While I still have notes from about 10 other SXSW panels I attended, I’ve decided to give it a rest for the moment, and post some of my own thoughts.

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind. Somehow I failed to create an entry about getting into Carnegie Mellon University’s Interaction Design program. (Fuck yeah!) I found out on the morning of Wednesday the 8th via email about one minute before I had to enter a team meeting. I could not contain the news and told everyone at the meeting.

This notification was fortuitous in light of my heading to SXSW that Friday. Telling people I had got into the CMU program really upped my web street cred. Some guy from Frog Design even offered me a job on the spot (I’m assuming, for the sake of my ego, that he wasn’t joking.).

Somewhat to my surprise, everyone had heard of CMU. Living in Pittsburgh, it’s hard to know how the rest of the world views the school that I pass every day on my way to work. So if I had any doubts about the doors the program might open, they were cast away when the likes of Jason Santa Maria seemed to be impressed.

Overall, I thought SXSW was awesome. The panels were mostly excellent, and I got to meet so many talented and cool people, including Dan Saffer, Shaun Inman, Luke Wroblewski, and Janice Fraser.

Janice is the CEO of Adaptive Path, which I apologize for not knowing. Dan Saffer introduced me to her as “Janice” only. I then embarassingly asked if she worked for Adaptive Path. “I’m the CEO,” she said. What she didn’t tell me was that she’s a clever girl.

Everyone, regardless of their rank in the web world, was very accessible. There was very little ego, and a lot of openness and willness to share. And that’s awesome.

There was also a lot of passion, and I think that’s why I loved it. For whatever reason, I’m really passionate about the web. I am always striving to do better. And while there weren’t a lot of web building tips and tricks, the general attitude of the festival was to make the web better, and to do more with less.

And also: Iterate, iterate, iterate.

Yeah.