There’s no shortage of SXSW Interactive 2011 “reviews.” Give it a Google; you’ll find all sorts of contradictory soap boxes, from SXSW has “jumped the shark” to O M G, it was “awesomesauce.”  Other than the mediocre panels, tsunami of street-marketers and QR codes, and an on-again-off-again AT&T 3G signal, three things about this year’s conference stand out:

1. We should all talk to strangers more. Seriously. It wasn’t the panels or keynotes that rocked my world, (could have skipped most of them, honestly) it was the limitless conversations with talented people. There were talkative geeks at every turn. And this wasn’t just a “shake hands and be on your way”-type of networking, these were hour-long talks where you walked away a smarter, more motivated person. I hated leaving before the closing party because I kept wondering not what, but WHO/WHOM, I’d miss.

2. You can solve your Meetup location crisis using only an iPhone and tha Twitter. About a week before the conference started, Dave had this great idea for us to declare a Meetup for DC-area folks attending SXSW Interactive. We called it DCxSW. He made a website; I filled out a Twitter profile, started a #DCxSW hashtag and got to spreading the word. We immediately saw a positive response from DC-ers, including retweets and offers to help.

The problem came about five hours before the event was to start, when I discovered that our venue, Shakespeare’s Pub, had been bought out by Maxim. Thanks, guys. But I didn’t have my laptop with me; Dave was at the hotel with the Team Newman iPad; all I had was an iPhone and a panicky feeling. How would I tell everyone? Where would we go?! Less than 10 percent of an iPhone 4 battery later, a new location at the Driskill Hotel bar was secured, the DCxSW Twitter profile edited and DMs and @ replies sent to every RSVPing person. Except Tod. Oops. Sorry, man. It really proved to me how powerful that tiny little Swiss Army Knife of a phone actually is. Oh, and 45 folks showed up! And Tod eventually found us.

3. The New York Times, Verizon and Quora need to have a frank talk with their marketing folks. I’ll sum this up this way: Read More…

Since February is the official month purchasing random tokens of affection, I figured now would be a good time to share with you my top technology crushes. Maybe you last-minute shoppers will find something for your soul mate. In this month’s issue of Her Nashville magazine, you’ll read about my obsession with likely suspects such as the iPhone and Kindle; however, it may surprise you to learn I’m just as keen on mobile banking. It just never gets old for me. Here’s a teaser:

No. 4: Mobile Banking (fees vary)
I giggle like a schoolgirl every time I check my bank balance from a balcony of a cruise ship, transfer money from savings to checking while standing in line at Starbucks, or pay a bill while brushing my teeth. For me, the magic of secure, real-time mobile banking never gets old. My bank, SunTrust, offers clients free mobile banking and even has a free iPhone app that allows me to do all kinds of cool, important banking-type things with just a tap of a finger. For the folks out there who do not “trust” mobile banking; I can assure you, your bank takes your online security seriously. Give mobile banking a try today.

Clearly, mobile banking is not an acceptable Valentine’s gift, but whatever. I still love it. Read the full column here!

Blogging on the iPad is difficult, but doable.

Check it out: the first blog post from my shiny new iPad. It is exciting to try out this new way of consuming content (OMG the NPR, Flipboard and Kindle apps!) not yet sure about creating content on it though. A few initial observations:

1. The iPad is beautiful. Oh, sure, we’ve always known that, but it is a different kind of beauty when it’s yours.

2. Blogging on the iPad is difficult. A colleague said today that I shouldn’t worry about not being able to easily/quickly create content on the iPad because it was meant for consumption. He argued attempting to blog on the iPad isn’t so much “hard” as it is “unnecessarily difficult.” I do have a laptop and a net book for creating content, after all. Still, I’m totally attempting to write this post on my iPad; also totally bummed the WordPress iPad app is busted so I’m having to use Blogpress; will totally manage to publish content from this device anyway!

3. The iPad is not just a really large iPhone. Folks often ask me if they should buy an iPhone or an iPad; you can’t compare them. The devices serve two different purposes: one is a smart phone; the other a lightweight, powerful, multimedia computing device. My recommendation: you should buy both. At the very least, get the iPad and keep your Zach Morris phone. Read More…

There are many, many great iPhone 4 reviews piling up, so I’ll spare you another one. But I am getting asked one question over and over again: folks want to know if they should dump their new Droid Incredible and formerly new iPhone 3Gs for Apple’s shiny new toy. You’ll find my answer over at HerNashville.com

I will add here at FlackRabbit that from the public relations practitioner perspective, the iPhone 4 and devices like it could allow us to use use new media to tell our clients’ stories in a much more nimble and timely way.

For instance, I think it’s freakishly cool that you could shoot quality video of a client event, edit it with iMovie, add a caption and relevant key words, and then upload it to YouTube–all from your iPhone 4. If you don’t have time to get back to your desk between meetings, it’s okay. And your client will think you’ve cloned yourself. Read More…

{Looks like several of you are taking me up on the offer to have your communications, PR and geek thoughts featured on FlackRabbit. Yay! Our first guest post is a quick WordPress/iPhone tutorial by the fabulous Joe Flood of Washington, D.C.}

Now that I’m sure you have your own WordPress blog, thanks to Margie, let’s make it look good on an iPhone. You don’t want people to have to zoom in or squint to look at your web pages in the iPhone’s tiny browser. Instead, you want something that looks formatted for the ubiquitous Apple product. Like this: Read More…

I love the Internet for many reasons, but one of them happens to be its ability to provide third-party confirmation of random truths. Here are a few…

When you look up how to find people on Twitter, my profile is the example they’ve used for a couple of years now. I’ve no clue why:

D.C. is not only a town where snow is frequently predicted, it actually happens:

People really do read your blog:

Amazon affiliate links can earn you some cash for things you forgot you linked to:

Speaking of Amazon links, from here on out I’ll be following those links with a note that says “affiliate link.” This means that if you buy something from Amazon using the link I’ve provided, I’ll get a penny or two. Unless you buy the Harry Potter paperback box set (affiliate link), in which case I get $2.00!

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.