Austin Travel Diary, Part 14: I’m Not Worthy!

One of the great things about attending the South by Southwest Interactive conference is that I’m getting the chance to meet the actual faces behind some of my favourite blogs. I’ve already walked up to a number of people and told them how much I loved their work.

What I didn’t expect was for some bloggers whom I hold in very high regard to walk up to me and tell me how much they liked both the Accordion Guy and Global Nerdy blogs.

Tony Pierce

Me and Tony Pierce at SxSW 2008.

One of these bloggers was Tony Pierce, whose blog, busblog I’ve been reading since the very beginnings of The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century. He recently became the editor for the Los Angeles Times blogs. Tony’s been to Accordion City a couple of times and has some ties with local bloggers Christie St. Martin (who also blogs for the L.A. Times) and Raymi the Minx, but I’d never met him until this week. He came up to me and told me he’d been reading my stuff for a while and then shot video while I performed Baby One More Time (which, along with Head Like a Hole have been the most requested accordion songs of the conference). I feel cooler for having hung out with Tony, short as that time was.

Merlin Mann

Me and Merlin Mann at SxSW 2008.

Merlin Mann is another blogger who’s a hero of mine. He’s probably best known for introducing the geek community to David Allen’s Getting Things Done system and for creating the “lifehacks” blog 43 Folders. He’s also given my blogs very hearty recommendations on his own very influential blogs and podcasts.

While getting my registration badge for the conference, I heard someone call out “Joey!”. I turned around, and there Merlin was, shaking my hand. He introduced me to his wife by saying that he “fell in love” with me when he saw me performing at a past ETech conference. We later had a great time wandering around the trade show floor together, talking about the sort of work we’d like to do and the sort of work environment in which we’d like to do that work, and I feel smarter for having spent some time hanging out with him.