One of the improvements we will implement for the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival is a panel mentor program. The idea here is that qualified members of the online community help facilitate communication between the SXSW staff and the many industry experts scheduled to speak at next year’s event. This program will require a significant investment of time and energy—and all panel mentors will be given a comp badge for their efforts.
If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, send an e-mail to for details; be sure the subject line of your e-mail is “SXSW Panel Mentor Program”.
]]>Check out last year’s winners and get all the info here to craft your submission for the fifth annual festival.
]]>If you were an Interactive attendee and want to hash your SXSW out on the Baby! Boards, feel free to add your feedback and continue the discussion.
]]>After spending much of this year’s conference tending to his wee one, Jeffrey Zeldman puts forth the idea of SXSW Parents Cooperatives:
]]>SXSW Interactive is the annual gathering of the tribes. Many of the tribes now have younguns. Attending a two-day educational conference without your kids is not a huge deal, but SXSW lasts a week. The choices are not good: See the whole show but miss your kids for a week? Bring your kids and miss practically the whole show? Attend for only a couple of days, missing your kids and most of the show?
On the third day I found myself in a costly hotel room across from the conference center, skipping a keynote to play with Barbie dolls, it occurred to me that groups of parents could band together to create a more optimal experience.
Looks like we’ll miss out on the Daylight Saving Time change, but St. Patrick’s day will fall upon the last day of the Interactive conference. Registration opens sometime in August; look for a reminder in your inbox if you’re a previous registrant.
Set up a reminder in your calendars now. Don’t forget to register early for the lowest badge rates and the widest range of hotel options—the most inexpensive hotels tend to sell out fast!
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While most of us sat in SXSW Interactive panels slack-jawed tapping away on laptops (or perhaps simply slack-jawed), Wisconsin designer Mike Rohde was taking notes the beautiful, new old-fashioned way, with a Moleskine sketchbook and a decidedly non-digital pen. Check out the story of his SXSWi sketchnotes or view the entire Flickr set.
]]>And, of course, Scot-about-town Ewan Spence continues to report daily from SXSW for the Tech Conference Show on The Podcast Network. You can catch his exclusive coverage right here on the Baby!.
]]>OK, perhaps not, but still, there’s a surprising variety of sports and games activities planned around and during South by Southwest Interactive.
Biking: Bike Hugger has a couple of rides planned on Saturday, March 8 and, because it seems mandatory for any SXSW-related event, there’s a beer and BBQ gathering Saturday afternoon open to all badgeholders. Bicycle Sport Spot offers rentals during SXSW.
Climbing: Not the tech career ladder...no, these folks are serious climbers. Geeks Love Climbing has a plan to meet for a couple of hours of up and down on Friday evening, March 7.
Running: Candidly, the Baby! only runs when chased. But if you’re interested in getting in some roadwork during the conference, meet up with the SXSW Runners for 8 am runs on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
Of course, there is also the aforementioned Saturday morning kickball game organized by Anil Dash and the folks at Six Apart (with the promise of on-site coffee and tacos, the breakfast of champions) and Sunday’s Avalonstar Bowling Extravaganza, which is now full-up with teams but welcomes spectators who can’t get enough of web jockeys in rented shoes.
We’ve also heard rumors of pick-up hockey and basketball games in the offing. While we stick to such arduous events as the All-Day Panel Sit and the Marathon Bar Crawl, it appears everyone else will be out gettin’ all healthy. Ah well, that’s SXSW: something for everyone.
]]>While you are attending SXSW, please feel free to connect to the WiFi Network. There are two WiFi Networks:
SXSW2008
SXSW2008 5GHz
The SXSW2008 5GHz network is the higher performance network with more channels and faster speeds. If a WiFi device sees the SXSW2008 5GHz network please select it. These are the only official networks for internet access at the Austin Convention Center.
Please note that personal access points are not allowed. SXSW asks that you only use the connection for blogging, email, surfing and other general low bandwidth applications, not for downloading, streaming, or any peer-to-peer applications. Learn more about wireless internet access at the ACC.
]]>Friday March 7th: 10 am to 8 pm
Saturday March 8th: 9 am to 8 pm
Sunday March 9th: 9:30 am to 6 pm
Monday March 10th: 9:30 am to 6 pm
Tuesday March 11th: 10 am to 8 pm
Wednesday March 12th: 10 am to Midnight
Thursday March 13th: 9 am to 10 pm
Friday March 14th: 10 am to 9 pm
Attention Music Conference/Festival attendees: the lines to get your badge are always longest the day the Music Fest starts—the afternoon of Wednesday March 12, 2008. If possible, come in on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 and get your badge before closing (8pm). As a bonus, on that day, your Music badge will admit also you to SXSW Film Fest screenings in the Convention Center.
]]>The main levels used for SXSW are the first, third, and fourth.
Keynotes and Opening Remarks will be on the first floor of the Convention Center, not the Hilton where they were held last year. Ballroom A looks like the place to be for keynotes, and other panels will be in B and C. The catch: if you’re entering from the Fourth Street entrance (with the Hilton to your back), you’ll want to be on the far side of the Convention Center. All the way on the south side of the ACC. Uh oh! I’m guessing this means you’ll have to go in a “U” around to the other side, following Trinity Street, and then make a left when you see the Cesar Chavez (First Street) side. So: be sure to allow enough time to get to the other side. Or, just enter from Cesar Chavez side to start with.
The fourth floor contains registration and rooms 12, 18, and 19 as well as Ballrooms D (Tradeshow) and E (Core Conversations). It’s a little strange that as soon as you enter from Fourth Street you go up two giant escalators and are on level four, but once your get there, the fourth floor is pretty easy to figure out. Note: Film and Interactive share this floor, so don’t go busting in on the Film panels section. All joint Interactive/Film panels will be in room 12. Interactive only panels will be in 18 and 19.
The third floor is the floor of mystery! Its use as SXSW conference space is fairly new, and the awkward connection to the other floors caused a lot of complaints last year. The third floor contains rooms 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10. Getting there is a little interesting, and last year, lots of people got lost.
The third floor is accessible the via the following ways: