What is SXSW Interactive?

SXSW (Pronounced South-By-Southwest)

- An annual festival in Austin Texas with major tracks for Film / Interactive / Music
- Interactive is "the place" for API launches, software releases. Twitter gained its following at SXSW in 2007. Foursquare launched there in 2009.

STATISTICS FOR SXSW INTERACTIVE 2012:
• Interactive Conference Participants: 24,569 (from 72 foreign countries)
• Interactive Conference Sessions: 1,033
• Interactive Conference Speakers: 2,591
• Interactive Media in Attendance (approximate): 3,203

• Media attention from coast to coast and numerous countries around the world with print and online publication coverage in 2011 totaling almost $38 million.

“An incubator of cutting-edge technologies…SXSW Interactive has become the place to experience a preview of what is unfolding in the world of technology.” - SXSW Inc.

In the words of the media:

“South by Southwest delivers arguably the most important interactive conference in the world” -cnet

"No matter how you cut it, the volume of panels, talks, conversations, parties, gatherings, bands, and food trucks is hard to manage." - Huffington Post

sxswLAM means a lot of things to a lot of people: cross collaboration; taking the library outside of the building; and bringing librar*, archiv* and museum* to the front of the conversation. It's a proactive means of engaging and influencing the technology we integrate into our work.

There is fierce competition to present at SXSW Interactive due to the public proposal and voting process, known as the Panel Picker

“The core of SXSW’s programming is to involve and engage the community with diverse and compelling content,” Roland Swenson, SXSW’s Managing Director said in a news release. “PanelPicker allows our community to not only have a voice in what we program, but share their innovative ideas. Every year we are impressed by the creative and forward-thinking submissions.” Silicon Hills

For example, In 2012, over 4500 presentations were submitted! The sxswLAM community cranked out 22 proposals of which 7 made it onto the schedule.

sxswLAM strategy - submitting a relevant proposal can get high visibility & webspace for your library idea/project/cause - still a benefit, even if the presentation isn't ultimately chosen.

This a giant soapbox opportunity rift with technologists, journalists, designers, thinkers, doers, and entrepreneurs hungry to work on "what's next" - let's add libraries to what's offered on that SXSW menu!

Benefits:
- International attention
- Presentations are recorded as MP3 and available to public
- Media attention as they look for a new story, a new angle to report

"I had hoped to reach one new, non-library person at the South by Southwest Interactive conference. That one person happens to write for Time Magazine!" - Carson Block

How to find LAM panels in the 800+ scheduled talks?
We got clever and added "sxswLAM' tags in the popular schedule re-posting sites

simple works!
- identifiable and enticing: a temporary tattoo with a play on our international signage
- find a recognizable pattern (zebras do it, so can we)
- gamify anything, everything: the long registration line for example