Showing posts with label Glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glass. Show all posts

Friday, March 14, 2014

Camera. Prism. Lens. Eye.

Camera. Prism. Lens. Eye.

http://instagram.com/p/lgbsqAwPyG/

SXSW 2014 Recap & Notes


After a great 5 days in Austin, I'm back in Houston. I took a bit of time today to type up some of my written notes and expand on different themes I took away from SXSW. At a high level, the trends are pretty clear, and echo much of the premise of Robert Scoble's (pictured above) new book, "Age of Context": we're entering an era where mobile/wearable technologies are combined with big data, social layers, ubiquitous sensors, location-based services, and increasingly automated forms of movement (like drones & driverless cars). And all of this is happening extraordinarily fast to change what our expectations of privacy, leisure and self-actualization should truly be. Sound a little heady? Yes, perhaps, but that's kind of the idea when you're at a conference focused on figuring out the future.

Below I've assembled my disparate notes from each event I attended, broken down by day. There's a lot of content here, and not everything will make 100% sense without the context of what was also spoken during the sessions. However, if there's any bullet you find particularly intriguing but non-obvious, don't hesitate to ask a question in the comments, and I'll try to elaborate in more detail.

Friday


"The New Digital Age” with Eric Schmidt
- Securing data & communications is increasingly important in volatile regions of the world
- Activists & Hacktivists are good about using security; ordinary folks are not.
- The limits of our technology increasingly end at the barrel of a gun
- Google has an entrenched interest in making the internet available everywhere…just like Facebook
- Google treats US governments just like foreign governments when it comes to defending against cyber attacks

Pennzoil Presents Mario Karting Reimagined
- Combination of RFID, video capture/streaming, & contextual audio cues
- Interesting use case for first-person POV video streaming & gamification
- Video from Juston’s Google Glass perspective: https://twitter.com/JustonWestern/status/442119206612389888
- Video from GoPro cameras operated around the track: https://twitter.com/JustonWestern/status/442308702075228160

Saturday


A Virtual Conversation with Julian Assange
- Assange likes to pontificate
- No citizen is beyond the reach of surveillance, even the President of the United States or other world leaders
- Assange believes it is increasingly important for individual citizens to hold their governments accountable by leaking
- More journalists & leakers are moving to places like Berlin or Ecuador

So You Want Our Seed Money? Here's How to Get It!
- Warm introductions are by far the best way to get the attention of a VC
- Transitive Property of Hate: if I hate the person making the introduction of you to me, I now hate you
- Only ask your network for one or two solid introductions; quality over quantity
- Getting an introduction from a founder of portfolio is the best introduction of all
- Have a prototype built before you ask for a meeting
- Don’t push for an investor’s time; let the investor ask for your time once they’re interested
- A demo is infinitely better than merely a deck
- Make sure your deck is well designed…especially if you purport your product to incorporate solid design principles
- Be able to truly sell your story; you can back off some claims once the story has people interested
- 5 points of evaluation: Team, Market, Product, Idea, Product/Team Fit
- “Why is THIS team the BEST team in the world to build THIS product?”
- You want to be “socially proven” by virtue of navigating the social landscape to land an introduction; buys significant credibility
- Need a true depth of understanding of consumer behavior in that space if you don’t have the pedigree to back it up
- 1 out of 100 ideas actually get invested in
- Areas where a VC will provide support: Business Development, Customer Intros, Tech press PR, M&As, Raising next round
- It is critical that you have a true connection with your investor on the core vision of your product
- Setup a “Shadow Board” early on to understand the motions once your board is actually needed
- “We don’t fund you for what you’ve done. We fund you for where you going.”
- Be mentally prepared to stick with your idea/company for 8 - 10 years.

A Conversation with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Embrace the process of learning
- Encourage your kids to break eggs; they’ll learn many scientific concepts in the process
- Tooth Fairy example of maintaining childhood innocence while still keeping scientific integrity
- Power of metaphor/analogy and visualizations as concept grasping tools
- The facts aren’t important; it’s how you arrive at those facts. That’s the scientific approach.
- Don’t get attached to the number. The enumerated output is never the most important thing.
- Embrace the communities of entertainment & sports to advance a learning agenda.
- "There's so much amazing in the universe, I don't want you to be distracted by things that are not.”
- "The first trillionaire on earth will be the one who mines an asteroid."

