I’m looking forward to the interviews, panels, and parties. If you’re at SxSW, find me on Twitter @beley and add me as a friend on Foursquare and Gowalla. I have very few scheduled appointments or panels, so if you want to grab coffee or a drink, just send me a message!

The conference is huge, the parties are over the top, the venue is amazing (who doesn’t love Austin?) and the people are what it’s all about.

This was the first year I was speaking at SxSWi, I had a book reading for Online Marketing Inside Out on Saturday, March 13 at 11 AM (well, a little later because the previous speaker ran into my time slot). So I was incredibly excited about going this year, but decided to take a slightly different approach.

Instead of trying to go to a lot of panels and sessions, and trying to hit all the big parties, I would just take it as it came. The last two years at SxSW seemed to fly by so quickly and it seemed like I never had time to just sit down and enjoy the company of friends or really connect with people. This year I was determined to really make the most of it.

So what follows is a daily recap of my SxSW experience (with many thanks to Foursquare for the helpful history tool!). Be forewarned… it’s long and incredibly detailed. If you’d rather skip all the minute details and just read my takeaways, you can jump to the conclusion.

Thursday

We have a client in Austin, and it was actually a trip to meet with them that led me to my first SxSW in 2008. It just so happened that our client meeting and the conference were extremely close, so we got tickets to the conference. For the past two years we’ve repeated that coincidence by scheduling our meeting around the conference.

We flew into Austin pretty early, and Donna (our client) picked us up from the airport. We went to their offices for a short time and then went to Rudy’s BBQ for lunch. We stuffed ourselves, then headed back to the office to get some work done.

Went out to The Salt Lick for dinner, one of my favorite places in Austin to eat. It’s located in a dry county, but you can take a cooler filled with beer. It’s got a great atmosphere and even better Texas BBQ.

After dinner I hitched a ride to the hotel and checked in. It was 9:45 PM when I got to my room and dropped my bags, so I decided to run over to the convention center to try to get a badge. I ran past Jim Caruso in the Hilton lobby, and he walked with me to the convention center. I barely got my badge before they closed at 10, then Jim and I went to the lounge in the Hilton and had a drink. Chrispian Burks met us there and we hung out for a few before calling it a night.

Friday

I went back over to our client’s office for a while and wrapped things there, then had Mighty Fine Burgers for lunch (owned by the same folks as Rudy’s). We finished up around 4 PM and I headed to the hotel and convention center. I went up to the day stage for Darren Rowse’s book reading of the second edition of his ProBlogger book co-authored by Chris Garrett. I met up with Julie Taylor, Josh Coffee, Patrick O’Keefe, Chrispian Burks, Deb Ng, and Chris.

Someone pulled the fire alarm right in the middle of Darren’s book reading and the entire convention center was evacuated. It was a little funny how slowly people were evacuating. If there was a real fire, I think half the world’s bloggers would have been lost. When we got the all-clear, we went back to the book reading and Darren finished. After the reading, Darren and Chris had a book signing at the SxSW Bookstore. I bought another copy of Problogger Book and got them to sign it.

I went back to the room briefly and then went downstairs to meet up with Jeremy Wright and head to dinner with some friends. He was in the Hilton lounge with a few friends. I grabbed a drink and he introduced me to Loren Feldman of 1938 Media. Loren seems like a pretty cool guy, the kind of guy that’d be fun to just hang out and have a few drinks with. We threw down our drink pretty fast because we were running late and then headed to Roy’s where we met Darren Rowse, Deb, Chris, Patrick, Chrispian, and some others. The food was great, but it was a little dark.

After dinner, we went to Emo’s and I saw Jim Caruso, Courtenay Bird, Scott Lockhart and a few others. The scene at Emo’s was a little… err… different. We didn’t stay there all that long.

We headed to the Driskill Hotel (that’s where all the cool kids said the party was at) and it was packed. I saw lots of cewebrities there like Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, etc. Whoohooo! (note the sarcasm). I stayed at the bar upstairs for a while but then heard a few friends were downstairs at the 1886 Cafe and Bakery. I headed down and the atmosphere was much better. We could actually hear each other talk. We stayed there for a bit then I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep because I had a book reading Saturday.

Saturday

I woke up early to prepare for my book reading, and as I was going over my notes and slides I decided to completely change my talk. Instead of going through several chapters in the book giving tips and tricks, I decided to tell a few stories about our experience at 2BigFeet.com over the years. I frantically retooled my slides to be much simpler and prepared some notes for the talk at 11am.

I got to the Day Stage around 10 minutes before 11, and the presenter before me was still going strong. Book reading presentations are supposed to be 20 minutes, but the time slot is 30 minutes. This gives the AV team time to get the next presenter setup and gives the people in the audience time to get up and leave or new arrivals time to find a seat. The guy before me ran really long, cutting well into my time. At 11am, I looked at the AV folks and they said he was wrapping up. 5 minutes later, still talking. Playing videos. Talking more. 10 minutes… STILL talking. Then as he was playing a video he told us he’d take ONE question after it was over. As soon as the video stopped, he said “I’ve got time for a couple questions” and proceeded to take two, and give extremely long-winded answers.

If people came at 11am for my book reading, I can only imagine what they were thinking. Did it get cancelled? Was it already over?

