I don’t want to dwell on the bad, so I’m wrapping up several crappy experiences into one story.

The sessions and other events are held in what feels like an endless number of locations, spread out across downtown Austin and beyond. If you’re trying to make it work on foot, you’re going to have a challenge.

I went to see the CTO and CIO of the United States Speak as part of the Lean Startup track in the Hilton. I was really interested in this–I love LeanUX methodology, I love my country–a perfect match. But…

The CTO and CIO of the US couldn’t be there’re because of the sequester–cutting back on travel. As a substitute, Tim O’Reilly spoke, along with someone else (a woman whose name I can’t remember and feel terrible about because she did a great job). But…

Their presentation was about the Presidential Innovation Fellows and Code for America, with which I am already familiar. I figured I would just ride it out and see what session was coming up next. But…

There’s was a constant din of noise at the back of the house and in the hallway, which was distracting. At this point I figured I would go catch Russ Unger’s presentation on innovation through the life of Jim Henson and his work with the muppets. But…

It took me so long to walk from one building to another, get lost, then finally find Russ’ presentation, that by the time I got there, he was wrapping up. Boo.

This experience loosely encapsulates my SXSW: sessions plagued with the din of the crowd, hustling around, semi-lost, looking for an event I wanted to go to, but just trailing off because it took so much longer to get there than I anticipated.

Some of this is probably my fault. I didn’t really go into this with an eye for planning. This is probably due to the fact that I spoke 3 times in 3 cities in 8 days, which kills my motivation to prep. This was not an isolated incident, but rather emblematic of the entire experience. The SXSW of c. 2007, small enough that you could drift from session to session in the name of serendipity, is long gone. But hey, poor me.