ATTENTION: This session requires advance signup to attend. For Online Schedule: Please utilize the RSVP link below the description to reserve your seat. For SXSW GO App: Use the RSVP 'Find a Timeslot' link. You must have a SXSW Interactive, Gold, or Platinum badge to attend, and, you must have an activated SXsocial account (social.sxsw.com) to reserve a seat. If you have any issues with signing up, please email support@sxsw.com. VERY IMPORTANT: Because of the limited space, we recommend you arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the published start time of this session. If you have not checked in at the room you RSVPed for at least five minutes prior to the session start time, you may lose your seat to an attendee in the waiting list line.

As technologists, marketers and entrepreneurs we are challenged to drive business growth through a vast array of connected capabilities. Understanding what these capabilities are and how they work together requires knowledge across an overwhelming range of technologies and platforms. And this often seems like mastering a sea of shifting sands. To compound this challenge, our brains don’t have infinite capacity to retain all the knowledge we have gained over our lives.

But is this truly a phenomenon of the information age or has society worked through these issues before? Over 2000 years ago, the ancient Greeks and Romans developed a technique called a memory palace which provides a framework for people to organize and store information in their minds. Today, record-setting memory champions use these techniques to memorize over 65,000 digits of the number Pi. Can we use methods such as these today to help improve our ability to stay current with our rapidly-paced innovation culture?