I can honestly say I dont think ive ever met this many brilliant people before in such a short amount of time. Where is Matt you ask? Austin Texas for Interactive, the biggest part of the South by Southwest conference. I figured I would do a brief re-cap of my short time here so far.
It all started with Bio-hacking from Dan Wetmore of Sheepdog Sciences. Bio-hacking is a process which makes your mind sharper and faster. Using computers, electronic stimulation, and training, you can literally increase your IQ, and ability to get into a flow state.
Our good friend Mike Lee of StudioFeast gave a panel talking about his efforts to create an app to break down the barriers of the kitchen and help everyone learn to cook fantastic food.
I had the chance to see a panel narrated by Jimmy Fallon about how real world data is being collected by companies like Nike and EA and how they are using it to change the world of their customers (for the better). And I scored a Nike Fuel band (yet to be released in Canada)
Andrew and I even popped into a session where the CEO of dropbox was being interviewed about what makes them a differentiator in such a viscious marketplace (hint: Its how fantastic their user experience is)
That pretty much sums up my panel experience so far, but panels are really a pretty small part of SXSW. There are so many amazing events, like the Bond Influence event where Frank Warren of Postsecret talked about his project, or the Cheezburger party where we were given RFID tags which instantly tagged us in whatever photos of us were taken on Facebook.
The best part of all of this though: Its only just begun. Theres still 2 more days of awesome to go.
Here is a couple photos I snapped over the weekend:
