Category: Opinion

Farewell RockNUG!

Posted on by Scott

Last week was the final monthly meeting of the Rockville .NET User Group (aka RockNUG) after a seven-year run. I greatly appreciate the leadership of Dean Fiala. It takes a lot of effort to find sponsors, meeting locations, and speakers consistently, and he always came through. Fortunately, the name and domain will live on for future use in special events (like another Robocode programming contest).

Being part of this group made an important impact on my career as a software developer in the DC metropolitan area. I learned a ton from the different keynote speakers over the years. The n00b talk portion of each monthly meeting gave me opportunities to present shorter talks of my own. In these, I learned a lot from the research needed to give a good presentation and from the audience who received it (through their questions and other information they volunteered). I’ve met a number of friends in the industry through this group, and even recruited one of them to join me at my current employer.

A lot has changed since RockNUG first started. For one thing, there are far more user groups now than there were 7 years ago. This means a lot more competition to find speakers. The other change has been in web development on the Microsoft stack–it requires fewer Microsoft-exclusive technologies today than in the past. The increasing popularity of web applications and the success of frameworks like Ruby on Rails, jQuery, node.js, knockout.js (as well as languages like JavaScript) has broadened what those of us working in Microsoft shops need to know in order to be successful. So very few of the talks over the past couple of years have had a .NET-specific focus. Finally, there is a lot of great learning material available on the web now. Between companies like Pluralsight, WintellectNOW, and conferences that post their keynote presentations online, there are a wealth of learning opportunities for developers that don’t even require them to leave their desk.

None of these online options can replace the in-person interaction, networking and opportunities to build friendships that a user group like RockNUG can provide. So even though RockNUG has come to an end, I still believe in user groups. I’ll be on the lookout for groups just like it (or perhaps even create one).

Managing Your Tech Career

Posted on by Scott

Episode #980 of .NET Rocks was an excellent 52 minutes on career management for developers.  Since turning 40 this year, I’ve been thinking a lot more about my career and where I want to take it from here.  The entire episode is well-worth listening to, but I would distill the essence of the advice from the guest (John Sonmez) down to this: market yourself.

When I gave a talk to some software engineering students back in February, I encouraged them to start blogs, give presentations and talks, and start podcasts (so far I’ve only done the first two myself).  I suggested all of these things primarily as a way for them to improve their knowledge, but a higher profile on the internet is certainly a positive side-effect of doing those things.  One point I didn’t add (which Sonmez brings up in his interview) is that consistency is very important.  He recommends a blog post every week.  That’s a goal I’m striving to meet (though not always succeeding).

Another related point Sonmez made is that developers need to set aside regular time to manage their career.  The amount of time averaged something like an hour every two weeks.  Consistency is especially important here as well–if not mandatory, given how quickly technology advances.  I’ve recently started reading The Pragmatic Programmer, and it makes a similar point but uses investment terminology.  Section 5 of the first chapter (Your Knowledge Portfolio) make this point:

“Your knowledge and experience are your most important professional assets.  Unfortunately, they’re expiring assets.”

Knowledge about specific programming languages, databases, etc can age very poorly.  Failing to consistently add new assets to your knowledge portfolio, to diversify and balance those assets among various technologies (of varying maturities), and to “re-balance” that portfolio over time can result in obsolescence.  Given the prevalence of ageism/age discrimination  that already exists in information technology, having old or irrelevant skills is a quick way to end up at the margins of IT, working in companies that are yoked to technologies that will make it increasingly difficult for them to serve their business goals (much less to serve your goals of having a fulfilling technology career).

I saw this first-hand in an unexpected way when I attended South by Southwest in 2013.  One of the shuttle bus drivers I rode with regularly between my hotel and the various conference venues was actually doing it for income between short-term software development gigs all over the country.  He was an older gentleman whose skills (at least on the Microsoft stack) hadn’t advanced beyond VB6.  While there are still a ton of software systems built in VB6 (I certainly built my share of them in the late 1990s and early 2000s), his knowledge portfolio means that contract work maintaining VB6 code may be all that’s available to him.

In my own career, I’ve been working to broaden my own knowledge portfolio beyond the Microsoft stack.  Microsoft itself is doing some of this by adopting external technologies like JavaScript, jQuery, and knockout.js for web application development.  Angular.js is a framework strongly supported by Google that Microsoft has made sure plays very well with ASP.NET MVC.  So building my knowledge of JavaScript, and platforms like node.js are also goals for me in doing what I can to remain an attractive candidate for hire–whether as an employee, or for a future of self-employment.

