Once upon a time, a little boy decided he wanted to solve problems. That boy quickly learned that he functioned better in a multi-disciplinary environment and, as he grew, started several companies and sold most of them. Then one day, as he neared manhood (he was a late bloomer), he joined a few other folk and started b5media. It got big. Raised lots of money. He worked hard. So hard that he burnt out.

For the last couple of years, he’s toyed with starting a real new startup. But it wasn’t until today that he was ready to show it to the world.

Announcing: 23press, a startup focused on “making blogging easier for regular humans”!

23press - making blogging easier for regular humans

What Is 23press?

Quite simply, being a blogger is too hard. Even the simple things like finding the right SEO plugin, making a theme “really work”, moving a blog between hosts and backing up your blog… these things are just too hard! 23press will make all the stupid stuff that’s way too hard about blogging a whole lot easier.

Who We Are

The founding team is made up of myself and two other fantastic gents, as well as support from a LOT of friends and family. Terry Smith, who I hired at b5 and then became solid friends with, is our awesome Head Humanizer (ie: he builds the shit that makes your blogging life easier). Terry is easily one of the top WordPress guys in the world, and is super smart to boot, so working together on our own startup was a no brainer.

Second is Jason Hall. Jason’s a bit new to the social media world, but has started startups before, does serious marketing work and is one of the smartest and hardest working guys I’ve ever met. Jason not only makes sure the trains run on time, but in his role as Head Head, ensures marketing, planning and product are all well and truly handled.

And me? Well, I’m the Head Human. It’s my job to grow this puppy and hopefully learn from my lessons last time around!

What We Are Doing

Well, Move That Blog has been out for a few months now. When we released it, we knew we were solving a problem, but the response has been great! We will be releasing a few more tidbits on the rest of the MTB family later this week, including a dedicated version for web hosts (so customers can be moved, or move themselves, in seconds with no hassle).

Beyond that, look for our set of product announcements in the next few days!

The Basics

Wrapping this all up a little bit, here is a bit more info!

1. Funding:  Unlike my last startup, b5media (which raised, well, a lot of money), this project is currently funded by our own little group. We’ve been asked to allow outside investors in, though, as the vision is fun, so we’ll likely be doing that in January ish. Not that we’ll need it, but money to grow faster is rarely a bad thing.
2. Founding Team: With both me and Terry having deep roots in the social and blogging spaces, we’re both looking forward to tackling a fresh problem that we can brainstorm with our friends about all over again. And Jason? Well, he’s just happy he gets to come to Canada once in awhile ;-)
3. Launch Date:  September 1, 2011. Hence announcements coming “soon”!
4. Products: Well, you have Move That Blog already. After that will be stuff that all bloggers should have readily accessible and without any real work: security, speed, backups, etc. Boring, but important. And after that? Well, that’s when the magic happens. Just wait!
5. Branding:  We’re a startup. So we did our logo at 99designs. Cause we’d rather work than be super pretty. Besides, when we need pretty we have Jason!
6. Management:  Luckily, we have many people interested in helping with this project.  Some will be helping grow the effort on a volunteer basis.
7. Partners: Oh, yeah, we have some. We’ll announce those in the next couple of weeks too. Might be a bit surprising.
8. Affiliate programs: Yep, coming, any day now.
9. The name: Oh, yeah. We make stuff easier for “regular humans”. Humans have 23 chromosomes. Also, I have a minor thing for numbers in names!

Next Steps

In the next few days, we’ll be sharing our initial product roadmap for the Move That Blog suite, deeper details on our backup product, and top line info on our line of optimization and security tools. We are aiming to have our backup product in market in the next 4 weeks (let us know if you want to beta test!), and our optimization tools in market 4 weeks later (love startup timelines!).

We’ll also be at BlogWorld LA, making several rather significant announcements, planning and attending WordCamps and ensuring that the next time Jason hops in a cab, he doesn’t wake up in an entirely different city 7 hours later.

Wanna Chat?

Oh, fine, email me: jeremy@23press.com. Or skype: jeremy_wright.

Rest. Rehab. Practice. The three steps a professional sports player goes through before returning to their chosen sport. For some injuries, like ruining your knee, it can take awhile to get back to playable shape! Two years ago, I blew out my startup knee at b5media. Nobody’s fault, just one of those things. And I’ve recently finished my recovery steps.

