My first day at SXSW Interactive was chock full of … walking. Last year Interactive had grown so large, there were more panels than Film, so Interactive was finally allowed in the ‘big’ hallway on the 4th floor (with a few extra rooms in some forgotten hallway on the 3rd floor). This year we’re not only in the big hallway, the 3rd floor has expanded and there are even MORE rooms on the 1st.

It’s nice to have all these options, but MAN, three floors and rooms spread to every corner of each one makes for a lotta walking.

That aside, the panels I did see were fascinating. Here’s a quick recap of Saturday 3/7:

10:00AM - Catching up with Accessibility: The Basics Quickly (C)
Not quite what I expected, but still very interesting. The description mentioned accessibility for many things - new technology such as mobile phones, older technology and slow connection speeds, people with disabilities and the elderly. I was mainly interested in the accessibility for mobile devices, but that only made up a fraction of the session. The focus was mainly on people with disabilities and how websites would render in Assisted Technologies. At first I thought it wasn’t very relevant to what we do at Bulldog, but then shame on me. It’s relevant for EVERY website. It’s the one panel I can’t stop thinking about from today. How the smallest things, clearly marked headers and lists, make browsing for the disabled a million times easier. More information can be found at the Web Accessibility Initiative.

11:30AM - Core Conversation: GTD for Startups: Getting Things Done in the Real World (Ballroom E)
This was my first ‘Core Conversation’ panel, and maybe my last. I love the idea of open forum discussions, and I got some GREAT information, but the room was SO loud and it was a bummer to have to stand for an hour. I would like these a lot more if there were half the tables and twice as many chairs. I did write down about 20 websites that Survey Gizmo and the rest of the crowd use for GTD (Getting Things Done). Most of the people in the session were from startups under 10 people, so not everything was useful for me (sharing Google calendar, etc.). It was still a good session.

:: Lunch ::
We went to Habana for lunch, which I normally love, but we had a rough time today. We had a huge group (10+) and the restaurant was packed. After we ordered we discovered they had a press to make 3 Cuban sandwiches at a time and there were about 60 orders in. About 20 minutes later, the owner came over to tell us our waiter had actually forgotten to put in our order. Bah! They offered to bring us OTHER food (family style plates) immediately and comp the bill, or send us home with coupons to come back for a free meal if we couldn’t wait. We choose FOOD, we were so hungry. It ended up being one of the best meals I’ve had downtown in a long time and we topped it off w/ some Tres Leches cake which was out of this WORLD. It was a rocky start, but a good recovery. I don’t know that I’ll go back this week, they can’t seem to handle the crowds, but another night for sure.

03:30PM - The Art of Speed: Conversations With Monster Makers (18ABCD)
This was another favorite panel. I learned that Mike Cassidy is a rock star and Tim Ferris (of the Four Hour Work Week) has the shortest attention span at SXSW. Those two dominated the panel, so we didn’t get to hear much from Cali Lewis (GeekBrief.TV) and Evan Williams (Founder of Twitter!). I didn’t mind at ALL about Mike Cassidy, he was energetic, focused and the kind of person you want to know. I could have listened to him speak for another hour, too bad this was his only panel.

05:00PM - Managing the Media Blur (C)
This wasn’t a good panel for me. I thought it would be more about dealing with the overwhelming flow of media, but it took a long-winded philosophical turn. We gave it about 30-minutes and then headed over to “Social Marketing Strategies Metrics, Where Are They.”

05:00PM - Social Marketing Strategies Metrics, Where Are They? (18ABCD)
I only saw the last 20 minutes of this panel, but it was muuuuch more my speed than the one we left. Rohit Bhargava is one of our favorites at Bulldog and someone we should all be watching. In the last few minutes he spoke about a topic near and dear to my heart - Social Media is not right for everyone. If you are getting pushback from the dinosaurs at your company and can’t seem to get a foothold for what platform would be good, maybe you should take a step back and reassess if social media is the right vehicle.

:: Home! ::
I skipped the parties and opted for a night at home. Lame, I know, but my couch and the quiet was a welcome, welcome sight.