He finally got off the stage, and we setup the AV and I started. I was a little worked up about going on late and the previous presenter’s lack of respect, so I stumbled a bit over the first few slides. I think it went well as soon as I got into the three stories, and my talk was even covered on HubSpot’s Internet Marketing Blog.

Immediately after the book reading, I walked over to the SxSW Bookstore (a few tables across from the Day Stage) for a book signing. I sold lots of books and met some really cool people… and some really great friends like Patrick, Josh, Julie, Chrispian, Deb and Taryn Pisaneschi were there to support me.

Then we went to Patrick O’Keefe and Twanna Hines’ core conversation, “Shameless Self Promotion Without Looking Like an @#$%^&!“. It was originally submitted as a panel with Patric, Twanna, Darren Rowse and me, but was converted to a core conversation so Darren and I just attended and participated from the audience.

We were pretty hungry after Patrick’s panel, and one of my friends James Paden and Deb Ng had never had Texas BBQ, so I took a group of friends to Rudy’s BBQ (worst bbq in texas) for some brisket and beef ribs. It was me, Josh Coffee, Julie Taylor, Deb Ng, James Paden and Chrispian Burks. We had a blast, and have photos to prove it! We had to take a couple cabs out there, but it was worth it. Next year I’m taking them to The Salt Lick though!

It took a while to get there and back, so not much was accomplished that afternoon. We had RSVP’d for the Old Timers meetup so Patrick, Jared Smtih and I headed over there. We met some great folks like Alyce Lindquist from the Silicon Valley Social Media Club and Brian O’Shaughnessy from Skype.

We left there with intentions of finding a place to eat, but had trouble getting a cab back to the convention center area. When we finally got there we saw Lucretia Pruitt and Allison Worthington in the Hilton lobby. We were all hungry, so we just decided to get something to eat in the Hilton Lounge (food by Finn & Porter). The group ended up being me, Lucretia, Allison, Patrick, Josh, Julie and Chrispian. I had a great time talking to Allison about her BlissDom conference.

From there, we tried to go to the TechKaraoke party but the line wrapped all the way around the building. One of my goals this year was to not stand in any lines… you can waste so much time waiting to get in and there are so many parties going on. Why wait to get into that one cool party? We eventually ended up at the Bellmont bar and had a great time. They had live music and the weather was great, so we stayed outside on the roof most of the time. We closed it down, then went to Jimmy Johns for a late night snack.

Got back to the hotel really late, and suddenly remembered I was going to have to be up early because Patrick and I had RSVP’d for something Sunday morning. I set my alarm and tried to get a few hours of sleep.

Sunday

I had to wake up early for Social Media Breakfast… but of course slept late. I woke up at 9, and was supposed to meet Patrick in the lobby at 9:30 to grab a cab. I jumped in the shower and threw on some clothes as fast as I could. We left the hotel by cab at 9:45, got there, got some grub and sat down at a table with Deb Ng, Chris Garrett and later Dave Barger. The presentations were very interesting and I met a few people afterward. I even scored a free Skype headset they were giving away. We snagged a ride with Patrick’s friend Nathan Wright back to the hotel.

The breakfast lasted until noon, and we were pretty hungry by the time we got back to the hotel. I went to Champions for lunch with Patrick, Chrispian, Julie, Josh and Jared. After lunch I dropped by the blogger lounge and said hello to a few people. Outside the blogger lounge Patrick introduced me to Rafael Marquez of MarketingLatinos.com and he interviewed me for his blog. Then I headed to the Interactive Agency Workflow session. The session started out great, going from requirements gathering and wireframing but seemed to linger about wireframes way too long. Most of the people got up and left about halfway through.

We skipped out a few minutes early and went over to the Twitter Dating panel at the Courtyard Mariott supporting Jeremy Wright (one of the speakers). The panel was hilarious… there was lots of participation and interesting online dating stories (probably helped by the free beer).

After the panel I went back to the Hilton and met up with Joe Hamm and the usual Patrick, Julie, Josh and Chrispian and headed to dinner at Cantina Laredo. We had some awesome gourmet mexican food and then headed to Lanai for the Big Omaha party. Nathan Wright was a sponsor and we spoke to him for a moment when we got there. It wasn’t very busy at all, nice group of people until Gary Vaynerchuk announced his “secret” wine party was there (about midnight). It packed out with hundreds more people and they cranked up the music. I got a pretty bad headache and decided to call it a night… went back to the hotel and got some sleep.

Monday

I think my body was trying to tell me I needed some rest, because I woke up around 7 and felt much better. I got ready and headed to the Blogger Lounge to catch up on some email and work before the sessions. Jeremy came in and sat next to me and we caught up on our SxSW adventures to that point — I think he had much more eventful time than I had at that point! I also talked to Rohit Bhargava and Patrick about professional speaking.

For lunch, Julie wanted to find some gluen-free pizza. She’s gluten-intolerant so she’d been just eating a little of this and that wherever we went. She did some research and found a couple of pizza places in Austin, but none of them close enough to walk to. We took a cab to one of the restaurants she found but it had closed down. We were sitting in two cabs with meters running so we decided to just go to Conan’s Pizza. We original and thought they had gluten-free pizza, but it turns out they didn’t. We decided to eat there anyway, and it turned out to be a very interesting place.

