As the instructor of this course and while the students are working on previews, I thought I’d make a post about some of the things I am most excited about seeing at SXSW this year. It’s always good to have a plan, before the madness sets in, and it doesn’t hurt to have Plan A, B, C and D options.
Back in August, when the panel picker voting was going on, I did a couple posts on panel proposals that I found interesting:
SXSW 2012 Panel Picker – Picks and Recommendations
I am happy to report that 40% of the 59 panels I recommended (out of more than 3200) were selected. So, I am repeating here what I originally said about some of the ones that were picked.
It’s great when our TXST grads have panels selected, and this is not the first time for some of these folks. Dee Kapila from KUT has the panel Big ‘Ol Babies: Why Baby Boomers=Public Media FAIL. Her panelists include people from WOSU Public Media and PBS, as well as former NPR president and chief executive Vivian Schiller. They will deal with the ways that the older generation and digital natives differ in their approach to decision-making and leadership in a public media environment. I think this is a provocative idea and one worth exploring. Should provide for some lively commentary.
Michael Trice took a class with me a few years ago, and was part of the very first SXTXState.com project. He has since done a Fulbright Fellowship and is currently working on a Ph.D. at Texas Tech. Michael’s panel is Community Regeneration through Digital Literacy and it describes a project in Bristol, UK called the Knowle West Media Centre’s University of Local Knowledge project. This will be a great case study in learning about effective ways to spread digital literacy.
I had originally recommended Burt Herman’s proposal on being a foreign correspondent. Burt is one of the organizers of the international Hacks/Hackers. He’s actually going to be on a panel called Maps of Time: Data As Narrative, instead, and that is something that interests me a lot, as it relates relates to the courses I am teaching.
Jenny 8 Lee works with Burt on Hacks/Hackers. Her proposal deals with the same mission as the meetup group, how to foster better understanding between communicators and coders: Content and Coding Are Not Commodities. She’ll be joined by panelists from Washington Post and the FCC.
I have been fortunate over past few years to get to know both Aron Pilhofer of NY Times and Jim Brady of Journal Register. They are both on a panel submitted by Stephen Buckley at Poynter Storytelling Beyond Words: New Forms of Journalism that also includes Bill Adair of St. Petersburg Times and Politifact. This one is kind of a no-brainer in terms of acceptance. These are some of the most innovative and progressive in the journalism realm right now. What a great opportunity for them to share their vision. This line of the proposal sums it up “This panel is for geeks who care about storytelling, and it’s for storytellers who care about digital tools.”
I see proposals by two of Aron’s staff, who are fantastic programmer/journalists. Brian Hamman will discuss Second Screen Dashboard: Cover Live Events Better dealing with some of the NY Times special projects for Oscars, Super Bowl, etc. And Tyson Evans (although I don’t see his name any longer on the panel), who did a core conversation with me a couple years ago, has Journalism’s Got 99 Problems, Design is #1. This panel features Miranda Mulligan from The Boston Globe and David Wright from NPR. I like the approach that design is so critical to everything with which we engage, but is rarely talked about in regard to the future of journalism. You just have to look at what Apple has done to recognize the value of design.
I had originally chosen a panel that featured Evan Smith of Texas Tribune, called Skills & Bills: Can News Be a Product to Sell?, and that one doesn’t seem to be selected. But Evan will be on a panel with NY Times Editor Jill Abramson, talking about The Future of the NY Times. This will be a must-see.
Steve Myers is at the Poynter Institute, and I met him a couple years ago at SXSW. He’s got great insight on social media’s role in journalism. His proposal is on Tweeting Osama’s Death: From Citizen to Journalist, and it deals with the individual who unknowingly tweeted the Bin Laden raid, but more generally, the increasing role of the average person in covering news.
There are some other educators that I saw with great ideas. I went to a presentation by Peg Faimon & Glenn Platt a couple years ago on Universities in the Free Era. I loved what they had to say about the new professor and learning environment. They had a proposal in the panel picker entitled Dream U: Building an Open Source University, but they now seem to be on a panel called Brand As API: Connect Differently.
Andrea Hickerson was a graduate student with me at UT. She now teaches at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her proposal deals with another of my favorite topics, the role of gender in the technology realm. Binary Bitches: Keeping Open Source Open to Women will be an important way to discuss women’s participation in open source communities, the challenges and opportunities.
Accessible HTML5 Canvas? Really? How? – I like to hit up a few panels that will expand my tech insight into skills I can share in class. This features some Microsoft people, so they might have some perspective on the IE situation.
Turntable.fm: The Future of Music is Social – because it is 🙂
I had originally selected a proposal by our friend, Bob Metcalfe. Now that idea has morphed into a Fireside Chat with him. This should be similar to the talk I did with him during Mass Comm Week. Metcalfe is charming and engaging, and has a wealth of stories to share about his illustrious career.
Give Fans a Reason to Buy; Make Direct-to-Fan Work – I haven’t had much time to focus on the music panels, but this one looks great. Brendan Moore of Receptive Music hosts folks from Pledge Music, Topspin and more.
Then there were a few others that involved either interesting companies or interesting titles.
Open-Web, Open-News: Reporters and Developers Remix – Mozilla, includes Dan Sinker and Emily Bell
The Psychology and Interfaces of Social Design – Eric Fisher of Facebook
Intellectual Property Issues in Social Media – features people from a variety of universities and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Can Social Save the Music Industry – Rdio, Turntable.fm and Songkick
Data Mining Music – The Echo Nest
Why Mobile Apps Must Die – Frog Design
Mad CSS3 Skillz – always love tutorials and workshops
HTML5 and CSS3: Does “Now” Really Mean “Now” – Oh, the browser issues.
Designing Experiences for Women – Happy Cog
I’m super excited about many of the featured speakers: the cyber-anthropologist Amber Case, the legendary Ray Kurzweil, Code for America’s Jennifer Pahlka, Google’s Vic Gundotra who will be interviewed by Guy Kawasaki, Soledad O’Brien will be in town to discuss CNN’s Black in America, there’s an interview with Gawker’s Nick Denton, Dennis Crowley, CEO of Foursquare, will talk to MG Siegler of Tech Crunch about Making the Real World Easier to Use, Tim O’Reilly is back, talking about Create More Value Than You Capture (he was fantastic last year). One of my favorites, Kevin Rose, founderof Digg, will be talking about One in a Billion: Ensuring Visibility for Your App. Our friend, Burnie Burns, will be on a panel talking about The Secret Path to Success in Online Video. And AOL founder Steve Case will be here.
And Anthony Bourdain. Yes, Bourdain (wonder how long it will take for someone to ask him about Paula Deen). And Levar Burton. And the Bronx Zoo’s Cobra. And I’m a big fan of the Daily Show, so I’d love to go to Political Humor 2.0: Teh Internetz R Leaking with Rory Albanese. Celebs all around!
I’m sure I’m missing things, and I am completely overbooked already. As I study the locations of these panels, I’m sure some of this will shake out.
Then there’s the Interactive Awards, Startup Village, Accelerator, ScreenBurn… so much to do. And only 5 days. I see lots of panels that deal with data visualization and analytics, so I predict that to be a hot topic this year. That’s great, since that’s what we’re studying in this class.
And then there’s Springsteen. But that’s during the music. So, get some rest, take your vitamins and get ready!