Forget meeting people at the SXSW parties. People watching is the best way to experience all the different personalities SXSW brings to Austin.

There was a soft, hungover buzz in the air when I began watching my fellow festival-goers today. The city stirred back to life after yet another night of company-sponsored parties and after parties. Crushed Monster and Red Bull cans lined the sidewalks like breadcrumbs back to Sixth Street. I watched bleary-eyed twenty-somethings in suits stagger from their hotel rooms and toward the Convention Center.

You can tell a lot about these people. Despite their partying, they have the self-determination to get themselves out of bed the next morning. These are the movers and shakers of my generation. They burn the candle from both ends. Interactive technology is a new and powerful market to capture, so only the smartest and most dedicated people can handle the lifestyle.

Sixth Street is eerily quiet as tourists wander zombie-like from their hotel rooms.

The quiet hum of the morning slowly grew into a roar as people flooded into the streets and toward their [Read more…]