Behind the Scenes

Staff and volunteers at the Circus are wearing cool T-shirts featuring a circus parade by Michigan artist Yolanda Gonzalez. If you've been on the mediabistro site recently, you've seen Yolanda's spindly critters crawling across our banner ads.

Yolanda is a natural at parades--check her out riding atop a "poster artist car":

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In today's Datamation, writer James Maguire points out to his readers that the Mediabistro Circus will be more than just a future-think event for the cool kids. Read the post here...

The Jackalope, a place to escape the SXSW noise (at least during the day)

Amanda, our Marketing Diva here at Mediabistro, made a great point to me as I was trying to make sense of the SXSW schedule before I landed in Austin last week - Mediabistro Circus is like an aggregator. We filter through all the news (and noise) about technology and media, and have chosen key conversations to focus on at our conference. It's one story arc that begins with traditional media and unfolds with each session, around the technology that is moving us all forward.

The overwhelming SXSW Interactive schedule presented simultaneous sessions every two hours, which made it difficult to decide where to spend time each day. Instead of attending Mark Zuckerberg's keynote, for example, I could have listened to Anil Dash talk about Designing for Freedom, or attended a panel on how Mobile Technology Impacts Politics. I could have wandered through the exhibit hall, the Screenburn Gaming Room, or been sidelined by an unexpected hallway conversation, which would have led to missed sessions and Starbucks anyway. My brain was so full that the Bridal Events of Distinction exhibit, also happening in the convention center last week, suddenly looked like an appealing escape.

No doubt there is a lot to talk about right now, but in between listening to big ideas and learning about how to execute them, you need time to process everything. We've put together an agenda that thoughtfully paces learning, thinking and drinking - er, connecting with peers - so that our attendees leave the conference not only inspired, but refreshed.

Good thing I left town before the SXSW Music festival got started.