10 of the MSBA Student Bloggers were given a pass to SXSW Interactive to explore what the festival had to offer from an analytics perspective (and to have some fun in the process!). From video game expos and virtual reality stations to Victoria’s Secret models and 3D Printers, there was plenty to see! Below, Monisha & Max, two of our student bloggers, recapped some of their favorite parts of this exciting Austin event:

 

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Monisha’s Multisensory SXSW Experience

Last week was spring break and as an MSBA-er who doesn’t know how to take it easy, I spent most of it in downtown Austin immersing myself in the multisensory temptations of SXSW, a set of film, interactive and music festivals that take place in Austin every year drawing crowds from all over the world! SXSW Interactive focuses on emerging technologies and novel ideas that are radically transforming the way we perceive and interact with technology. From listening to Edward Snowden video conference his thoughts on protecting privacy and mitigating the intrusion of mass surveillance, to watching Karlie Kloss, of Victoria’s-Secret-Angel fame, talk about how technology has democratized fashion week, I enjoyed the opportunity to tickle my intellectual curiosity and feed my insatiable appetite for debate and discourse. And, because it was Spring Break, and I revel in Austin’s music scene, I soaked in some of Stromae’s electrifying beats and experiential lyrics at the Spotify House, and enjoyed (guiltily) Miley Cyrus’ surprise performance at Fader Fort.

Companies like Samsung and National Geographic had stalls where you could experience their product and service offerings. Samsung’s Oculus Virtual Reality (VR) headset gave a very literal, 3-D preview of an SNL recording (with Sir Paul McCartney, Michael Douglas and Leonardo DiCaprio) and the new movie in the Divergent series, Insurgent. I was mesmerized by how virtual reality and its progression, augmented reality, are set to redefine entertainment experiences, particularly gaming. 

Wowed by Samsung’s (Oculus) VR headset!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t beat the crowds for the National Geographic stall which gave visitors the opportunity to ‘battle for survival’ by spending 20 minutes with a group in a 40F room while they figured out how to get out. However, there were tons and tons of freebies to make up. Yahoo had a rooftop lounge with free drinks, and jenga, and the trade show had the likes of NASA with free Orion (NASA’s new exploration Spacecraft) pins and tons of fascinating information about space! Samsung, if you braved the queue, was giving away customized (by you!) T-shirts.

By the end of the first day, I was tired, and my limbs were groaning like an old rocking chair, but SXSW kept me going back for more every day for a week! It truly is an event that needs to be experienced and not vicariously enjoyed!

 

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Max’s Eclectic SXSW Experience – 3D Printing, Gaming, and New TV Shows 

“I could always become an Uber driver.”

At least that’s what I was thinking as my Uber driver dropped me off a few blocks from the Austin Convention Center. He had just finished bragging to me that he was supposed to make thousands of dollars over the course of SXSW.  So began my SXSW week, as thousands of people converged to Austin for the the interactive, entertainment, and music festivals. I interacted with employers, ate good food, and met some strange people. There was a lot going on all over the city, and I thought I would share some of my favorite experiences.

3D-Printing/Scanning and the Smithsonian

I was wandering around after visiting the Game Expo (discussed later) when I stumbled upon a 3D-Printing Session. 3D-Printing is all the rage nowadays, and the possibilities seem limitless at this point so I decided to drop in. The Smithsonian has hundreds of thousands of artifacts at its disposal. Now imagine being able to hold any one them in your hand (albeit a slightly smaller version) – that is what the Smithsonian is striving towards for disadvantaged students in public schools. They are 3D scanning artifacts like the Wright-Flyer and Abe Lincoln’s face mask (an actual molding of the President’s face!!!!). These students who would otherwise be unable to see the actual items in person can now experience them. Most schools can’t afford a 3D printer, but the data from each scan is being stored online, and some of it has been made available to digital 3D model viewer. You can now get up close and personal with ancient relics without having to disobey the “do not touch” signs. It’s pretty cool stuff, and researchers are now able to see things they have not seen before with these 3D scans.

Mr. Robot

I explored SXSW with another MSBAer, Megan Chan. One day, we stumbled across a group of dudes wearing black hoodies and sunglasses in the convention center just standing around. Turns out they were promoting a TV series premiere called Mr. Robot. I hadn’t seen any new tv/movies yet so we decided to go. I somehow got in and we snagged some hoodies of our own. The show was great. Reminded me of Dexter but with a computer hacker instead of a serial killer. Definitely reinforces the sense of being a badass because you can code….

