Today this post comes to you courtesy of the email center in the middle of the tradeshow floor here at SXSW. It's Day 3-- and the weather is cooling just a bit before our last day tomorrow. Though "cool" is definitely a relative term, considering I read something about yesterday about SNOW in the Bay Area...

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting another member of the Net2 Community-- web consultant, Alexandra (many of you know her as "Alex") Samuel. We all gathered, in web 2.0 appropriateness, at the Yahoo!, Delicious, Flickr party at the Iron Cactus, an Austin staple on 6th St. Billy, Marshall, Alex and I enjoyed the open vibe and the open air of the 2nd floor patio.                                          

One highlight, of many: We had a great time talking with Randy Moss from the American Cancer Society-- a Net2 ally and case study. He's got a quick, witty sense of humor that kept us all in a loop of laughs.

Caught several presentations, including:                                                                            

How to Roll Out Your Own Web Conference (names and links to be posted soon-- these public access laptops only allow one window open at a time, in a failed attempt to keep people like me from blogging and using more than the alloted 10 mins. per attendee!)

Highlight: The best bit of advice I gleaned from this panel-- Keep your guests well fed. They'll be full and happy and they'll easily forgive you for any shortcomings or problems that may arise. So, um, don't skimp out on your food budget (SXSW might want to take this into consideration...!) Maybe I didn't stay long enough and i missed some of the more profound insights on putting together a web conference.

Serious Games for Learning

I didn't find this to be much about games, but a broader presentation on creating a truly interactive experience for your users. If you're promoting or advertising, your users should be participating in the process and learning at the same time. Education should be completely immersive, make use of all the senses and appeal to as many areas of the brain as possible.

Highlight: Engagement > Marketing > Education. This is the basic equation for Inquiry-based marketing-- it should be challenging and educating. We must ask ourselves how our product, program or service stand up to this in a rapidly changing environment.

As mentioned above, names, titles and links to be posted soon.  I've also taken some pics to help illustrate these posts --but my usb cable broke and I can't upload them. Been trying to find one to borrow, but they may have to wait until we're back. More soon...