference uses as much paper as they do is disturbing. Big kudos to the crew at Square Space for their brilliant food truck and use of GREAT print. It was effective and drew me in. Loved it!

Print is still white noise
Making a flyer about your website, new app or product is just silly. Mediocre print is sadly not going anywhere but covered any square inch of space available around the convention center. Interestingly the only people I saw paying attention to the massive flyer covered areas were the people covering them.

Ze Frank blew my doors off!
It’s great find out that the word is bigger than I thought and I’ve got a long way to go. I find it challenging and exciting. Ze walked through several recent projects including Young Me, Now Me and The Chillout Story. I was entranced by his humanity crossed with technology storytelling. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a fan of Ze since “The Show” but to hear how these emotion laden one-offs are impacting masses and showing true connection are exquisitely beautiful.

The Mentoring Sessions in Film should be adopted by Interactive
It was invaluable to bounce ideas off of leading filmmakers and executives. I wish this was also done by the interactive side of things. Please SXSW make that happen for next year!

Ditch the Parties and hang out at the lobby bar.
This is the best piece of advice I can give you and I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Most nights I was trying to catch up with a fair amount of people and it was great to just hang out in one place and not have to yell over the thumping bass. The bonus was one night finding Guy Kawasaki and Pam Slim at the next table – I knew it was a good idea!

Talking to 3 different continents during Beth Kanters’ session!
A packed house for Beth’s session on engaging free agents and the best part was talking in real time with new friends in Lebanon and Egypt at the same time. It’s so important for free agents and nonprofits to team up and Beth does an amazing job of making that point. Don’t be a fortress nonprofit and get her book!

Experience SXSW as a team!
I was very fortunate to be with 3 great guys from Out:think Group. I work with these guys everyday and it was great to spend some time with these extremely talented guys without due dates hanging over our heads.

Get some Coulhaus!
I can’t talk enough about this food truck! Just ask Tiffany, we talk about them at least once a week. They’ve got the BEST ice cream sandwiches and Firefox showed how smart they were by bringing them to launch their Firefox Mobile Party. Thanks Firefox!!

Breakfast Tacos and Thunderbird Coffee
Part of my annual trip of SXSW is to see my friend Carrie Graham and hear about all the cool work she’s doing with Mosaic church. This year she took me out for some breakfast tacos and Thunderbird Coffee. The next time you’re in Austin check them out – thank me later.

That’s SXSW for 2011 for me! See you next year!

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