Surprising Tapestry of Sessions at SXSW – South By Southwest…

SXSW is a 3-part festival, with Interactive going the first 5 days, Music the last 5, and Film stretched through the full festival.

In regular life, you just don’t get this kind of variety in a 10-day stretch. I love that when I come to South By Southwest (SXSW), I’m not here for work and with a platinum pass, I am entirely free to sample any offerings that catch my eye. With so many overlapping sessions, I couldn’t make them all, and some didn’t really lend themselves to interesting photos, but what rich pickings!

Here’s a taste of what made my short list this week, mainly from the Interactive part of the festival. I’ll talk about Film and Music a bit later.

~Robot Petting Zoo (Don’t Feed the Animals!)

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~Books Are The New Vinyl

~Debunking the Disruption Innovation Myth

~When Your Devices Decide to Touch You Back

~Story Structure Secrets

~Is The Internet Disappointed In Us?

~The Invisible Salary: Why Money Doesn’t Matter

~Wearable Technologies 3 & Will Wearables Bring New Purpose to Fashion?

~Made in Brooklyn: A Craft Foods Revolution

~Failure As A Creative Catalyst

~Dramatic Reading by Programmers of Bug Reports (with Puppets)

~Jedi Mind Tricks For Entrepreneurs

~Can Sports Help End A Culture of Violence

~You Can’t Sit With Us: Craft Beer Subculture

~Minimal Viable Pub: How to Open A Pub on $5K

~Cuddly Drones

~The Future Is Short-Form: Storytelling For Today

~Making Art While Entertaining the Internet

~How To Rob A Bank: The Vulnerablilities of New Money

~ and finally one unofficial 6th Street session that almost pulled me in – less for the title than the first instruction: “Reconsider”