I have a couple of things to say about the SXSW PanelPicker and how it kinda ruins things. It’s easy for me to spam my Twitter followers and ask them to vote for something caught my eye on this page. It turns out that only 30% of the overall votes on the PanelPicker actually weigh in on the consideration of that panel being selected. The rest is decided by SXSW Staff and an Advisory Board of experts. This makes sense and I’m extremely happy to hear it.
Every year, SXSW voting opens up at the end of August and soon everyone is flooding Twitter with their links to vote for them and it ultimately results in just a ton of noise. Yes I’ll be contributing to this a bit but not an insane amount of noise, just a tweet every couple of days for the week that voting is open but it’ll be something where I just remember to tweet it and will because there’s no science to being chosen.
Additionally, people that win the popularity aspect of SXSW Panel judging are usually the people that are popular. When you’re popular, you get more votes and that’s how it was in high school and how it will be for the rest of our lives. Even the 80 year old man in the retirement home will get that bowl of Jell-O before you because he was an Iraq War veteran and had a heart transplant from a 25 year old. I’m happy to see that the popular kids aren’t the only votes that weigh in because it would be tons of the same cool kids that get to do everything.
I was told last year that if you want to have a panel, just invite all of the coolest people to be on it and those with the most Twitter followers. The guy that told me this wasn’t popular at all but he managed to get those people to join his panel but he still didn’t get in because it all comes down to quality and what the Staff+Advisory Board think. If your panel gets 50 thousand votes, you could still not get your panel chosen.
This tweet from Sean Percival was perfect. (ps look at the link)
“Please vote for my panel at SXSW “How to Annoy Your Friends with Social Media Pestering to Vote for Your SXSW Panel” http://is.not.good/uhh”
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For the first time in 3 years, I was finally chosen as a qualifier to be in the PanelPicker which means it’s still up to votes, staff and the advisory board for my talk to be chosen. I won’t be getting paid by SXSW but I will get a free badge as a thank you which is around a $400 value. Below are the details of my SXSW Panel.
You’re on Camera. Live-Streaming Everything!
- Your vote: Yes No
- Event: Interactive 2010
- Level: Intermediate
- Type: Solo
- Category: Accessibility / Web Standards, Cloud Storage / Delivery, Community / Online Community, Digital Filmmaking, Online Video
- Organizer: Adam Jackson, OurBlock, Inc.
- Questions:
- How many devices are out there to record me and push it to the web in real time?
- What’s the difference between government and citizen journalism?
- What are the most popular ways to get footage online?
- Video of me is online. What can I do about it?
- How can I take control of what goes online?
- What’s the benefit of streaming video to the web?
- What hardware & software do I need to become the filmmaker
- What’s the line between big brother and safety?
- Description: You’re on camera everywhere you go. Cell phones, webcams, CCTV and surveillance. Where is the footage going and who’s holding the key? Let’s open the footage and make it public.
That’s the basics but to explain myself a bit more. I spent months researching camera technology, who owns footage and who the key players are in recording our lives. I also spent a great deal of time researching camera and broadcasting technologies and applied this knowledge to launching AdamsBlock. I have helped the OurBlock guys in the past but my knowledge of this subject would be a great addition to SXSW 2010 and I think is interesting beyond the typical social media panels.
You can vote for this panel RIGHT HERE but trust me when I say that my 100 votes won’t matter if the judges think it’s a stupid idea. Thanks everyone for your support.