In This Economy?

Three days down. Two to go.

Here’s the deal with what I’m doing: Every day this week I’ll be listing ten things that I think sound like can’t-miss events from a specific day at SXSWi. Unfortunately a lot of my selected events actually overlap in the schedule so I won’t be able to attend them all (unless my clone arrives before then), but I wanted to give them some love regardless. And that’s basically that. Yeah.

If you’d like to go back in time and check out what I had to say about day one, go HERE. Go HERE for day two, and HERE for day three.

Okay, let’s talk about day four and all of the wonderful, magical things it holds.

Drocolate’s 10 things for Monday, March 15th

Oh, and just like on the other days — despite being numbered, these are presented in no order of importance. I’m judging most of them based solely on a blurb on the SXSW website’s schedule maker, so it really wouldn’t be cool for me to start ranking them. Yet.

Ok, let’s do this.

1. Gary Vaynerchuk Presentation

12:30pm/Austin Convention Center Ballroom D/Gary Vaynerchuk

HELL YES! PP! MONETIZE THAT SHIT! CRUSH IT! CLAP THAT UP CAUSE IT’S THE REAL SHIT! HUSTLE IT HUSTLE IT! J-E-T-S!

I’m extremely excited to see this dude speak.

And you should be to.

2. Freelance Isn’t Free: The Twisted Economics of Writing Today

12:30pm/Austin Convention Center 8A/Jeff Beckham

Nearly anyone can publish their work today for free and reach an audience somewhere online. But that great opportunity has made life harder than ever for freelance writers, who must convince people to pay them to publish their work to an audience. Has creative writing become a commodity? Is journalism now a vocation, an avocation, or both?

Money money money! It’s all about money. And the economy. And how hard us writers have it in this fancy, new high-tech world we live in.

All sarcasm aside, this session sounds really smart. Due to the proliferation of writers and the lowering of barriers in getting published, the job of writing freelance has become a hell of a lot harder. For every  experienced freelance writer that expects to be paid for their work, there are ten others that will do the same job for free. Some may look at that as being a good thing, but to all of the writers out there who don’t want to have to rock a day job to survive, the whole thing stinks.

So yeah.

Go to this session. Do it.

3. Customer Support in a 140 Character World

5:00pm/Hilton A/B/Jeremiah Owyang, Caroline McCarthy, Frank Eliason, Lois Townsend, Toby Richards

Gone are the days of traditional customer support. In a world of Twitter, Facebook, and customer complaint sites like GetSatisfaction, customers are now jumping online to vent and publicize their customer support issues. But does it work for everyone and can complex customer service issues really be resolved within a 140 word limit? This panel of experienced customer support experts, analysts and vendors, will discuss the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to social media centric customer support. Recent snafus and success stories will be highlighted, along with a unique insider perspective of the internal business and operational requirements that companies must keep in mind when going online. This panel is sponsored by HP.

Twitter-based customer support is the future.

Right next door to every traditional call center, there will be a secondary area with a bank of computers preset to Twitter at all times. So for me, instead of calling and asking why “the cup holder on my computer is broken”, I’d simply tweet the question. And receive the following answer:

“@drocolate It’s not a cup holder. It’s a DVD drive. You fucking idiot.”

Or something similar to that.

It’s exciting stuff and it seems like no company has truly mastered it yet (not even HP, who is sponsoring the panel).

4. Don’t Get Sued! A Guide For Content Creators

9:30 AM/Austin Convention Center 18ABCD/Josh Sussman, Koethi Zan, Lucas Paglia, Robert Strent

Your content-based website used to fly under the radar. Now you’re on your way to becoming the next CollegeHumor.com. Make sure you’re ready for the big time. This presentation will cover critical “nuts and bolts” topics such as content ownership, licensing, rights and clearances and employment relationships.

This one, like the SXSW SARS session from day one, falls under the “really smart thing to attend” category. It may not be the sexiest thing in the world but talking law for an hour is a hell of a lot more awesome than getting sued.

And there really isn’t much else to say on that.

5. Systemic Development in Borderlands: 16,164,886 = 1

3:30PM/Austin Convention Center 6AB/Matthew Armstrong, Jimmy Sieben

How do we design, create, balance, and test 15 million unique weapons for Borderlands? This discussion focuses on just one of those weapons, following the in-game Gearbuilder system as it creates the weapon step by step, using this framework to explore both the design elements and the technical systems that make Borderlands possible.

I’m a little bit of a video game nerd (huge shock, I know), and I’m a big fan of Borderlands so when I saw this session on the schedule maker I got excited.

For those of you who don’t share in my nerdiness, let me briefly attempt to explain why this panel is awesome.

