SXSW Interactive 2010
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1 p.m. Live chat: Are you ready for SXSW Interactive?
Today at 1 p.m., American-Statesman staffers will be talking about our panel picks, tips for the festival and anything else related to South by Southwest Interactive.
Bring your own tips, questions and discussion and join us!
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Building the perfect SXSW Interactive panel
This graphic ran in today’s Austin360 print section. Hope you enjoy!
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SXSW panel preview: ‘The Happiness Project’
Gretchen Rubin reads from ‘The Happiness Project’
4:30 p.m. Friday
Day Stage
Gretchen Rubin has heard the complaint that the Internet is no good for any of us, that it’s causing us to just sit tap-tapping at our computers instead of making real connections with real people.
Rubin doesn’t buy that. And her opinion is worth noting, because she wrote the book on happiness. Well, at least a very popular book on happiness. Rubin’s “The Happiness Project,” is the No. 3 book on the New York Times’ Hardcover Advice best-seller list. It’s based on her blog of the same name. In both, Rubin writes about test-driving various strategies for happiness. She’ll be reading from her book Friday afternoon South by Southwest Interactive.
Visiting SXSW (it’s her second year at the fest) makes her quite happy, and it’s part of the reason she doesn’t think the Internet is a joy-sapper. She relishes the opportunity the conference gives her to meet her virtual friends in person.
“I’m meeting people that I’ve never met before, but whom I feel like I know quite well,” she says. “I love that.”
While she loves the energy and innovation at the tech conference, Rubin is also a student of history. In her work, she often explores what writers and thinkers have said about happiness through the ages. She says that when she started the Happiness Project she expected to focus more on emerging research about happiness. She’s still fascinated by that science, but finds that the historical advice is more useful as a guide to living a happy life.
One of her blog’s most popular posts is a list of ideas for cheering up that writer Sydney Smith sent to a depressed friend in 1820. Most of its suggestions still feel relevant: “Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.” “Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.”
In fact, keeping your surroundings pleasant and orderly is one of the first subjects she talks about in her book, and it’s a subject that seems to particularly appeal to readers, she says.
“One of the things that’s been most striking is how much people mention that to me,” she says. “Physical, environmental order is huge for people.”
A messy coat closet might not seem like that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but clutter and disorder weigh on us to a surprising degree, Rubin says.
“I think for most people outer order translates to inner calm,” Rubin says.
Of course, with the success of her book, Rubin is experiencing something a lot of people dream of us a source of happiness. So how does it really feel?
“There’s something in happiness called the arrival fallacy,” she says. It’s the belief that once you arrive at a certain destination — whether it’s marriage, a certain income level or a book publication — that you’ll be happy. “Usually, that arrival doesn’t make you as happy as you think it will. But I have to say, getting my book out there and have it resonate with a lot of people is really not disappointing me. It’s making me very happy. I’m not experiencing the arrival fallacy problem right now”
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SXSW panel preview: ‘Ten Strategies for Building Happy and High Performing Teams’
‘Ten Strategies for Building Happy and High Performing Teams’
3:30 p.m. Monday
Courtyard Rio Grande A
Could your workplace use an energy infusion? Beth Hallmark and Drew Scherz have ideas to try, whether you’re a supervisor of not. They’re presenting “Ten Strategies for Building Happy and High Performing Teams” on Monday. Hallmark is creative director for Public Outreach and Strategies at the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Scherz leads the Web team there. Their goal is to help you attract and keep good employees.
— Take a coffee break — together. Rounding up your co-workers for a trip to the coffeeshop across the street will do more than help you stay alert for the afternoon. It also strengthens your ties to each other, and that makes your team perform better, Scherz says. “Cohesion comes from knowing your other team members,” Hallmark says.
— Notice everyone. “Every person on your team matters,” Hallmark says. You know your quiet co-worker who does all the boring, day-to-day stuff without drawing much attention to himself? “That person deserves as much care and attention as anybody else on your team,” she says.
— Get to know your team. “Know what it is that people like most about a job,” Hallmark says. If someone has a particular interest, help her explore it by getting additional training. “As a leader, understanding what truly does make people happy in their job can make a critical difference,” she says.
— Don’t force people to fit a mold. “We celebrate differences; diversity is a strength,” Scherz says. “Everybody works his or her own way. We don’t try to make everybody the same.” That kind of acceptance takes a lot of stress out of your workplace and helps inspire great work, he adds.