After lunch, we took a few cabs back to the convention center. As Patrick and I were walking through the convention center floor, we ran into Thom Singer and had a great conversation about professional speaking. Thom is a professional speaker and spoke over 50 times last year. He is a wealth of information about speaking and presenting, so I picked his brain for a while and asked a ton of questions.

Patrick and I walked back over to the Hilton and saw Jacqui Chew, who I had met earlier (but when and where is escaping me right now). We decided to head over to the Frost Tower for Gary Vaynerchuk and Brian Solis’ joint wine tasting and book signing. I saw a lot of people there including Courtenay, Taryn, and Jim. Taryn introduced me to Stephanie Lichtenstein and Lindsay Burck.

We were getting hungry, so we decided to find a place to eat. We had a decent sized party, and went to one restaurant that wasn’t going to be able to seat us for 30-45 minutes. They recommended Sullivan’s Steak House which was right down the street, and we got a table there almost immediately. Me, Patrick, Jacqui, Jim, Julie, Josh and Chris all had dinner, and it was great. The service and food were excellent, and they got us in and out relatively quickly. After dinner, Patrick went to watch the premier of MacGruber. We all went to the TechSet party but several of us weren’t on “the list” so we couldn’t get in. Josh, Julie and Chrispian decided to call it a night.

Jim, Jacqui, and I decided to go to the Rackspace Revolutions party, since Jim and I are both customers. When we got there, Jim spotted the chairman and he and Jackie ran off to find him and take a picture with him. I hung around the bar area, and ran into several people like Robert Scoble, who is now working with RackSpace. I also bumped into James Paden, Taryn, Stephanie and several others.

Later that evening, I noticed a crowd gathering around a table. They have hired someone to hand-roll cigars. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes I finally got a hand rolled cigar. After enjoying my cigar, I met up with Taryn and Lindsay. We stayed at the party until closing, when I walked them back to Lindsay’s car. Her car was dead so we asked someone else who just left the party if they could jump start her car. They just got in the car and left. I called AAA and they sent someone out to give us a hand. After waiting about an hour, a tow truck showed up and helped us get her car started. They gave me a ride back to the Hilton and I called it a night.

Tuesday

I went to a few sessions about mobile development and had lunch again at Champions with Patrick, Chris, Josh and Jared Smith. After lunch we went to the Press Lounge to wait for Abby Johnson of WebProNews who had scheduled an interview with Patrick.

After their interview, she asked if I’d like to interview again (of course I would!) so I talked about my book reading a bit. Afterward, I went to one final session on mobile advertising and then went back to the hotel to work a bit. Later that evening I joined Jim, Stephanie Frost, Chris Turner and Jackui for dinner at Eddie V’s. I had Ahi Tuna (rare, of course) and it was amazing.

I decided to go back to my room and work, forgoing the closing party since I had an early flight.

Wednesday

I originally thought my flight back to Atlanta was at 5am, but fortunately that was when I needed to be at the airport. My flight was at 6:55 and I was joined on the flight by lots of Atlantans heading home from SxSW. I sat with Joe Hamm and Stephanie Frost waiting to board.

The Big Picture Takeaways

SxSW was epic as usual. This blog post is a testament to that. This was my third South-by and was by far the most productive. My first year I tried to attend ALL the sessions and ALL the parties. As a result, I was always running around like crazy and can barely remember who I met or what I did. Last year I took it a little easier, but still tried to go to all the parties and meet as many people as possible.

This year I just decided to go with the flow. We made dinner plans at the last minute, hung out in the halls, went to meetups, and generally just bummed around the conference. If you just looked at my schedule, you might think I completely wasted my conference pass… maybe I did. But I got more from this year at SxSW than the two previous years combined.

I spent time with great friends (including some new ones like Deb and Chris), met some truly awesome people, and made some connections that I am sure will be extremely valuable. I stuck by my original goal and didn’t wait in lines to get into a party (with the exception of a short line to have my ID checked).

The overall takeaway for me is to experience SxSW like you’d experience a great little city you’ve never been to. If you’ve never been, you don’t know all the cool places to go see, you just go exploring, meeting people as you go. Not only is it much more fun, but I think you get a lot more out of it that way.

People that Made SxSW Rawk

I met literally hundreds of people at SxSW. I had great conversations, learned a lot, and really had a great time. But there were some people who really stood out and helped made SxSW 2010 really special. In no particular order…

• Patrick O’Keefe
• Chrispian Burks
• Josh Coffee
• Julie Taylor
• Jeremy Wright
• Jim Caruso
• Stephanie Frost
• Darren Rowse
• Chris Garrett
• Jacqui Chew
• Taryn Pisaneschi
• Thom Singer

No, I’m not that old. I was just fortunate enough that my high school graphic arts teacher made us learn everything the old fashioned way. When I got into graphic arts in 1994, computer-based desktop publishing was around (we had direct-to-plate technology already) but we still had to learn how to do everything old-school before we were allowed to use Aldus Pagemaker on the Mac LCII’s. Yes, Aldus Pagemaker.

