Bigger'n Dallas

Lombardi Software is based in Austin, Texas but in most ways Austin doesn't feel like the rest of Texas. It's not quite as, well, BIG. Sure, the University of Texas in Austin has about 50,000 students and that's big. And the capitol building's dome is higher than the dome in Washington, D. C. and I guess that was a big deal at the time.

But you have to go to Dallas to get BIG. And, well, here I am at GigaWorld in the relatively new Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center. This is Texas, baby. There's a steer right outside my hotel room.

They have re-created the Hill Country (a beautiful part of central Texas that runs from Austin to San Antonio in a rectangle about 80 miles long and 60 miles wide) inside the hotel. They have the Alamo here... well at least the facade of the Alamo which is now a coffee shop and balcony. Embedded in the Alamo's mission bell tower is a 40 foot wide big screen with conference details. They have a "river walk" that looks like the one in San Antonio. Well, sort of.

And this 8 story hotel structure has a huge atrium with a glass roof and, of course, a BIG Texas Star in the middle of it.

The Big Idea of Gigaworld is Visible Process Improvement. I am not sure if any of these man-made artifacts improve on the process of creation and evolution, but they're fun to wander around and wonder upon during a business conference... and they are certainly visible.

They're downright.... BIG!