— Set expectations high. “If you always expect little from somebody, that’s likely what you’re going to get,” Hallmark says. She and Scherz says most people want the chance to rise to the occasion. They find that the best employees like challenges and want to work hard — as long as they feel engaged. And you can help them feel engaged by offering the freedom they need to do the job and the feedback to help them see that they’re moving forward and doing something meaningful. It also helps to give people problems to solve, rather than just tasks to do, Hallmark says.
— Show a spirit of collaboration. Even if you’re not a manager, if you regularly do things like passing along praise or sharing knowledge you gained in a project that could also help your co-workers, you’ll be changing your workplace for the better, Hallmark and Scherz say.
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SXSW panel preview: ‘Your Online Identity After Death and Digital Wills’
“Your Online Identity After Death and Digital Wills”
3:30 p.m. March 16
8A, Austin Convention Center
What happens to your Web stuff when you die? Your blogs, your Tweets, your Flickr photos, your business documents that live in the cloud?
And, to ponder a slightly less ominous question, what happens to your Web stuff when services themselves die? What if the social media site that holds so many of your memories now goes the way of the floppy disk?
Corvida Raven has been thinking about and researching both of those aspects of Web mortality, and she’ll share what she’s found at SXSW Interactive on Tuesday during a Core Conversation called “Your Online Identity After Death and Digital Wills.”
“It’s an intense topic,” says Raven, who blogs about social media and Web technology at Shegeeks.net. Last year, Fast Company magazine named her to its list of The Most Influential Women in Technology.
Raven started exploring the topic as she thought about the long-term ramifications of working in the online world.
“This is where a lot of people are making money now,” she says, If you’re making a living from your blog, for example, you’ll probably want to protect it (and its associated e-mail account, Flickr pool, etc.) after you’re gone to make sure it keeps producing income for your family.
But doing business online is still a relatively new practice — and it’s a rapidly evolving one, Raven says.
“It’s such a new topic, and there’s really nothing concrete around it, so I’m looking forward to the discussion at South by Southwest,” she says.
Whether your Web presence is business, personal or both, just making sure that someone you trust knows where to find all your user names and passwords can make a huge difference for your survivors.
“You definitely want to make sure you have a record of your passwords that’s as up-to-date as possible,” Raven says. Also think about leaving your loved ones guidance on what you want to happen to your social media profiles and Web sites after your death: Do you want your blog deleted, or left as it was as a memorial to you?
Your survivors might run into a few more problems if they’re not able to log into your accounts, Raven says. Take e-mail. Providers have their own policies, Raven says, but for the most part they’ll give your family your e-mails after your passing (some may require proof of death). But they tend to be stricter about revealing passwords, Raven says.
“You can understand it,” Raven says. The companies’ concern comes because so many of us use the same passwords for everything from e-mail to credit-card Web sites. “It gives them access to a wider range of stuff that you may not have wanted them to have access to.”
If you want to take steps beyond leaving a list of user names and passwords for your loved ones, services like Legacy Locker (legacylocker.com) can help you set up beneficiaries to take over the accounts you specify, or you could even create your own document with a lawyer, Raven says.
Your memories “Death is also part of technology,” Raven says. Technologies change, with some services shutting down and new ones emerging to take their place. Raven says she was drawn to the question of how to make sure the memories we have stored with various sites survive, even if the sites themselves go away.
“My memories are not in photographs anymore,” she says “My memories are on Facebook, or my memories are being TwitPic’ed to the world. How will my kids be able to see this in the future? How will they be able to revisit my 20s the way I revisited my mom’s 20s through photo albums?”
The question led her to make some changes in her online habits.
“I’ve been a little more careful, and also more aware, of what I’m signing up for,” she says. Instead of service hopping, look for tools and sites that have a track record and should stick around for the long haul, she says.
Staying ahead of technological obsolescence is yet one more reason to back up the things that are most important to you, Raven says. She backs up her photos to CDs — she figures they’ll be around at least five more years and that there will be a good conversion option to whatever storage form comes next. “This is my own legacy that I want to make sure I have intact for my kids in the future,” she says.