I eventually became production editor of our schools newspaper, where I was responsible for everything related to its actual print publishing. I guess the Internet was around back then, but I wasn’t into it yet. I never would have guessed where print publishing would be in 15 years. Never.

The Demise of the Publishing Industry

In the last couple of years newspapers have been going out of business left and right. The Newspaper Death Watch website chronicles the decline of newspapers and print publishing. It reminds me a little of F*$%#d Company back in the dot-com bust days. What is wrong with these people? With production costs going up and advertising revenues going down it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to deduce that there need to be drastic changes or an entire industry could disappear.

Newspapers and magazines have tried everything they can think of, without breaking from their existing business model. They tried increasing advertising costs which led to fewer advertisers. They tried charging readers more for print editions, which drove people to read the same content online. Then they decided to charge for online access, which just drove people to other (free) content providers.

So who or what is going to save the publishing industry? Read on…

Who’s Gonna Save Publishing?

I know, I know. With this being the day Apple announced the iPad, you’re thinking I’m going to say that Apple is going to save publishing. Actually, I think Apple has let us down. Usually an innovator, Apple’s new tablet is just that. A tablet. It surfs the web with new touch controls but is still just an Internet appliance (or a big iPod Touch, however you want to look at it). I think Amazon has done more to save publishing than Apple. At least they created a really easy way to buy and distribute a certain type of media online (books). So maybe the Kindle or other e-ink book readers can save publishing?

Nope. Wrong. They still have fundamental flaws. See, it’s not about the device. It’s not about the hardware. It’s about the experience. Not the same experience, a better experience. We’ve been consuming content on web pages forever, we know how to click links and navigate web pages, but that’s not necessarily the best way to consume content. Neither is a newspaper or magazine, but they’re what we’re used to.

So who or what is going to save publishing? Sports Illustrated is going to save publishing. At least, if the old fogeys that run these publishing companies will open their eyes for a minute.

Companies keep coming out with devices that mimic these experiences instead of backing up and really thinking about all the different content types that are out there. Written articles, photos, video clips, audio clips, RSS feeds, links, tags, the Twitter stream, etc.

Well someone at Sports Illustrated gave it some thought and came out with a really intriguing new interface. It’s just a demo right now, but it’s amazing. Check out the video below:

It doesn’t matter whether it runs on a regular Tablet PC, an Apple iPad or an HP Slate… it’s the software not the hardware.

How Will it Save Publishing?

I don’t subscribe to Sports Illustrated, but I would damn sure pay for the Sports Illustrated application if it works like the video above. Print publishing is doomed. Books are here to stay, but magazines and newspapers are digging their own grave. Nothing can save them.

But it’s not the magazine or newspaper we care about. It’s the content. We’re addicted to content–good, quality content. Photos. Videos. Interactive diagrams. We’ve gotten used to the rich content accessible on the Internet. Print media just can’t cut it. Neither can the e-ink devices like the Kindle.

A software platform similar to the concept by Sports Illustrated on a device like the Apple iPad or HP Slate will save publishing. It has everything we want… it’s easy to navigate, easy to consume rich interactive content, small, lightweight, etc.

We can hold it in one hand with a cup of coffee and read the morning’s paper, or watch our regular news show streamed live on Hulu.

Will They Listen?

Honestly, I don’t know. These old guys in the print industry have been hanging on for dear life to their old ways and don’t seem to even want to change. I’m not sure if they’ll embrace this new technology or not, but I do know one thing. It doesn’t matter.

The technology is here… the software is easy to make. The content is already out there. If the big publishers don’t do it, a small startup will and they’ll come out of nowhere and snatch a huge chunk of marketshare.

Hmmm, I may have said too much already… I’m off to write a business plan and look for venture capital!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pondering The Apple Tablet’s Print Revolution [Apple] (gizmodo.com)
• No, The Apple Tablet Won’t Save Publishing Nor Will It End ‘Free’ (techdirt.com)
• The Sports Illustrated Tablet Application (hotfootblog.com)

So far I haven’t attended many panels, but have met a lot of great people in the halls and at the parties at night (the real reason for coming). I’ll write a follow-up post reviewing the conference and all the people I’ve met, but just wanted to throw out what I was up to…

Dear Ma.gnolia Members and Visitors,

So far, my efforts to recover Ma.gnolia’s data store have been unsuccessful. While I’m continuing to work at it, both from the data store and other sources on the web, I don’t want to raise expectations about our prospects. While certainly unanticipated, I do take responsibility and apologize for this widespread loss of data.

In this past year, many of us have seen much loss around us. While bookmarks seem small on the national or global scale, I know that many of you had built intellectual and social capital through the bookmarks, groups, and connections you made here. For those who had shown their support for Ma.gnolia by buying one or more premium feature subscriptions, that’s one thing you won’t be losing: refunds will be issued for those purchases within two weeks from today.

Ma.gnolia was approaching the third anniversary of its public launch; for me, it was the project and people to which I’d devoted most of my time, energy, and love for nearly four years. It’s still a little too soon to give word about the return of Ma.gnolia the service and the future of the M2 project, but I will keep this site and our Twitter account updated as those decisions are made.

In the meantime, I can provide a few pointers to some resources that can help:

If you’ve been publishing your bookmarks through any RSS feeds or aggregation services like FriendFeed, you can re-capture some of them before those feeds expire.