Advice for Aspiring Software Engineers

Posted on by Scott

Last night, I gave a talk at Towson University to a section of software engineering students (a friend of mine is their professor).  The goal of the talk was to share advice and experiences that would help them in their careers.  What follows is the notes I spoke from, with revised and extended remarks (indicated by [extra]).

Overview

  1. Intro/bio
  2. Internship(s)
  3. Interviews(s)
  4. Work
  5. Beyond Work
    1. Keep in touch
    2. Keep learning
    3. Keep your skills sharp

Internships

Imagine being paid to test drive a car for 12 weeks.  That’s what an internship is—the only opportunity you may have in your working life to take a job and a company for a 12-week test drive.  You’ll get to see if you like the day-to-day of your particular role.  You’ll get to see if you like your boss, your co-workers, the culture of the organization.  When you are choosing your first real job, they can be a very useful filtering mechanism to determine which companies you should consider seriously and which ones you should skip.  If an internship works out really well, that company could give you your first full-time job.

If at all possible, don’t graduate without one.  A successful internship puts you ahead of recent college graduates without one because you have proof that you can do real work.

Internships are also a great opportunity to begin to build networks beyond your classmates.  Even if you’re a natural introvert, make an effort to be social.  You never know when a friendship might result in a reference, an interview, or a job—for you, or a friend you make.

I was an intern at The Washington Post the summer before I graduated from Maryland.  Halfway through the summer, they asked if I could return in the fall as a part-time employee and I accepted.  At the end of the year, the Post made an full-time offer for a help desk position.  I got better offers and took one of those instead, but I have no doubt it would have been much harder without that internship and part-time experience.

[extra] I said during the talk that all other factors being equal, the candidate with an internship wins over the candidate without one.  To be more complete, I should have said that a candidate with a lower GPA and an internship can and does beat a candidate with a higher GPA and no internship.  My undergraduate GPA was just shy of 3.0.  But because I had a successful internship, 4 months of part-time work experience at the same company, and a great reference from my boss, I had multiple offers before graduation.

Interviews

When it comes to interviews, expect to be asked about anything and everything on your resume.  So if you can’t back it up in an interview, don’t put it on your resume.  I interview people for jobs on a regular basis, and always ask questions to find out if they really know all the things their resume claims.  If you have an internship under your belt, you’ll have real work experience to put on that resume.

Also expect to write code on the spot for a problem you’ll have had no advance notice of.  If you’re not asked to write it on a whiteboard, the interviewer may just put a laptop in front of you with an editor and wait for you to write it.  In interview situations like these, it’s very important that you verbalize what you’re thinking as you develop your solution to the problem.  If you stare at the whiteboard or the laptop for a long time without saying anything, the interviewer might think you’re stumped—even if that isn’t the case.  If you aren’t sure about some aspect of the question, it’s better to ask for clarification and be sure than to assume and be wrong.  I ask a simple LINQ problem in every interview—and nine times out of ten, the candidate gives the wrong answer because they assumed they knew what I was asking for instead of making sure.

[extra] The following is a version of the LINQ question I ask in interviews:
Given the following:
var listOfNumbers = new List<int>{3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30,33,36};

write the LINQ statement that returns every number in the list divisible by 12 and by 6.

Work

Software engineering involves a lot of collaboration.  In my role, in order to develop a single feature or piece of functionality, there could be a handful of other people involved:

  • business analyst
  • other developers
  • project manager
  • program manager
  • tester

In addition to being able to write software well, it’s just as important—if not more so—to be able to communicate clearly and effectively and listen actively.  As a software engineer, that means:

  • Regularly updating your teammates and bosses on your progress
  • Asking for help if you’re stuck
  • Informing business analysts about missing, incomplete or unclear requirements
  • Informing project managers if you’re going to miss a deadline
  • Writing estimates of how long a task will take

I do all of things in my job, in addition to helping other developers on the team, designing and implementing software, and testing.

We’d all love to work on brand-new software, but most of us won’t get the chance.  It is highly likely that the first work you do will be maintenance of and/or enhancements to an existing system.  So developing an ability to find bugs in software (whether you originally wrote it or not) will be important to your success as a software engineer.

Beyond Work

Keep in touch, keep learning, keep your skills sharp (and add new ones).  That’s a basic summary of the steps you need to take to go further in your career as a software engineer.

