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This year was the second year that I got to attend SXSW and I found it just as motivating this year as last. Both years I have returned excited and busting with ideas. There are so many talented people in the interactive, film and music industries and getting them in one place to share that talent is powerful stuff.

I truly believe what I learned there helped me to be better at my job. For example, I sat through a session on  “Presenting Straight to the Brain” presented by Jared Goralnick – AwayFind, Cliff Atkinson – BBP Media, Craig Ball – Craig D Ball PC and Kathy Sierra – CreatingPassionateUsers. They discussed how the human mind learns, what research says about our brains and what we can do to get the attention of our users and help them retain the most important information we are presenting. My coworker and I had a presentation to give just a few months after I returned from SXSW and we used the techniques and suggestions discussed in the session and got wonderful feedback from the attendees on how relevant it was and what great information they took away from it. The interesting thing was the techniques they proposed and the things they felt you should avoid were the opposite, in many ways, from what we were currently doing.

I’m already signed up to attend in 2010 and I can’t wait.

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