Cross-posted from theWHIR.com
Embracing social media and having an ‘interactive’ component is something that just about every company is starting to see as a necessity on the web. Does your event have a #hashtag for twitter? Because I’m sure your business has a twitter account… right?
But it’s the companies that embraced social networking while it was in its infancy that are reaping some incredible rewards now. Just take a look at the South By Southwest festival. It started as a music festival in 1987, but in the mid-90’s added a film component and, in an act of nothing short of clairvoyance, an interactive component which has exploded in attendance, becoming a veritable Mecca for the who’s who of web 2.0. Felicia Day, Amber MacArthur, Kevin Rose and Cali Lewis are virtually staples there and guess what? Even Stacy Griggs rocked the fastest server in the world at the SXSW 2009 show floor.
So what makes them so ‘interactive’? Well, for starters there’s the fact that every session in the conference is chosen by the attendees in a brilliant voting engine. And we’re not talking blind submissions by just anyone; each and every submission gets a personal e-mail from someone at the festival like Jim Kolmar to chat about making the topic ideal for the SXSW crowd.
My first exposure to the panel picker was last year, when I was part of a panel that was voted high enough and valued highly enough to become a reality at the 2009 SXSW. The online popularity definitely translated into attendance on the day, since we had a packed house to talk about our topic, prosumer special effects in film and web video.
For 2010 the voting is now closed (so I can’t curry favour in this blog on my own topics this year) but taking a look at their panel picker is definitely worth your while, whether you hold events, or just attend them. Because the folk in Austin know how it’s done.
