The SXSW experience has been a whirlwind, to say the least! Now as I look over my posts, my pictures, sift through my notes, tweet to my new followers, check out what my new foursquare friends are doing, and fill out my expense reports (expense reports, woof – amirite?), it’s also a great opportunity to reflect on the entire journey.

Coming from a large company such as PepsiCo, it was a very different feeling to be surrounded by so many entrepreneurs. Besides admiration for their brave forays into the ranks of the self-employed, I feel greatly inspired by everyone’s willingness to collaborate, to help one another, to be open to new technologies and readiness to turn on a dime and head in a completely new direction. I assure you that I am hard at work on making sure that I infuse as many people as I can with that same inspiration.

Besides the feeling of inspiration, in my capacity as the Marketing lead for CONN3CT (TX), I want to harness the best ideas Austin Convention Center had to offer. The overarching topic of most panels I attended was the importance of social media in branding, marketing, communication, and engagement. This very site demonstrated to me just how much untapped talent resides in our little group – we embraced social media, became exemplary brand ambassadors, and genuinely engaged with our readers (who were fellow employees and consumers). My goal is to give CONN3CT members even more opportunities and platforms to represent their company to the world as brilliantly as they have done in the past few weeks.

Now, who’s with me???