South By Southwest (SXSW) is the internationally attended conference held in Austin each year which began as a massive concert series, then morphed into a film festival running concurrently to the music festival and has now blossomed into a fully multi-media format which includes SXSW Interactive. SXSW Interactive features famous keynote speakers, panels, book readings and more discussing current and future technologies, the Internet (blogging, social media, etc), gaming, web design, online marketing, and any other Geeky topic you can possibly dream of.
While many choose to attend conferences where they are the biggest, smartest fish in the room (like local boards’ real estate tech conferences), we will be challenging ourselves to go where we are likely the smallest fish and possibly the least geeky. We will be going to SXSW for our first time and look forward to our minds opening and to learning as much as we can possibly cram into our brains. We challenge you to come to Austin (our hometown), overdose on geekiness, meet famous entrepreneurs, and party afterwards on 6th street!
Mark Zuckerberg was added to the speakers list just yesterday. Zuckerberg is the 23 year old founder and CEO of Facebook, which if you’re not under a rock, you already knew. He will be interviewed Sunday, March 9 at 2:00pm by Sarah Lacy of Business Week and Yahoo Finance’s “TechTicker”. Zuckerberg was recently featured on 60 Minutes and we have profound respect of his ability to be in the right place with the right product at the right time proving that any Joe Schmo can put out his blood, sweat and tears and have a chance at making it (and maybe retiring as a multi-billionaire by age 25). Zuckerberg IS social media, so it will be fun to hear him speak in person.
Frank Warren will speak on Monday, March 10th. Warren is the sole founder of the Post Secret Project which is a massively successful project that started off as Warren’s art project which grew exponentially. He has written several books about his project in which people anonymously decorate post cards with their secret(s) and mail them to Warren which he compiles into his books and website. He is famous for being America’s “most trusted stranger” and I have to admit, I’ve been strangely drawn to the project and even tempted to make my own postcard to send to him. I can’t wait to hear Warren speak as he has taken an extremely obscure idea and turned it into a book venture and website that is heavily trafficked and supplied with material (100-200 postcards sent to him daily).
Jane McGonigal is a multi-player game designer/genius and is a Senior Researcher for the Institute for the Future. McGonigal specializes in simulations featuring what the future could be like. I can honestly say that I’m not very tapped into the world of gaming, but I can imagine that McGonigal has a special insight into where we are headed with our technology and I’m excited to get the chance to hear her speak on Tuesday, March 11th.
Stay tuned for more South by Southwest coverage and please, let us know if you’re coming!
Carson Coots
January 18, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I will definitely be there.