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SXSW panel preview: ‘How I Lost My Job Through Twitter … Again’
‘How I Lost My Job Through Twitter … Again’
5 p.m. Monday
8A, Convention Center
Jeff Moriarty says he and co-presenter Austin Baker (both are with Sitewire in Tempe, Ariz.) have had their share of social-media controversies at work (if you go to this session, ask Moriarty about his infamous “Lord of the Rings” parody blog), and Moriarty says there’s a good chance you’ll follow in their footsteps someday.
It’s no secret that things we share on social media can get us into trouble. Maybe you call in sick for work — forgetting that your boss is your Facebook friend and saw your status update that you were downing beers at a concert.
Why do we keep making these social media slipups?
“I think it comes from social barriers we build up in our lives,” Moriarty says. We’re a different person with our spouse than we are with our co-workers, and a different person still with our parents. It’s not like we’re making these shifts consciously; they’re just an automatic part of life.
“It’s so natural that we don’t realize those walls aren’t there anymore,” Moriarty says. They’re dissolved by social media.
When we post on Facebook, for example, we’re in the mindset of sharing with friends. After all, we clicked a button that said each person we connect with there is a “friend.”
But, Moriarty says, we probably didn’t choose them very carefully.
“Not everybody on your friends list is someone you’d go hang out with for beers or tell your deepest, darkest secrets to,” he says. Maybe some of your “friends” are co-workers you don’t know well, or someone you just met at a conference. But they end up being privy to information about you that you might not share so readily in office conversation.
You can restore some of those social divisions by using Facebook’s group settings to control see who can see your posts. Maybe you meet people at networking events you don’t know well, but you want to stay in touch with them. You can alter your settings so that they only see limited amounts of information about you. You can even block work-related friends from seeing photos you’re tagged in — this is especially important because you don’t have control over when others tag you.
Moriarty thinks all companies need a social media policy to protect employees, and themselves.
“More companies are doing it, but (even) more should,” he says. Social media issues will come up in almost all companies, and they’re easier to handle when guidelines exist.
Addressing social media through a policy also gives companies a chance to train employees how to handle certain situations: Say you work at a coffeeshop and you see someone bashing your employer on social media. Is it OK to jump into the dispute? And do you have to ID yourself as an employee of the company if you do?
By the way, if your company doesn’t have a clear social media policy, Moriary advises staying out of situations like this. If you see your product getting flamed in social media, pass the word on to someone in the PR department.
“If they’re not being proactive, they’re going to be reactive” he says. “You don’t know what the trigger points are, and it’s really not worth it.”
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Google Maps bike routes to debut tomorrow
Google will announce Wednesday morning that it is adding bike routes to its Google Maps service. They’ll be making the announcement at the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. Austin is one of about 150 cities (10 in Texas) that will be included in the launch.
You can read the full story, including reaction from Austin bicyclists and the city of Austin here.
Employees from Google will be demonstrating bike routes at South by Southwest Interactive, Friday though Monday in the expo hall in the Austin Convention Center. Google will also participate in a Mobile Social with Bikehugger.com starting 2 p.m. Saturday. Bikers will meet at Brush Square Park.
Below is an image of what the service will look like and a demonstration video (click on the image for a larger version):
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SXSW panel preview: ‘PayTV vs. Internet - The Battle For Your TV’
‘PayTV vs. Internet - The Battle For Your TV’
5 p.m. March 12
Austin Convention Center, Ballroom D
In this corner … Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Chairman of HDNet, a U.S.television channel broadcast exclusively in high definition and available via satellite and cable. In this corner … Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee, maker of software that allows you to play videos, music and pictures from your PC or from the Internet on your television.
A year ago, the pair participated in a spirited online debate on content delivery after a digital media blogger posted an interview with Ronen in which the CEO claimed that the shift to online content delivery — allowing consumers to pick and choose what they wanted to view — could spell trouble for cable programmers’ business model of selling content packages. Cuban responded on his own blog with a post entitled, “Why Do Internet People Think Content People Are Stupid ?”
Oh, it’s on.
The tussle continues in a 2010 SXSW Interactive panel Ronen unofficially calls “Big Mouths Clash in the South.”
“Mark and I have different views of the world when it comes to Internet TV,” Ronen told me. “He believes that the Internet is not designed for video consumption, from a technology standpoint, and that the way people watch TV today — using the cable networks — is the way of the future. So he is skeptical about the technology, that’s one thing. Another thing that he’s skeptical about, I think, is the business model. I think he believes the existing business model is the winning business model and that’s how it should remain moving forward.
