It's voting season for the annual South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival. I've collected a few of my favorite panel and session ideas from the huge crop of submissions that were received this year.
Full disclosure - LevelTen (and myself) have two panel sessions in the running for the South by Southwest Interactive festival next year. They're listed at spots one and two in this list. If you haven't voted yet, voting for sessions ends September 4th (tomorrow). I'd appreciate your vote for both.
Here's the master list:
Description
"The future of Journalism lies in your hands. Citizen journalists from coast to coast are launching websites so THEY can write about their interests. But does it work? Can you make money? Where is it going and will it be around in a few years? These questions, and more will be answered during SXSW 2010!"
Why I Like It
Besides the obvious link, I like this panel because current digital technology has given just about everyone a means for expressing their voice and actually reaching an audience with it. This is a very powerful idea, and one that has already had a very positive impact in the world today. Plus you can make some money doing it. What's not to like?
Description
"Have a niche? Not sure how to utilize it? Fear not! We've been there! The organizers of DrupalCamp Dallas and WordCamp Dallas will present the best practices to energize your niche community and create events to not only serve your community, but improve your bottom line."
Why I Like It
It's easy to build a community. With a little time, effort and know-how, just about anyone can do it. It's much harder to build the community, get the community championing your cause with you, and harder still to plan and execute an event around that community. DrupalCamp Dallas and WordCamp Dallas were two extremely successful events that were executed to near perfection.
Description
"After 15 years of contenting ourselves with system fonts, or image type, the planets are now in line for getting real fonts on the web. Some solutions are already working, and a cross-platform standard is emerging. Here web designer and type designers mix it up on how the font hurdles is finally being lept."
Why I Like It
Wouldn't it be great if web designers could have better choices in their web font selections? Sure, you could use images in place of text - but then the search engines can't crawl your site! Designers need a better solution, and I want to hear about it!
Description
"This session covers
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Drupal 6: Which modules you'll need, how to configure them, and what more you can do to get your site to the top of Google."
Why I Like It
When it comes to SEO and Drupal, there are really only two players in the game.
Volacci and LevelTen. Volacci is an authority in the Drupal SEO space, and Ben Finklea is a dynamic speaker with great information to share.
Description
"Put aside the negative stereotypes of entitled, rebellious 20-somethings and take a minute to dig deeper and see what makes us tick. At almost 80 million strong, the Gen Y workforce is shaping the cubicle nation and the way brands are forced to engage consumers. It's more than a desire to wear t-shirts and jeans to work; it’s a new mindset. As we digital natives migrate into a workplace full of Boomers and Gen Xers, worlds collide. Truly learn the concept of “with” vs. “for” straight from the minds of 5 diverse and successful Gen Yers!"
Why I Like It
I'm a Gen Yer, and I hate the stereotypes and negative media portrayal of our generation. The Gen Y generation has much that it can (and will) contribute to society. It's time to stop pointing out how we're different, and begin learning how we can all collaborate more effectively in the workplace.
Description
"Teamwork. Preparation. Execution. Sports abounds with lessons for today's socially enabled business. This panel's Murderer's Row of sports fans/social media pros will make you laugh, make you think, and give you fresh perspective on how sports metaphors can elevate social media practice for you and your company."
Why I Like It
Tim Walker, Aaron Strout, and sports metaphors? What's not to like! I've seen both Tim and Aaron present in the past, and they are true social and business rockstars. If this panel makes the cut, don't miss it!
Description
"Imagine a work environment where people do whatever they want whenever they want as long as the work gets done. At midnight or 3am or on Sunday. Whenever and wherever. It's called a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), and companies around the world are starting to adopt the ROWE philosophy."
Why I Like It
I'm a big believer in Results-Only thinking. After all, what's the point of doing work if you're not going to see any results from it? Results are the end-game, and should be driving all work related efforts.
Description
"Many companies make extensive use of Open Source technology - the “technical philanthropists” on this panel go a step further and describe how putting out some Open Source projects of your own can reap rewards in productivity, efficiency, and karma as well. A community of heads really are better than one."
Why I Like It
If you've been reading this blog for any period of time, you know that LevelTen is an open source company. We develop on, contribute and support open source technology. Why depend on a proprietary software product, built by a limited team, when you can have open source technology - built by hundreds of very smart individuals. To me, it's a no-brainer. Open source wins every time.
Description
"Too often Best Practices are applied to problems where new thinking is required–a need for speed being the principal culprit. This presentation introduces Framework Thinking, and three powerful frameworks with examples, as an effective complementary alternative to the use of competitor-copying "Best Practices"."
Why I Like It
Sounds like a solid concept to me. Why rely on the sometimes questionable expertise of others when you can figure out a better solution yourself? Sure, finding the so-called "best practices" can save time and provide consistency, but I think the idea this panel proposes is true - sometimes you just don't need them.
Description
"We've got social networks and we've got search engines, but is social search merely the combination of the two? Learn what social search is and what it isn’t, who's working on it and getting it right, and hear expert perspectives on making search and discovery more relevant to users."
Why I Like It
Social Search is already starting to get mainstream news attention. It's one of the major reasons Facebook bought FriendFeed. The idea of melding traditional search with social networks is only going to get more important, and the platform that can figure it out first will be in a fantastic position moving forward.
Description
"The emergence of the real-time web enables an unprecedented level of user engagement and dynamic content online. However, the rapidly growing audience puts new, complex demands on the architecture of the web as we know it. This panel will discuss what is needed to make the real-time web achievable."
Why I Like It
Yet another coming search trend. The real-time web overlaps quite a bit with the previous panel on social search. This panel takes a more technical approach, which is needed. Most don't think about the underlying technologies behind the web and search engines, but if you don't understand the technology, you'll never know how to use it to your advantage!
What panels have you seen that sparked your interest?
