Bulldog Financial’s Bullblog

I know that’s it’s been a while (about 7 months) since I last blogged, but this is an event that has brought me out of retirement. South by Southwest, more commonly known as SXSW is a two-week juggernaut of an event held in Austin, while the University of Texas kids on on Spring Break. The SXSW conference is split into three distinct but overlapping sections - Music, Film and the most important to me, Interactive. SXSWi is unquestionably the Superbowl of tech related events in Texas. It’s a five day bacchanalia of 5000 (I hear 2008 has 8000 registered) Web luminaries, New Media Mavens, Web Designers and general tech geeks drinking Shiner and Twittering each other silly in between attending panel discussions. This will be my fourth SXSWi and I’m very proud to say that I spoke at the one in 2005 with my friend Blair Garrou of the DFJMercury VC Fund. Since a friend of mine, Imelda Bettinger (an accomplished photographer and Twitter Meetup planner) asked me to talk her into going this year, I put together a few links in an email that will hopefully help sway her decision to come up to Austin:
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I’m really glad that you are going to try to make it, since it’s going to be a blast. SXSW is pretty overwhelming and there is no way that anyone can do it all. I would suggest going with the flow and don’t hesitate to leave something if you don’t think it’s worthwhile. Here are three SXSW guides that should help you figure how to maximize the experience:

http://cruftbox.com/blog/archives/001488.html - short and sweet

http://www.jwphill3.com/2008/02/24/beginners-guide-to-sxsw/ - detailed and very good

http://www.airbagindustries.com/archives/airbag/hampton.php - long, but a bit negative in my opinion

As far as parties go, the best place to check them all out is on http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/3519/ and http://www.facebook.com/s.php?n=-1&k=400000010&q=sxsw#

Here are two sites you should be on http://www.sxswbaby.com and http://sxsw.ning.com

Three parties that are not on the official SXSW radar, but you should definitely attend are BarCampAustinIII, Ewan Spence’s SXSW Social Media Breakfast and Laura Mayes and the Sk*rt ladies are putting on a coffee meeting at 9am on Sunday at Austin Java in Downtown. They haven’t put out the invite yet, but I spoke with her about it yesterday.

I also think that you’ll probably want to join the Worldwide Flickrite meetup on Saturday:

Not that you’ll get to do everything you want or planned, but this is a good start.

The SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL is the premier internet technology conference in Texas, which I highly recommend you attend in March. I would be very grateful if you would take a few moments to vote for the panel discussions proposed by me and some of my friends that are very active in the Texas technology communities. Thank You.

Please Vote Here in the following order: http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/panel_picker/
 
1.       Angel Investment: The New Black in Startup Financing
2.       How to Shoestring Your Startup
3.       Web 2.0 Business Models, or If You Build It Will They Pay?
4.       Podcasting - What’s it going to Take to Mainstream the Technology?
5.       What’s Next for Podcasting
6.       The A List vs. the Pay List
7.       Unstructured: Why Free Form Conferences and Groups work - and Don’t
8.       Building the 3D Web: Real Companies Discover Virtual Worlds
9.       ValleySpeak for the Rest of Us: Developing Apps Outside InternetVille
10.     United We Stand, Divided We Fall: Alternatives to RSS

I’m tracking votes if you’d like to leave a comment in my blog here: http://bulldogfinancial.com/bullblog/?p=16

Kelsey Ruger’s blog post here: http://www.themoleskin.com/archives/sxsw-interactive-panel-picker/

SXSW Interactive: An incubator of new, cutting-edge technology, the SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL is ground zero for the world’s most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators and new media entrepreneurs. Four days of captivating keynote presentations and scintillating panel sessions provide hands-on training as well as big-picture analysis of the future of this industry. In addition to the numerous business opportunities at the three-day Trade Show & Exhibition, SXSW Interactive provides a full array of exciting evening events to entertain attendees. SXSW Interactive 2007 will take place March 9 - 13, 2007.