Got Twitchy Finger? Vote for SxSW Panels (Toronto, Friends & Mine)

Every year,  the panel submissions and voting for SxSW sneak up on me. Normally I don’t have time to submit a panel idea, so I’ve only really been able to speak once when I was selected last-minute. This year, I decided to be different,  and proactively reached out to some folk well before the deadline to put together panels that:

1. I’d go to even if I wasn’t speaking (which is saying something, cause I only go to about 3 panels per conference)
2. Were different from the “normal” panels you see at conferences
3. Have people I respect/admire/care about on the panels
4. Challenge assumptions
5. Provide value

Most of the normal  things I’d speak on, were taken out by point 1/2. And most  of the fluffy ideas that I’d normal brainstorm on were  taken out by points 4-5.  But point 3 is ultimately what drove the discussions.

My Panels

When I pinged Lu, Patrick and Dave about doing panels with them  individually (or vice versa on Dave, maybe), as well as a few others, it was because I ultimately wanted to be on panels with them. And what we talked about, I felt, should be a meshing of our experiences.

As a result, the opening call with Lu was basically shooting the shit for half an hour,  before realizing we were going through similar types of transitions. Both from  different extremes, but both basically looking to find balance, bliss. And so Ditch  the Old to Build Your Dream Life was born. It was deadsimple to brainstorm Chris and Erin would be  perfect. Both people I love,  respect, admire, look up to, etc.

Similar discussions happened with Dave, leading to F#$% Keeping it Simple. Being a mobile guy, Dave wanted to talk about how too simple in mobile was limiting the potential of the device. I wanted to focus on  how simplicity in startups is as much a curse as a helper. It’s a crutch  people use to put ideas down, instead of thinking outside the box and trying to do stuff right.

That said, I’ll freely admit that much of the brainstorming for the session with Patrick around How to Recover from  a Brand Collapsee was Patrick’s idea. Patrick’s been running communities for ages, is wicked smart and I’ve  known him since before either of us could just say the name of our company and not have to go into elevator pitches everytime we introduced ourselves. Patrick’s recent post on How to Recover from Social Media Failure  (paraphrased) is a great example of his thought leadership in this space.

And, well, the last panel  I submitted is still quasi confidential. Some folk are aware my wife and I split awhile ago, and that I now have a girlfriend.  Very few folk know who she is because we’re being fairly incognito about the whole thing. But the interesting thing that folk always love when we tell our story in person is that we met on Twitter. So we found a few other folk who had as well and put together Twitter and Dating in 140 Characters or Less.

So those are the panels I’m hoping to land this year. Each of these is unique for me, and challenging, and I know that I’ll learn.

Toronto Panels

In addition to my panels, I want to encourage folk from Toronto to vote for panels from folk from Toronto. The Canadian invasion last year (powered by #canLIT) was in full force last year, but we weren’t organized enough to have a significant number of panels. That should change. While there are lots of high profile wicked smart people like David  Crow, Joey DeVilla, Saul Colt,  etc in Toronto, there are way more wicked smart people who don’t yet have the profile they deserve. So, hop up and vote for your local talent!

Kev Richard (a fellow mobster) put together an amazing list of Toronto panels. Click through and send him a thanks, follow him on Twitter, etc. Here’s his list:

1. F#$% Keeping it Simple presented by Dave Coleman, Saul Colt and Jeremy Wright
2. Community Management : Future Skills You’ll Need to Know presented by Saul Colt
3. Tweet Your Way to Your Next Job presented by Saul Colt
4. Putting a Fork in The 30 Second Spot with panelist Andrew Lane
5. Life After Wii Fit: Geeks On Fitness presented by Wesley Hodgson
6. Make Me a Damn Good Manager! presented by Andre Gaulin
7. Millionaire or Artist? How About Both? with panelist Amrita Chandra
8. Distributed Micro-Patronage: The Future of Getting Paid: presented by Josh Newman
9. Building Blocks of a New Economy For Music: presented by David Dufresne
10. Colour Trends -Palettes to Pick for 2010 presented by Paige Dzenis
11. Brilliant Second Acts You Must Steal Tricks From presented by Jaime Woo
12. How to Recover From a Brand Collapse panelist Jeremy Wright
13. Twitter and Dating in 140 Characters or Less presented by Jeremy Wright and special guest!
14. Ditch the Old to Build Your Dream Life with panelist Jeremy Wright
15. Gaming’s Final Frontier- Moving Towards Monetization & Improving Experience presented by Troy Ross
16. Passionate People: The Key Ingredient to Social Media Success: with panelists Meghan Warby , James Topham and Ryan Taylor
17. A Different Documentary : Online Story Telling and Social Change presented by Boyd Niel
18. Documentary Games: Playing with the Truth presented by Tony Walsh
19. Multi-Platform Storytelling with panelist Andrew Lane
20. SXSW SARS with panelist Jay Goldman
21. We are Family: Web Applications Band Together Now! presented by Sunir Shah
22. How to be a Customer Support Rockstar presented by Grace Antonio
23. Experimental Design:Your User Interface is Your Laboratory presented by Mike McDerment
24. Exploiting Chaos– How to Spark Innovation During Times of Change presented by Jeremy Gutsche
25. News 2.0 – How Old Media Companies Are Inventing New Models presented by Maggie Fox with panelists Laura Conway, Mathew Ingram, and Candice Faktor.

Friends

In addition, I’d like to highlight Brandon Eley’s panel ideas,  and encourage you to vote for him as well:

• Marketing By Design: Practical Advice For Better Conversions
• How To Pitch Social Media To Your Clients

So There

SxSW Panel Voting ends on Friday, so if you’re interested  in voting,  don’t put it off.  Vote now. For mine, for local ones,  for your friends. Hell, search for great terms and support the wide  base of submissions that are in for this year.