Tag Archives: sxswinteractive

by Brian Solis

Gearing up for South by Southwest (SXSW)?

PeopleBrowsr, an attention-centered dashboard for managing your online relationships and communications on Twitter and across social networks, will help you keep track of all your SXSW contacts, events, parties, and conversations at http://sxsw.peoplebrowsr.com.

PeopleBrowsr turns your Web browser into a simple, visual dashboard that combines all your profiles and connections into one easy to manage place. The tool offers either a columnar view or a “people” grid gallery of organizable tweets from everyone in the Twitter stream with additional columns for “following,” keyword searches, and replies. And unlike other third-party tools, no downloads or plug-ins are required.

Here are the Top Ten Reasons for Using PeopleBrowsr at SXSW Film/Interactive/Music:

1. View all conversations and content related to #SXSW on Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social networks in one dashboard.

2. Create Twitter groups to listen to a specific subset of certain individuals, those attending SXSW for example, to stay up-to-date with their activity during the event.

3. See all the SXSW parties in one master list without leaving your PeopleBrowsr dashboard.

4. Follow the buzz about the conference and parties – check out who’s going where, what’s cool, and what shouldn’t be missed.

5. Discover and follow new people and trends based on popular and not yet discovered hashtags such as #SXSW, #techset, #allhat, #bloglounge.

6. Power the SXSW flash mob mentality. There’s an embedded map for visually tracking where friends are tweeting while in Austin.

7. Check out the statistics and clouds for the most popular tags and words used during the conference.

8. Discover more about the people attending the conference. When you see an interesting Tweet, simply click on that person to see their other IDs and profiles across the social web, including pictures and videos. And to find out if that person will be at a party, check the parties stream or perform a Twitter search (e.g. +party +Friday) in that person’s stream.

9. Analyze Twitter activity by reviewing integrated reports. SXSW events have a higher concentration of Twitter power users, and PeopleBrowsr lets you keep track of activity such as who’s retweeting you, who’s retweeting your friends, and also who recently followed you.

10. Share Tweet searches. When you perform an interesting search on PeopleBrowser (e.g +party +Friday), you can instantly share the results with your friends in just one click.

Use PeopleBrowsr.com to keep up with SXSW from Sukhjit Ghag on Vimeo.

Also see Sarah Perez’ coverage on ReadWriteWeb and Jennifer Van Grove’s post on Mashable.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

Larry is a guest blogger and if you’ve read, “Hip Hop Schools Silicon Valley”, “21 Lucky Tips to Ace Blogworld” or “Communication 2.0“, “Five Ways to Hack SXSW” then maybe you’ll like his latest: “7 People To Avoid At SXSW”

By Larry Chiang

SXSW Interactive is a dolled up, gem of a conference for web 2.0ers in the know. I personally love accurate weather forecasts and getting a scouting report before getting to a party. Make no mistake, SXSW is a fun party where you can get your learn on.

To better help you get the lay of the SXSW land, I character-compass seven types of people to avoid.

-1- Spray-n-Prey Venture Capitalist

Investment technique is similar to conference selection methodology. Always attend New York Fashion Week, TED in Long Beach CA, Media Summit in NY, and mixers at a dirty Vegas conference.

They either have an investment thesis, his WAVC (Western Assoc Venture Capitalist) buddies will think is genius 10 years from now or they’re just boondoggling.

-2- Badgeless.

Flew in from California and still badgeless. How sad. These types will mooch hotel floor space that will later turn into squatting for sofa space. Mr. Badgeless goes to parties thinking that popularity boosts shareholder value. It doesn’t. Taking copious notes, pressing palms after sessions, and following-up does.

-3- In-a-meeting.

Has a platinum pass but hasn’t seen one session and is wedged in back-to-back-to-back meetings. Doesn’t leave the only five star hotel in Austin and rotates three meeting areas at 98 San Jacinto so they can still be 20 minutes late even though he’s on site.

-4- The Pseudo Staffer.