Rest

I spent serious time on Workcation, consulting via netmobs on some really cool projects. Most of this was rest, though. Spent alot of time in the South of the US. Did alot of speaking. But mostly I rested, made new friends, found hobbies and generally rebalanced what was a very out of balance life. I wasn’t ever really sure I’d be able to get back to real startup life, ie: running my own company.

Rehab

As I left b5, I let folk know that with the right opportunity, at the right time, I’d go back to full-time work. I was lucky enough to have Joe Thornley reach out and offer me “something” at Thornley Fallis / 76design. It took til January for me to be ready and confident I could have a positive impact. Also, I really wanted to learn some new skills, so time on the communications side of things was fantastically interesting. That Dave and I became good friends over this period was just a huge bonus.

Practice

Almost a year ago, I joined BNOTIONS as CEO. They were a small, growing firm, that I was able to help along through what are normally very rough patches in a startup’s life (due to cash flow, hiring issues, visibility in the industry, etc). Most service startups in the 5-15 person phase can relate to what BNOTIONS was basically able to ignore. This was an incredible experience. The team, projects and process of (again) taking a startup from a few people to juggernaut stage was awesome. Not to mention that the leadership team of AK, Mark, Logan, etc were inspiring to see in action and the pure cultural drive at BNOTIONS will be more than enough to keep the company growing so I wasn’t worried about leaving.

And, yes, “practice” is tongue in cheek. This was one of the best experiences of my life!

Now

But eventually it was time to dig in and do something where I put everything into a company again. My company. Building something I loved and believed in. Not that I couldn’t have stayed at any of the places listed above, or any of a myriad of other opportunities at awesome companies. But fundamentally, I realize now, I’m at my best when I’m giving 150%, and the best way to motivate myself to do that isn’t with money or profile or power, it’s with it being something I’ve helped create.

My New Portfolio

That said, it was a flat out honour to work, train, grow, learn, screw up and help each of these companies. The honour is entirely mine.

However, it’s time for me to step up and swing for myself without a safety net. My philosophy this time around is a bit different than last time. Yes, I’ll be pouring everything into a new company (announcement on that coming Monday/Tuesday once we’ve signed our first two big clients), but I’ve also realized that I fundamentally need to clone myself. I need to extend, work with others more, and allow things to flourish even if I’m not involved day to day.

Hence, in addition to next week’s startup announcement, I’ve started investing (time and money) into spinning up several side projects. I’ll do full announcements of each of these over the coming weeks, but for now, here’s a brief synopsis:

• 23press: This was born out of a conversation with Aaron Brazell, and realizing that a lot of things in WordPress are simply too hard. I’m Head Human at 23press, while Terry Smith is the man with the muscle, Head Humanizer and general awesomesauce. Our first product, Move That Blog, will basically one-click move your blog from one host to another for $10 (or unlimited moves for $30). Every plugin, every setting, every theme, theme setting, plugin setting… It’s actually kinda magic and saves 2-10 hours work depending on the blog! Our goal is 5 products out by year end. Each solving problems with WordPress specifically and blogging in general to make your life easier!
• Naked Dating: Mel and I kicked this off in earnest a bit more than a year ago, then life got busy and we had to drop it. But we’re back, and working out how to scale this puppy since the need for new school common sense, social media dating tips and teaching guys how to date is pretty severe. Trust us. It’s bad. More on this soon!
• Clients are Evil: Sometime in the summer of last year, I started talking about this. Doing research. Planning stuff. While this isn’t ready for public consumption yet at all, it will be a significant new book (finalizing details with publisher stuff in next 2 weeks), with lots of speaking, webinars, and products associated with it. With any luck the first taste will be at BlogWorld East
• A game, an app, a new approach to agency life, and more…

Next Steps

If you’ve run into me in the last week or two and asked what’s new and I’ve said “whoa, too much for this casual hello, talk soon!” this is why! More details on everything in the next few weeks, but for now I want to thank my BNOTIONS crew, the Thornley Fallis team, my family and especially my friends for all being so awesome over the last 2 years!

Now for the real work!