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of networking to your career (and I don’t just mean having a huge number of Facebook friends, Twitter followers, or LinkedIn connections).  By networking I mean staying in regular touch with people you’ve worked with in the past or know from school that you’ve enjoyed working with (and would like to work with again).  If you’re in the same geographical area, catch up with them in person once a year if you can manage it.  If you don’t live in the same area, go beyond a word or two on Facebook.  Don’t be the guy or girl who only checks in when they need something.

Having a strong one will not only bring you a wealth of useful advice and support when you need it, it will help you find work too.  A couple of examples from my own experience:
a. I worked with a guy named Dave at USWeb.  We worked together for a couple years before I left and the company folded.  We kept in touch off and on over the years, but hadn’t had regular contact in awhile.  Over 12 years after we actually worked together, he gets in touch because he’s looking for a job and trying to decide between two companies—the one where I currently work, and one I worked for previously.  I tell him my current company is better (not just trying to be a good company man, my former employer was terribly dysfunctional) and write up a referral for him.  He gets hired and over a year later he’s still having a great time.
b. Two other guys I worked with at USWeb—Murali and Allen.  One was director of technology, the other a senior developer.  I kept in fairly regular touch with Allen.  So after almost four years at Ciena, I’m looking for a change.  Murali, our former boss, is program manager at a local consulting firm and wants to surround himself with good people from previous gigs.  He contacts Allen first, but Allen likes where he is and isn’t looking to make a change.  But Allen gives Murali my contact information.  I interview, I get hired, I work there a couple of years before moving on to a management role at a different company.

Don’t pass up opportunities to expand your networks beyond classmates and people you’ve worked with in the past.  This area has plenty of software user groups.  They’ll have stand-alone website or be on meet up.com.  Join one.  Get to know people that regularly attend.  One of my current co-workers is someone I first met at a .NET user group in Rockville (RockNUG).  A year-and-a-half later, when he got tired of commuting from Maryland to Virginia to work, we talked after a user group meeting about openings at my company.  He’s been there six months now and is doing great work for us.

Figure out how you learn best.  Some of us learn best through reading.  Some through lecture.  Some through examples.  Figure out which one of these you are and spend regular time outside of work learning however works best for you.

Conferences and user groups provide great opportunities to network and learn.  Smart companies use them to raise their profile and to recruit new talent.  The companies I consider the best ones in my career are the ones that sent at least some of their employees to a conference or training every year.  Even when I haven’t worked for companies that pay for employees to get training, I believe it’s important enough that I’ve paid my own way on more than one occasion for a particular conference.  I went to SXSW Interactive last year and met up with former co-workers I hadn’t seen in 10 years.  I met people from all over the world, as well as a few people who were literally across the parking lot from me.  Seriously!  I met a couple of programmers and a designer who work at a small firm in a building less than 100 yards away, but we had to fly over 1500 miles to meet.

Blogs, podcasts and screen-casts provide great learning opportunities as well.  However you commute between home, school and work, it’s time you could spend listening to one of the many podcasts available on technologies or software development.

Starting a blog is a great way to practice and improve your written communication.  I first started back in 2003, and my only purpose was to have a way to remember the process I went through to solve particular problems that I could access from wherever I wanted.  On occasion, I would get a comment or two from others on the web that helped me solve a problem I’d posted about or improved on a solution I’d come up with.  Sometimes a post has been useful to other developers than myself.  I’ve even gotten requests for help in the comments.  Once you have a blog, it also makes a handy place to publish a linkable copy of your resume.  That’s a piece of advice your professor gave me many years ago, and now   I have plenty of visibility to companies (and recruiters) without really having to bother with job boards.

Giving a talk is a great way to practice and improve your verbal communication.  User groups are always looking for people to come and speak, and if there’s a technology that you know well (or want to know well), having to give a talk about it in front of an audience is one way to give yourself an incentive to research it and learn it well enough to be able to answer questions about it.  I try to give a few talks every year to one of the user groups I attend in Rockville.

[extra] Starting a podcast is another option you might consider.  I listen regularly to a few podcasts by veteran software developers (Hanselminutes, .NET Rocks, etc) and learn a lot that way.  But I think we would also benefit from hearing software engineers who are relatively new to the work world, or even from interns.  In addition to creating opportunities to hone both your writing and speaking skills, you’ll get to learn about audio and production.

