Tonight, Chris Heuer and I recorded a brief podcast as part of the lead up to our SXSWi Core Conversation, called “Do cool kids leave when the suits arrive?”. It’s intended to give attendees a little insight into the session we’ll be having on Friday, March 12, 2010.
You can read my original submission (from back in July). Unfortunately, our session won’t be a full panel with all the speakers I had originally proposed, but a few of them are hoping to still come out and be a part of the conversation. If you’re going to be in Austin, we’d love to have you come out at 3:30pm and join us. Have a listen:
Today, Duane helped get the ball rolling with the announcement that WordCamp Vancouver 2010 planning had begun with June 12th, 2010 the current tentative date.
I’ve attended a lot of WordCamps over the years…in a lot of different places. I’ve even had the honour to speak at a few of them too. This time around, I’m on the organizing committee…it remains to be seen if I’ll be speaking as it’s early days so we’ll see how things play out.
WordCamp has been a pretty fantastic place to meet some pretty awesome people, share information about the WordPress platform and have a great time. I learn something new every time I attend one.
If you’re interested in anything to do with blogging or WordPress, I encourage you to sign up for the email updates and/or follow us on Twitter. We’ll share more information as soon as we have more details!
I’m excited to report (really? report?) that my submission to SXSW Interactive 2010 was accepted as a Core Conversation. This is a little different than my original panel suggestion in that it’s meant to be an open conversation with those attending with myself and another panelist discussing our topic, “Do Cool Kids leave when the Suits arrive“. This is exciting and scary at the same time as it means I’ll be a more active participant than just a moderator as originally intended. It also means that I have to narrow down the other participants I had originally hoped to have on the panel. That’s going to be a tough choice as they all brought something unique to the session. Hopeful, they’ll all still be attending and assuming there aren’t any session conflicts, can still participate in the conversation.
This further means that in just over three months, I’ll be eating most of my meals here:
Thanks to everyone that voted and helped me get selected. More details soon!
This past weekend, I had a chance to attend the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo (aka PAX) in Seattle, Washington. I’ve always wanted to attend but it’s usually been on the same weekend as my anniversary so it just didn’t work out before now. PAX is pretty much SXSW for the videogame set….including conference sessions, a massive tradeshow floor and tons of nerds.
The exhibit halls were filled with computers and videogame consoles showing the latest games – many not yet available. People would line up for HOURS in order to get a few minutes playing a new game before the rest of the world gets to. Nearly every booth also had some kind of game themed swag they were giving away. I think I was handed seven different free t-shirts in the span of about 20 minutes.
The exhibit halls were massive…so many games to see and try….not to mention the overstimulation of so many booths and displays…including a new take on the mechanical bull ride complete with fog machine:
It was a lot of fun…next year I hope to go again…although will definitely have to make better arrangements that don’t involve leaving home way too early to get down to Seattle first thing in the morning.
There is only a handful of days left to vote for the panels that *could* end up being presented at SXSWi next March. I’ve already outlined the panel I put together in a previous post but wanted to explain a little bit about why it’s important for your votes…even if you’re not planning on attending SXSWi, although I hope you will. I also wanted to highlight a few other people’s panels that I’m interested in attending and are just a small sampling of some of the amazing sessions and people that make SXSW as much fun and amazing as it is.
First of all, for the first time that I can remember, there is a now a Hot Ideas index of the popularly voted sessions. These are the sessions that appear to be the most popular although it’s unofficial. There are some pretty big names in that list all with very interesting topics, or at least internet famous panelists that will help ensure a great turnout to their panel.
Some friends that are putting together some compelling panel programming this year include:
Josh Babetski, an evangelist for Mapquest (whom I met a couple years ago at SXSWi) has pulled together what looks like a stellar lineup of folks to talk about the future of mobile experiences now that many devices we use are all location & socially aware.
Rob Cottingham has proposed to bring Teh Funny to Austin…I had the pleasure of seeing this earlier this year at Northern Voice and can only imagine how Rob will bring the audience to tears (of joy) if he gets a chance. Get a peak at his presentation from NV here
Dave Olson who’s proposing a panel about Hitchhiking to the Boardroom which is the continuation of awesome that Dave brings to many events, including SXSW of which I’ve attended with him for the past couple of years. Dave also has posted an awesome roundup of panels you might be interested in voting for
Joining Dave on another panel submission is my SXSW jedi master, Kris Krug (whom I actually met in Austin four years ago, not in Vancouver if you can believe it) along with the amazing Bev Davies to talk about Rock’n'Roll Photography.
Like Kris, I also met Robert Scales in Austin during my first trip to SXSW and this year he’s proposed a fascinating panel discussing Social Media and the Olympics which I got a preview of at Northern Voice.
My pals over at Sixty4Media aren’t proposing a panel, but have a great list of Vancouver folks proposing panels – hopefully they will make their way to Austin next year too
As you can see from this list, l know a lot of great people that have amazing panel ideas and submissions…one thing that really makes SXSW so special is that there are literally thousands of other people you and I don’t know attending that have equally amazing ideas about stuff that interests you. You can’t walk around the conference and not meet new people or experience new ideas…some would suggest that just walking around the conference is better than actually attending the panels. I wouldn’t disagree.
Voting closes on September 4th so if you haven’t already, please vote for my panel….I know that kind of sounds like that video professor guy on tv…but time is running out and I promise not to teach you how to use Excel.
