So while all of you were bitching about how annoying it is to wake up to an avalanche of DMs from friends begging you to vote for their SXSW panels (or worse, badgering your friends with pleas so they’ll vote for your SXSW panel), I found a much better way to be inconvenienced: I sat around looking for the most entertaining panels submitted to next year’s Geek spring break. Enjoy.
Facebook Status: “Its Complicated”
Organizer: Dynin Khem, Razorfish
Description: “Sally Henderson is no longer in a relationship” We all read that line before about one of our friends. Facebook has penetrated our dating world. When did Facebook status determine our relationships? What’s the deal with Facebook flirting? How is it I know more about you from Facebook than you yourself. Come join us for an exploration of social dating and a few good stories.
Questions Answered:
- Are people really using Facebook to date?
- Are Facebook profiles more truthful than online personals?
- Is there common etiquette on Facebook?
- What’s the deal with flirting on Facebook (i.e. Poke, SuperPoke)?
- Is Facebook relationship status that important?
- How can you trace someones dating history with Facebook?
- Why does Facebook let me do foolish things?
Oops! My Boss Just Saw Me Naked
Organizer: Heather Hvidsten, imc2
Description: Prior to social networks we had professional lives, personal lives and a social lives with a controlled amount of overlap. Whether we like it or not, Social Networks are now making it difficult to keep these areas distinct and separate. What does a single representation of a person’s life mean for individuals, marketers, brands and future generations? Should we embrace a whole new attitude of ‘one life’ or leverage different networks for different purposes?
Questions Answered:
- What are the different facets of a person’s life and how do these match up to existing social networks?
- How are different Generations embracing the social networks?
- What does this mean for individuals and how they show themselves online?
- What does thie mean for future generations and how they think about their life’s representation on line?
- What will the trend be?
- Different networks for different purposes?
- Or one uber-network for one-life?
CyberSex2.0: Is Social Networking Ruining Your Sex Life?
Organizer: Dayna Nicole, UglyNot!
Description: In the world of social networking, constant access, and real time updates, has the way in which we date evolved for the better or for the worse? This panel hopes to address the issues that have been created with “dating” and interacting online. We also hope to discuss the future of online love relations and how to date in the evolving cyberspace.
Questions Answered:
- Is social networking hindering dating?
- Are social networking sites enabling better or worse dating practices?
- Does the anonymity of online interactions allow for more freedom and flexiblity with dating options?
- Does constant access and/or information complicate relationships?
- How is dating compromised by social networking?
- Does social networking provide more options for sexual relationships?
Standards of Stalking
Organizer: Emily Lewis, Webuquerque
Description: As the popularity of social networks has increased, so too, has the incidence of stalking. But is all stalking bad? This presentation will propose a working draft of the Acceptable Stalking Standards to help you continue to follow your favorite people, without becoming that creepy person who constantly gets banned.
Questions Answered:
- How to prevent creepy stalking?
- Who is OK with being stalked?
- What opens the door to being creepy?
- When does acceptable Stalking become just plain stalking?
- Is it stalking when it’s friends and family?
- When to stop stalking?
- How to decline friendship without feeling bad?
- Who are prime targets for unacceptable stalking? What are the best tools to stalk?
Networked Love, Bonding, Intimacy: Our Interactive Culture Clouds
Organizer: Evonne Heyning, Amoration
Description: Visual mapping of relationship circles: exploring tools for appropriate social technology in conference cultures where work and pleasure meet. Intimate boundaries, mixing business and love and the essentials of compassion in network culture will be explored through interactive visualization Q&A. Fluid dynamics and connections discussed.
Questions Answered:
- Mixed conference signals: how can I tell if s/he’s a business partner, a stalker or a potential romantic interest?
- When is it OK to kiss and tell at conferences and networking events?
- How do I set good boundaries with new colleagues when meetings and parties mix?
- How do you tell a business partner or conference followpuppy that you’re not interested in connection?
- Did your fling/affair/flirtation get twittered? How to detangle the messiest moments of social media?
