Happy St. Patrick's Day from the team at SXSW Interactive. We can't thank you enough for bringing your creative energy and brilliant ideas to the 2011 Interactive Festival. This year's event truly showcased the power of community to create real-world change, and we hope you are more energized and inspired than ever.

Speaking of the power of community, please continue to donate to the ongoing relief effort via SXSW4Japan.org. As of this posting, the site has raised over $64,000 -- and there are only two days left to reach the revised goal of $80,000. Additionally, Architecture for Humanity and its teams in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto are now partnering with other organizations to mobilize around the long term reconstruction effort. Visit architectureforhumanity.org to find out how you can get involved. We can all make a difference now to impact the thousands and thousands of devastated lives in Japan.

As always, we want to hear what we did well and what we can improve for next year. Your ideas and feedback are always welcome via inter@sxsw.com.

Please remember that with the closing of the Interactive Festival, our small staff is now hard at work helping to produce SXSW Music (March 15-20). In other words, we may not be able to respond to your email until next week, when all the SXSW activities have concluded and we have moved back into our offices. We appreciate your patience!

Also, be sure to stay tuned to this website for more audio and video highlights of the 2011 event (coming soon), as well as information on the SXSW PanelPicker submission process for the 2012 event.

Remember, dates for the 2012 SXSW Interactive Festival are Friday, March 9 through Tuesday, March 13. We'll see you then!

Photo courtesy SXsocial