There was such an encouragingly substantive response to my post about the apparently problematic quality differential between panels and lectures at South by Southwest Interactive this year that I felt compelled to do something useful with them. Specifically, I felt that I should share the comments with Hugh Forrest, the indefatigable and remarkably responsive Event Director who somehow manages to move mountains to make the festival happen year after year.

It only seemed appropriate to do so, because Hugh, based on my limited contact with him, has always seemed to be a good guy open to reasonable feedback on how to improve the festival that he’s been involved with for years. So I sent him an email pointing him to the post on Sunday night and received a lengthy and very thoughtful response the very next day.

We exchanged a few more emails, debating the ideas in my original post as well as those from the comment thread, and I found myself in the opposite position from where I’d been before: having shared Subtraction readers’ comments with Hugh, I now wanted to share Hugh’s comments with readers. So, with his consent, I’m going to excerpt a few of his remarks from the email thread here.

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