It’s been a bit crazy since arriving in Austin for this years South by Southwest. The geek attendance has stepped up this year, there are way more panels and the parties are plentiful and go on late into the early Austin morning.

Seeing I have a bit of the jet lag and am up early this Monday morning before most have risen, I figured I could belt out a few thoughts on my first couple of days here.

I haven’t attended too many panels yet I must admit. My own panel had me stuck in the hotel room the first day finishing slides and just preparing in general. I think the second day was a bit of a mix of jet lag, exhaustion and perhaps a beverage or two at the previous nights parties as well. So it’s been a bit mellow so far.

From to Riches: Life After Code

I am pleased how this one turned out in the end and we are getting some generally positive feedback from most people I talk to and read on some of the blogs.

The experience was great and I would love to do it again. SxSW has to be the most professional event I have spoken at and it seems to be a well-oiled machine in the background when it comes to running this show. Green room for panelists to prepare, everything kept to schedule, no problems with audio or slideshows and it all just seemed so easy.

We planned a bit beforehand in the green room, covering the topics that we felt a lot of people wanted to hear or discuss. This came out well in the panel during the hour, I think we covered these issues as well as keeping an organic feel to the delivery and managed to fill our 15 minutes at the end with questions from the audience.

Cindy Li rose to the challenge of presenting at her first public outing. She was relaxed and had some great things to say about the design to code role she was filling, and she also managed to fill the seats for us with the Cindy Li Fan Club. Maxine Sherin stepped up in the moderator shoes and kept the panel running smoothly and summarised a few of our points quite eloquently. It was also a pleasure to finally present with Cheryl Lead as I have seen her speak in Sydney many times over the last year.

So now it’s time to buckle down and get into some hardcore panel action…

Some panels on my list are:

Ajax Kung Fu Meets Accessibility Feng Shui

Dan Rather Keynote

Javascript: The Big Picture

User Generated Content and Original Editorial: Friend or Foe

More details on some of those over the next few days.