A lesson learned at "South by" shared

Sad because you didn't make it to the interactive portion of SSWi? Lots of people are writing about their experienes, putting some weight behind the 140-character, live coverage Tweets.

I enjoyed reading Top Ten Lessons I Learned at South By Southwest from Escaping Mediocrity

Here's one lesson that goes beyond this meetup:

10. Sometimes when you meet the people you know online, they are way WAY better than you even imagined. And sometimes, they totally suck. I experienced both. It was a great reminder that people can put forth whatever personality they want to online. The only way to determine its truth is to meet them in real life.

Let me just add that when someone doesn't want to meet offline that might be a warning to lower the trust element or at least draw back on the personal information and insights you're sharing. See, I think that's just one of the ways you might discover the prince you're talking with might actually be a dog.