Got my pass, ticket and party invite ducks in a row and headed to my first panel, Marketing Budgets have gone social- Is it Working? FULL. I head to the next one called Slaying the Four Horseman of the Social-Media Apocalypse.

The former social guy from CITIgroup was talking about legal and how to “manage” the conversation and other social challenges. It made me realize a lot of companies are further behind than I thought. One guy asked about how are “we” going to set up ways to respond to the conversation. Really? I wanted to make reference to a client tweet issue we had that was addressed in record time, but I kept my mouth shut. Why would I give the competition intel? Or why wouldn’t I. He clearly doesn’t have a handle on the process, so my words aren’t going to magically educate him on social response process right?  Dicussion done and we depart to parties, to blog to meet awesome people.

After freshening up, we head into the mix for some social mingling. The Austin Museum of Digital Art threw a pretty decent fete with some homegrown Canadian talent , Alan Majer of  Goodrobot showing his wares . A really cool Digital Dj battle kept people movin through the night and well into the AM.  As the night was winding down, I could see the next day emerge in my mind. New panels, new people and now learnings awaited.

To quote Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s,”It’s a madhouse”.  Walking down 6th with a few new friends that’s all I could say over and over. From registration to sponsor activations to mardi grad style parties, there were people, tablets. phones and business cards flying everywhere. An awesome first day madhouse experience on the first day of SXSW.