This post is part 7 of a series, head over to the SxSW Interactive Tips page to read all of the posts in this series (in intended order).

From Aaron Brazell, AKA Technosailor

In 2007, Jeremy and I attended our first SXSW Interactive conference. At the time, we were both new b5media employees – as in, the company had just been funded, I had quit my “day job”, and we were both on an intense amount of business travel. For me, it was the first time in my life that I had done so much travel. Seriously, I flew maybe once a year if that. It certainly was a new world, attending conferences, meeting people. And certainly, it was before I achieved coveted rockstar status.

At SXSW, everyone is encouraged to drink. Serious, no one except rookies go for sessions. Pfffftt. No, it’s all about getting your drink on and meeting people. In fact, it can be sad at times. Socially awkward geeks trying to be sociable – not all of them, of course. Many don’t try to be sociable at all. :)

In 2007, Jeremy and I spent a significant amount of time with another blogger who was in town, and who we both knew. We had never spent any time with the guy – in fact, we only met him in person for the first time.

We started our ad hoc pub crawl down 6th street, stopping in several bars that had live music, downing rum and cokes and Shiner Bocks all the way. It was clear, within a few hours of drinking (moderately, by my standards, but excessively by others), that our blogger friend was having a hard time holding his alcohol. Before too long, he was stumbling down the sidewalk and we had to shoulder him to make sure he didn’t faceplant on the sidewalk.

Good times.

We managed to get the guy into a rickshaw cab (common in those parts of Austin) and paid the cabbie $100 to get him back to his hotel. Of course, the hotel was only two blocks away so the cabbie made some nice coin.

The moral of the story is: Pace yourself when drinking. You really don’t have to be drunk to have a good time and you could end up getting sick, hurting yourself or feeling like an idiot the next morning.

Other than that, enjoy yourself at SXSW!

dsc_1125-150x150Aaron is the founder and lead editor of Technosailor.com. He is a business and social media consultant and loves to see people reach their potential through the use of social media. There is an overlap between useful social media and personal and corporate outreach and brand. His writing seeks to highlight those areas where the two overlap and eliminate the noise that is present in covering the news and buzz surrounding web startups and social media.

Aaron has been involved in the web since early 2000 and has most recently served as the Director of Technology for b5media, a blog network. His background is in technology – web development, scalability and WordPress development.