“I think that there are going to be multiple business models, and while bundled subscriptions may remain or have a share, there are going to be other models as well that are going to work to the benefit of content owners and the creative people. And I think that’s another thing you can learn from history: I think there’s always opposition to a new medium and sometimes it takes a short time and sometimes it takes a long time, but eventually the new medium also represents new opportunities and, in many cases, great opportunities for the media business.
“Whether it was VHS or DVD or even cable networks … you know, every time there is a new medium or a new technology, the knee jerk reaction is very defensive and skeptical about that new technology. But then I think later on they see that it opens up a whole new world of opportunity for them, and I think very much the same about the Internet.”
On his blog, Ronen slyly positions Cuban as the favorite, because:
- He is Mark Cuban.
- He owns the Dallas Mavericks. I get excited when I get bleacher seats for a Knicks game.
- He was on “Dancing with the Stars.” I can’t even get slow dancing right.
“Though if things get physical,” Ronen wrote, “I think I can take him out.”
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Trouble with my.SXSW app? Read this
Over the weekend, I saw a few Tweets about people having trouble with the latest update of the South by Southwest Interactive app for iPhone (the naughty one).
An e-mail from the fest suggests the following if you have the issue (which in my case caused the app to fail to load when I clicked on it):
1. Delete the existing my.SXSW app from your phone
2. Download and install the new my.SXSW app again from iTunes or the AppStore
3. Open the app and login with your my.SXSW credentials.
If you do the fix, you might be required to log in twice — once to SXSW, once to the “Dub” service, which seems like one too many hoops to jump through, but then I’m not an app developer.
This seemed to work for me — but as I looked at the app, I noticed that the list of panels doesn’t even have the names of panelists and some panels are missing basic information that’s on the Interactive Web site — a total deal-breaker for me for actually using the app to look up information during the fest.
I’m hoping this gets fixed in the meantime. I’m getting e-mails about other apps (including one from sched.org) that should be available by Friday.. ‘
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SXSW Interactive updates from us (and you) via Twitter
Before, during and after South by Southwest, follow us on Twitter to get updates aplenty from the Austin360.com team, as well as fellow attendees. Just follow @360sxswi, or bookmark this page.
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Panel preview: ‘Customer Support in a 140 Character World’
‘Customer Support in a 140 Character World’
5 p.m., Monday, March 15
It’s just one illustration of the way social media has changed the game for companies that are expected to stay on top of consumer problems and complaints. (Here’s another: the guy who took United Airlines to task for breaking his guitar.)
Lois Townsend, HP’s global manager of social media strategy, will speak on a panel sponsored by her company about customer service with social media analyst Jeremiah Owyang, CNET reporter Caroline McCarthy, Microsoft community and online support manager Toby Richards and Frank Eliason, the man behind the @ComcastCares Twitter account.
Townsend says that at her company, social media for customer support is a continually evolving effort. She manages a team of about 11 people and a larger group of about 80 that directly responds to complaints and comments over Twitter, Facebook and HP’s own Web site communities.
“If Facebook is how (our customers) want to engage, we want to be there,” she said. “It’s like we’re at a virtual reception desk — there’s this customer outside of the building screaming and yelling. We go outside, shake their hand and bring them inside. We get them whatever help they may need.”
One sea shift that’s happened in the last 10 years in which HP has been experimenting with social media, Townsend said, is that customers now not only expect to find technical support on the Web, the in fact prefer to find it there. So, while HP is trying not to ignore the massive numbers of people reaching out on Twitter and Facebook, “Social media avenues are growing very fast, but are still much smaller in total as compared with the rest of the more traditional methods (of providing support).”
About 30 million customers a month got to HP’s Web site seeking product support, she said.
Her team, she says, knows that the worst feeling a customer online can have is to feel ignored. But in some cases, a person seeking support falls away from simply wanting help into a category she calls, “Abusive.” While an immediate response is usually best, she said, sometimes a support representative might wait until, say, a Twitter poster has calmed down.
“They’re not easy to talk to,” Townsend said, “they may calm down in a couple of days. We may reach out to them after they calm down.”
