I am asked to speak to groups regularly. This is something that, years ago, I thought would be very cool. When I first attended the South by Southwest Interactive and Music conferences in Austin in 1994 or 1995 (I can’t ever remember when I began going), I remember sitting in the panel sessions day-dreaming about […]
I’m angry. Well, angry isn’t exactly what I am. It’s not Hulk Smash anger. It’s some weird combination of frustrations, annoyance, alone-ness and emptiness wrapped into a people sandwich. Why? The continued insistence that the world that I exist within – this nebulous world of technology – is somehow not part of the mainstream. *** […]
<1> Last week, I gave a presentation at the Popular Culture Association that didn’t go very well. It was the first public presentation of a project that Brian McNely, Matt Mullins and I had worked on for the better part of this school year. The goal of “The Object Remix”: create a story using publicly […]
In response to the work Brian, Matt and I presented this past weekend (which is now behind a password-protected wall), my friend Evan Ratliff forwarded me this essay written in Harper’s a few years back. It’s a treatise on influence, the commons and remix culture. It says more elegantly what we are beginning to say […]
I’m not a big fan of arguments. Which surprises some people. But only the ones who don’t know me very well. My friends understand this about me. I will absolutely have arguments about the strengths needed to build a winning baseball team or the importance of defensive tackles in football. I will do so vociferously […]
ED Note: I exchanged a few comments and Tweets with Jolie earlier today. She was surprised by the spirited response to her blog post (from the blogosphere; not from me). Our conversation confirmed what I thought: she’s a decent gal. She just waded, unintentionally, into the annual post-SXSW Interactive reaction debate. For all of you […]
It’s been a long day, but there’s but one full day left. I’m too tired to be sad. And too far behind in my work to worry. At some point this evening, I’ll need to get my Media Ethics lecture finished (although it’s possible that will have to wait until tomorrow and instead I’ll put […]
It’s midnight here in Austin, the end of the South by Southwest weekend. It’s a sad day. Not because the event is over. There are still three days left. But there is a shift on Monday and Tuesday. The parties slow, the conference slows. The business begins to set in as the end draws near. […]
South by Southwest (SXSW) is simply seven days of heaven. The weather was gorgeous and the panel sessions really kicked off today. It’s fair to say the conference is under way. I started the day with a nice 3 mile run, although the hamstring is now acting up regularly. I think when I get home […]
The first full day of South by Southwest is over, 18 hours after it began. It’s unclear if I’ll survive the gauntlet in front of me considering my inability to finish anything. This is a price worth paying. The day started at 9 am at the convention center (after an aborted run due to hamstring […]
18 years. I’ve been coming to Austin, and South by Southwest, for almost longer than I haven’t been coming. Which is something that happens to me more and more. For someone who doesn’t finish much, I’ve certainly got quite a bit of unfinished history happening. I am simply in love with this city, this event […]
I’ll arrive at my 18th South by Southwest later today. I can barely remember what that first experience was like. I certainly didn’t imagine it to be a life-changing one. And yet, I owe much of what I do today to my experiences there. I’ll be blogging this year’s experience at The Cult of Me, […]