They say SXSW is what you make of it, so I'll take some responsibility for my general feeling of dissatisfaction with the past couple days of panels. Overall, the majority of the panels I've seen have been somewhere between acceptable and pretty good, but not great. I want to be wowed, I want to see and hear things I've never seen and heard. Am I asking too much? Here are some quick thoughts on ways we might improve the selection for next year:

Video panel submissions
Not every subject matter expert is a good speaker, so what if the panel picker included short video pitches for panels so you could get a sense for the presenter?

Extended panels
In talk after talk I felt that the hour provided didn't really give the presenter enough time to get to the good stuff. Lots of topics can can be covered in that time, but how about mixing in some longer form sessions for more complex subjects?

Truly expert-level panels
Sessions at SXSW are rated from beginner to advanced but so far they've consistently felt like they were trying too hard to accommodate all levels of experience. I'd like to see some really advanced, really challenging sessions that provided a couple of qualifying questions that could help attendees know if they'll be able to keep up.

No more sales pitches
I'm completely fed up with panels that amount to sales pitches. Yes, I've seen your website, I know your work is good, that's why I'm here. Same goes for attendees, if you are going to ask a question, we really don't need to hear about your entire business model first.

This probably reads like I'm totally anti-SXSW, but that is not at all the case. I've really had a blast over the past couple of days and it is always great to hear from the community and confirm that you are on the right track. I'm looking for strategies to help SXSW continue to evolve and mature into something that I'm excited to return to every year. If you have ideas of how to improve the fest or think I've got it completely wrong I'd love to hear from you.