She says she had her own experience with challenging customer support situation: she lost an earring on a connecting flight in Chicago and tried to get the airline to send someone to find it.
“They told me when I got back I should send an e-mail,” Townsend said. “Well, that’s not very effective; right now is the time to take action.” She didn’t have a smartphone or laptop with her, but if she had, “I think I probably would have Tweeted about it. I think I would have gotten a real-time response.”
Kevin Smith would totally understand.
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Texas Social Media Awards 2009: Where are they now?
While only a few of the winners from last year’s Texas Social Media Awards received a second award this year, that doesn’t mean they haven’t continued to excel at the work for which they were originally recognized. Below are updates on a few winners from 2009. For a complete list of last year’s winners, click here.
-Benn and Lani Rosales have expanded their social media presence at New Media Lab, having acquired Every Dot Connects. They also organize a monthly happy hour for Twitter users that packs the Gingerman.
-Matt Glazer, editor-in-chief for the Burnt Orange Report, is also a partner at political consulting firm GNI Strategies.
-Lisa Goddard continues her work as Advocacy and Online Marketing for the Capital Area Food Bank
-In addition to judging this year’s competition, last year’s overall winner Michelle Greer was named senior manager at Rackspace Hosting in October.
-David Neff, who helped raise the American Cancer Society’s online profile, is a digital strategist for the PR firm Ridgewood Associates as he works to develop his nonprofit organization Lights Camera Help, which is dedicated to supporting the films-for-a-cause genre.
-Connie Reece, founder of the social media group Every Dot Connects, is working on a social media training course for entrepreneurs.
-Web developer Paul Terry Walhus founded Texas Coworking, a collaborative workspace that caters to people that do most of their work from home.
-Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams continues to maintain a high profile as pursues the Republican Party’s nomination for United States Senate (www.williamsfortexas.com) .
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award winner Pamela Price
http://www.pamelapriceportfolio.com
http://www.redwhiteandgrew.com
http://www.dailyyonder.com/author/-pamela-price
Self-submitted bio: Pamela Price is a UT Austin graduate and San Antonio-based freelance writer with a long-standing commitment to cultural reporting and community engagement.
An award-winning former managing editor for two regional monthly lifestyle magazines, Price has dedicated much of the last two years to chronicling and promoting the resurgent home gardening movement through blogs and social media sites like Twitter (@redwhiteandgrew) and Facebook. Her victory-garden-themed website, RedWhiteandGrew.com, has received mention in several traditional and online media outlets, including CNN. Moreover, Price was an early and active supporter of EatTheView.org, a non-partisan initiative led by Roger Doiron that persuaded Michelle Obama to plant the now high-profile White House kitchen garden in 2009. Also of special topical interest to Price, who grew up in a small Texas town, is the role of social media in contemporary American rural life, evidenced by her recent contributions to the Center for Rural Strategies’ DailyYonder.com.
Judges’ comments: There are lots of gardeners in San Antonio, but none of them are as active in blogging and developing the online community as Pamela Price. In addition to her two garden blogs, Price also freelances stories about sustainability, the environment and technology in rural communities.
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award winner Stephen Torrence
http://youtube.com/captainvalor
http://facebook.com/aslstephen
Self-submitted bio: Stephen is a full-time Senior at Texas Tech University. He is originally from Georgetown, TX. Stephen uses social media to connect with his growing fan base for his ASL songsigning productions on YouTube, as well as to keep a finger on the pulse of the Internet.
Judges’ comments: Stephen is about to finish a philosophy degree from Texas Tech, but for the past few years, he’s been using his knowledge of sign language and social media to makes videos that translate popular songs. (He also has a video blog about philosophy.) His YouTube videos have been watched more than a million times, and he also keeps a video blog about philosophy. We love the way Stephen has used YouTube to share his knowledge and surely make countless people smile.
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award Winner Evan Jenkins
http://www.twitter.com/tiffstreats
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tiffs-Treats/10510512683
Self-submitted bio: Evan Jenkins recently graduated from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Business Administration in May of 2009. He has been with Tiff’s Treats for more than three years, starting as a part-time delivery driver during school and now works as the coordinator for social media, campus marketing, and special events & weddings as well as the Assistant Store Manager for the Tiff’s Treats North Austin location.
