I’m back on Maryland soil now after changing my flight to come back home Wednesday instead of Thursday. It’s been a heck of a trip and I’m so exhausted. Nonetheless, it was one of the best trips I’ve ever been on. I’ll have to catch up on the sessions I wanted to attend but did not. (Last year, they were all released as podcasts after the event so I’m assuming the same will be done this year).
Amazing people everywhere. That’s the summary, as simplistic as that sounds. The overlapping of all my various circles and networks of people: DC folks interacting with Canadian friends interacting with the PodCamp circle of friends interacting with b5media folks. Not to mention the vast presence of my Twitter friends everywhere I looked. As I said, it was truly amazing.
The past few days, if you’ve been keeping up with this blog, you know that I’ve interviewed six fantastic folks: Brian Solis, “Pistachio” Laura Fitton, Frank Gruber, “Copyblogger” Brian Clark, Christina Warren and Rainer Cvillink. Obviously a very productive day. Those were just the quick video sit downs that I did. We also did our regular weekly District of Corruption live from Austin, appeared on a variety of videos and podcasts by Chris Brogan, Scott Stead, and Kris Smith to name a few.
Though I met many, many new folks this week, I was very pleased to get the opportunity to meet (for the first time), Shel Israel, Erin Kotecki Vest, Micah Baldwin, Grant Robertson, Christina Warren, and Mark Cuban. Yes… I did just say I met Mark Cuban. It was only for a brief handshake as he breezed through the Washington VC sponsored Rock Band party Tuesday night.
Old friends reconnected include the inimitable Loren Feldman, Brian Clark, Darren “Problogger” Rowse, Scott Brooks, Alex Hillman and, as usual, many more.
On a light note, I’m a little miffed that the bulk of the coverage of the “Beacon Sucks” heckler moment during Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote wasn’t properly attributed. Christina did, but CNET, Valleywag and the rest of the coverage did not. It was me, of course, which makes me either the voice of the thoughts of all of us or just rude. Not sure which. You be the judge.
I want to thank the b5media crew that made the event a lot of fun for me. Thanks to Steph Agresta (aka, Internet Geek Girl) for being the face and voice of the Bloghaus. I know you’re wiped out from it, but it was great and I hope for you it was worth it. Lijit and Outbrain for sponsoring the “b5 ranch” – yes it was a real ranch. Grant and Christina for dinner, drinks and so much more with myself and the b5’ers. It’s a pretty cool dynamic to work for a competing blog network and still be some of the coolest people around.
Austin, I’m out. You were wonderful. Until SXSW ’09, stay weird Austin (that’s a tee shirt I saw today).