We’ve set up a recovery tools page with several options. We’re still adding more.

If you’re looking for a place to start a new collection, I think Diigo is a good option to check out for its groups, cross-service posting features and attentive staff.

Further tips for recovering bookmarks can be found or posted in a thread at Ma.gnolia’s page on Get Satisfaction.

Sincerely, Larry

I think this should serve as a hard lesson to people and companies that use hosted web applications (or even their own) for business-critical tasks like project management, client management, scheduling, billing, etc.

Back up your data!

Don’t trust web applications to keep your critical data — back it up yourself regularly. Also review your local backup procedures to ensure you’re backing up your hard drive. It’s best to have data backed up locally to an external hard drive, but also make occasional backups that are taken off-site in case of a fire, flood, or other physical damage (or even theft) at your facilities.

Our Backup Plan

All of our employees have external hard drives attached to their computers. Computers are automatically backed up using Apple’s Time Machine software (except for a couple of PC users who use some other backup software). Critical information is also backed up on a shared file server.

We are planning an off-site backup solutions (that may utilize a service like Amazon S3 data storage) that will hopefully go live soon.

The new design features an Ajaxed dashboard that allows you to add modules you like and remove modules you might not need. You can moderate comments and create new posts directly from the dashboard, and you can see a list of recent drafts and click to edit them.

The menu system has also been revamped, and looks like it took some inspiration from the Tiger Admin for WordPress. They’ve moved the navigation to the left sidebar, and it will be collapsible to just icons, giving you more room for the dashboard.

Checkout the video and see what you think about WordPress 2.7:

There were some great presentations and keynotes, and the Expo had a lot of great companies represented. I have to say my favorite booth was the B5 booth with their poker game and giveaways. And what was up with the cement mixer??

My friends Patrick, Jeremy and Darren all spoke in panels at this year’s convention and all were great. I learned a lot about blogging and social networking and am excited about applying that information to both my websites and clients’ sites.

The parties rocked, but I think I missed the best party of all… I heard there was Backstreet Boys karaoke going on at the MGM! I’m sorry we missed it.

I also participated in the Digital Photography School Photowalk, and will be posting the photos to Flickr as soon as possible.

All in all, it was a great trip. I learned a lot and can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned. I’d also like to thank Rick Calvert and Blogworld – looking forward to next year!

I’ll be testing it out for the next couple of weeks to see if it does in fact increase productivity. Still, it surely can’t hinder productivity and is cool so I like it either way.

My MacBook Pro has a tiny issue with the keyboard. The caps-lock and shift keys on the left side stopped working a few months ago, and since I work mainly plugged into a keyboard and mouse it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. Still, it needs to be fixed so I thought it would be best to send it off for repair when I’m going to be out of the office.

I’m heading to Orlando for 8 days on business – we’re setting up and manning a trade show booth for the McDonald’s Worldwide owner’s convention. While I’m there, I won’t be working on client projects because we’ll be in the booth answering questions, etc… so I don’t need the laptop to actually produce anything.

Still, I’ve never been away from my laptop/computer for an extended period of time. For 8 days, starting tomorrow, I will only have my iPhone. I’ll be checking email and communicating with clients, posting to Twitter, and reading my RSS feeds.

I’ll post an update when I get back… this should be an interesting experiment.

So, I came by for a much needed cup of joe and was intending to use my Verizon Wireless EVDO Expresscard to connect to the Internet and get some work done. After trying to access a few websites and email, disconnecting and reconnecting several times, I realized something was wrong. I have had my card since around November of last year and have been very happy with it so far. The service has been very reliable and though not really “broadband” speeds, it does everything I need.

I called Verizon from my iPhone and talked with two very nice support representatives. Neither knew much (if anything) about Macs (they actually called them “Macintoshes” — how long has it’s been since you’ve heard them referred to as that?) and I had a feeling it was going to be a rough night. The first rep suggested I upgrade my software, which I did. The new software was touted as being compatible with 10.5 (according to the website, not the rep) so I thought it might help. Nope. Still couldn’t actually download pages or email… though it would connect just fine.

The second rep walked me through much the same troubleshooting steps as the first, but also tried a few speed tests and other tricks. None worked, and so he offered to enter a trouble ticket with the network team. After another hour on the phone, he finally had all the information about my system, card, software, network problem, address, etc. he needed and I got off the phone. I spent roughly 3 1/2 hours tonight dealing with this, and of course have gotten zero work done.

There are a lot of “tools” and “things” out there that offer “increased productivity.” Be leery of them, however. Spending 3 1/2 hours on NOTHING productive has drained my will to do anything now. I can barely finish this post! I would have been much more productive (though thirsty and craving caffeine) if I had just stayed at the office or gone home instead.

BTW, it seems after spending all that time opening the trouble ticket my internet is working (though sporadically) and hopefully this post will make it through.

I signed up for a Twitter account several months ago, and never really used it. I would login and update it from the website maybe once a month… not that accurate a description of what I’m up to.

Then I went to SXSW, and I found the real beauty behind Twitter. It seemed like everyone at SXSW was Twittering, and they were using it to keep up with all their friends, the conference and post back to everyone back home as to their status.