Innovation in Big-Time College Football
- Primary recruiting tool for team is social media; almost exclusively Twitter DMs & Facebook messaging. 24/7 affair
- College football uniforms are increasingly a recruiting differentiator. Arms race between Under Armour/Nike translates into recruiting wins.
- Team communication handled exclusively through mass text messaging.
- Faker Twitter accounts of attractive girls are setup by team coaches to get players to friend them so their activity can then be monitored.
- Using media coverage to your advantage is so important when the university locale isn’t in a major market.
- Must have something to draw young players to smaller towns. The promise of something greater.
- Chip Kelly is heavily leveraging wearable technology to monitor his players in Philadelphia.

Connected Home Developers Garage Happy Hour at Silicon Laboratories
- User Experience of most smart home devices is still dreadful
- No agreed upon protocol yet for next generation smart home devices. Still a mishmash of Zigbee, Z-Wave, X10, etc.
- Increasing interest in Pebble as a controller
- Life360 partnership with BMW for iDrive system, attempting to make that service the platform
- Interesting advancements in low-powered devices, like thermostats, smoke detectors, doorbells

Sunday


Sunday Brunch with Robert Scoble & Expedia at Gypsy Lounge
- Recap of guiding theories from “Age of Context” book
- Twitter’s “Fail Whale” designer was also on stage
- Power of If This Then That for creating these new contextual experiences

Equipping & Inspiring the Next Generation with Dean Kamen
- High-tech Coke machines at restaurants are commercial by-product of a water filtration system
- FIRST program embraces celebrities like Will.i.am to champion the coolness of science & technology
- Creating a maker culture in your home is so important, especially for women/minorities to make it part of the lifestyle
- NRG has an engine to create electricity from compost & other trash to power water filtration; interesting possible applications
- Teach your children how to learn, not how to memorize. The learning part is the absolute key.

Sundar Pichai Conversation with John Battelle
- Google is launching an official SDK in 2 weeks: Android for Wearables.
- Q: "Why do we need Chrome AND Android?" A: "Chrome is best for web, Android best for mobile. Having both lets us keep each simple.”
- Asked audience who owned Chromecasts. Probably half the attendees raised hands. Not bad for a product less than a year old.
- "Does Google have a master plan? I mean, is there an architecture to all this shit you're doing?" Hilarity. A: Not a plan but maybe a thesis.
- Discussion around evolution of the master identifier away from mobile #’s to something else
- Cross-platform messaging characterized as “very difficult” as they’ve learned from Hangouts/Google Chat/Google Voice

The Future of Genetics in Our Everyday Lives with Anne Wojcicki
- Use data to change long-held opinions
- The more statistical insight you have about yourself, the more you can make healthier decisions
- Take an active role in your own healthcare conversations with physicians by providing supporting documentation
- To make systemic changes, there has to be an economic incentive to PREVENT vs TREAT; sick people are profitable

Glassholes: The Cultural Dissonance of Technology
- People are afraid because currently an online persona is self-curated; Glass has potential to take that away
- Society struggling with whose rights are more important: the right to not be recorded vs the right to don Glass
- Transparency & “being a good human” are key for something like this to work
- Parallels to existing body of law around public photography
- Businesses/Brands are eager to incorporate Glass into their offerings
- What is the impact on children? Relationship to 13+ Terms of Service vs actual psychological impacts
- Is Glass just a result of engineers wanting to create cool technology for themselves?
- Does technology always need a reason to exist? Can it be created “just because” & then let society identify applications?
- Glass is designed with the user/wearer in mind, to keep them in context & undistracted
- Audience very split on whether Glass is a force for good or a risk for society; impassioned opinions during Q&A session

Context is King: iBeacons & the Internet of Places
- Notifications should be different based on location, but also temporally relevant (dinner ad vs breakfast ad)
- Art Museum is a natural place for iBeacon deployments
- Personalization is critical.
- Make sure your alerts are highly valuable to the recipient
- Leverage the passive nature of these sensor/app combos
- Example of disarming the home alarm based upon entrance to driveway
- Don’t abuse the technology’s functionality so users aren’t bombarded. Mall example.
- Quality of Content vs Frequency of Content
- Utility must be clear
- Tickler effect: reminder to use the right app on your device at the right time.

