Category Archives: Travel

Lesson Learned

I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to the annual South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. When I first started attending, five years ago, the conference was more than just a critical gathering for everything webby; it also drew considerable power from its intimate scale, from the way it provided an environment in which people normally separated by the far reaches of the Internet could meet and interact on a very human level.

Last year, owing to a hectic travel schedule and personal obligations, I was forced to skip the festival. But secretly, I was somewhat glad to have stayed home. SXSW Interactive had grown so large in the prior year that I worried it might have outgrown its usefulness. My last time attending, the crowds had been bigger than I’d ever seen before, causing the session rooms to be spaced at awkwardly and frustratingly opposing ends of the Austin Convention Center. I couldn’t imagine that the intimacy I found so valuable would survive the ever-growing crowds, and I remember returning from Austin exhausted and feeling as if the book had closed on something special but already receding into the past.

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JFK to SFO to CDG

Okay, um, I can’t seem to get my act together on this blogging stuff. I’ve been a bit… distracted lately, is one way of putting it. And now I’m about to head out to San Francisco for the better part of this week. I’ll be there until Friday morning; I’m a terrible trip planner, so for all of those folks whom I know in the Bay Area and whom I haven’t called, please forgive me. However, I’ll be around until Friday morning if you want to drop me a line — at which time I’ll be taking my nephew to Paris for a week. Look for a couple of posts while I’m overseas, at least — I figure I’ll have some free time. How hard can it be to keep an eleven year old entertained?

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