With the amount of time you’ll spend working (and otherwise living your life), one of the habits that I’ve personally found the most difficult to maintain is writing code regularly that isn’t specifically for my job.  One of the benefits of school, especially in a computer science program, is courses where you have to learn multiple programming languages and produce working solutions in a relatively short period of time.  The diversity of languages is a great way to force yourself to think differently about how to solve a particular problem.  To the extent you make it a habit to learn a different programming language every year or two, the better your skills in your main programming language will become.

Music, martial arts, sports and medicine are endeavors that have practice built into them.  Software engineering doesn’t.  We usually treat our work as our practice.  You will improve more quickly as a developer if you practice designing and building software separately from the work you do everyday.

Practice!  There are plenty of sites out there with different code katas (small problems that you write code to solve).  Larger, longer-term side projects are also a great idea—especially if they’re tied to a hobby or something else that interests you outside of your job.  In addition to these, the web is full of open source projects that could use contributors (github, codeplex, sourceforge, etc).  Try to contribute however you can—even if it’s documentation—and you’ll benefit from the experience.

[extra] When it comes to practice in improving your software engineering skills, it works best if you consistently increase the level of difficulty.  John Sonmez explains why here.  He also links to an incredible example by Jennifer Dewalt.  Programming contests (including things like TopCoder) may be worth your consideration.

Candied Sweet Potatoes 2013

Posted on by Scott

Since the first time I posted a candied sweet potato recipe, I’ve made it a few more times.  What follows is the 2013 version I made this past Thanksgiving (and will probably make for Christmas since family and in-laws have been asking):

Ingredients
4-5 lbs of sweet potatoes
1 20oz can of pineapple (preferably crushed)
1 1/2 cups of dark brown sugar
1 1/4 cup of unsalted butter
cinnamon, nutmeg, & ground ginger to taste

Instructions
If you only have regular pineapple instead of crushed pineapple, slice it up into small pieces. Otherwise, skip to the rest of the instructions below.
Fill an 8qt pot 2/3rds of the way with water. Bring to a boil. Boil the sweet potatoes for around 15 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool for peeling and slicing later.

In a saucepan, melt the butter (over low heat), add the brown sugar and stir. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger until the sauce tastes how you want it.

After you’ve peeled and sliced the sweet potatoes, lay down a layer of them, drizzle/smear on some of the sauce, and sprinkle on some of the pineapple. Repeat until you’ve filled whatever casserole dish or foil pan you’re using.

Bake this at 425 degrees for around 55-60 minutes.

How can I become a world-class coder in under three years?

Posted on by Scott

I came across this question on Quora today and decided I would answer it.  There were enough up-votes by people following the question that I’m re-posting my answer below:

I’m not sure what the term “world-class coder” means to you.  But I would actively discourage the notion that there is some point you can reach in the practice of software development (whether it’s 3 years or 20 years) where you can look at yourself and say “Achievement unlocked!  I am a world-class coder at last.”  What may give you more satisfaction over time than the question of “where do I rank” in some mythical best coders on Earth list is “Am I a better developer now than I was last week?  Last month? Last year?”

The things that previous commenters have suggested are great ideas for continuous improvement and refinement of your skills in programming.  Do as many of those things as you can.  Beyond those, I’d suggest the following:

  • Be willing to learn from anyone.  I’ve made my living writing software since 1996 and I regularly learn new things about my craft from people a decade or more younger than me.

  • Keep track of what you learn–and share it.  Whether it’s through blogging, Stack Overflow contributions, or something else–write about it.  You may not encounter the exact problems you’ve solved in the future, but they will often be close enough that what you’ve captured will help you solve them much faster than you would have otherwise.  The ability to explain what you know to others is a very valuable and rare one.  The process of preparing to give a presentation to others on a topic has often been a good forcing function for me to learn that topic to the level where I can explain it well.

  • Learn about subjects beyond programming.  The importance of the ability to understand new domains well enough and deeply enough to design and implement useful software for them cannot be overstated.  I’ve delivered software solutions for news organizations, healthcare companies, marketing companies and defense/intelligence contractors in my career so far.  Making myself familiar with the sort of terminology they use and the way such companies operate (above and beyond a specific project) definitely results in a better end product.  One or more such topics can end up being great fodder for pet projects (which are great vehicles for learning things you aren’t already learning in a job).

Book Review: Building Interactive Queries with LINQPad

Posted on by Scott

Any new technical book has the challenge of adding value above and beyond what’s available for free on the web.  A new book on LINQPad has the additional challenge of adding value above and beyond the wealth of samples already included with LINQPad, including code samples from two LINQPad-enabled books.  So when I received my review copy of Building Interactive Queries with LINQPad, I was very curious to see what the author (Sebastien Finot) could accomplish in 126 pages.

Even as someone who has used LINQPad enough in the past few years to present on it on front of a .NET user group, I learned new things about the tool I hadn’t known before (such as the ability to interact with the console and CSS customization of the application’s look-and-feel).  The book might have been more accurately titled “Building Interactive Queries with LINQ and LINQPad”, as the book provided good examples of a wide variety for LINQs query operators.  Finot also mentioned the performance implications of ToList()–a very useful mention depending on the size of collection you might be dealing with in your queries.  All the code samples in the book are available for download as well.

The book missed some opportunities to add value for readers.  Fuller treatment of the NuGet dependency management capabilities in the paid versions of LINQPad would have been helpful in deciding if the feature was worth paying for.  Finot also mentioned the existence of LINQ to Twitter and LINQ to JSON APIs but didn’t link to the projects in the book.  More examples of using LINQ to parse and manipulate JSON (instead of XML) would have improved the book significantly, given the increased usage of JSON in .NET development these days.  Unfortunately, the code samples didn’t include databases, which would have enabled the author to go above and beyond the fairly standard Northwind database examples.  A custom OData feed for use in explaining the ability of LINQPad to query those data sources would have been a great help as well (given the rather tenuous availability of the sample services at odata.org).

Building Interactive Queries with LINQPad is the only book I’ve seen dealing specifically with LINQPad.  If you use LINQPad on a regular basis (or plan to), the e-book is worth purchasing.  For an in-depth treatment of LINQ, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Disclosure: I received the e-book free of charge from the publisher for the purpose of providing this review.

Not Surprised, But Still Disappointed

Posted on by Scott

After being told the composition of the jury considering the case against George Zimmerman the week before, I said he wouldn’t be found guilty.  I also posted comments to the same effect on Facebook.  But I was still disappointed to discover that he’d been found not guilty.

In (foolishly) arguing the outcome of the case with people on Facebook, I made the following comment:

Zimmerman effectively profiled and stalked a minor child while armed for the simple act of walking home from the store. Incompetent as the prosecution apparently was, the laws of Florida are culpable too. They enable and condone vigilantism, and the needless deaths that will certainly continue to result.

Andrew Sullivan’s commentary on the verdict is well-worth reading.  It raises the very uncomfortable specter of lynching, as well as the prospect that this verdict might encourage it.  Given the widely-documented disparities in treatment of minorities when compared to whites in sentencing for the same crime, along with the highest rates of incarceration in the world, outcomes like the George Zimmerman verdict (and the perverse laws that enabled it) force me to question whether or not this country values my life, or those of other black males.

I’ve heard some talk of boycotting the state of Florida as a response to the verdict.  I can understand the sentiment.  What I’m less sure of is whether any such boycott could be effective without a clear objective (such as the repeal of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law).  There’s also a legitimate concern about such a boycott hurting people who have no choice but to remain in Florida.

Word Games

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I love word games.  Whether it’s old-school ones like Scrabble and Boggle or the increasing number of iPhone word games (Words with Friends, Scramble with Friends, Letterpress, Ruzzle, etc), I play them all.  Our federal government is playing a different word game right now, by hesitating to describe the overthrow of the Morsi government in Egypt as a coup d’ etat.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines coup d’ etat this way:

: a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics; especially:the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group

Here’s how the Oxford Dictionaries define coup:

  • 1 (also coup d’état) a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government:he was overthrown in an army coup

The Wikipedia entry on coup is more extensive, and is perhaps the best description of the current situation:

A coup d’état (/ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/; plural: coups d’état), also known as a coup, a putsch, or an overthrow, is the sudden deposition of a government,[1][2][3][4] usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military.

Did the military depose the government?  Yes.  All indications are that Morsi is currently under house arrest.  Did they replace it with another body?  Yes.  The chief justice of Egypt’s supreme court was sworn in and placed in charge mere hours after Morsi’s removal.

So why won’t our government call this change what it is?  Perhaps because the U.S. provides more foreign aid to Egypt than to any other country except Israel for the purpose of preventing another shooting war between Egypt and Israel.  Perhaps because a section of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 “restricts assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree”.  Whatever the reason, now that the Egyptian army has killed 51 and injured hundreds in clashes yesterday, it’s unclear how much longer the Washington word games can (or should) continue.