Monday


Snowden 2.0: A Field Report from the NSA Archives
- Snowden characterized as immensely intelligent by Washington Post journalist
- Snowden has refused to disclose portions of the documents that would endanger government personnel
- The security/encryption technology community is “pissed off” and working to see this never happens again
- Discussion around whether RSA was complicit & gave backdoor access to key generation algorithm

A Virtual Conversation with Edward Snowden
- Snowden appearing through 7 proxies from Russia, so significant video latency, although audio clear
- Glenn Greenwald Test is failed with most tech: it’s too hard for the average user to figure out
- Using technology like TOR or PGP creates too high a barrier of entry for even people semi-tech literate
- Making the communication secured by default is the only way there will be mass adoption
- Encryption works. Much more likely to use social engineering to get the key than to break the encryption via brute force
- Effect of PRISM leaks led to significant changes at Google and Yahoo around secured email options
- Machiavellian perspective, but positive, public-benefitting changes have occurred since the leaks
- “I took an oath to support & defend the Constitution of the United States. That’s what I’m doing."

Top Tech Innovation Trends for 2014 with Robert Scoble & Gary Shapiro
- $4,000 waterproof LED t-shirt with programmable display via smartphone app; http://switchembassy.com/ & http://www.tshirtos.com/
- Wearables for kids are gaining significant traction
- MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) are driving most of the innovation
- Sensors placed upon football players to beam real-time data on heat, perspiration & intensity of hits to TV broadcasts
- Google Glass probably 3 - 5 years away as a truly mass scale product
- Glass characterized as the “most controversial product in my lifetime” by Robert Scoble
- Muse biofeedback brainwave headband: http://www.interaxon.ca/muse/
- Movement towards shorter, clearer, most standardized disclaimers on software agreements, following trend in credit card industry
- Debate of Privacy vs Value for much of the wearable tech
- BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) & iBeacons seeing much attention from tech community
- Pairing the sensors with a social layer creates compelling new applications
- 3-D printing really starting to take off because the initial patents have now expired
- Very quickly moving to printing meals and household items
- Fulfillment of online purchases will increasingly come from printing at home, drone delivery, or automated delivery trucks
- Cube sensors for monitoring your indoor environment: http://cubesensors.com/
- Ninja Innovation Book: http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Innovation-Strategies-Successful-Businesses/dp/0062242326
- Wall-sized TVs for truly immersive rooms
- The most prized rooms in offices in the near future won’t be the corner suite, but the one completely covered in displays from floor to ceiling, all touch-enabled
- The 5 Sense experience (like getting together in person at SXSW) still very relevant to augment our daily, primarily virtual experiences
- Licensed vs unlicensed spectrum; investigating taking some spectrum back from local broadcasters
- Huge win for small companies with passage of JOBS Act that officially backed crowd funding
- Eureka Park at CES enables smaller companies to get mass exposure
- Google Glass technology was acquired by Google via an acquisition of a startup
- JBL headphone speaker designs are leveraging novel new shapes prototyped via 3-D printers
- What are the far reaching impacts of driverless cars on society? Huge impact on reduced insurance claims, truck drivers, billboards
- Notion of Car as API
- Car companies are being reshaped as technology companies

A Global Economy Driven by Platforms & APIs with Werner Vogels
- “Everybody loves to sell. Everybody hates to ship.”
- Cloud resources must be instant on, remote access guaranteed
- Sharing your core competencies with your competitors can actually become your competitive advantage.
- Embrace the notion of “not invented here”.
- You can get more out of your own platform by scaling it with your competitor’s data & usage
- Not doing it alone allows you be more successful
- Let others benefit from your scale
- The platform must be a level playing field
- Reward your sales people for how much money they save your customer
- Only 10 - 15% of IT infrastructure is typically utilized within companies. Amazon targets 100%.
- Lingering concerns about a winner take all / single point of failure when one company controls so much infrastructure

Relieving Frustration: Porn & User Experience
- Richness of content directly proportional to the number of engaged senses
- Realism is greatly determined the sensor fidelity
- How is participation defined? Self or Shared.
- Use Content AS the navigation
- Categorize content by making it highly tagged & crowd-sourced
- The more interconnected the content, the more organic the discovery
- Multi-site, predictive search allows discovery across properties
- Allow for minimal inputs to produce results
- Create multiple paths to content discovery, while limiting required input
- The closer you get to a first-person POV, the more immersive…a situational illusion
- Embrace greater fidelity and unique POVs
- Condense functionality across devices: computer, mobile, wearable
- Real-time language translation in chat to facilitate global content creators in non-native tongues
- Adding a new layer of sensory data to previously created content changes the experience of it
- Expand the Experience & cause “change at a distance"

