Greetings all! I'm still catching up with all the photos that I took while I was in Austin for the SXSW Interactive/Film/Music festival. It was the first time I've done the full duration, 10 days. Typically I'm just in town for music, but this year the lovely, kind, generous folks at work decided that I couldn't do too much harm to the company image by being a part of the Interative part of the festival, and well, I'm glad they did because it was a really rewarding experience.

There were some amazing sports technology panels about the future of sports data hosted by Jimmy Fallon, and eye-opening presentations about the future of sports apps. But, the best panel I saw was "Jeffery Tambor's Acting Workshop" in which he took 2 actors that he had just met and coached them through a script, and through their life with the tact and wisdom only someone that really adores he craft could do. Incredibly powerful, touching, and inspiring for everyone that was involved. So many gems. So many quotes.

"This is your life. What are you doing? This is it."

"Enjoy everything. Adore everything."

Another fantastic panel, hosted by Austin Kleon, featuring Kirby Ferguson was called "Everything is a remix, so Steal Like an Artist." It was an all-too-brief hour of inspiration and discussion about the art of borrowing to improve. Fantastic.

In the evenings there were quite a few tech parties, but for the most part I chose to check out the fantastic lineup of podcasts that were being recorded at Esther's Follies, including Marc Maron's WTF?, You Made it Weird, and a special presentation of the cast of Bob's Burgers.

John McNicholas