My daily updates from SXSW were largely relegated to Twitter this year, so if you want the blow-by-blow, you can always look at my updates going back to last Thursday. I’ll be posting a full recap later on (no, really, I will!), but in brief, here’s What I Learned at SXSWi 2009:

  • Intimate dinners trump massive parties with thousands of strangers, without question
  • Kathy Sierra is a freakin’ genius (actually, I already knew that, but I thought I’d mention it anyway)
  • Twitter is still the social networking king, at least amongst the SXSW hive mind, although some new applications like FourSquare crashed the party with some serious potential
  • The conference is HUGE now. As in ‘over 9,000 registrants’ huge. It’s more than a bit overwhelming. (I’ll expand on this point in a later post)
  • I really need to read Designing the Obvious
  • I need more exciting shit to happen to me in the next 11 months so I have a good story to tell next year at Fray Cafe
  • Put simply, I have amazing, astounding, wonderful friends who I don’t see anywhere near often enough

I’m currently at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, waiting on the flight home that ends this marathon of travel. The flight has been thrice-delayed, as though someone or something doesn’t want me to sleep in my own bed anytime soon. With luck, I’ll be home tonight, and it’ll be back to reality tomorrow.

*sigh*