Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Interview with Maria Johnson of UT Dallas Virtual Reality Social Cognition Training Department

My latest Metafocus column is an interview with Maria Johnson of the UT Dallas Virtual Reality Social Cognition Training Department. They're doing cool work using VR for cognitive development, with a focus on children with autism, ADHD, and other social learning differences.

Metafocus: Interview with Maria Johnson of UT Dallas Virtual Reality Social Cognition Training Department

Enjoy!

Monday, March 13, 2017

How Serendipity Works


SXSW is a serendipity accelerator.

Serendipity works in direct proportion to the clarity of your goals/plans/intentions, the force of the actions you've been taking recently, and the heat of your passion. If you aren't clear, aren't taking action, and aren't passionate about your goals, then serendipity doesn't work. In fact, neither does creation. This was the single most important lesson I came to SXSW to remember and get clear about. SXSW itself is a place to accelerate this whole process, though it works just as well in our regular lives.

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Serendipity > FOMO: How to Plan for SXSW

Last week, a friend asked me how I approach my SXSW planning. There's so much to see and do, it's like all of college crammed into 10 days (or 14 days, if you do SXSWedu too, like I do). Sessions, speakers, networking, networking events, mentoring, hands on maker sessions, multiple trade show floors, music, film, art, video games, national display houses, parties, dancing late at night, pitch events, VC meetups, eco meetups, tech meetups of every type imaginable, educational scavenger hunts, book signings... attendees can't experience more than 1-2% of all the amazing stuff that badges provide access to. Planning your days can be daunting. Moreover, the website isn't great and the app is buggy, ironically enough, and you can't get your hands on the event catalog until registration the day before. However SXSW itself is such a life-changing and world-changing conference that it's well worth putting up with any sub-par SXSW technologies.