At the last minute, I got asked to lead a few extra panels at BlogWorld this week.  As a  result,  I needed to structure, chat with and open up a bunch of panels really quickly. I’ve always structured panels I moderate in a similar way, but decided that codifying it for my panelists would both save me time and give them some advanced notice (since some only got this 2 days before the conference!).

Personally, I prefer to lead discussions vs canned presentations. I also prefer to ask the audience where they are at on a subject (show of hands) so we can tailor the discussion to their needs.

With that in mind, here are my rules for panelists (my rules for moderators are simple: provide value to the audience, make  the panelists look smart, be entertaining, keep the discussion on track):

1 HOUR PANEL

• 000-005 – welcome & introductions (30 seconds each) & audience polling
• 005-015 – Biggest Mistake & Most Important Win
• 015-025 – Discussion
• 025-035 – Awkward Questions From Jeremy AKA Continuing Discussion
• 035-050 – Audience Q&A
• 050-100 – Wrapup Statements & Thank You

JEREMY’s RULES FOR PANELISTS

1. Have fun
2. Don’t agree on everything
3. This is a DISCUSSION, don’t be too polite
4. This is a COMMUNITY, don’t be rude
5. Engage the audience, they’re not just relatively pretty faces
6. We’re guests, the audience is the star
7. Everyone has an opinion. Bring an example or twelve too.
8. Be funny.
   a. Don’t mock midgets (lessons learned the hard way…)
9. Ask each other questions, and ask the audience questions.
10. DO NOT CONFERENCE SPAM

QUESTIONS FOR PANELISTS

1. Are you okay with your short bio (provided earlier)
2. Official title, Twitter ID, website
3. Is there anything specific you’d like to cover
4. Is there anything specific you DON’T want to cover/to avoid
5. Is there a rumour about another panelist I should know about?

THOUGHTS?

I’d love your feedback on this, especially as I’m leading a bunch of discussions with this structure!

Reposted from the BlogWorld blog:

Too often, Social Media is about the MEDIA: spreading the word, getting more followers, making money, growing your traffic, blah, blah, blah, #facepalm… Every once in awhile, though, it’s nice to do the SOCIAL side of the equation, which is what I’m proposing today!

This is the 4^th BlogWorld I’ve been to. Each time there are lots of new faces, and everytime they’re just a bit timid, bit scared, bit confused or just a bit… special (sorry @tedmurphy). And while I try my best to show people where session rooms are, to recommend hotels and find cheaper airfare, to publish lists of parties and to hand out my phone number should people need help (416 726 3602 by the way), as Darkwing Duck said: I am the terror that flaps in the night, I am the batteries that are not included.

So, let’s scale this helping people thing. Lots of BWE veterans like to help, and even if you’re new you probably know more than you think you do, so let’s use and follow a hashtag on Twitter: #bwehelps. If you have a question, ask it of the hashtag and I will be checking it. Who else will be checking it? Well if you have more than just your mom following you on Twitter (to be fair, my mom stopped following me years ago!) then you should be. Follow it on your mobile and Twitter client. Give back. Be helpful. Smile!

Let’s be a community. Let’s help. Let’s have some fun. No blogger left behind!

Photo by nicht mehr hier @Flickr

I recently (like yesterday) started a new gig, and as part of that we’re building out our already fantastic tech team. The official job descriptiony thingy is below, but if you have questions, grab me on Twitter (@jeremywright) or Skype (jeremy_wright)!

And, yes, I’ll have more info on the move, what it means, what we’re building as time goes on. For now, too much work to pause and  blog (which is such a good thing). It is good to be back in the startup world!

BNOTIONS Hiring Junior and Senior Devs

BNOTIONS is a programming and development fraternity. We build the tools, technology, platforms, services and applications for agencies, clients and startups. We are always hiring talented developers as we are always growing and because there are occasionally casualties during our weekly live-streamed talent show, Harth Night Lite.

If you’re the kind of developer that scoffs at inefficient code, believes proper config files can be poetry and have made at least one saint tear up at your PHP or Ruby  (or whatever!) then we should talk. Or battle. We could battle to the pain.

So what is life at BNOTIONS like? It’s like Shredder’s Lair from TMNT. Only with slightly fewer skateboards, slightly more monitors and roughly the same number of mutant turtles (of indeterminate age). We work hard, play harder and skype random links all.day.long.