It was especially important at night, when you could get an invite to a semi-private party simply by Twitter. Or you could get valuable information in a message, like that some rock star just crashed a party.

After Twittering a good bit at SXSW, I decided it did have some actual benefits and I would do my best to give it a shot. Since I’ve been back, I honestly haven’t updated it that often, but then again I haven’t been up to much either.

I have, however, really enjoyed following all my friends on Twitter — especially the people I met in Austin.

I think my hangup with Twitter was because I was trying to use it from my dekstop. Once I was separated from my computer, and used Twitter from my iPhone I found its true potential. Keep up with people on the road, much quicker than using email (which isn’t even an option for most people who don’t have a smartphone), and much cheaper than mass texting.

I’ll be giving Twitter a real trial over the next couple of months to see if it fits my lifestyle. We’ll see.

I’m back from Austin and while I definitely have enough catchup work to keep me busy, I thought I’d post a quick review since it was my first time at the conference.

First, I finally got to meet a lot of people in person that I’ve known for years… Patrick O’Keefe, Chrispian Burks, Jeremy Wright, Aaron Brazell, Stephan Segraves and more. It was great hanging out with you guys.

This was my first trip to Austin and my first SXSW conference. I had a great time, and wish I could have stayed for the whole week, but we stayed only for the Interactive portion. I learned one thing almost immediately — SXSW has two worlds — the panels and conference during the day and the parties and networking events at night. I’ll give a brief review of each.

The SXSW Conference and Expo

All of the panels and discussions were between 30 minutes and 1 hour long. It seemed like in many of the discussions we were really just getting started and it was over. In a way, this is good because it gets you thinking about a subject and asking yourself questions, and leaves you to finish on your own. Hopefully you go back with some unanswered questions and continue the discussion online and with colleagues back home.

The layout of the convention center made it difficult to get from one room to another. Several times we just could not physically make it to another panel in time because it required walking clear across the convention center (which was big).

The trade show itself was a bit smaller than I expected. Since it is an Interactive, Film and Music conference I expected to see a fairly large trade show, maybe divided into sections for each. The exhibitors had fairly small booths and were giving out schwag like t-shirts, pins, stickers, etc. I saw companies like O’Reilly, Opera, Mapquest, Google, and Yahoo. A few people I expected to see but didn’t: Mozilla/Firefox, Microsoft, Apple.

Overall it was very organized and the panels discussed interesting topics related to our industry. I learned a good bit and enjoyed bumping into interesting people on the show floor.

The Parties and Networking Events

I was fortunate to know a good number of people going to Austin for SXSW, many whom I have never met in person. Several of us got together Friday night to meet and have dinner, and had some discussions on industry topics and generally just hang out.

Every night after that it seems there was a party or networking event planned that seemed interesting. There were a few blog-specific events that I enjoyed in particular, including the Chitika/ProBlogger Beer Bus and the b5media Blog Network Camp. I learned a lot about blogging and met some great people.

I realized quickly that the sessions and panels are great but they just spark your creativity and get your wheels turning. It’s the Austin night life that really makes SXSW what it is. I had a great time at SXSW and can’t wait for next year.

Okay, I haven’t had a “Start Menu” in a really long time. When I switched back to Mac I thought I would need one. I sure didn’t want to have to open my Applications folder every time I needed to launch an application.

Soon after moving back to Mac, I discovered Quicksilver, an amazing utility. In just a few clicks on my keyboard (no mouse needed) I can open any program, compose an email, lower my volume, advance to a new track, see a contact’s phone number, search inside my files, print a file, and many more useful functions.

All without even reaching for my mouse.

Even after Apple’s Spotlight has gotten more functionality with 10.5 Leopard, I still use Quicksilver constantly throughout the day.

I think the MacBook Air is a niche product… I mean, I’d love to have one, but I won’t be getting one. If I had a nice desktop machine and traveled a lot, I’d probably think about it.

The iPhone updates were welcome and I was downloading them as soon as they were available. I can’t wait to get my hands on the SDK next month.

The video rentals and AppleTV announcement was welcomed too. I don’t plan on renting videos through Apple when I can get them from NetFlix and keep them as long as I want (and watch them multiple times) but I think I might just get an AppleTV now that the price has dropped. We’ve been eyeing them for a few months now anyway.

Overall, it was a pretty good year. Knowing that they’ve already announced changes to the xServe and Mac Pro lines and there will likely be a 16 GB iPhone with 3G sometime in 2008, I think it will be a solid year for Apple.

I’m hoping for an ultra-portable MacBook Pro, movie rentals in iTunes, and an iPhone software update. I’d love to see a 3G iPhone with 16 GB of memory, but even if it’s announced, it probably won’t be available for some months to come.

But I will be happy, rather ecstatic, if they just announce the iPhone SDK and post details immediately. After getting a new iPhone (due to my wife dropping hers) I was locked in to 1.1.2, so I can’t run AppTapp or any third-party apps. The SDK, though it will probably limit 3rd party apps somewhat, would be my dream announcement.

I looked in all the normal places, the local cell phone stores. I went to Verizon, Cingular and looked at Sprint online. Verizon and Cingular both wanted a mint for the cards in the store. No discount it seemed, even with a 2-year agreement. So I looked online.

