Yesterday was a very unusual rainy, blustery and chilly day in Austin, Texas, but it did not deter tens of thousands of predominately thirty and forty somethings with the latest in high tech gadgetry who were eager to learn more about this very real world of social media at the SXSW Interactive Conference.

Here are my top ten highs and lows.

1. If first impressions are everything (and they are not), then SXSW Interactive, which I will heretofore refer to as #SXSWi, did not have us at hello. For a high-tech conference, the registration process is antiquated and painfully slow. The line haphazardly stretched completely around the very large and very crowded convention center lobby and soon grew to double back.

It was like being in an airport with all the flights cancelled. To make it worse, when you finally entered the main hall after a wait of sometimes two to four hours, there was a queue that looked like the LaGuardia Airport security line gone bad.

When you finally got close to the registration desk, you could hear people calling out random names as most of the volunteers at the booths sat with nothing to do. Yep, it was bad.

Fortunately for me, I had innocently entered a random door, proceeded directly to the queue area, and so only waited around 40 minutes. As I went to lunch, I saw the neverending line, and asked my friend Vince  what they were waiting for, only to find out he himself had waited in that very line to register.

2. However, that’s all you will hear from me on the lows. From there forward, it has been all highs. In the registration line, I met Seema, who works with the company SalesForce, and as we were mourning about the antiquated registration process, she told me about a new resource that has revolutionized conference check-ins. First great idea. First impressive new acquaintance.

3. Lunch at Easy Tiger on 6th Street. Wow!! Wow!! Suffice it to say The Food Network bought the restaurant out, but we were able to stand and grab lunch upstairs. Two thumbs way up!!

4. My first session was “Branding as Patterns.” Read more about the details and presenters HERE. Read the attendees real-time thoughts and Tweets HERE. This session alone was worth the $750 registration price. Biggest takeaway: “Our company identity is where the brand meets the customer. If we do not know our customer, we are talking to ourselves.”

5. Next up was a trip to one of the two registrants tents and I discovered we have tickets in our lanyards for two free adult drinks every day. Nice.

6. That was quickly followed by a trip back into the convention center to listen to one of my digital heroes, Guy Kawasaki,  interview the person in charge of development for Google+. Read more about the details and presenters HERE. Read the attendees real-time thoughts and Tweets HERE. Again, a tremendous session, climaxing by guy Kawasaki (and Samsung) gifting us his new e-book, “What the Plus?”. You can get it as well by clicking the previous link for a limited time.

7. Next up was a session led by author Eric Ries. Read more about the details and presenters HERE. Read the attendees real-time thoughts and Tweets HERE. Again, this session alone was worth the $750 registration price. Biggest takeaway: Isn’t it better to have bad news that is true about your company, rather than good news that is made up?” and “You don’t have to apologize for your companies inadequacies, if you do not have any customers.”

8. Vince and I then accidentally, but happily stumbled into a VIP party, looking for dinner at one of our fav restaurants, Annie’s on Congress. The company reps (Pervasive) cheerfully invited us in for the price of a business card and after learning we were not on the list, beckoned us in anyway. Abundant, free drinks and food were the order of the evening. We met some tremendous people, including Ali, who works for the Department of Labor in D.C., and Talib who works for a tech marketing company and Jeff from California.

9. We talked Sazaracs and Truffles, oh yeah, and also our respective jobs.

10. I quickly realized that my age gave me instant respect with most of the registrants. I am not old enough to be their parent, but still young enough to be their peer. It is a nice place in life that makes conversation easy and fulfilling…and very educational.

More tomorrow…wish you were here!!