The App Store Economy Ain’t Broken (So Don’t Fix It)

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I came across this article via Daring Fireball, and figured I’d post my two cents about it.  I disagree with the both the premise of the article and some of the specifics.

To the question of “why are so many of us so surprisingly cheap when browsing the virtual shelves of the App Store?” I’d say because quite a few vendors have conditioned us to expect high-quality apps for a fairly low price. It’s the same reason that the vast majority of people expect news to be free on the Internet.  Those news sources that went online with paywalls at the beginning (The Wall Street Journal and The Economist are two publications I read for example) are still doing just fine financially.  Those that didn’t are struggling financially (or going out of business altogether).

The idea that “we as cheap customers are having a negative impact on a lot of both real and potential businesses” is one I disagree with.  One, because the author doesn’t quantify the negative impact.  Two, because a potential business is a valueless unknown (and as such, can’t have any real weight in a discussion of what to pay for products from real companies).  I’ll certainly buy an app if I use it a lot (and/or get tired of seeing ads in the case of most games).  The benefit of the low pricing both to us as consumers and to app developers is that we can buy multiple apps that do similar things without having to think much about the cost (it’s why I own more than one photography app, for example).

I’m not a big fan of in-app purchases (especially after finding out how much my wife spent on a single game), but I don’t see much of a difference between that model and the licensing/subscription model that more and more software companies (Adobe, Microsoft) and others (Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Pandora) are moving (or have already moved) to.  The author’s focus on social media apps and games leaves out more serious “service-backed” apps like Evernote, GitHub, Flickr, DropBox, Box, LinkedIn and Google Drive that let you use a limited set of functionality for free and pay more for additional features or storage space.

Companies who sell apps aren’t doing it for charity.  So if they’re any good at business at all, they’ll sell their products at a price that will keep them in business–or they’ll go out of business.  It isn’t our job as consumers to keep poorly run companies in business by buying their software.  And despite the author’s suggestion, paying for great apps now certainly doesn’t mean great apps later.

My 2 Cents on SXSW 2013

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Size

I hadn’t been to a conference so large (whether you’re counting people or land area covered) since Microsoft’s PDC in 2001–and that was held at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Sessions

Even though I only attended Interactive (they have Music and Film too), there were a ton of choices of sessions across a wide variety of technical, creative and other disciplines.  In addition the technical topics I was looking for, I got to learn about the quantified self movement, 3-D printing, wearable computing and entrepreneurship.

Swag

Between the vendors in the exhibit hall and all the companies there recruiting new people, I’ve never gotten so much free stuff in my entire life.

Keynotes

I’d attended keynote speeches at conferences before, but hadn’t seen keynote interviews before.  Elon Musk and Al Gore were both entertaining and thought-provoking.  While it wasn’t billed as a keynote, the best solo talk I heard during the entire conference was Phil Libin’s Chaotic Good.

Panels

Many sessions weren’t just a single person speaking, but a group speaking in front of an audience.  Making it Rain in Non-Techy Markets was the best panel I attended during the conference.  While I’m not an entrepreneur (yet), all four panelists gave really helpful advice.

People

I met people from all over the world at this conference.  Just on the rides to and from the convention center each morning and evening I met people from the Netherlands, Australia and Italy–as well as from all over the U.S.  In the airport on the way back, I met 3 people from a company that happens to be across the parking lot from mine!

Quite a few people I met were founders or co-founders of their own companies.  I heard a number of start-up pitches and met a venture capitalist who was in town looking for companies to invest in.

The locals who were brave enough to stay in town for South By were very friendly and helpful.  One guy even gave a couple of us a ride to the convention center when our shuttle was running late.

Traffic

Speaking of shuttles, R & R Limousine and Bus (the exclusive shuttle provider between hotels and SXSW venues) did a pretty poor job serving my hotel (one of two close to the airport).  When we didn’t resort to bumming rides from strangers or calling cabs, we usually ended up waiting a long time for our to show up.  The traffic did us no favors either.  Between the construction on the roads and street closures, it took a long time to get in and out of downtown.

Overall

SXSW Interactive 2013 was a great (if tiring) time.  I really enjoyed Austin as a town.  It has a buzz, an energy to it unlike any city I’ve ever visited.  I hope to go back–if not for SXSW 2014, then a different time of year to enjoy the rest of Austin.