It's that time of year again when thousands of the world's most creative digital minds descend on Austin, Texas, for networking, inspiration, and a little bit of BBQ. I'm talking, of course, about SXSW, the conference that brings like minded people from the worlds of digital, music and film together each March to commiserate over thousands of panels, screenings, and live performances covering a whole wealth of different topics.
Before we get started, if you're lucky enough to attend, I'd recommend that you utilize a scheduling tool like Sched's Unofficial SXSW Guide, presented by our friends at MapQuest Vibe, the native SXSW Go App, available for iPad, iPhone and Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile 7 or Lanyrd, which helps you figure out which panels your friends are attending. All of these apps will help keep track of where you need to be, and when, as you bounce around all 15 different SXSW campuses spread throughout the city of Austin. If you're attending for the first time, check out SXSW's First-Timer's Guide to SXSW, and buddy up with someone who has gone before. It is extremely helpful!
Without further adieu, here are my suggestions for panels to check out to get you started (all require a SXSW Interactive badge unless otherwise noted)!
March 8th | March 9th | March 10th | March 11th | March 12th | March 13th
March 8th:
- All day: I will be attending the Dachis Group Social Business Summit, featuring among others Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter Group, David Armano from Edelman and B. Bonin Bough from Kraft Foods. (You must request an invite to attend here)
March 9th:
- 2pm at the Radisson Town Lake: About.me Co-Founder Ryan Freitas, will join design professionals from GE, Method, Intuit and Bolt|Peters for a workshop called Designing for Context, at 2p at the Radisson Town Lake.
- 3:30pm at the Austin Convention Center: Join Huffington Post Comedy Editor Carol Hartsell as she takes the stage with comedians and guests from The Comedy Store, and The Daily Show for a panel on political humor called Political Humor 2.0: Teh Internetz R Leaking.
- 3:30pm at the Austin Convention Center: Vic Gundotra, SVP of Social Business for Google, will be joined by Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder of Alltop for a fireside chat about the past, present and future of Google+
- 5pm at the Austin Convention Center: Dave Morin, CEO of Path joins Ade Olonoh, CEO and Founder of Formspring and Brian Wong, founder of Kiip, for Why Happiness Is the New Currency, discussing how emotion is driving more of our actions online.
March 10th:
- 3:30pm at the Omni Downtown: Huffington Post Tech Editor Bianca Bosker, Huffington Post Women Editor Margaret Johnson and Jaime King, President of Beau and Arrow Productions will be hosting a panel discussion called How Women Present Themselves in the Digital Age.
- 3:30pm at the Austin Convention Center: Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley is joined by MG Siegler for Making the Real World Easier to Use.
- 3:30pm at the Sheraton Austin at the Capitol: David Carr of the NY Times is part of an all-star panel discussion on the future of content curation in digital publishing called the The Curators and the Curated.
March 11th:
- 9:30am at the Hilton Austin: Instagram Founder & CEO Kevin Systrom anchors a panel called Is Our Photo-Madness Creating Mediocrity or Magic?, discussing whether the easy access to mobile photography is affecting our creativity.
- 5:00pm at the Austin Convention Center: Experts from The Digital Beyond, Library of Congress, Mashable, and Edelman Digital will be discussing what our digital legacy in a discussion called Digital Immortals: Preserving Life Beyond Death.
March 12th:
- 11am at the Austin Courtyard by Marriott: AOL VP of Consumer Insights, Carla Borsoi joins other research professionals for Online Personality Disorder: Resumes & Profiles, a panel discussing how best to use web services to present yourself online.
- 3:30p at Austin Convention Center: Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, and COO of The Obvious Corporation, joins Huffington Post SVP of Social Impact Brian Sirgutz for Content As a Means for Social Change, a panel discussing the role of web content in social change movements.
- Through March 13th: Tony Conrad, Co-Founder of About.me and Partner at True Ventures, joins judges from a wide array of tech companies to judge the SXSW Interactive Accelerator Event for startups.
March 13th:
- 11:00am at Sheraton Austin: Media professionals from The Week, New York Observer, Ad Age, and Slate discuss a key question of our time: Is Aggregation Theft?
There are tons of other events that are worth attending (I am still filling up my calendar), so I encourage you to view the full SXSW schedule by clicking here and adding your favorites!
Stay tuned to updates from SXSW Interactive 2012 by following me on Twitter, following #aolsxsw,@AOLAdvertisingand @AOLPR on Twitter for the latest content updates from panels, and daily updates during SXSW Interactive on this section of the blog. Hope to see you there!
(Originally posted on the AOL Corporate Blog)