Here's a shot of Team Newman in the wild at SXSW 2007. Many thanks to Joe Flood for the documentation.

This is the first year since 2006 that one or both members of Team Newman are not making an appearance at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), the geek conference in Austin, TX.

It’s not that we haven’t loved it. Our SX adventures of yore enabled us to be among the first to try Twitter, discover Ze Frank, meet our good friend Joe Flood and give Gowalla a go. It also did wonders for our sticker collection. But after AT&T’s Great Network Failure of 2009, and attending one-too-many Twitter panels, we’re taking a break.

We wish many a Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki sighting, much fabulous swag and free beer to those thousands of social media guinea pigs in attendance. Have fun and consume tons of Stubbs BBQ for us!
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Good one, Verizon. Good one. But rather than go buy the Droid for Christmas, what this commercial really makes me wanna do is pile up on the couch, drink hot chocolate and watch the claymation Rudolph movie. Tonight.

Here's me putting OtherInbox's Mr. Spam in a headlock. This is what I wanted to do to Mr. AT&T, but he was a no-show at SXSW.

We did it! Team Newman survived the fifth and final day of South by Southwest Interactive. Not to be confused with the music portion, which starts today. Many of you emailed, Facebooked and Twittered me with great SXSW Music folks to check out…unfortunately, our geek lanyards don’t get us into those music venues. Sorry!

Anywho, Day 5 was great and included everything from getting work done, to tacos, to watching intoxicated dudes attempt to ride the mechanical bull. I managed to sneak in two SXSW panels, which is tough to pull off on the last day of any conference. I even wore red on St. Patrick’s Day in hopes of winning Gowalla‘s Flip Mino HD. No, (sigh) I didn’t win.

I really enjoyed the “Non-Profits: Be the Web You Wish to See!” panel with Stanley Jones of Diligent Creative. I was quite underwhelmed by the “Surviving Scandal” panel though. I think the gal knew what she wanted to say, just couldn’t find a way to say it. Her awkward struggle with public speaking made me very sad/uncomfortable/sorry for her so I had to get up and leave.

The Media Temple closing party was fabulous though; easily the most fun party we attended during our six days here. We had free grub and LoneStar and had a great time giggling at the bull riders.

All in all, it was a great experience. Though, this was the last SXSWi trip for Team Newman for a while.

When we first attended SX three years ago, it was much more intimate (say, 3,000 folks) than the SX of today. I love to think about 13,000 geeks in once place, but I don’t enjoy what a mass o’ tech-addicted laptop lovers does to AT&T and my iPhone. And it certainly wasn’t good for our hotel internet connection either. We always try to work, blog and write while we are here. With the massive internet and iPhone failure, we simply couldn’t do any of that. And that sucks.

Of course, none of that is the fault of the SXSW organizers. We’ve no issues with the festival itself. Still, we’ll be looking for the next, slightly smaller geeky gathering for 2010. Suggestions?

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Day 4 involved a little less session time and a little more tacos/fajitas/beverages. I did attempt to go to the 11:30 session called “How to Protect Your Brand Without Being a Jerk!” but got tired of listening to the panelists argue with each other and left early.

I did manage to get a lot of work done on Day 4 though, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

The issue for Team Newman is this: AT&T was apparently caught off guard by the SXSWi geek migration to Austin, so our iPhones are useless. And, since our hotel gets its Internet service from AT&T, the wireless speed in our room is painfully slow. Therefore, if we are to get any work done we have to go to the Convention Center (sigh).

You can imagine how bitter we, the Internet-addicted, are right now.

BUT the good news is that we found a place here in Austin called Rio Grande and we loved the food there so much that we ate there twice on Day 4. The best part: they make FlackRabbit-sized mango margaritas! Adorable AND yummie!

We also went to a couple of fun parties where my hand got some fashion henna and my hubby got a cool t-shirt. Then of course there was the Gowalla party. We got there right as the doors opened and scored some free shirts and beer. AND got to meet Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (see above photo). He was quite nice and also very introverted, which surprised me a little.

All in all, Day 4 was great. I’m looking forward to Day 5, especially the “core conversation” about non-profits and web tech.

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