SXSW Interactive Community Blog

Support Katrina Kids

We need volunteers to develop/deliver online fund raising in support of kids impacted by Katrina. A lot of work is going on to rebuild critical infrastructure, so we started Project Connect to support the kids. Project Connect provides students an online digital magazine to share their creative voice and a secured means to collaborate within the context of their school environment.

Educators are telling us how important it is to give these kids a voice and show them support. They feel abandoned by the system and for many it is worse now than in the fall as it sinks in they are not going home.

We need to raise at least $100,000 to keep the program going. We already have 80 teachers signed up and partnerships with chapters of Communities in Schools and the National Writing project. But need to raise funds in order to continue to provide the program free to all kids in Louisiana, Mississippi and those scattered across the US, as well as their new host schools.

Details are on our web site, www.ct2inc.org, and our partner who is hosting Project Connect, www.4empowerment.com . Folks can contribute online through using PAYPAL.

If you have a passion for the kids and expertise in online fund raising, please shoot me an email. We really could use your help in generating online word of mouth and contributions.

Sincerely,

Martha Gimbut

Executive Director

Center for Technology Transfer (501-c3)

martha.gimbut@gmail.com

While we’ve all been hitting up the panels and parties, I’ve spotted some cool apps that apply to Interactive at the Trade Show.

If you’re around during the Music Conference, you might want to check out imeem at the Trade Show. A peer to peer network, they have a killer UI that handles various media. You can post private or public podcasts in addition to photos. They’re also hosting a party tonight, so all you Gold and Platinum Badge holders can check out the party and app tonight if you missed it at the trade show. Also, they’ll be around for SXSW Music this week.

Another cool app that invidkllr tipped me off about is eyespot. Here you can upload, share, and EDIT your videos all on a browser based app.

Has anyone else seen any apps that really caught their attention during the festival? I’m really curious about all the GoogleMaps apps. I missed the panel because I was attending an e-Learning panel.

Click here to find out how:

 http://www.nodrugtesting.com/

Enjoy the rest of the Fest!

-shannon batson

An update for all you e-learning folks. Are any of you guys attending the Enspire party? I’d be up for meeting sometime on Monday to discuss what we all do. I’m thinking either lunchtime or late afternoon. Anyone game?

In response to the earlier posting asking about SXSW jobs - here’s indeed.com’s listing of sxsw jobs - currently 45 jobs are listed.

Earlier this week, I interviewed Shawn O’Keefe of SXSW Interactive. Listen to him discuss the upcoming festival and various issues in our interactive world.

A collegue and I are finally making it down to SXSW for the Interactive conference. We are representing our interactive marketing agency, and are really interested in meeting any new and emerging media companies. If anyone would like to meet and discuss the state of online marketing, we would love the opportunity to chat.

Please leave a comment or contact us here. Thanks.

In addition to checking out what’s new in interactive, film, and music, I am also attending SXSW Interactive for work. Are any e-learning, information/instructional design attendees on here? Maybe we can get together for lunch or a happy hour during the festival.

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

Dunno if this is the best way to do this, but how about we all post our blog urls here as a blog roll? Post a comment with your blog link(s) and I’ll try to put these all together in a php and/or javascript include sometime a few weeks before the event.

Here’s my link:

Ask Derek Scruggs