Concerned Citizens

This weekend and part of next week I’m at one of the biggest techy paradises in America – SXSW Interactive. It’s my third year and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger with around 15,000 people attending the five day conference. It’s a great conference in many ways and a place where you can spot the latest trends and technologies before they go mainstream. It’s where Twitter, foursquare, Gowalla, and Whrrl got their sea legs and took off. But there’s so much more that jumps out about SX Interactive that shows me we’re on the cusp of some great things in store for the future – and I’m only on day one.

Three years ago was my first foray into SX Interactive. As a newbie to the social media scene I decided I needed to be a part of this experience right up the road in Austin. I took a vacation day, paid my own registration and hotel, and stayed only through Sunday. Needless to say I was overwhelmed by the freshness and energy of the conference and those that attended. It jumpstarted me into social media and I haven’t looked back yet.

Last year USAA paid part of my way and would have footed the entire bill had I made the case sooner and let them pay the registration fee. Nonetheless, I stayed the entire five days and joined my new social media peeps from San Antonio at sessions and parties. I took back knowledge about better ways to connect people using new tools, some of which we tried at Fiesta 2010. What was of even greater value was my new network of tech savvy friends in San Antonio.

This year is proving to be even more exciting with a larger crowd and even more new technologies and best practices being presented and demonstrated. Our USAA contingent has grown from the handful three years ago to around 20. In years past, I was the only USAA person at the session. This year, I’ve got USAA peeps with me and we’re building a new USAA SX community.

Thursday night one of our own San Antonio social media mavens, Debi Pfitzenmaier (@momonmars), received an award at the annual Texas Social Media Awards. A crew of folks from San Antonio cheered her on with enough vigor to prompt a recognition from the MC that San Antonio was definitely in the house. Probably the funniest moment was watching Donna Tuttle (@writeontime) trying to check in to all her geolocation apps, taking about five or six minutes to get it done. There has to be an app for that.

Friday night I enjoyed the fast-paced presentations of Ignite Austin’s special Ignite SXSW event at the Austin Music Hall. Folks who signed up for the five minute, 20 slide speed round spoke about what life might look like in the year 2021. Some were outlandish and some were downright funny. What was interesting was seeing the youth on stage talking about societies where openness reigns and people take for granted technology that some of us struggle with today.

Walking to the events on Friday I was able to catch the new 2nd Street District west of Congress between 2nd and 3rd. It was great to see what a downtown residential area could really could look like. Anchored by the newly completed Austonian building along with other downtown residential buildings, there were street level shops, restaurants, coffee houses, and businesses. People were having dinner in sidewalk cafes with their dogs at their feet. It’s not hard to see what Mayor Castro has in mind for downtown San Antonio.

What’s wild is that I’m only on Day One and that was only a half day of presentations. I’ve got four full days to come with some great presentations ahead of me. It’s going to be a full weekend but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.