I have little data about where the South by Southwest festival actually started, but it began to intersect my consciousness two years ago. Year one thought, “What the hell does SXSW stand for?” Year two thought, “This appears to be the only significant gathering of the weblog community on the planet Earth.”

It’ll be four years since I began the current weblog when the SXSW 2006 festival kicks off in Austin, Texas. I decided shortly after SXSW 2005 to attend as well figure out if could throw together a presentation for the conference.

After months of chatting with SXSW folks as well as gathering together an all-star panel, I’m very happy to announce I’ll be presenting on March 12, 2006 @ 10am. The title of panel is “Sink or Swim: The Five Most Important Startup Decisions”.

A good title is nothing without good content and I’m pinching myself about the folks who have agreed to participate in my panel.

Cabel Sasser, Founder of Panic Software. Maker of shockingly good Mac software and home of the web’s best t-shirt store

Joel Spolsky, Founder of Fog Creek Software. Software development weblogger extraordinaire

Ev Williams, Founder of Pyra Labs and Odeo. Also a muser of software development

When I first cooked up up the idea for this panel on a drive to work, I thought, “You know, if I could get Joel, Ev, and one of the Panic guys in front of a crowd, that’d be some fun.” I’m shocked that each of these gentlemen volunteered their valuable time to talk about their start-up experiences.

If you know nothing about SXSW, head here. If you do know about about SXSW, go check out the panels page… it’s chock full of the bleeding edge. I haven’t a clue how I’ll decide what to attend.

Stay tuned for more Rands @ SXSW details including the invariable mass consumption of alcohol post-panel-panel event somewhere in downtown Austin.

Mark your calendars and I hope to see you there.