BlogHer

I am sitting here on a runway at La Guardia airport, looking out the window and seeing about 5 other airplanes idling on the tarmac. I am in American Airlines flight 313 allegedly en route to Chicago. I emphasize the word *allegedly* due to the fact that our being sequestered here comes after a one hour delay at the gate. So we were one hour late when we boarded, have been waiting for an hour and now comes word that we will be sitting here for another 2 hours.

With no food.

With no beverages.

With no way out.

To say I am furious it is to put it mildly.

There are people here who woke up at 3AM to make it in time for the pre-boarding harassment that passes as a security check. I woke up at 5AM, got in a bit before 7AM and was forced to check my carry-on after a about half-an-hour of standing in the mess that American Airlines calls "the service counter".

After that mess, I had to wait in line for another 15 minutes to get to the gate. Not to actually go through it but to get to the gate. Once there, a Latino woman found it in her heart to question the validity of not just my passport but also my New York City issued driver's license. Yes. She didn't believe either was real --and boy do I have tons to say in another post about Latinos and African Americans working as security personnel in airports.

Once in the gate I had to wait another 30 minutes or so to go through it. Me and my 2 bags, computer and terrorist loving sneakers.

Selfbubble by Heather Clisby of ClizBiz

This is what you end up doing during the first hour at SXSW --you sort through all the schwag and crap. What's funny about this photograph is that it is one of at least 4 pics taken within an hour by passersby. People were whipping out cameras and cell phones to click me in my bubble of schwaggarific mess.

SXSW is all about the generalist influencers. There's a lot of tech, media and political conferences that litter event calendars but SXSW is the place to go for the people who are experts cross disciplines. So you'll have people with strong practices as technologists, desgins, mediaologists, enterpreneurs, activists. I honestly do not know of any other conference in the United States that has the quantity of influencers that SXSW has.

Deanna Zandt, Lynn D. Johnson, Robert Scoble, Elisa Camahort, Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardin, Christopher Carfi, Thomas Van der Wal, George Kelly, Baratunde Thurston, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Chris Norton, Nancy Scola, Rachel Krammer Bussel, Erica Mauter, Jason Tooney, Christian Crumlish, Noel Hidalgo, Mary Hodder, Min Jung Kim, Tony Pierce, Steve Garfield, Chris Pirillo ... and I know I am missing a lot of other people I personally know, but the coffee and the new daylight savings time are screwing up my short term memory.

Which brings me to the toy of choice for SXSW : TWITTER.

OMFG!

Talk about early adopters. It's hard for me to explain how addictive it is, but, just so you get a taste for it, keep this window open for about an hour. Make sure you refresh every 10-20 minutes.

Then you'll understand :