As the sun sets on Austin, the interactive festival South By Southwest (SXSW) has come to a successful end. Now as the conversation changes from “FourSquare or GoWalla?” (GoWalla if they had a BlackBerry app) to how can we best help our customers, it’s time to coalesce my thoughts and reflections from this year’s festival to continue to help guide and improve the work of 9 Clouds.

First things first: SXSW. What is it? Well, I wondered the same thing before headed there this year. As I discovered it’s a gathering of inspirational, hard-working and forward-thinking industry leaders in the interactive and digital industries. It’s also a reunion of friends and a place to party with live karaoke, free SWAG (Stuff We All Get…ie- free stuff) and conversations ranging from the nerdy to incredibly nerdy.

I came to SXSW looking for the latest tools, new tips and inspiration from seminars given by industry leaders. A few of the seminar highlights included the future of education in the free era. With a proliferation of online course material and virtual centers of education like The Open University, professors are becoming curators of information instead of oracles of knowledge. This could profoundly change the cost and shape of education in the future, but only if professors are willing to utilize these new tools.

The seminar on Africa 3.0 discussed how technology is changing and speeding development in Africa. With 1 billion people on the African continent, 450 million of them under the age of 15 and 450 million current mobile phone subscribers, the continent is ripe for an explosion in the use of technology. As technology parks and research centers like iHub, Appfrica Labs, Limbe Labs, and Banta Labs develop this new generation, Africa is posed to leapfrog the laptop and use mobile phones to develop, create jobs and further innovation based on this new user experience.

Other seminars showed future possibilities with technology such as the the future of news becoming more localized as everyblock.com, windycitizen, gopersblock.com and our own thepostsd.com demonstrate. Finally, one of my favorite thought leaders, Clay Shirky, reminded me that the ease of civic sharing has great potential for public good as shown by Ushahidi and Patients Like Me.

While these seminars provided new insight, the true value of SXSW was the people. The people that you listen to on podcasts, read on blogs and watch on videos are suddenly across the table sharing ideas. Whether it was C.C. Chapman, of Managing the Gray fame, generously buying us dinner or Julien Smith sharing the highlights of Montreal and the benefits of paleo-based diets, every moment with other thought leaders inspired me to continue the work of 9 Clouds and to continue pushing the edges of new media. I had a great time meeting the Storenvy team of Jon, Nick, Janette and Scott who are not only a blast to hangout with but also have created an amazing online store front that small businesses could benefit from. The Silicon Prairie News gang held a rocking party to promote their regional conference Big Omaha. I also was thankful for time with Clay Shirky and Patrick Meier to learn about crisis mapping and the inspiring Ushahidi, and of course, our roommate for the week and mentor Keith Burtis. He provided encouragement, ideas and great conversation on digital marketing and how to demonstrate real return for clients through strategic and active monitoring and engagement online.

Through these conversations I was emboldened to continue the work of 9 Clouds. By helping to bridge the digital divide for our customers we are in the right place. As customers continue to move online, businesses need to learn how to navigate the new digital waters. The encouragement from our friends at SXSW have helped us to refocus and remind us of the importance and fun work ahead of us helping our clients successfully use new technology to improve customer service, expand marketing efforts and scale their care online.