This year I have the privilege of travelling back to my homeland and attending the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.
SXSW has been going on for over 10 years and includes 3 festivals, music, film and interactive in one ten day period of time.
The interactive portion, which myself and my colleague Kelly (@Kelz71) will be attending on behalf of CIVIC Digital (@civicuk) will consist of workshops, panel discussions, trade shows, showcases, seminars and of course, evening networking events - or as SXSW refers to them 'parties'. We are scheduled to go to some really cool ones, such as an Adobe happy hour, the Mashable mashbash and even a Brit get together on the last night.
I'm going to have to try really hard to keep my cool during the next few days, because in my world, brands and applications are like celebrities and I completely geek out and make a fool of myself!
We'll be writing blog posts, tweeting, taking pictures and hopefully filming a bit, which you'll be able to find and follow on the CIVIC Digital blog: Inside the Fish Bowl.
If you are at sxsw, drop me a line on twitter!