Throwback Thursday – To commemorate the 10th year of SXTXState, each Thursday we’ll be featuring past participants in the project. Check back each Thursday until SXSW to find out what SXTXState alumni remember from their time with the project and what they are up to now.

Megan Kilgore participated in the SXTXState project in March of 2013. She was a graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications studying her way to a Master’s in Mass Communications and a focus in New Media, now known as Digital Media.

While part of the SXTXState team, Kilgore was primarily responsible for managing the development of SXTXStories.

While we did not have formal job titles like “content editor,” one person was primarily responsible for social media, one person was primarily responsible for the direction of content and so on… I was responsible for managing the development of SXTXStories, the app we built using the open source project Ushahidi. We hosted a hackathon to build it, which Cindy Royal wrote about here: SXTXState Hackathon.

SXSW has an endless amount of innovation and creativeness. Kilgore mentioned that from everything she experienced, one tweet left a huge impact and was the greatest thing she took away from her experience at the conference.

There was this moment, a magical moment, at Rachel Maddow’s keynote, Sara tweeted a question to her and she answered. She just asked advice for aspiring journalist and Rachel went through specific tips about producing content – ‘just be awesome – whatever you do, whatever it is you aspire to be – be awesome at it.’

Kilgore’s favorite part of the conference was attending panels of very inspiring people such as, Tim Berners-Lee and many others. She also enjoyed interviewing stand-up comedians about race and gender equality. Kilgore reminisced how she jumped in after the panel and asked to interview them. She was able to get their handler’s phone number and wouldn’t give up asking for an interview, and eventually met up with them at a BBQ joint in downtown Austin and got her interview.

Today, Kilgore works as the Manager of Marketing Partnerships at KERA in Dallas, Texas. KERA is a National Public Radio station that serves members in the North Texas Region. As part of her job, Kilgore handles all media partnerships for events, media trades and anything from print ads, underwriting for print advertising, and negotiating radio sponsorship’s, such as: concert tickets, marketing the brands and making certain that the brands are presented appropriately to the public.

Kilgore wears a lot of different hats with all of her responsibilities and she gives credit to the SXTXState project for helping shape her for the work she does today.

Going to SXSW and seeing how important it is to think about things differently, to be innovative, to not be afraid to  take risks, to be strategic, to certainly not make decisions on a whim, to be bold to try new and different things… that’s how we grow and that’s how I’ve gotten to where I am. It’s what my employers like about me. The people that I work with appreciate the ideas I bring to the table and a lot of that comes from the things that I learned from SXSW. The difference is that I’m at the head of the class, that’s what I hear from my employers and that’s also what I’ve heard from other people from the program.

Kilgore has not only attended SXSW Interactive but a year after her experience attending SXSW as part of the SXTXState team, Kilgore had her own panel accepted. Her panel, Why Non-Profits Should Embrace Data Journalism, discussed how nonprofits and news organizations should collaborate together to distribute nonprofit data to the public.

With such success with the SXTXState project, her SXSW panel, and her profession now, I asked Kilgore if she had any advice for those who are currently in graduate school and participating in the SXTXState project:

• Go in with a plan but don’t beat yourself up to deviate from the plan. Sometimes you’re going to have something happen at some point and you wont be able to stick with the plan and you’ll have to go to different sessions and it could turn out to be the best session.
• Its such a great experience and I learned so much. Even not going into a journalism field, I went into marketing… I’m still really glad that I did it and it gave me such an appreciation for what our reporters do and a deep appreciate for the experiences that the speakers have and these people have as professionals and just as human beings. When you break it down and actually talk to these people you realize that they’re just people.