4 hours in Austin= 1 session + 1 blog mention!

I've arrived in Austin. SXSWi is in full swing already. I'm bunking at the Omni with a friend of a friend named David Dylan Thomas who blogs about movies and things he likes, which is mostly movies. He's very nice and his blog's a good read even though his judgment is suspect as evidenced by his opinion that "Munich" was the best film of last year (it wasn't). Most importantly though, Dave promised to blog about me/Third Coast/Chicago Public Radio! So that's one down! 19 to go.

I've already been to a session today that featured James Surowiecki, the New Yorker writer who wrote The Wisdom of Crowds. It explains why the answer given during the 'ask the audience' lifeline on Who Wants to be a Millionaire is correct over 90% of the time even though our bias is that people in groups tend to sink the the lowest common denominator, act like mobs and chase Frankenstein with pitchforks. I don't know what it had to do with technology and "the future" but I was happy there was a session that wasn't just geared toward the blogger who wants to learn how to make money on their site.

Chicago Shout-outs:
In my effort to get into 20 blogs I figure I better give a little in return, so here's the Chicago folk I've run into so far today:
Andrew Huff, Cinnamon Cooper, Sandor Weisz

Post a comment and I'll pass along a message to them.

Peace out.