In the game Borderlands the objective is to kill people and collect loot (it’s a VERY original premise). The loot you pick up consists of money and guns. The awesome thing is that due to ingenious work by the game’s developer there are more than 16 million different guns in the game. This creates a never ending experience for the gamer as they continually try to find a better and better gun.

You guys still with me?

This panel has two of the guys that worked on all of this, so, to me, that’s exciting.

And who knows, maybe you guys are looking forward to it to.

6. Why Gen Y Wants to Work ‘With’ You, Not ‘For’ You

3:30pm/Austin Convention Center 10AB/Sydney Owen, Ryan Paugh, Nisha Chittal, Elysa Rice, Ben Smithee

Put aside the negative stereotypes of entitled, rebellious 20-somethings and take a minute to dig deeper and see what makes us tick. At almost 80 million strong, the Gen Y workforce is shaping the cubicle nation and the way brands are forced to engage consumers. It’s more than a desire to wear t-shirts and jeans to work; it’s a new mindset. As we digital natives migrate into a workplace full of Boomers and Gen Xers, worlds collide. Truly learn the concept of ”with” vs. ”for” straight from the minds of 5 diverse and successful Gen Yers!

I’m a Gen-Yer. And as a Gen-Yer I feel like I should attend this one and pay close attention. I think this for two major reasons:

1. The entire thing seems to be directed at people that are slightly older and richer than me. So hopefully after they all have their minds blown by the panel I’ll be able to wander over and flaunt my Gen-Yness to pick up some random freelance work. Yes, it’s shameless. No, I don’t care.

2. The group presenting this one is solid and has a Dallas connection in Elysa Rice. So I have to represent for big D. And yes, I immediately regret referring to Dallas as Big D.

Check this one out. You will not regret.

7. Becoming a Real-Time Video Blogger in 2010

11:00am/Austin Convention Center 12AB/Wayne Sutton

Video blogging isn’t new but the technology has changed. More videos are being uploaded and watched daily online, increasing the chance that your video may be lost in the real-time web. We’ll discuss new technologies to use video to tell your story, capture an audience and build online communities.

By the end of this year I fully expect to stop writing and just start speaking into a camera. I’m going to stop blogging and start vlogging. And you guys will be with me the entire time. In meetings at my job or when I’m out on dates or when I’m sleeping or when I’m picking up my dog’s droppings (FYI: “droppings” is British for shit), you guys will be there. It will be so awesome.

And we will all have this session to thank.

Of course I’m taking it to a ridiculous extreme up there, but I really do want to start throwing more video content into the mix here at ITE, so I think this session is going to be rad.

8. Millionaire or Artist? How About Both?

12:30pm/Hilton C/Amrita Chandra, Hugh Macleod, John T. Unger, Mary Anne Davis

How do some artists make six figure incomes via social media at a time when traditional industries are tanking? Why is now the best time to quit your job and dream big? Learn how to get collectors enthused about telling your story, increase online sales and market art as a social object.

The appeal of this one is pretty obvious. This whole topic is like catnip for SXSWers. The idea of getting paid MILLIONS to create something is… just… intoxicating.

Yeah…

Oh, and no, Regis won’t be there. I apologize if you got excited.

9. Nina Hartley: Porn Star, Sex Educator, Social Networker

5:00pm/Hilton H/Kyra Reed, Marjorie Kase, Nina Hartley

With a career spanning over 25 years, Adult film star Nina Hartley has seen it all -- from the explosion of VHS to the advent of internet porn. In this session, Nina and her social media brain trust, MarKyr Media’s Marjorie Kase and Kyra Reed, will be discussing how the web has been both a blessing and a curse for industry players and how that’s now changing thanks to social networking technology.

If that title up there isn’t enough of a hook, then I don’t know what else I can tell you. This panel mixes social media, porn, VHS tapes, the Internet, a “social media brain trust” and porn into one streamlined conversation.

And yes, finding that totally wholesome-looking image of Nina was slightly challenging.

10. Gowalla Presents: The Tiki Room with Diplo

9:00pm/The Belmont

Check in with Gowalla at the Belmont and journey across the Pacific to the amazing Tiki Room. Fill the night with remarkable people, tropical kitsch and the stunning sound of Diplo. This will be your best chance at landing a legendary Gowalla t-shirt so bring a few spare greenbacks and help us defeat cancer with Livestrong!

DIPLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

And that’s all there is to say. I’ll see ALL OF YOU there.

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And that is it for day four.

There’s only one day left so stop in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion to this entire probably-way-too-much-information preview series.

Tags: SXSW, SXSWi

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 12:23 AM and is filed under Good News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.