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…

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.

I can’t hardly believe I’m saying this: I love the Motorola Droid and think you go should buy one. I wish I had one myself. No, I’m not drunk. Read my full review over at Her Nashville. Check out some pics here: Read More…