Welcome to our special blog series on the South by Southwest Interactive conference. We put an iPad in the hands of one of our copywriters traveling to the event in the hopes that he will use it for good, and not for a new form of disc golf. Let's see what happens together...

Our first night in Austin gave us a chance to explore the city before sessions started. In just that first night out on 6th Street playing shuffleboard, you could tell SXSW brings together a great gathering of people from all walks of life (not including the bat that found it's way into the bar) - but it also serves as a true example of a customer base in general. They're all here for different reasons, from different backgrounds, with different expectations, but they flocked to the brand for its core offering. In this case, information, collaboration and connection.

Highlights from Friday's panels:

• Even people from Google still use PowerPoint for presentations.
• People forget things - like a Mac-to-VGA converter cable - regardless of how technologically advanced a conference.
• Agencies need to find balance between creative, development and UX.
• Today's Don Draper would not only tweet, he'd know how to build on the Twitter API.
• Those people that can speak tech will find more success in the modern agency.
• Those agencies that listen to tech will find success in the marketplace.
• Farmers are a lot more mobile and data-driven than most people think.
• There's currently a hole in the animal version of electronic health (e-health) documentation. (Developers - get on it, get rich!)

Day 1 (Friday) was also filled with walking. Lots of walking. Some of which was due to my poor map management. But hey, it did lead me to the state capitol building. And sometimes a few happy accidents lead to something great - as I hope that's what I'll hear in tomorrow's "Mistakes I Made Building Netflix for iPhone" session.

It's also interesting to see all these folks who are usually found behind screen names are connecting on another layer - in person. With a joke. With a toast. With a waiting line. It's proof that the social media and interactive realm are still very much based on the original concepts of those words. Act online as you would in real life and everything will be fine.

Random other stuff: Saved a pedi cab from falling into traffic. Prevented another one from taking out someone's taillight. Had a shrimp corn dog. Took too long to finish this blog post.

~Corey Johnson (@heycoreyj)