Comments About Sarah Lacy, SXSW and the “Apology of the Century”

Last night at the Twin Tech Party in DC, Sarah Lacy of Business Week and I had a chance to meet for the first time. What transpired has been spun unbelievably out of control by attendees of the party. Phrases like “Battle of the Titans”, the “Apology of the Century” and labels of me being her “arch-nemesis” have been bandied around.

I personally think it’s all a bit much and want to explain what happened last night with a brief history on what happened involving Sarah and I at SXSW.

Sarah had the opportunity to interview Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder at SXSW. This came within a few months of the Facebook Beacon advertising and privacy fiasco which we covered here. Zuck is not known for public access and this was one of those few times where many in the room had an opportunity to talk to him. It wasn’t really planned that the audience would talk all that much. Handlers ensured that, if rumors are to be believed.

In the heat of the moment, and admittedly some egging on by folks on Twitter who know that I’ll say anything, anywhere (sometimes without thinking through ramifications), I heckled Zuckerberg with “Beacon Sucks“, the first of what would be many heckles from the crowd in that keynote. Get that, though? I heckled Zuckerberg.

This heckle lives on in infamy and everywhere I go, people laugh about it. “Oh, you’re that guy?”

I admit, it was pretty funny and I benefitted from the wave of infamy that went with it. But I want to be clear, I heckled Zuckerberg, not Sarah Lacy. Later in the Keynote, the audience turned on Sarah, but that was not me.

Last night, I spoke with Sarah one on one about the incident. A Flickr photoset was dedicated to the encounter, which I find slightly amusing.

Sarah was genuinely interesting, but she was naturally a little defensive when we first began chatting about the incident. I hope that the message I was trying to convey made it through: I was heckling Mark, not Sarah, and though I don’t apologize for the content of the heckle (Beacon does suck and still does), I do apologize for the unprofessional conveying of that message.

Personally, I hope that the entire incident can be put behind us. I don’t mind if the Beacon Sucks heckling incident never gets brought up again, but I may be wishing too much. In case the message didn’t translate, ” I’m sorry, for my part, in making you uncomfortable on stage, Sarah. While it was not the best interview, my message was for Mark, and not you. Hopefully you can forgive me and next time we see each other, it will be easier to laugh about the whole thing.”

And by the way, the Twin Tech Party rocked.

Update: Though it’s difficult to hear, here is a video taken at the event of this alleged “apology of the century”.

Update 2: Sarah says, “I do” - Umm, as in, she forgives me. :)

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About the Author: Aaron Brazell is the lead editor of Technosailor.com and a social media expert. His passion is to see companies and individuals use the internet and web technologies wisely and effectively to promote their brands and companies. He served as Director of Technology at b5media from 2005-2008 and is currently an independent consultant.