What started off as a humble project to update the Tiff’s Treats social networking presence has turned into an active and vibrant conversation with our fans and followers. Several staff members and Leon Chen, co-founder of Tiff’s Treats, have helped foster Tiff’s growth in the Facebook and Twitter realms. Ultimately, by establishing an interactive connection with fans, followers, and consumers, Tiff’s will be better able to build brand awareness, drive consumer growth, and strive to become the “top of the mind” cookie delivery company in the Tiff’s Treats areas of influence!
Judge’s comment: Everybody loves cookies, and people who love the cookie delivery company Tiff’s Treats flock to them online. With more than 7,600 fans on Facebook and close to 3,000 followers, Tiff’s Treats is a good example of building a thriving online community through social media without just spamming the latest discounts.
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award Winner Alan Graham
Self-submitted bio: Alan Graham is the president and founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a social profit enterprise that delivers meals to homeless and working poor people on the streets of Austin and San Antonio, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana and Nashville, Tennessee, Providence, Rhode Island and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Additionally, Mobile Loaves & Fishes is involved in providing housing to the homeless through its Habitat on Wheels program by purchasing gently used recreational vehicles and placing them in RV parks around town and most recently engaged in first responder disaster relief. Founded in 1998 by Graham and five friends, MLF has served over 2,000,000 meals; more than 517,000 in 2009 alone. With more than 13,000 volunteers, MLF is the largest prepared feeding program to the homeless and working poor in Austin. Social Media has been a tremendous branding tool for Mobile Loaves & Fishes. Through tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and our blog we have been able to put a face on the issue of homelessness.
Judge’s comment: Alan hits the street and uses his phone and a Flip camera to share the stories of triumph and hope of the people his group feeds and befriends. He sheds light on their lives, reminding us all that the homeless are human beings. We can’t think of a better use of new media.
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award Winner Tolly Moseley
http://thataustingirl.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/tolly.moseley
Self-submitted bio: Tolly Moseley likes to blog, but she likes hugging other bloggers more. So last summer, she decided to put together the first “Austin Bleet-Up” to get bloggers away from their computer monitors, and in each other’s presence for old-school, face-to-face interaction. And so that she could hug them. The first Bleet-Up attracted 150 people; the second, 900. Both events offered her a crash course in event planning, and since then, she’s used that knowledge to help fellow Austinites throw blogger-friendly parties of their own, many benefiting environmental causes.
She is the voice behind local lifestyle blog Austin Eavesdropper, a publicist for authors, musicians, and artists, and a freelance writer for Austin Woman magazine, Discovery Channel’s two green sites, Planetgreen.com and TreeHugger.com, and for Village Voice’s feminist/pop culture blog, HeartlessDoll.com. She also keeps an erratic cocktail column on Austinist.com called The Informed Drinker. Tolly believes without a doubt that the source of her ninja blogging prowess lies with her fellow Austinites, who have taught her how to be a better networker, writer, and social media user. She has benefitted tremendously from the communal nature of the Austin blogging scene, and hopes she can continue to foster local bloggers’ support of one another. Ideally through blow-out parties.
Judge’s comment: Tolly knows that there’s little fun in social media if there’s no “in real life” component. Last year, she started organizing hugely successful blogger meet-ups (or bleet-ups) to connect the blogging community with each other and its readers, and has recently organized other events, like “Rock n Swap,” which was as much party as clothing swap. “Tolly is the little magnet that brings together all the different colored paperclips of Austin,” as one commenter put it.
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award winner Shawn P. Williams
http://www.dallassouthnews.org
http://twitter.com/shawnpwilliams
http://www.youtube.com/shawnpwilliams
Self-submitted bio: Shawn P. Williams launched the nationally acclaimed and highly recognized DallasSouthBlog.com, now known as Dallas South, in June of 2006. He serves as publisher and editor. In 2008, Dallas South was one of a selected number of blogs nationwide to be awarded credentials for the Democratic National Convention. Last year, Williams helped to organize Dallas South News, a nonprofit news organization that utilizes technology, social media, and journalistic principles to empower and inform underserved communities.
He serves as President and Editor-in-chief of the hyperlocal news website that was born of his participation in a Poytner Institute seminar studying the future of media and journalism. Williams mixes new media and old media daily. He uses Twitter as his personal news wire and Facebook as an alternative distribution source, while continuing to write as a guest columnist for the Dallas Morning News. Williams also serves on the Blogging While Brown staff and is an officer of the DFW Association of Black Journalists.