WHAT’S OUR NOTION (GET IT? HAR HAR HAR) OF A GREAT DEV?
-          You gotz the kommunication skillz
-          You can focus on great code, with efficiency
-          You don’t need  someone to manage your every minute (but wouldn’t mind a mentor)
-          You want to be part of a team that gives a damn
-          You don’t mind being a bit crazy

THE SKILLS WE B (SO FUNNY) LOOKING FOR
-          Total domination of the LAMP stack
-          Server-Side language skills (Ruby, PHP, Java, Python etc)
-          Mobile know-how an asset (iPhone, Android, Mobile Web, etc)
-          Familiarity with toolkits (JQuery, AMFPHP, etc)
-          Deep bromance with OSS products (WordPress, Kohana, Rails, etc)
-          A perversion for APIs (Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, etc)

GETTING TO THE TOP OF OUR LIST
-          You get the social media thing
-          Flexibility
-          No ego, outside of knowing you’re the best developer you know (don’t worry, we’re all the best we know too!)
-          Based in Toronto or Kelowna (or willing to relocate)

INTERESTED?

Drop us a line and tell us why you give a damn, and why we should give a damn about you to alex@bnotions.ca, jeremy@bnotions.ca or jack@bnotions.ca!

At the beginning of this year (literally, the 4th of January), I took nearly 2 weeks off work from b5media, the company I’ve been lucky enough to serve as CEO for the last 3 ish years (the original  year or so was as a group of founders). I didn’t make it public, I told the management team ahead of time and I went totally offline for roughly 10 days.

I did it because I was tired, burnt out and recognized that my life wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I was working too much, unhappy at home, unhappy at work and just felt completely blah. Basically I did it because a friend asked me what I wanted my life to be… It was then  that I realized not only was I unhappy, but that I had no idea what I wanted my life to be.

Over the course of my time off, I realized a bunch of things, but the relevant one for today was that I was no longer happy, passionate or energized in my work. This wasn’t b5′s fault, or anyone’s fault really. It was really just that I’m a builder and a fixer, and b5 had moved beyond the point of its life where it needed that. Sad? Yes. Tragic? No. In some ways I always knew the day would come where I’d have to step aside and hire my replacement, so while this was a bit of a shock, it wasn’t one of those  “zomg I can’t believe this is happening” shocks, it was more of a “wow, huh, okay then…” type of shock ;-)

So… What’s Up?

Over the last 6 months I’ve made a bunch of life changes outside of work to find a bit more happiness, but today marks the culmination of the work-related changes for this current season of my life. As of today, I am stepping aside as CEO of b5media, and we are bringing on Elaine Kunda as the new CEO. I say “we” because I’m still a board member, still a shareholder, still a founder and still a huge, huge b5media fan. And I’ll remain available to b5, it’s employees, Elaine, our bloggers and our investors because I flat out love the company, team and bloggers. This ain’t me abandoning ship, it’s me handing over  the reins to someone who can take things to the next level (which is actually pretty darn exciting!).

Over the last 3 years, I helped turn b5 from an idea into a reality; from a loose gaggle of folk into a  real business; helped to raise millions and millions of dollars; helped establish blogging as a real industry and helped to hire the absolute best team possible to rawk this puppy for all  its worth. The journey was incredible, scary, fun-filled, sad and totally, totally worth it.

I want to be clear that this is a personal decision. There are seasons of every entrepreneurs life where you work your 80-100 hour weeks and you thrive. Then there are seasons where you need to breathe for a change, damnit. And this, for me, is the latter season. I’ll still work my ass off, but I’ll do it in a more balanced way. I’ll exercise more, spend more time with my girlfriend, spend more time with my boys, maybe even take up (or renew) some hobbies. I’ll probably start to play drums again, spend more time meditating and praying and generally remember what it is that makes me “me”.  I’ll probably play with some startup ideas, help some younger companies and CEOs out and I’ll take on some consulting work (more on that later) so that I can pour everything I know and can do into a project for 2-3 months and then take a break if necessary instead of going so hard and strong that I literally collapse in exhaustion for 3-4 days.

Whatchoo Talkin’ ‘Bout Willis?