Tuesday


Biz Stone in Conversation with Steven Johnson
- "If you want to succeed spectacularly, you must be willing to fail spectacularly. That's how you build a business of enduring value."
- "The promise of a highly-connected society is helping others.”
- Society will use technology in ways that you previously did not conceive
- Example of the proliferation of railroads exposing the shortcoming of no centralized time-keeping
- Example of flash photography in Germany leading to improvements in slum living conditions in NYC
- At Twitter, Ev was the business guy with money, Biz was the designer with product experience, & Jack was the technical mind
- Upcoming show from Steven: How We Got To Now - http://www.pbs.org/about/news/archive/2013/how-we-got-to-now/
- Upcoming book from Ev: Things A Little Bird Told Me - http://www.amazon.com/Things-Little-Bird-Told-Me-ebook/dp/B00ECEA35C/

Walked the SXSW Trade Show Exhibition Floor
- Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream
- 3-D Printing technology is evolving very quickly
- Ring founder on site with prototype of motion-control ring - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcut-everything?ref=live
- Interesting table/wall displays from Digital Touch: http://digitaltouchsystems.com/
- Well-designed MacBook/iPhone docks from http://hengedocks.com/
- Remarkable human exoskeletons from Skeletonics: http://en.skeletonics.com/

Sunday, February 23, 2014

SXSW Survival Guide & Packing List 2014 - How One Geek Planned For It



SXSW 2014 will be my 4th year in Austin for the conference since 2010. The first two years were badgeless, just checking out the unofficial events around town and networking at the bars & restaurants near the Austin Convention Center. In 2012, I took the year off since my identical twin daughters were born on March 12, 2012. And last year, I officially attended with a badge, representing the ChaiOne team. Seeing each Elon Musk, Al Gore, Nate Silver, Rachel Maddow, & Dennis Crowley speak within 4 days was pretty remarkable.

Over the past 5 years I’ve learned that while serendipity is the key to an amazing SXSW, you don’t facilitate that without a fair amount of planning in the month before the conference. It helps to RSVP to parties, even if you know you can't attend all of them. It helps to pick several interesting talks at each time slot on the conference schedule so you have options when some are inevitably full or too far away. It helps to poll your network on Twitter & LinkedIn to gauge who will be in town, so you can note who to invite along to interesting events or meet for a drink. It also really helps to pack or buy the right gear to keep your gadgets and body charged for 5 days of abuse.

There are numerous well-written resources online about what to pack and how to maximize your experience while at SXSW. I suggest Googling “SXSW Survival Guide” or “SXSW Packing List” to get broad exposure to veterans’ opinions if you don’t know where to begin. Two I’ve found particularly valuable are Tantek Çelik’s list from 2011 & Aubrey Sabala’s guide from last year.

My list below isn’t intended to be a comprehensive checklist of what you should bring. If nothing else, I hope it may spark some ideas of things you might consider bringing if you’ll be in attendance, serve as a gauge of what an early adopter is using at a tech conference, or represent a humorous reminder of how quaint technology was when you read this 5 years from now.

I’ve broken the list into six sections. The first two are focused on the gadgets and the accessories that will power those gadgets. The next two are about powering the badge-wearing biomachine, and hacking that biomachine to endure 18 hour days of walking, learning, networking, and…drinking…heavily. The fifth is a quick rundown of the other non-battery-powered items I advocate keeping in your go bag each day. The last section is all about the mobile apps that will be getting their own respective workouts during the event.

Gadgets


- iPhone 5S: This will inevitably be my most-used device. Tablets, smart watches, glasses, & other wearable tech is important, but nothing matches the criticality of your phone at SXSW.

- iPad: I'm using a 3rd generation (the first with a Retina display) model, and intend to use this the most during conference talks for note taking, tweeting, and ad hoc Googling.

- Google Glass: I was able to get my prescription frames & lenses in just in time for SXSW this year, so I'll really be putting Glass through its paces for the first time at the event.

- Nike Fuelband: My second highest Nike Fuelpoints day of 2013 was the Saturday of SXSW. I'm hoping to top that while walking around downtown this year.

