I came out of my first SXSW with alot of observations and thoughts, and I’ll be posting them throughout the coming days. But right off the bat, there was alot of behavior I witnessed that damn near made me want to delete my blog and transfer to the direct mail, or even fast food industry.

Nerd fests are cool until they start to resemble LARPing cons, with flickr-enabled wifi digital cameras replacing duct tape and foam swords.

Without further ado, here’s a few pointers that will helpfully keep the tools in the shed where they belong. I would love to have snarky vice-like don’t photos to go with each entry, but i didn’t bring a digital camera every single place I went.

1) Big bags of garbage are for bag ladies.
Yes, I too was in awe when I saw the bevy of big sacks of crap awaiting me at check in- including the awesome interactive one designed by hometown hero Chuck Anderson, but the glee soon faded to meh when I realized they were 90% full of crappy magazines, ads for companies you really don’t care about, and media temple stickers. So right off the bat, you can lighten the load by about 30lbs simply by dumping the majority of it in the big dumpsters convienently located by bag pickup.

Once you do that, go take them to your hotel. The bars are crowded enough without 900 sq feet of canvas tote bags clogging the arteries. It’s handy, considerate, and makes you not look like a trade show scavenger.

2) There is a point of diminishing returns, even with “Free”.
For a community that prides itself on valuing your time and resources, lambasting $99 logos and spec projects alike, an awful lot of you guys appear to have no qualms whatsoever waiting 45 minutes for a 10 oz cup of Miller Lite. Don’t get me wrong, i pretty much live for open bars- but there comes a point when you should probably just cut your losses and go across the street and pay $1.50 for an ice cold longneck of a better beer.

3) Save your business cards for lunch with vendors back home. Or your Mom.
I’m sure this point will be somewhat controversial, considering “networking” is often a huge bullet point when conning your boss into sending you to an open bar for a week, but trust me on this. I left mine at home, did just fine. I got about 20 from people, and i threw them all away while packing.

If you have a big point to make, try and get on a panel or something and have materials to download in the official channels. Or sponsor a couple kegs at a popup event and hang a vinyl banner. Given the amount of that going on, it can’t cost that much. Save the trees- and your dignity, because you know how embarassing it is to hand out a few cards only to find them littered on the beer stained floor 30 minutes later.

4) Grow a pair and go say hi.
Starfucking is weird enough when you’re talking about people that make 90 million dollar movies or sell multiplatinum records you grow up with, but it’s just downright retarded when you’re talking about some skinny kid who made your blog stat tracking software. Seriously, I can’t count the number of times I saw misty eyed nergs pointing and whispering at Shawn Inman sightings. Hell, I think Mint is awesome, but I put my money where my mouth is and just paypal’ed him the $30 or whatever. Figure he’d dig that more than me taking digital pics of the side of his head from afar.

On the flip side, there were totally people that have inspired me, like David Carson or John Cameron Mitchell, and more often than not, they were just standing around like regular dudes, happy to have a civil, non creepy/nerdy conversation. Put the interactive back in interactive, people.

5) Take your badge off after you’re done with badge events.
If anything, this is more of public safety tip than anything else. If I were a local and saw you stumbling around the streets after bar time with a big conference badge full of Firefox and Mozilla pins, I’d take your wallet.

So that kicks off my thoughts on SXSWi. While I am looking forward to next year, hopefully the tips above might help a couple of you have a shot at one of the 14-15 women that show up to the interactive parties.