So I know why I was in Orlando earlier this week -- to geek out on cellphones at CTIA -- but what I can't figure out is why Salman Rushdie was down there. I spotted him sitting in first class while boarding my flight back to NYC last night (he was on his cellie talking about Steven Pinker) and I'm dying to know what could have possibly brought him down to Florida.
CTIA
I'm off to Orlando for CTIA, anyone else going?
That was fast
I'm already back from SXSW. Yesterday's panel went fairly well (I managed not to say anything too stupid, plus the other panelists were pretty damn sharp), and then I squeezed in a few panels and parties before I had to head back to NYC this afternoon. I won't go on and on about how all anyone talked about was Twitter, it seemed to be the only common topic of conversation in Austin and I'm sure it's getting blogged to death right now.
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard died yesterday. It'd take more than just a few sentences to even come close to summing up the complexity of his writing, but needless to say his work had a massive influence on me and his thinking figured heavily in both my undergraduate thesis (which was about Baudrillard, Debord, and the Situationist International) and my graduate dissertation (which was about Baudrillard, Derrida, Lyotard, and economics).
This week: PSFK Conference, then SXSW
A couple of speaking engagements this week: First up is the PSFK Conference on Tuesday, March 6th, where I'm speaking in the afternoon on a panel titled "Media as Creative Agency". Then it's off to Austin for SXSW, where on Saturday morning I'm speaking on a panel moderated by my old friend Laura Moorhead titled "Emerging Social and Technology Trends." Which should be easy to cover in under an hour.