For those who love to attempt to read between the lines let me save you the trouble: yes this is my choice, no I’m not being kicked out, yes b5 is doing incredibly well and yes the team is absolutely going to kick ass. While sometimes CEOs leaving reflects on the CEO or on the company, in this case it reflects on one thing and one thing only: I need a bit more balance in my life, and I need to find my flow again.

I want to publicly say how very proud and honoured I am to  have worked with such an amazing group of employees, bloggers, advisors and VCs. Really, I (and b5) wouldn’t be where we are without you guys and your efforts, passion or energy. b5 has become more than  I ever dreamed it would be, and while I’ve worked my ass off, so have all of you guys and you all deserve a huge round of applause and at least a dozen beers (Elaine’d probably prefer if this was done after work hours, heh). This goes doubly for our bloggers who have stood with me, the other founders and the company through a myriad of changes, most of which have been good but some of which I know have been really, really hard. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

Back to the Future, Episode 4: Return of the Errrrngh

For those who are wondering what’s next, the answer is pretty simple: I have no idea. For the short term, I’ll be working with clients via a quasi-agency I setup to do that: netmobs (site is a work in progress, so be thou gentle), I’ll  also be taking a bit of time off, I’ll be thinking about what really makes me happy, what really makes me passionate and how I can take what I’ve learned over the last half dozen startups I’ve done and both have fun with it and do something really interesting.

If you have any questions or whatever, you can reach me in any of the standard ways (email is jeremy@netmobs.com, cell is 416 726 3602, skype is jeremy_wright, Twitter is @jeremywright). Oh,  and feel free to comment/ReTweet, whatever. It’s great news for b5, great news for me and my happiness and even great news for the industry that we continue to evolve, survive and thrive.

I  guess that’s it. Another chapter from my 20s closes. Next, I think I’ll learn to skydive. Always wanted to do that! ;-) Or maybe I’ll take up ballet. I think the pink’d really bring out my eyes! :-D

As anyone who knows me knows, over the last few years my blogging has slowed down from roughly 10 posts a week to roughly 10 posts a year. Most of this is due to all of my free time being sucked up by b5media. And another chunk is because I do most of my communicating, ideas, networking on Twitter. But some of it is because I simply didn’t have any inspiration for blogging.

Image by Matthew Burpee via Flickr

A few weeks ago, over lunch with Jay Goldman he mentioned his 10×10 rule, which is basically: write out 10 ish big areas you’re interested in blogging about, and 10 ish ideas for each. That is your first 100 ish posts (though realistically you’ll have other ideas along the way), so it’s 2-4 months of blogging.

As you might expect, I decided to do the exercise just to see what happened. I’ve wanted to blog more for the last year, but lacked more than a post at a time. This would hopefully provide fodder for many posts over the coming months.

But I ran into a conundrum, because the topics were more diverse than I expected (at least the ones that excited me). Now the fitness/health stuff I’ve already decided to break off into a separate site, so it’s not on this list, but here’s what I’ve come up with:

• Top entrepreneurs in canada interviews/profiles
• Canadian company profiles
• Running a blog network
• Canadian VC firm profiles
• Online advertising
• Scaling a blog / media company
• How to raise funding
• Technical challenges of running a blog network / online media company
• Ideas for thriving in a down  economy
• Social media / new media tools we use at b5media
• Interviews with bloggers I admire

I’ve put these into 2 big buckets: b5media CEO blog, and more of a journalism/startup kind of blog. Part of this is a deep desire to see Canadians gain more profile. As a country, we suck at tooting our own horns, so I’d like to take time to toot our collective horns for us. Part of it is also looking to help folk who were like me 4 years ago: knowing there were ways to scale their company but having no idea how or who to talk to or what the options were or who the people in the industry even were.

So I’m looking for some feedback, on a few specific questions (but feel free to give feedback overall):

1. Should I keep Ensight a personal blog?
2. Should I retire Ensight, cause it has so much history and just start fresh?
3. Should the CEO stuff live here, if I am keeping it a personal blog, or somewhere else?
4. Should I split the “media” stuff off?
5. Should I split the “startup” stuff off?
6. Should I split the Canadian journalism/entrepreneur stuff off?
7. Would splitting the Canadian stuff off seem weird, given TechVibes/StartupNorth are already doing some of this (to varying degrees)?

And finally: are there other topic areas you’d like to hear me blog about?

