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or…. when you invest in travel, room/board, time away from work & family it’s nice to know that there is a conference that keeps you busy the entire time with plenty of sessions you can benefit from.

Yes, it’s big. so what… you’re not going to all the talks.

I thought SXSW was all about partying in a Geek-friendly environment… what are these panels you speak of?

Honestly, I love it just because it brings more interesting tech folk to austin. As a native, it’s fun to finally hear people discussing jQuery and iOS apps at a bar instead of football. That said, I never buy a badge, I just go to private events, and chat with people over drinks. You can learn quite a bit, and meet some really fun people.

Living in Austin, I have a bit of SXSW -envy. But I can’t seem to justify the cost of attending, so I just crash the parties and get together with people who are in town for the show. That’s what it’s all about anyway: the people.

Went for the first time last year. Had a great time, was glad I did it once. My opinion… unless you got a couple grand burning a hole in your pocket and time to kill… not worth it every year. I think going every 2 or 3 years would be enough.

Also, EVERYONE that I talked to, that has been going to SXSWi since it started, says it was WAY better when it was smaller. Maybe they should think about capping the number of attendees.

You would have to be very specific. As Seth Godin recently mentioned on his blog, you don’t focus on the mass appeal part of a major event like this, you figure out the big things that you remember forever. Finding one-on-one connections with people who you can make lasting memories.

Maybe it’s getting pancakes at 2am with a CEO of a major corporation.

Maybe it’s making a friend who will crash with you in a few months when they visit your town.

Maybe it’s something else entirely.

Can you learn something from an event like that? I think you can, but most of the learning won’t come from the speakers; it will come from the connections you never thought you’d make.

Capping attendees at SXSW isn’t going to make it any smaller for those that say they liked it when it was smaller. Why? Because a lot of people don’t even buy conference passes. They just go to socialize, hang out, and have a good time.

First, the networking is the best part of any conference. This is obvious. There’s nothing new here.

Second, some people don’t seem to understand the TiVo strategy, which says that the bigger the hard disk, the better. Not because you’ll watch every show, but because you have a greater choice at any given time. Same with a conference with a jillion speakers.

SXSW talks are super hit or miss. there are so few talks/panels actually worth attending that the real problem is finding which ones to attend our of a sea of bad ones.

the only ones consistently good are those by jared spool, and maybe a couple of others that i’m forgetting at the moment.

Of course this impossible to see and learn from all sessions. You need to pick few and that’s it.

It’s really silly to say that you need to go for all and you can’t learn.

For me, the value in a conference as large as SXSW is in the networking. It’s not often (unless you travel to conferences frequently) that you can get so many people in your industry in the same city to meet, do business with, catch up with, etc.

There’s not much value in the panels and sessions though. That’s some of the inspiration behind the new event series in Chicago I’ve co-founded called Entrepreneurs Unpluggd. We’re purposing keeping the event intimate and accessible so people can truly learn and interact.

I attended this year for the first time.

It is huge, and it took me a few days to figure out how to navigate it all, but from the start I had adopted the strategy of improvising and experiencing what fortune threw in my path, for example when the directly day-job-related session on measuring the ROI of social media programs was full, I hopped next door for the warm and slightly wacky “Does the Internet Make You Happy?”. I stayed open to what I did experience and tried not to focus on what I wasn’t able to.

I’m glad they have let it just grow. I think it’s better that everyone who wants to attend can, even if it means you have to travel between venues and sometimes sessions fill up.

In the I found it wonderful, inspiring, even potentially life-changing, and I can’t wait to go back next year.