This week, before all the REBarCamp08 hoopla (btw- are you involved yet?), we announced that we would be attending the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival in Austin in March. Several famous keynote speakers and panel speakers are hitting the mic, and we couldn’t be more pumped to rub elbows with people that are waaaay bigger than any of us in this niche we call real estate!!
Scheduling your days at SXSW is complicated because there are hundreds of speakers and there’s no way to see them all. That said, listed below are the confirmed speakers that we will be making an effort to see. Which would you most want to see (it’s unfair since some of us know some of these people personally!)?
SXSW Interactive Speakers:
Erik Hersman- FOREM, WhiteAfrican.com, AND Ushahidi
Gina Trapani- Lifehacker
Michael Eisner- former CEO of Disney, currently Torante Group
Matt Mullenweg- Word Press
Tim Ferriss- 4-Hour Workweek Author
Kristin Alexander- Group Research Manager at Microsoft
Gavin Bell- social software designer
Douglas Bowman- Google
Blaine Cook- Twitter developer
Will Graham- The Onion Producer
Steve Ganz- Senior Developer at LinkedIn
Alan Kasindorf- Sr. MySQL DBA at Six Apart
Brewster Kahle- Director & Co-Founder of Internet Archive
Michael Lopp- Senior Engineering Manager at Apple
Gary Leland- Podcast Pickle
Merlin Mann- 43 Folders
Ali Partovi- CEO of iLike
John Resig- Mozilla
Owen Thomas- Valleywag
These are my favorite picks so far of the nearly 400 speakers. There’s more SXSW Coverage to come- we haven’t even touched on book readings, SXSW mixers, after-party life or panels, so stay tuned!
Lani is the COO and News Director at The American Genius, has co-authored a book, co-founded BASHH, Austin Digital Jobs, Remote Digital Jobs, and is a seasoned business writer and editorialist with a penchant for the irreverent.

Andy Kaufman
January 21, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I’m this close to buying my tickets (Need to wait for that first round of 2008 escrows to close), but these caught my eye.
The Art of Speed (Tim Ferriss)
How to Rawk SXSW: The Basics (Min Jung Kim)
How to Rawk SXSW: Achieving Geekgasm (Ariel Waldman)
Judo Moves for Defending Your Reputation Online (Thor Muller)
Self Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing (Brian Oberkirch)
Tools for Enchantment: 20 Ways to Woo Users (Kathy Sierra)
Futurists’ Sandbox: Social Technologies in 2025 (Michele Bowman & Sandra Burchsted)
Finding a Niche vs. Doing it All (Mark Bixby)
The Art of Self-Branding (Lea Alcantara)
AG is going to rock SXSW!!!
Benn Rosales
January 21, 2008 at 10:50 pm
So far, split by 3 we should be able to cover 1/3 of all the events =] I can’t believe how big this thing has gotten- I’m doing a day of barcamp for sure, I’d love to be able to share in the moment how the event shapes itself and expands.