Judges’ comments: South Dallas doesn’t have the best reputation, so Shawn set out to do something about it. As the editor of the nonprofit DallasSouthNews.org, he leads a team that provides a “fresh perspective to news stories important to Southern Dallas communities.”
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award winners Kevin Tuerff and Valerie Davis
http://twitter.com/enviromedia
Self-submitted bio: Kevin Tuerff and Valerie Davis formed EnviroMedia in 1997 as the nation’s first full-service marketing firm focused solely on environment and public health. Today, full-service includes using social media to change consumer behaviors on behalf of clients. As a public service, they also educate the general population about climate change policy and promote authentic green marketing. Tuerff and Davis are the only American advertising industry executives who have blogged from climate talks for three consecutive years (Indonesia, Poland, Denmark). They were originally dubbed the “Green Detectives” in a 2008 Washington Times article, and in 2009 launched greendetectives.net to demystify complex climate terms. In 2007, EnviroMedia collaborated with the University of Oregon to launch GreenwashingIndex.com — the world’s first online forum that allows consumers to post real “green” ads and rate their authenticity. In 2008, Brandweek named the Greenwashing Index one of “10 Bright Ideas” for marketing innovations.
Judges’ comments: Austinites love to be green. Kevin and Valerie are using social media to educate people on current events within the green scene. Their blog posts from environmental conferences around the world are a must-read.
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award Winner Jennie Y. Chen
http://www.austindogfriendly.com
http://www.austindriveclean.com
http://www.misohungrynow.blogspot.com
Self-submitted bio: As a doctorate candidate in social psychology researching hormonal correlates to social behavior, I view social media as live-streamed social interaction. Given my research area, I believe that social interaction and relationships are fundamental in everything we do. In all my activities, I use social media to nurture existing relationships and to make new relationships. For Austin’s Cupcake Smackdown 1.0, I asked the food community via social media to help, and I was overwhelmed with eager volunteers. This is just one example of how powerful having a strong social network online and offline enabled me to put on the smackdown. In addition to blogging about food, beer, wine, and spirit events, I’ve also been using social media to run Keep Austin Dog Friendly. As a website that started in 2002, many of the relationships I built with businesses were via email or in person. Now I use social media to connect with dog friendly businesses while simultaneously involving the larger dog community.
Judge’s comment: Jennie loves cupcakes, beer, dogs, cars and research. The University of Texas graduate student channels her energies into a handful of blogs to reach these distinct communities, but she puts just as much energy into putting on (and helping others put on) events, such as last year’s cupcake throwdown.
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Statesman Texas Social Media Award winner Sheila Scarborough
http://www.tourismcurrents.com
http://www.familytravellogue.com
Self-submitted bio: Sheila Scarborough is a writer, speaker, trainer and consultant specializing in travel, tourism and the social Web (with a little NHRA drag racing coverage thrown into the mix). She writes for three different blogs, tweets from three different accounts and is also a certified Navy Master Training Specialist with many years of experience as an instructor.
Sheila trains and speaks regularly about social media to a variety of audiences, including journalists, public relations and marketing professionals, tourism and economic development experts and Web developers. She is the co-founder of Tourism Currents, an online learning community and membership site where tourism professionals learn how to use social media tools for their destination marketing.
Judges’ comments: If you’ve never heard Sheila speak about social media, be sure to find her at our awards show. Her energy and enthusiasm for using new tools is incredible and infectious. Sheila has pulled the tourism industry into the 21st century with her sharp ideas and her love for new forms of communication.
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Latest comments
Angela -- I don't think that's true. Panelists are listed in panel descriptions on the SXSW.com/Interactive Web site, but not in the app.
Compare this: http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/5285
... read the full comment by Omar Gallaga | Comment on Trouble with my.SXSW app? Read this Read Trouble with my.SXSW app? Read this
Thanks for spreading the word about the fix to the upgrade. We've submitted the corrected app to Apple and it should be live shortly.
I wanted to make sure you understood why the list of panels doesn't have all the info - it actually has nothing
... read the full comment by Angela Lauria | Comment on Trouble with my.SXSW app? Read this Read Trouble with my.SXSW app? Read this
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