Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference in Austin, Texas with the rest of the TrendyMinds team. I had anticipated five days of learning, networking and inspiration, and my expectations were high. Everyone talks about SXSW as being the best conference the industry offers -- and it isn't often that an industry conference gains an obsessively passionate following.

But now I get it.

SXSW was an amazing experience. It was exhausting, to be sure. Sessions run back-to-back from 9:30am to 6:00pm. Your feet are sore and swollen from walking (quickly) all around Austin. Lunch was often downed on the run (Thank God Zone Bar was a title sponsor -- there were literally bowls of free Zone bars everywhere you looked!), then it was a quick change before hitting the parties and hobnobbing with the movers and shakers in the industry. (Yes, it's true that I embraced Pete Cashmore in our hotel lobby at 4am. I might just frame that picture!) By the time the schmoozing and celebrating was done, you had just enough time to catch a "cat nap" before waking up and doing it all over again.

But the trip was incredibly inspiring, and it's made me want to step up my game even more.

So often we get caught up in the day-to-day tasks and to-do's of agency life: write this, pitch that, proof those. Agency work is a frenzied pace, and there's rarely time to sit back and reflect on the industry as a whole. SXSW provided me with that opportunity. I could soak in the creativity and inspiration offered by those individuals that are really pushing the industry toward the outer limits of the cutting-edge. Their designs, strategies, methods, techniques, tricks and tools were nothing less than mind-blowing. While I won't give any of them away here (sorry kids -- buy your own passes!), I'm so excited to begin utilizing them with our own clients. In fact, we've already pitched some great new concepts and implemented methods that we learned from our experience.

One session put us just feet away from the top brass from Facebook, CNN, Mashable and MTV. It was nice to hear what these game changers had to say about the state of our industry, rather than listening to the same-old, three-years-behind-the-times noise.

I have no doubt that just those five days at SXSW will make me a better, more well-rounded account executive and strengthen our agency. TrendyMinds already prides itself on advancing the industry and thinking in out-of-the-box ways. We're not your grandfather's ad agency, that's for sure. But now we're even more committed to really exploring the newest ideas from the field.

I'm already excited for SXSW 2011 registration -- just 6 months away!

(Check out some of our SXSW photos here!)