This person is a volunteer but they oh-so have an agenda. They’re not paid, but pretending to be a full staffer. At SXSW Film, they’re pitching scene treatments and a partial script. At SXSW Music they’re promoting two bands. At SXSW Interactive they’re dabbling in the idea or raising VC money for their start-up.

Di-worse-ify is very similar to Spray-and-Prey.

-5- Last Minute Promoter.

Jumped on Mobissimo.com and booked a last minute ticket. Over ordered Kinko’s supplies in the hopes for a big response. Cutting and Pasting @zappos will get you some brand traction, but joining a parade is easier than starting one at the last minute.

-6- Austin Poser.

This twice a year Austinite is from Palo Alto. The other time he’s here for a week plus is ACL. This poser wants so much to be a local that he has a local 512 cell, a Yelp profile and co-working space on 6th street.

-7- Conference Romeo.

It’s ok to say ‘hi’ and expand our network outside our bubble. In my case it’s my cubicle + sororities that invite me to speak on FICO and credit. In short, full-on conference hook-ups are a no-no.

Needing a carnal commitment ASAP is weird. Remember, if they’re at a work conference and can be distracted by your hawt ass, how good can they be at work? Rising “hitters” use man-charm up until closing time of a conference mixer.

If you do see someone you romantically like, drop them a note and reconnect after a conference.
Hope to see you in Austin. I’ll be on the Twitter so check @larryChiang for updates. Or we can roll old school by text messaging my cellie, 650-283-8008. I keep office hours so you can even call me (don’t call to see if I’ll pickup cuz I will so you better have a question for me

Larry is a guest blogger and if you’ve read, “Hip Hop Schools Silicon Valley”, 21 Lucky Tips to Ace Blogworld” or “Communication 2.0“, then maybe you’ll like his latest: “Five Ways to Hack SXSW”

By Larry Chiang

South By Southwest (SXSW) is THE cool conference for web 2.0-ers as it is the sandwich meat wedged between SXSW Film and SXSW Music.  Sure, there’s an infusional waft that is strongly Californian, but the meat of it is Texas. Sprinkle in a tad of Austin weirdness and you get a powderkeg of creative force.

I am not one to tread lightly when faced with a business opportunity. I don’t attend industry shin-digs with a go-and-see attitude. SXSW is a tool and in this post, I will expose five tips that will get you a substantive return on your conference dollar.

-1- Go With a Conference Focus.

There are PhD students that wallow in and out of topics. My college experience was no different. I attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the intent to make as much money as a Harvard MBA graduate by the time I graduated. I did by sophomore year. I don’t write this to promote myself. I’m confessing that I can, with my 88 well-focused IQ points, outflank and outmaneuver a team of tier-one MBAs.

-2- Elevator Spiel, Engage.

Have “who you are” and “what you do” ready at a moments notice.  This should coincide with your conference thesis and focus.  For example, if I go to a technology conference, my sound byte is, “I head up a company that graduates college students with a FICO of 750.  I’m here to see if we can text to and from an 800 number.”

-3- Book the Middle Seat.

Normally I prefer to wedge my 6’5” frame into a window seat, but pre-conference prep requires that I maximize my networking time belly-button-to-belly-button.

-4- Pre-Party on Twitter!

Before you go to Pangaea, you pre-party to save money… right?!

Well if you pre-party on Twitter, you can push your SXSW focus and thesis ahead by tracking speakers, panels and topics like “#vcSecrets”. Or if you’re a Facebook fan, I am sure that there are SXSW groups to join. Better yet, try to secure a venue and host an alternative party since the parties in Austin OVERFLOW during SXSW.

-5- Prey and Spray.

Kiss alpha, gamma and beta ass.  Don’t make the mistake of just being a star-chaser and only kissing alpha ass.  Kissing gamma and beta ass means being nice to assistants & staffers (gammas) as well as fellow attendees (betas).  Tip, bribe and comp to augment your conference experience. Also, no rockpiling with your hotel-mates – that’s a huge conference no-no.

Larry Chiang is the founder of Duck9, which educates college students on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. He has testified before Congress and World Bank on credit.

He is a frequent contributor to Business Week’s blog on “What They Don’t Teach You at Business School”