Some of the cards were discounted online, but they were still expensive – really expensive. I didn’t want to have to pay $150 for a PC card and then $60 a month just for occasional internet access.

Then I remembered I had bought a cell phone from Amazon about a year ago. I found a Treo 680 there when they were first released and got it for $0.01 when the store wanted $300 before a rebate. Amazon didn’t have a rebate going – it was just a penny.

So I looked for a PC card at Amazon and viola! I got a brand new Verizon Wireless v740 EVDO ExpressCard for a penny. Plus since I’m a Prime member, I got next day air for only $3.99.

Next time you’re looking for a cell phone or PC card, check out Amazon.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-betavoltaic-10.1.html

Check out my profile to get a better idea. Patrick hooked me up with an invite so I’m beta testing the site (thanks). I have a few invites I can give out, so hit me up if you would like one.

You can post links, events, messages and even files and Pownce will automatically email your friends and let them know. There is a nifty desktop client (for Win & Mac) that lets you post without even opening your browser.

I’m not sure I have enough friends to need Pownce (an email usually works fine for me) but I like the concept and am going to give it a try.

iPhone Campout Live Blog at The Apple Blog

If they weren’t real enough, they now have a personal investment from Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos and his investment company.

Will this be the end of “Getting Real” and the 37 Signals philosophy? I don’t think so, but I am a little puzzled about the announcement. They’ve been apparently been fending off VC companies for a while; I guess they just got an offer they couldn’t refuse.

I have to say, if Jeff Bezos wanted to invest in our company I definitely wouldn’t say no!

Historically Apple has not made a big deal out of their anniversaries, with the exception of the 20th anniversary Mac, which in my personal opinion was a flop. Will Apple do anything spectacular this, their 30th, anniversary?

I don’t know, but I do know I’ve got apple.com set as my home page until then… just in case.

Online “Web 2.0″ Software (yeah, I said “Web 2.0″)

Basecamp by 37 Signals

Simple, effective project management software. It works, and works well. I use it for all my projects, internal and with clients.

Writeboard also by 37 Signals

Online document collaboration software – lets you write (or paste) a document and keep track of revisions by you or multiple authors.

Google Customized

I have this customized to show my favorite blogs, Gmail account, local weather and even a few frequently visited website URL’s. Very customizeable; very cool. Quite possibly the best thing that’s come out of Google since, well, Google.

WordPress

Blogging software that is beautifully simple yet has all the features I need. I’ve tried just about every blog software, including the hosted solutions. WordPress is the easiest and nicest I’ve seen. And it’s free.

Blogs & Websites I read

I have an RSS feed coming to my customized Google home page for every one of these sites. There’s some good insight here.

• Signal vs. Noise by 37 Signals
• SimpleBits
• SitePoint Blogs (yes, all of ‘em)
• Authentic Boredom
• ParticleTree
• Whitespace
• A List Apart
• Slashdot

Not all of them are “blogs” but they are all worth visiting daily… or at least subscribe to the RSS feed so you know when a new post is made.

Productivity Tips and Tricks

Okay, here are a few bits of insight from my short time on this Earth. Take them for what they are – I’m constantly reading new books and trying a new approach. But over the years a few things have remained consistent no matter what.

Base Everything on Solid Principles

Read Steven Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ and ‘The 8th Habit – From Effectiveness to Greatness.’ They aren’t just good – they’re great. I’ve had ‘The 7 Habits’ since around 1998 and have read it cover to cover more times than I have fingers (and maybe toes). Its basic message is that there are certain fundamental principles (like trustworthiness, honesty and integrity) that are self evident, and that living life by those principles is a great step toward effectiveness and greatness. Great business and life advice.

Franklin Covey Planning System

I’ve been using a Franklin Covey planner since I was 18 years old. My first employer sent me to a seminar and gave me my first planner. I’ve had the same binder for almost 7 years now, and it’s old leather look is aging nicely. But it’s not the soft leather binder that I want to draw attention to – it’s the methods of planning. Instead of just making a “to-do list,” Franklin Covey has a system of determining what is really important and urgent – and prioritizing our life around those things that matter the most. Goes hand in hand with the books above.

Put Family First

Building a business is hard; so is climing the corporate ladder. No matter what your profession, it’s easy to put family on the back burner with an eye on “success.” Take a step back and think about what you really want – and what’s really important. You might find that ladder is up against the wrong building. Family is the most important thing in my life – and spending time with my wife and children trumps everything else. I could put in 80 hour weeks growing my company to a “success” but at what cost? You can’t “put off” time with family… once it’s gone it’s gone.

Take Care of Yourself

Somewhat in line with the tip above – take care of yourself. Life is short, and we don’t need to make it shorter. Eat well, exercise and get outside once and a while! Treat your body right and it will reward you with clearer thought, more energy and more effectiveness. Don’t and not only will your health suffer – but you’ll be sluggish, you won’t think clearly, and you’ll likely cause long term health problems.

