Embracing Disruption at SXSW 2014

Public voting for panel sessions at SXSW in Austin began this week. Nathan Toups and Brad Carleton, the authors of Embracing Disruption: A Cloud Revolution Manifesto, have submitted a panel for consideration.

We love these guys, so we decided this would be a great followup to our special series on Disruptive Innovation, which is full of great excerpts from their book. We heard great things about their 2013 SXSW panel earlier this year; we’d love to see them on stage at the 2014 event as well. They’ve proposed a book reading plus a Q&A session on their recently published book, and 30% of the selection process depends on public voting.

Embracing Disruption (the book) is a Kickstarter-funded, open-source manifesto about the cloud, disruptive technology and internet freedom. It was written to be a primer for the uninitiated on how “the cloud” works, explaining the mechanics and philosophies in easy-to-understand, short stories with full illustrations.

This topic is dear to our hearts. I can certainly vouch for Nathan’s articulate and intelligent communication style, and the book he and Brad created seems likely to me to be the beginning of a revolution — not the cloud revolution (as that’s already begun!) but the revolution of every-day Internet users who have the opportunity to really understand what’s happening in the world. I consider this to be pretty important work, and I plan to support them however I can.

In this session, they plan to explore their learning process as authors: Embracing Disruption is their first book, their first successfully funded Kickstarter project, their first time working with an illustrator and editor, and their first time self-publishing in digital and print formats.

You can read about (and perhaps vote for!) their proposed SXSW 2014 panel here. You can also check out their project website, where you can also download a free copy of the book or support them by purchasing it.