Coping With iPhone Co-Dependency
Organizer: Natasha Wescoat, Natasha’s Art Candy
Description: A gamer, an artist, and a video blogger discuss complete and total dependency on one of the most addictive technological advances of today: the iPhone. Tips, tricks, and stories of simultaneous IRL and virtual communication without appearing socially inept.
Questions Answered:
- Is using mobile abbreviations in real conversation okay?
- How many times is too many times to check your iPhone at dinner?
- Is it okay to whip it out during a date?
- Bathroom tweeting?
- Pros and cons of mobile apps?
- Is iPhone making us smarter or dumber?
- How will the iPhone save us in a zombie apocalypse or natural disaster?
- What was life like before iPhone?
- What does your homescreen say about your personality?
Friend? Follow? Connection? Changing The Friendship Game
Organizer: Daniil Vinokur, Razorfish
Description: Friendship is changing. What does that mean for us as people and digital professionals? What was once a conversation or a letter is now a lifestream of pings, posts, and pictures. Panelists will discuss online friendship and present contrasting points of view about how this will impact the digital space.
Questions Answered:
- What is the traditional model of friendship?
- What are the competing contemporary models of friendship?
- Which friendship model is most likely to win?
- What does the future of friendship online look like?
- What is the positive/negative impact of the redefined model of friendship?
- What is the value of digital friends?
Posts Mortem: Death and Digital Legacy
Organizer: Adele McAlear, McAlear Marketing
Description: If you passed away today, how would your online friends find out? Should logins and passwords be in your will? Has technology changed mourning? Will your digital media stay online forever? Our lives are lived and documented online, it’s time to talk about the implications of death and digital legacy.
Questions:
- If you passed away, how would your online friends be notified?
- Should logins and passwords be included in your will?
- Would you want your digital presence to remain online forever?
- What the policies of the major social networks for profile access by the family of the deceased?
- What are the repercussions of the phenomenon of the suicide note as Facebook status?
- How has the Internet changed how people come together to mourn?
- Will pre-programmed updates from friends who have passed give them digital immortality?
- How have recent celebrity deaths brought digital mourning to the mainstream?
- If digital profiles truly have inherent value and equity, can they be bequeathed? What societal shifts will be required to handle ownership of our online footprints?
SXSW SARS
Organizer: Tara Brown, Topspin Media
Description: Each year at SXSW, you hear about “SXSW SARS” or “SXSW Scurvy.” Days packed with panels, movies, and concerts are exhausting and wear down your immune system. Jay Goldman and Tara Brown will go over some ways in which you can prepare for, and stay clear of getting sick at SXSW.
Questions Answered:
- How important is a good breakfast?
- How can I attend the conference all day and party all night?
- Are there things that I can bring with me to eat during the day to help me stay healthy?
- How do I know if I’m staying hydrated?
- Will drinking alcohol each night cause me to get sick?
- How much sleep do I need?
- Will taking a nap help me?
- Can I get sick from hugging, shaking hands, kissing other people?
Teh Funny
Organizer: Rob Cottingham, Social Signal
Description: Part stand-up, part insight and part inspiration, this presentation skewers some of the digital world’s trendiest tools and most sacred cows. Find the funny in everything from hashtags to open standards, it gets at the heart of social media’s power… while leaving you laughing.
Questions Answered:
- Fr1st! Why does the button on every user agreement say “submit”? …Oh, wait, I’ve figured it out. On Twitter, I have thousands of followers. Can I command them to rise up and kill my enemies?
- I like to randomly pepper my conversation with “FTW!” and “awesome sauce”! Does this make me sound younger?
- I have 782 Facebook friends. So why am I sitting home alone watching Gossip Girl reruns?
- Why can’t this field be left blank?
- Is our culture really that uncomfortable being left alone with our own thoughts?
- Why does that stoned guy in the next cubicle giggle whenever I say “hashtag”?
Want to see more? LAWeekly and TechZulu have lists of panels of interest to SoCal tech.
(Photo by Thomas Totz)
