The first south by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was held in Austin, Texas in 1987. The event diversified in 1994 with the addition of film and interactive conferences. Since then, SXSW has become one of the largest music, film and interactive festivals in the U.S. For the anticipated 2010 event, three highly creative people (and Twitter buddies of mine) submitted ideas for panels, now open for public voting. The move embodied the SXSW Interactive Festival’s credo: “brings together the world’s most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators, content producers, programmers, widget inventors and new media entrepreneurs.”
Duane King is the half of Santa Fe-based BBDK, a design, brand development and marketing communications group. He founded and sustains Thinking for a Living, an “ever-growing platform dedicated to the concept of open source design education.” King also participated in the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire).
His submission for SXSW is called Where the Sidewalk Ends and reflects on “how personal projects will take you where you want to go.” In addition to King’s insights, this panel discussion will also include illustrator, graphic designer and writer Frank Chimero, typographic blog AisleOne’s Antonio Carusone, art director and designer Shane Bzdok, and creative strategist, designer, speaker, interaction developer Ian Coyle.
Austin Kleon is a writer, cartoonist and designer whose forthcoming collection of witty Newspaper Blackout Poems will be available from HarperCollins in February 2010. Leon also participated in the Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire). His panel submission is called Visual Note-Taking 101, which is focused on learning “practical techniques and ‘tricks of the trade’ from modern visual note-taking masters: how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them.”
Steve Portigal is the founder of Portigal Consulting, which brings together user research, design and business strategy to help companies discover and act on new insights about their customers. To coin a phrase, as Steve put it, he is passionate about the “stuff of a culture—its products, companies, consumers, media, and advertising.” His panel submission is called Culture Kicks Our Ass: How To Kick Back, which will “explore the different cultural challenges that breakthrough products must overcome.”
Being one of many regular visitors to King’s, Kleon’s and Portigal’s projects and pursuits, their willingness to share what their learning and practices is simply awesome. I put in my vote for their panel submissions. I strongly encourage you to do the same at the Interactive programming proposals of the SXSW 2010 PanelPicker.
Image source: SXSW.com