Crowds at the Gaming Expo

Game Expo

The final thing I want to talk about is the Game Expo and the gaming session I attended. First of all, the game expo is on the south-side of town. It definitely felt like the conference organizers were quarantining the gaming nerds, like myself, out in the boonies. Not cool. Anyways, the Expo was great and I got some hands-on time playing Star Citizen with Oculus Rift. The game is a sci-fi space flight simulator, and I definitely felt like Han Solo zooming around shooting down bad guys. The session I went to focused on the current state of the gaming industry. Specifically, the discussion revolved around the fact that virtually all games being made are either big budget action games or indie games. This bi-modal distribution of game development has led to some stagnant creativity and profits in the industry. If only I had 15-20 million dollars lying around… 

 

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SXSW: an Experience Not-to-be-Missed

All in all, the MSBA students had a great time exploring all that SXSW has to offer. Big Data and analytics saturated the interactive portion of the event. It is a great place to meet like minded people and have a great time!

Any questions about SXSW, the MSBA Program, or the Outreach Committee, just ask: MSBusinessAnalytics@mccombs.utexas.edu

Incredulous stares. Conversations cease as a hush falls over the room. Small children stop crying and tilt their heads sideways. “You read a book? …For fun? When?” Yes, this is the likely reaction that you’ll receive after announcing that you read something longer than a case study from cover to cover while dealing with the workload of grad school. Or so I would imagine. Most of the time our eyes are glued to our computer or phone screens, jumping from Python codes, R scripts, and Excel sheets to emails and Twitter feeds, skimming posts and titles, making mental notes to read something later before rushing off to work on the next project and completely forgetting about whatever article piqued our interest. Fortunately, the wonderful professors and staff here in charge of the MSBA program didn’t get to where they are by sitting on their hands, and have decided to share a few of their favorites (both non-fiction literature and textbooks). These recommendations are based on the simple criterion of being well written or enjoyable, while tying back to any one of the many topics related to analytics.

 

So whether you’re buried under a few feet of snow with nothing but Wi-fi and your Kindle to keep you company, or just looking for a few pieces to add to your summer reading list, make sure to give these titles a look! (And if you’re an incoming student hoping to improve your analytics chops, any one of these is be a great place to start.)

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Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning by Tom Davenport:

“This book describes organizations that use business intelligence and analytics not only to improve operations, but also to compete more effectively” (from tomdavenport.com).

 

 

The Price of Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do by Eduardo Porter:

“The Price of Everything starts with a simple premise: there is a price behind each choice that we make, whether we’re deciding to have a baby, drive a car, or buy a book. We often fail to appreciate just how critical prices are as a motivating force shaping our lives. But their power becomes clear when distorted prices steer our decisions the wrong way” (from eduardoporter.com).

 

Investment Science by David Luenberger:

“Investment Science, (a textbook), provides thorough and highly accessible mathematical coverage of the fundamental topics of intermediate investments, including fixed-income securities, capital asset pricing theory, derivatives, and innovations in optimal portfolio growth and valuation of multi-period risky investments” (from amazon.com).

 

 

Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion by Joshua Angrist:

“In addition to econometric essentials, Mostly Harmless Econometrics covers important new extensions — regression discontinuity designs and quantile regression — as well as how to get standard errors right. Angrist and Pischke explain why fancier techniques are typically unnecessary and even dangerous. The applied econometric methods emphasized in this book are easy to use and relevant for many areas of contemporary social science” (from mostlyharmlesseconometrics.com).

 

Bayesian Statistics and Marketing by Peter Rossi, Greg Allenby, & Rob McCulloch:

            “Bayesian Statistics and Marketing describes the basic advantages of the Bayesian approach, detailing the nature of the computational revolution. Examples contained include household and consumer panel data on product purchases and survey data, demand models based on micro-economic theory and random effect models used to pool data among respondents. The book also discusses the theory and practical use of MCMC methods” (from wiley.com).

 

The Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki:

“The Wisdom of the Crowds is about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, arguably, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. It presents numerous case studies and anecdotes to illustrate its argument, and touches on several fields, primarily economics and psychology” (from wikipedia.org).

 

 

Of course, no reading list on analytics would be complete without two of the most well known mainstream works:

 

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis:

“Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis follows the low-budget Oakland A’s, visionary general manager Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball theorists. They are all in search of new baseball knowledge – insights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money” (from michaellewiswrites.com).

 

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver:

“Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future” (from amazon.com).

 

And remember, a number of areas in the analytics world are constantly evolving. By the time a book is published on a given topic, it may already be old news. Make sure to keep up with blogs, articles, research papers, and of course, @TexasAnalytics on Twitter.

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Happy reading!

(A special thanks to Professors Hasler, Sonnier, Barua, Rao, & Muthuraman for their help in compiling this list)