SXSW lived up to my expectations. Sure, it took time to figure out the best strategies for getting around the convention venues, for getting in to the most interesting sessions, and most of all, for avoiding lines (it felt like the former Soviet Union at times). But I learned a great deal about trends in […]
How can you go to SXSW and not attend some films (or what people outside of film festivals call “movies”)? Chef Flynn After visiting WeWork Austin to catch up on client work, I headed over to the Stateside Theatre on Austin’s main strip, Congress Avenue, to view Chef Flynn. It’s a wonderful documentary about a […]
Based on the sheer number of vendors showcasing VR/AR products on the trade show floor of the conference, I would say that the arrival of VR/AR into the mainstream was one of the big themes of SXSW 2018.
Enlightenment now In “Enlightenment Now,” a presentation packed with graphs showing data from the Middle Ages to the present day, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker persuasively argued that the world is doing better than ever before by every important measure: decreases in disease, poverty, pollution, inequality, infant mortality, war and wartime fatalities, authoritarianism; and increases […]
In a session entitled “Hacking our Democracy,” Mark Warner, the Senior U.S. Senator from Virginia and Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, summarized what is currently known about the extent of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.
If you don’t know what SXSW stands for, don’t worry. (I wouldn’t have known a few years ago either.) SXSW – South by Southwest – started in Austin, Texas in the late 1980s as a small get-together that, to the surprise of its organizers, attracted 700 people in its first year.