Color me a slacker. There are a million SxSW wrap-up posts that will get archived way ahead of mine. I figure I should document this somehow.

What did I learn at SxSW Interactive? Although I saw some interesting speeches, particularly from Frank Warren and Charlene Li, what struck me most was being able to meet the people I see online. Technology is amazing. It connects people. But if you sit behind your computer all day, you will not understand the subtle nuances to human interaction that you understand by meeting and interacting with people at a face-to-face level. That is what South by Southwest Interactive offered me.

At one point, I ate dinner with Dave and Erik from Nashville, Cian and his girlfriend (argh, name escapes me but she was a jeans designer) from London, and Graham from New York. It was a great time sharing with people who appreciate technology but use it to reinforce connections made in beyond a computer screen. We did not know each other before SxSW, and yet our use of Twitter, the internet, and a bunch of good jokes ensured we always had something to talk about.

If anything, it taught me that we have a long way to go in this world if we want to truly use social media effectively. At this point, we are a bunch of early adopters communicating with other early adopters. We are the elite. It is good to connect with early adopters to build and exchange ideas. As social media becomes easier to use and more accessible, we will see more “non-techie” people contributing their ideas to our lives with ease just by using social media tools. What tools will we use ten years from to ensure that people from all circles can communicate effectively? We are already seeing every social media site seeking to be the de facto standard social media site in its niche. How do these varying standards create social cliques on the web? How do these cliques raise the level of our collective knowledge by the forces of collaboration, and how do they take away from it by pigeon holing us into one group?

Five out of six people at that table use Twitter. Would I keep up with these people as easily if they only sent updates via MySpace? Probably not. They are thousands of miles away and communicating with them quickly would require me to login regular to a site I do not frequent often. Will we all be on Twitter in ten years? I have no idea. Did I have fun and do I think they are worth following? Yes I do.

Apparently the fortune cookie was right. We live in very interesting times.