- Withings Pulse: I have a hunch that I'll get my target of 10,000 steps per day all 5 days of the event, but nowhere near the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night that this gadget will be monitoring.

- Pebble: Push Notifications from my iPhone on my wrist. I forgot my Pebble charger at SXSW last year, and missed its functionality dearly.

- Wii U Fit Meter: With all the hills in Austin, I'm hoping I make some measurable progress in Wii Fit U on ascending the equivalent height of Mt. Everest.

- Nintendo 3DS XL: While I don't think I'll get much playing time while in Austin, by tossing this in my bag, I'll easily be able to fill up my Nintendo ID with Play Coins from all the walking. Although, I'm always up for a game of Mario Kart!

Gadget Power


- Mophie Juice Pack Helium: My first line of defense in an electricity hungry conference, this extended battery case served me well last year and will be flipped on once my phone's internal battery hits 20%...which will likely be before lunch each day.

- Anker Astro 6,000 mAh Portable Charger: My second line of defense, this battery should be enough to get me 2 or 3 more full charges on the iPhone each day. Depending on the day, this will last me until I get back to my rental house each evening (read: 2:00-3:00AM).

- Anker Astro3 12,000 mAh Portable Charger: Here's the catch-all battery for everything else I'll be wearing or using each day. Likely gadgets to drink from this oasis include the iPad, Google Glass, and possibly the Pebble. Those new watch faces that are possible in the 2.0 Pebble firmware are really power hungry. If I blow through the charges in the first two items on the list, this guy will also be available for the iPhone.

- Anker 40W 5V / 8A 5-Port Travel USB Charger: This won't go out and about with me in my bag, but instead will serve as the main charging hub once I'm back in my room each evening.

- Mediabridge Portable Surge Protector with USB Chargers: One in my backpack each day, and then one back in the room.

- Assorted Lightning/30-Pin/Micro USB Cables: As you can infer from the list of gadgets and external batteries above, I'm going to need more than just a few of these to ensure I'm starting each morning 100% juiced up.

Body Fuel


First Thing In The Morning

- Bottled Water
- Gatorade
- Coconut Water
- Red Bull

Carried In The Bag To Consume Throughout The Day

- Powerbar
- Gatorade Chews
- Candy Bar
- Beef Jerky

Every Other Opportunity

- BBQ
- Tacos

Body Hacks


Did I mention every day pushes about 18 hours, for many of those hours you're drinking with new & old friends alike, and you'll shake hands countless times with folks from all over the planet who may or may not be in tip top health? Yeah, it's more than just a tad taxing on your body.

The first two years I attended SXSW, I thought "Hey, I went to undergrad in New Orleans, this will be a cake walk!" and came home to Houston a shell of a man both times. Last year, I proclaimed "I will beat the system...with science!" and stocked up on tons of fluids to slurp down each day, along with an assortment of supplements to battle the inevitable dehydration, lack of sleep, and the always looming SXSW Flu.

The plan worked wonders. It's by no means a silver bullet to avoid a hangover completely or make it to the first panel every morning, but it definitely levels the playing field. It also helps ensure you won't need a full week to recover from SXSW once you make it back home (which is more common than you'd believe).

- Hammer Nutrition Endurolytes: Usually employed by marathoners to ensure they keep enough electrolytes in their body while racing. SXSW is a marathon.

- Berroca: Magic fizzy pills from Europe to bring you back to life each morning with a surge of Vitamins B & C.

- Advil Liqui Gels: Short of taking prescription pain relievers for your inevitable headache, this is the next best thing. Prudent to wait until the next morning to take these, though, as mixing with alcohol at the end of the night can be dangerous.

- Airborne Powder: One packet mixed with a glass of water in the morning, one before bed.

- Emergen-C Powder: One packet mixed with a glass of water at lunch.

- Prolab Caffeine Tablets: Easier on the bladder than coffee, but with an equivalent jolt of caffeine as two cups of joe. You do want to be alert and engaged during the panels, right?

- Advocare Slam: Kind of like a 5 Hour Energy, but I've found it to make me less jittery. I down one of these after dinner before the evening parties.

- Visine: You won't get enough sleep and your eyes will be dry as a result. This helps.

- Burt's Bees Lip Balm: My lips never get chapped at any other time of year, but with the combination of recycled air inside the convention center, wind in the Austin streets, and sustained abuse on the body, they get chapped at SXSW. This lip balm works wonders to bring them back to normal.

