Meeting Story Going Public

Last month I posted the story of how Walter and I met and mentioned that one of my favorite blog authors (Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users) was looking for stories about people whose lives had been positively affected by an online experience. Of course I had to respond by submitting our meeting story along with a photo of the two of us.

Yesterday I got an email back from Kathy Sierra. She said our story was exactly what she was looking for and asked to use it. She condensed the story to a short paragraph and will be sharing it along with many others as part of a video presentation in the opening keynote of SXSW Interactive Festival this coming Saturday in Austin, TX.

SXSW is a conference for web designers, programmers, tech entrepreneurs, bankers, investors, and educators. There will be panel discussions and education on topics from web design, usability, and blogging to wireless innovation and new technology business models. This thing is big. There were 4700 in attendance last year and I see that one of their speakers this year will be Dan Rather.

Kathy's presentation is meant to inspire web developers, software programmers, etc. about the value of their work in connecting real people. After all, if it weren't for folks doing that kind of work there might not be a Walter and me! This page has a photo of Kathy from when she spoke at SXSW last year.

And here I thought Kathy was collecting stories for some kind of school project (she mentioned her daughter was helping her after all). Of course I gave Kathy permission to share our story. She tells me the video will be posted online near the end of March. How cool is that!