Read Everything

Read business magazines, industry publications, blogs, books, manuals, and anything else that can give you an edge. Read when you’re on the plane, instead of watching TV, taking a break from work, or anytime you have 5 minutes. In our fast paced society knowledge is everything, and keeping up with it is almost impossible. Pick a few publications to read regularly, subscribe to a few blog feeds, and try to read a book at least every few weeks (every month minimum). Not only will you be smarter, but studies show that the more you use your brain now, the longer it keeps working.

Set Goals, and Deadlines

I’ve heard people suggest to set unrealistic “dream” goals. That’s just silly. Set attainable goals and then determine the best coarse of action to acheive them. Make deadlines and work to accomplish them, one at a time. By the time you know it, you will have acheived your goal. Repeat.

Backup Everything, All the Time

Backup your family photos, your business documents and files, your email. Backup everything because it’s not a matter of if, its a matter of . Computers and hard drives are just mechanical devices, like a car’s engine. Use them enough, and they’ll eventually die. They can die anytime, even brand new. Take it from someone who’s been there – backup everything you want to save.

Conclusion

Well, I could probably find a few more points, software, or l inks to share. But that’ll do for now – my small piece of advice and insight into productivity for the next year. All the best for 2006; may you acheive true success.

Well, I got a loaner phone and patiently waited for the new Treo. When it came I thought I was finally going to get back to normal. No… the thing wouldn’t hold a charge. It would charge all night, and by lunch it would be giving low battery indications. So I called Palm and told them about it. They sent another replacement.

The second replacement seemed to work okay for about a week. I was just starting to get back into the swing of things when it just died. No lights, no sounds, nothing. This morning I grabbed the phone when I was walking out the door and it was just dead. SO, I called T-Mobile again, and after answering the same questions three times with different levels of technical support (Yes, I’ve tried resetting the damned thing!) they finally agreed to send me another one.

After arguing with the rep for a few minutes, he conceeded and agreed to expedite shipping without charging me. So hopefully by Tuesday I’ll have a replacement. I can’t deal with this loaner phone. No contacts, no appointments, nothing. It’s hell.

The application uses the digital data service on your wireless plan. On T-Mobile, it connects via GPRS. I already pay $19.95/month for unlimited Internet so I can get email on my phone. I thought that was expensive until now… Now I’m also able to connect to the Internet on my laptop from anywhere I have cell coverage.

I’ve been using it for several hours straight with no problems… it really works. I’d recommend this hardward/software combination for any mobile professional who needs a reliable way of connecting to the Internet out in the field.

It’s tiny too… much smaller than a regular iPod. It’s probably very comparable in size to an iPod Mini, though I haven’t held one to see for sure. It’s smaller than my Treo 600.

I haven’t used it that much yet, so can’t give it a definite review just yet but will post again when I’ve had some time to put it through the trials.

I’ve been looking at dozens of MP3 players (all with hard drives) and have come down to this, the Dell Jukebox, and a few others. The Apple iPod is not in my list because I’m not very happy with iTunes music service. I got hooked on Napster and Napster To Go services. Being able to download 5GB of songs to my MP3 player for a small monthly fee. Then if you want to buy a CD or song, you can.

So, if anyone has any opinions I’d love to hear them. I’m selling my Xbox on Ebay right now. I never get to play it anymore and thought a MP3 player would get more use anyway. I should be able to buy one in about a week.

I am glad that the whole ordeal is finished… and I have a camera that works. Unfortunately though I just saw that Canon is releasing a new updated version of the Digital Rebel that is 8 MP, black body and a newer image processor. I have a feeling this camera will be on eBay soon!

When they get it in a few days he is going to ship out the replacement the same day (we hope). I should get it by the beginning of next week. I’ll post an update as soon as it comes in…

Anyway, I got the camera home and it started malfunctioning. I just sent it back in to get it replaced. Everytime the automatic flash would deploy it gave an error message. It’ll probably take over a week for them to get it and send another one out… I was really looking forward to getting out and learning a little about photogrpahy.

Well, when the new camera comes hopefully it won’t have any problems and I can hit the ground running…

I’ve tried blogging on and off for a few years now, and have been playing around with different software packages but have never really found anything easy enough.

I wanted to be able to blog quickly and get to the actual writing. I don’t want to have to have a huge learning curve with the software or have to enter a different markup for bold, italics and other basic text formatting. I also want to be able to customize the blog’s design and layout easily.

I am using WordPress for the last few days and it’s really easy to use. It even has a sidebar for Mozilla/Firefox (which is how I’m posting this message) so you don’t even have to go to your website and login, just click a link in your favorites.

If you’re thinking of starting a blog, I’d recommend looking at WordPress. It’s very easy to install and even easier to use.

I am hooked! I am already planning to upgrade to the new Treo 650 when they come out for T-Mobile. It does absolutely everything. I have third party software, Chatter, that automatically pushes email to my phone using an IMAP connection. I can send email and SMS text messages easily because of the Qwerty keyboard.

It also has a calendar (which syncs with Act!), address book, voice recorder, digital camera, MP3 player and more. I even found a third part SSH app so I can administer my servers from the GPRS internet connection on the phone.

I was originally skeptical about it because I thought the size might make me feel like I was holding a PDA up to my ear instead of a phone, but the Treo is very small and light so it feels very much like a phone and not a PDA.

If you need a phone and Palm powered device, get the Treo. You’ll be surprised how much more productive you will be.