Exhaustion
Now that it's over, I am attempting to summarize yet another, SxSW. This year marks my eighth straight with a Music Badge, and my fourth straight with a Platinum. I'll try to touch on the highlights of each day, in a vain attempt to recount the experience.
Thursday, March 8
Badge Pickup and Dinner
I left work at the normal time, and met my brother at the Austin Convention Center to pickup my badge. After seeing the lines the next day, going all of the way around 2 sides of the building, early pickup is the only sane choice.
After picking up our badges, I took my visitors from Columbus over to the 24 Diner, in order to sample the sublime, Chicken and Waffles.
Friday, March 9
This year, SxSW began with one of the rainiest days of the year. After breakfast with my brother at the Original Pancake House, we headed downtown, prepared to spend a good deal of time inside.
Panels
I spent the early part of the day at the following panels:
Man vs. Algorithm: Online Video Curation Face-off
The talk discussed the current techniques for curating video on the Internet. While somewhat interesting, I felt compelled to leave the talk early, and walk around.
Don't Forget About Me! Remember Everything at SxSW
This panel was hosted by a Scottish stand-up comedian, who practices a memorization discipline similar to the the Memory Palace.
He identified 4 techniques, and then had the attendees practice them. Surprisingly, we were all able to successfully put them to immediate use. Although a strange choice for SxSWi, I really enjoyed this session.
The Lean Startup: The Science of Entrepreneurship
A fantastic talk with Entrepreneurial star, Eric Reis, author of the book, The Lean Startup. My brother and I are big fans, and really liked Eric's focus on Continuous Improvement and mentions of another hero of mine, W. Edwards Deming.
Seeing this talk convinced me that I may have to re-shuffle my reading list, so that the Lean Startup
is next.
Films
Chasing Ice
Faced with the prospect of waiting outside of the Paramount in the rain, my brother and I opted for Chasing Ice, rather than Josh Whedon's, Cabin in the Woods. Regardless of you thoughts and position on Climate Change, Chasing Ice is a fascinating documentary about a project to obtain time lapse photos of glacier fields in Greenland, and Alaska.
Since the first film was at the Alamo Ritz, I started off SxSWf right with a Green Chile Mac 'n Cheese. Yum.
Wikileaks
For the second film of the night, my brother and I chose the Wikileaks documentary, at the Vimeo screen in the convention center. Another interesting film, by the time it was over, we called it a night.
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