SXSW Interactive Community Blog

The fine folks at UXmatters (http://www.uxmatters.com), a non-profit Web journal, are looking for a SXSW attendee to write a review of this year’s conference. If you’re interested, drop Pabini Gabriel-Petit (info [at] uxmatters [dot] com) a line at your earliest convenience. Thanks.

- Joel Grossman

I do not want to give to much away but at our American Cancer Society presentation we are going to talk about grants that the Futuring and Innovation Center provide to staff and volunteers so they can develop new breakthrough programs and services to help in the fight against cancer. You may be our next grant recipient, but you will need to come to our presentation and our lunch titled ‘Deleting Cancer’ to find out more. I am excited to be working with David Neff for this event.

I’ve written some restaurant recommendations. I’ve downloaded all the movie trailers and have a songs bit torrent loaded from the SXSW Web site. Does anyone have any panels other than their own that they’d recommend? I haven’t been to SXSW Interactive in a few years. Things like Podcasting, SEO, and such has happened. Anything else that might be good to look into this year?

Well not that kind of side show. My name is David Neff and along with Randy Moss we will be representing the American Cancer Society at this years SXSW.  We will be talking a bit on our current innovations as a non-profit as well as the need for institutional innovation drive.  Which we have with our futuring and innovations center. We are also hosting a Lunchtime learning session called ‘Deleting Cancer’.  It will be a continuation of our stage presentation.

If you’d like to get a bit more into the influences that inspired me to propose the Beyond Folksonomies panel, listen to the podcast that Tom Parish recorded with me last week in his south Austin studio. I’ve also written  a bit of an intro on the BeyondFolksonomies blog.

Also, while I’ve got your attention. I noticed that there isn’t a general panel discussion for how to get the most out of SXSW-interactive this year. Evidently, the number of proposed panels, and the number of attendees has skyrocketed over last year (woo hoo, good signs). The biggest motivation for proposing this panel was my attendance at SXSW-interactive for the first time last year.  It was fantastic, but I wanted to know how I could connect with people more consistently on the topics that were presented. That’s how I got started on the folksonomies track, and now, well, I guess you could say I’ve become a bit of an evangelist!

Guess who’s biz-ack . Last year’s Blogging While Black panelists are back for another round. This year we’ll discuss the how of identity blogging: the face you present to your audience and the larger blogging community.

Specifically (assuming we have time, of course), we’ll discuss:

• To reveal or not reveal? Private vs. public self, virtual vs. real self and why do we make the connections we do?
• Who is your intended audience and who are you actually reaching? Are you writing for others like you or for everyone?
• Individual or collective? Tensions between speaking for yourself and speaking for your identity group.
• (How) Do you reconcile your various identities online?
• Dealing with unvited guests: Flames, arguments and ways of handling them.

Stop by and see us. Our panel is scheduled for Sunday, March 12 from 5 - 6 p.m. This year’s panelists:

• Tony Pierce
• Lynne d Johnson, BlackThoughtWare
• George Kelly, All About George, Negrophile.com
• Jason Toney, Negro Please
• Monique Judge
• Tiffany B. Brown, BlackFeminism.org

That bar on 6^th Street too loud? You want to have a quiet drink away from the minions at the Hilton? Need to discuss that venture capital deal over some quiet drinks? Here are a few places to invest in some social lubricants.

Austin offers more than hotel bars and raucous music venues.

Other folks have already mentioned two favorites of mine: Casino El Camino and Club de Ville. Both make a good, cheap drink.

Cedar Door (Second & Brazos)

Though Austin margarita favorite Trudy’s has three locations, the Cedar Door has had at least 3 locations in the 14 years I’ve lived in Austin. A little rustic and laid back—it’s a nice bar with a local feel Downtown. Very close to the Convention Center!

Roaring Forks/Stephen F. Austin (7^th and Congress)

Chill hotel bar drinking. Popular with business types and politicians. A bad ass happy hour menu from 4-7 with gourmet burgers, Tex-Mex, and even foccacia!

Side Bar (602 E. Seventh St.; 7^th and Red River)

Even during the peak of SXSW, this place wasn’t packed despite the throngs of people on Red River. Rest your feet. Get a drink. Hang with Romulan Hipsters.

Cockpit (113 San Jacinto)

A new gay bar that has been getting steady and favorable buzz. Just blocks from the Convention Center, perhaps a nice alternative to 4^th Streetbars. Rain, Fabric, and Oil Can Harry’s are all still in the Warehouse District between Lavaca and Colorado on 4th and 5th streets.

Lovejoy’s (604 Neches St)

Have a drink at the coffin. In my 20s, my buddies and I would hit Casino for burgers and a cocktail and then head to Lovejoy’s for some beers.

Bull McCabes (714 Red River)

Irish Pub. Just in case you need a St. Patty’s day outpost and want to avoid the crowds at Fado.

Elephant Room (315 Congress)

Located in the basement, this subdued jazz club has plenty of atmosphere, even after Austin decided to go smoke free.

The Digital Convergence Initiative of the Texas Technology Corridor has worked with SXSW to create a convergence track, and is throwing an ambitious party Tuesday night, March 14. As most of you know, convergence means many kinds of media/data in many kinds of devices; the sessions in the convergence track talk about the impact of convergence on creativity (March 11-12) and business (March 13-14).  The party will have some examples, including a prototype of a high def multicity feed… there’s actually two parties, on in Austin and one in San Antonio, and they’ll be sharing through this prototype.

I’ll be heading out to Austin for the first time to speak on a mapping panel at SXSW. As I don’t know anything about Austin I decided to start a CommunityWalk map of the area around the conference center using information from numerous sources across the Internet.

Please add to it if you have any good recommendations for restaurants, bars, or other entertainment. Also you can add your hotel to it to get an idea of how far these various locations are from where you will be staying.
Community Walk Map - SXSW Festival

I previously mentioned my project, Lyceum, a multi-blog branch of WordPress (the software that powers this very blog). We are now running a public beta of Lyceum:

Lyceum Public Beta

The front page explains everything you need to know. It’s pretty simple. Register for a blog (or 5!), make posts, comments, change settings, and send any recommendations or bug reports to lyceum-bugs AT lists DOT ibiblio DOT org.

The project will be formally announced and the code made public at the end of this month. We’re excited to see what people think of Lyceum and what projects it gets used in.