Call Charlie Sheen or The Not Winning Blog Post – What I didn’t win at SXSW 2013

March 18, 2013





Categorize that title as “long and incomprehensible”. But it says what I wanted it to say, because once again I was on the non-winning end of a buttload of technology at a social media festival or technology conference. For your giggling pleasure, here are the items I didn’t win while at the 2013 edition of South by Southwest in Austin, TX.

I welcome your list in the comments. OR, if you’re so bold, I welcome your list of items you DID get as a result of SXSW. My friend Steve ended up with a car and other colleagues walked away with Samsung cameras, Nokia phones and iPads.

So, as we get precariously close to my birthday month (see this list – it’s still being updated – for gift ideas), here are the items I was lucky enough not to pack on my way back to Boston from Austin…

Samsung Galaxy 3 or 4
iPad Mini, iPad Maxi, iPad 1, 2 or 3, iPad case, iPad anything
Lytro Camera (though frankly John Refford and I feel that the only thing that would make this useful to us – as we are loathe to do post processing on our photos AND the software was horribly buggy – is that if it were in the shape of a wedge, this ‘innovative’ camera would make a nice doorstop)
Ford Cruze or similar
Chevy C-Max or similar
Extra Leg Room Seats on JetBlue
Hundreds of Thousands of Miles on American Airlines
An Oreo Gift Pack with certificates to Oishi
Canon Camera, Lens or other item
A chair massage
Dell laptop
A hug from Shaq
A room at the Driskill for SXSW 2014
or a GoPro camera for sharing my activities all week

That said, I left Austin with a bunch of great memories (see this photostream for lots of evidence), a full belly and a liver crying for forgiveness. What do you remember – and treasure most from your trip to SXSW 2013? And if you weren’t there, what did you do when all the geeks had their spring break in Austin?