Flip the Media
At the crossroads of Media, Culture and Technology
Mar 23, 2011 3 comments

Special to FTM by Joe Pavey

For the last several years I’ve been meaning to attend SXSW Interactive, but time after time something always got in the way. Last year, just after the 2010 festival concluded, I decided to lock-in early for 2011. As soon as tickets became available I snatched one up, booked my hotel and flight, and began the long, slow wait for the 2011 festival.

It would be hard to exaggerate just how massive this conference has become. Attendance for the Interactive arm of the festival is now higher than that for the music festival. The festival is full of interesting sites and sounds and everyday there are panels featuring tech superstars like Clay Shirky, Jane McGonigal, and Jonathan Zittrain.

This is not to say that every panel is good, or even worthy enough to be at a conference of this stature. I walked out of several panels over my six days, but I almost always found something more interesting just down the hall.

The range of discussion topics at the conference is quite broad. As Internet and mobile communications have become increasingly important across disciplines, SXSW Interactive has drawn speakers and attendees from a wide variety of industries. Web designers, human rights activists, marketing directors, and journalists are all there en-masse looking to make connections or find out about the next big thing. The topics I attended at this year’s conference ranged from the ethics of crowdsourcing, to using open data to build programmable cities. In many ways the scale and variety of the programs are good in that everyone can find something of interest, but this abundance can lead to uneven results. Some panels are just better than others and its hard to predict which ones will be good just by looking at the schedule. Read more…

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Apr 4, 2010 1 comment

Alvin Singh at SXSWEvery year, thousands of bands, bloggers, filmmakers, social media gurus and entrepreneurs come to the South By Southwest Music, Film and Interactive festival in Austin, Texas. When I joined the MCDM program in 2008 and heard about SXSW, I started to work on plans to be actively involved. Sooner than expected I had the opportunity to participate on one of the music panels—and got to spend a week soaking in the latest in digital media, while enjoying entertainment and Southern hospitality. Attending SXSW was well worth the lessons, networking contacts and, sometimes, the free food.

Pitching a panel

Last November, at the Showbox in downtown Seattle, I met with the SXSW music committee, which was accepting submissions from bands, record labels, and anyone else who wanted to pitch an idea. For the past two years, I have been filming a documentary on legendary blues singer Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and using the MCDM program as a testing ground for the documentary’s online marketing and digital distribution strategies. I successfully pitched an MCDM-inspired panel based on the evolution of Lead Belly’s music from analog recordings to digital formats. Staying true to the digital storytelling code of honor, my presentation, “Lead Belly to Ludacris: From Analog to Digital,” included a video mash up I produced especially for the panel. The video mixed a rare performance of Lead Belly with hip-hop artist Ludacris covering a popular folk song. (You can read a review of my panel in the Austin Chronicle.)

Best of SXSW

In addition to presenting, I learned about a few innovative technologies and saw some great films at SXSW. Here are some of the highlights:

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Mar 27, 2010 1 comment

South by Southwest 2010 Logo

South by Southwest 2010 Logo

Hola devoted readers! We’ve been remiss in bringing you the dish from the south — not to mention from the South By Southwest Interactive Conference — in a timely manner. But have no fear, your gossip needs are going to be satisfied beginning … right … now !

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