Following SXSWi Conference

I have to admit that I am a little disappointed to not be in Austin this weekend for the South by Southwest Interactive Conference.  I had planned on heading out there but given the fact that I am running behind schedule on just about every project I have going on right now I figured it was in my best interest to just stay behind this week and get caught up.  As a lot of you may already be aware, my wife and I had a tragedy recently and needless to say I didn’t get a lot of work done all last week. My partners and I also attended the Rackspace Conference in Atlanta earlier this week, so not only has my productivity and focus been down but I have also been out of the office a lot.  Staying home from SXSWi this year was the right thing to do…  Okay, I have justified it.

What’s the big deal about SXSWi you might ask?  Well, that’s simple.  In terms of conferences / conventions, this is the big one for the interactive industry.  In fact, many of the trends and products that will shape our industry this next year will be unveiled at SXSWi in Austin.  Fret not though, I have some friends that are attending the conference this year and have been tweeting and blogging up a storm about what they are seeing.  Here’s a few if you are interested in following along…

• Bryan Jones / @bryanjones
• Wade Austin / @k_wade_a
• Daniel Spillers / @almostdaniel
• Justin Wright / @mrjawright

So, what to do this weekend??

So, besides getting caught up on my backlog of client projects what am I doing this weekend?  Well, turns out it’s not that bad of a weekend after all.  My church, The Church Alive, is hosting their annual Unlimited Realm conference this year.  Nick Brewer and I have been managing our live video stream and social media presence for the conference and it’s been a big honor to use our talents to further the kingdom.  Tonight we led a young man to Christ in a chat room that had been dealing w/ drug addiction.  We also prayed w/ several others on matters related to their health and healing.  This sort of ministry opportunity doesn’t present itself very often but when it does, I like to roll up my sleeves and get involved however I can.  If you are interested in tuning into the conference this weekend, you can do so by clicking here…