I’m opening this up mostly because I could be happy going multiple ways, but I am a big believer in splitting topics up so that you feel less like a monolithic subject staring you in the face when you want to blog.

So, thoughts, questions, comments, concerns?

For the many natural introverts at SxSW last week, staying “on” for a full week was draining to say the least. Like Aaron, I’m a natural introvert. Many folk who don’t know me wouldn’t believe this. Folk like Aaron who do, get it. But trust me, I am. I’ve become more extroverted, but every personality profile will always label me an introvert – and for good reason: I recharge with quiet, I prefer small groups to large groups, and I get stressed in large groups where I don’t know folk (like, erm, southby).

So it comes as no surprise that Aaron’s contemplating the costs/benefits of “going dark”. His post, which I recommend you read before reading the rest of mine, really struck a chord with me. Having gone dark for a week in January, I can attest to its benefits and the social costs that Aaron mentions. But, I can also testify that it is oh so worth it!

I can see the benefits of going dark for 5-7 days to a whole slew of people, even ones who aren’t introverted. Things like just having space to contemplate, think deep thoughts, find yourself, plot your next steps in life, etc.

Could you unplug for a week? Why not? What would it take to make you able to do this?

If you could, would you unplug for a week? No cellphone, no internet outside of a “private” email address that your assistant/wife/etc has?

If you would unplug for a week, what’s stopping you?

Aaron and I have been bouncing around a few ideas about this, and I think we’ll  continue to. But I know I’d be interested in folks’ thoughts on going dark. The comments on Aaron’s post got bogged down on his celebrity or whether he should, and kinda missed the point.

Going dark is hard, but necessary for most folk (introverted or not). And while I’m not currently feeling the need, I bet by summer/early fall I will.

So if you could, if you would, what would it take for you to want to go totally offline for a week?

Let me know in the comments.

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!

Aaron 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.

This post is part 6 of a series, head over to the SxSW Interactive Tips page to read all of the posts in this series (in intended order).

From Eric Berto AKA GeekGiant

Right now, a bunch of geeks are packing cords, cables and some extra socks before heading down to Austin for Geek Spring Break, also known as South by Southwest.

But one thing you can’t pack is a way to handle the overload of networking, parties, panels and new people you will encounter once you land. Sure, you can read about how to Hack SXSW or even an article to teach you how to network at SXSW, but you need to find out what will work best for you.

My advice is to treat it like summer camp. When we were kids, we went to summer camp to make new friends and learn stuff. But we didn’t have Twitter, iPhones or “tweetups.” Meet people new every day and cement those relationships while you’re out at night having a great time.

Smile and Say Hi

Treat every day at SXSW as a different adventure. Strive to meet new people each day. Spend the day learning about neat concepts and ideas. Spend the day walking the hallways of the convention center and smiling at people and saying hello. I have a natural advantage when it comes to meeting people since I’m of slightly above average height (OK, I’m 6’8″). So, when I walk down the hallway, people notice. For the rest of the world, a simple smile and hello go a long ways.

Take it Offline

Us über nerds are conditioned to shake hands, introduce ourselves and then ask what the other person’s Twitter handle is. Conversely, we have many relationships with avatars that become real at events such as SXSW. So, spend some time over morning coffee to have a chat with those contacts. Catch up and connect on a different level than a 140-character reply. Mornings are a great time for true, genuine networking. No loud music, smaller groups and fewer distractions. Capitalize on that focus to actually accomplish something.

Rinse, Lather Repeat

Last year’s SXSW was my first. I found out I was going about three weeks before and had no clue what I was getting into. I essentially closed my eyes and started talking to people. But something I learned was that it was OK to start the cycle over each day. Make new friends every day. Attend a party with a different group of people each night. Buy somebody different a coffee every day. Real-world networking is a lot like the online social networks. You only get out of it what you put in.

So, what are you going to put into SXSW this year? What are you going to take away from it? What merit badges will you earn?

For the past few years, Eric has been guiding corporate communications and public relations for a publicly traded company. Eric has guided successful product launches, secured numerous speaking opportunities and created a blogging strategy that was named as one of Inside CRM’s top 25 corporate blogs.

Eric utilizes his background in journalism and sociology to bring a people-powered approach to community engagement. As an award-winning former journalist, he brings an honest and in-depth approach to Public Relations and marketing.