Two Conferences Worth Attending – SXSW & ETech

It’s another year and another round of conferences to attend. Personally, I love conferences but can only stand one or two each year. I learn so much and make so many contacts from each one that I prefer to learn/digest/build rather than continue on the roadshow.

As such, here are two for 2009 that Amy and I are most interested in. They are the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactice and the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. What you will find below is a write-up about the conferences that I create for my customer and bosses. I really hope to get one of them to come with us this year.

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SXSW Interactive

The Brightest Minds in Emerging Technology

Summary:

SXSW Interactive Festival covers a full range topics, from blogging trends and CMS techniques to tech-related social issues and wireless innovation. There will be more than 180 panel sessions on the following topics:

  • Advertising / Marketing
  • Business / Entrepreneurial
  • Community / Social Networks
  • Content
  • Digital Filmmaking
  • Human / Social Issues
  • Mobile / Wireless
  • New Technology / Next Generation
  • Programming
  • Web / Interface Design

Keynotes:

  • Tony Hsieh (Zappos.com)
  • Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, author of the “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More,”
  • Guy Kawasaki (of Apple and several VC companies)

Date/Location:

  • Friday afternoon, March 13 through Tuesday afternoon, March 17
  • Austin, TX

Website:

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O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference

Summary:

The event gathers together the world’s most interesting people to bring to light the important and disruptive innovations that we see on the horizon, rather than the ones that have already arrived. ETech hones in on what’s going to be making a difference not this year, or maybe even next year, but around the corner as the market digests the next wave of hacker-led surprises.

Since 2002, ETech has put onstage the blue sky innovation, from thought leaders finding ways to solve the world’s ills to hackers modding, breaking, and building for the fun of it, from P2P and swarm intelligence to social software and collective intelligence. Radical and unknown at the time, today many of the ideas first seen at ETech are on the tongues of investors and business pundits–and in the hands of consumers, fundamentally changing the way we live, work, and play.

Topics:

  • Mobile & the Web
  • City Tech – Can technology create a livable, prosperous, sustainable city? Which emerging technologies are poised to deliver a brighter, greener future?
  • Health – What are the breakthroughs in technology, genomics, medicine, anti-aging, drug development, and delivery that will make a difference in extending our lives and enhancing our quality of life?
  • Materials – We’ll examine the latest in mechanics and the materials that enable new developments. What mechanisms will be possible? How will the coming age of materials change our clothes, our products, and our everyday lives?
  • Life – What are the emerging technologies that promise to infuse themselves into our cultural and social fabric to help us work smarter, more efficiently, and create greater connectivity?

Keynotes:

  • Mary Lou Jepsen, dubbed one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2008
  • Joi Ito (Creative Commons), Creative Commons – Creating Legal and Technical Interoperability
  • Drew Endy, David Grewal (BioBricks Foundation)
  • Jason Schultz (UC Berkeley School of Law), Building a New Biology
  • Eric Paulos (Carnegie Mellon University), Enabling Citizen Science
  • Jane McGonigal (Avant Game), Superstruct: How to Invent the Future by Playing a Game
  • Aaron Koblin of Google, Making Art with Lasers, Sensors and the Net
  • Tony Jebara (Columbia University), Mobile phones reveal the behavior of places and people

Date/Location:

  • March 9-12
  • San Jose, CA

Website:

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  1. Great writeup! If you are looking for tips to maximize your time at conferences, check out “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. (He also runs a blog an online community with a similar focus.) Really useful tips for meaningful professional relationships, not the generic glad-handing and business card swapping that often happens at these things.

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