- Altoid Smalls: While I'm sure the combination of breakfast tacos, smoked brisket, and Jack Daniels makes for a delightful daily menu, it doesn't make your breath smell like a fresh autumn breeze.

Misc


- SXSW Badge
- Evernote Moleskine Notebook
- Pen
- Moo Business Cards
- Warby Parker Sunglasses
- Rain Poncho
- Kleenex
- Wet Ones
- Microfiber Cloth
- Square Reader
- Index Cards

Apps


Part of the fun of SXSW is the dense population of active users of mobile apps, and the way in which that density changes the possible use cases of those apps. It's no accident that services like Twitter & Foursquare truly found their initial audiences and popularity at SXSW. Other classes of apps, like group messaging or ride sharing, have seen flashes of brilliance when targeting the hyper-connected conference goers. It's not clear if there will be a breakout class at SXSW 2014, although anonymous rumor/secret sharing apps like Secret & Whisper may find traction...especially amongst liquored up twenty/thirtysomethings at Geek Spring Break.

Each year I create a new folder on my iPhone of the apps I expect to primarily use each day while in Austin. Here's this year's batch:

SXSW GO: No need to lug around the printed book of all events when the mobile app can be updated  & referenced on the fly.

Secret: I'm hoping for a juicy rumor involving Johnny Football & Miley Cyrus in the RVIP Lounge party bus to show up in my feed. Or just some ridiculousness from the Silicon Valley set.

Find My Friends: Especially if you're traveling to Austin with a team, this is a frictionless way to see where your teammates are around downtown without having to message each one of them.

Foursquare: While I use it daily to keep a digital passport of my life, it takes on new importance at SXSW, especially when you can see which parties or panels are swarming with attendees. The discovery aspect of the app is very useful, too, particularly for those unfamiliar with Austin.

Tweetbot: Create a Twitter list of people you know who will be at SXSW. Also add Twitter accounts that post SXSW news, like @SXSWLineBuddies & @unofficialsxsw. Then browse this list in Tweetbot to get a curated feed of people who you know will be talking about the event or breaking news about that impromptu secret party you want to attend. This is infinitely more useful than trying to follow the #SXSW hash tag which will be filled with a torrent of useless tweets. I heavily use this multiple times every day while in Austin.

GroupMe: This has served as my team's backchannel the last two years at SXSW. Very effective for group chatting and posting funny photos.

Google Maps: Since a lot of party tips travel via word of mouth or tweets/texts, you'll find yourself searching for new venues frequently. This app is a godsend.

Vine: Shooting long video clips at SXSW is bad for your battery. Restrict yourself to 6-second clips, and embrace the creative possibilities!

Instagram: You will see remarkable things at SXSW. Mike Tyson. Buzz-generating Daft Punk banners. Grumpy Cat. Document those memories here.

Eventbrite: Nearly every unofficial SXSW party has an Eventbrite page on which you must RSVP. Just go to the app, search for SXSW, and RSVP to all that interest you. Then when you're boots on the ground in Austin, you can use this as a rough agenda. You can also export your tickets from the Eventbrite app to Passbook so your e-tickets can be scanned at those venues that check.

Sidecar: My brother & I used this service extensively last SXSW. Sidecar is a ride-sharing app, but for SXSW 2013, it was effectively a free, on-demand cab service. I haven't heard yet if they'll be doing a similar promotion this year, but between Sidecar, Lyft, or Uber, there will likely be some method of scoring cheap or free ground transportation while you're in Austin.

Wrap-Up


So that's my toolkit for SXSW this year. Overkill? Perhaps. But it's kind of like going on that European vacation you spend so much time planning. Part of the overall enjoyment is the anticipation of the event. 

I recall a quote from Foursquare CEO, Dennis Crowley, last year that went something like, "SXSW is where you experience the future for a few days before you have to go home and live in the present." That's why I still get so excited about the event. Yes, it's expensive. Sure, there's lots of debauchery involved. But, man, if you don't come away from the event with your head swimming in new ideas, dozens of new contacts, and a handful of unbelievable stories, then you're just not doing it right. 

If you'll be in Austin for the Interactive portion of SXSW, ping me on Twitter at @JustonWestern. Perhaps we can grab a drink, brisket plate, or that much needed bottle of water together.