The South by Southwest (SXSW) Music/Film/Interactive festive sold out again in 2007 as thousands of artists, designers, techies, and futurists flooded the streets of downtown Austin, Texas March 9 - 16. The Interactive festival continues to grow each year around Director Hugh Forest’s vision to bring together the brightest panelists who share their experiences from computer script programming, all the way to social game play. There were a few APFer sightings with Sandra Burchsted, Randy Moss, Derek Woodgate and Jerry Paffendorf all being seen or heard!

Throughout the conference I found myself flocking towards the Screen Burn section. It is a new addition to the conference with a dedicated focus on online virtual media and its impacts on us socially, financially, and legally. There were numerous star presenters including Joi Ito, Justin Hall, Betsy Book and even Ralph Koster and Will Wright. One panel that really caught my attention was 'When Communities Attack' and it focused on how to address online attacks and misbehavior. The deeper root issue is when you grant anonymity in an arena you have to be prepared for the inevitable misbehavior of a few who feel they can hide behind a screen name.

Another panel of worth was the Avatar Based Marketing. Virtual reality mirrors the proclivities of real world communities. The eventual direction is that avatar based shopping will come into the fray and you will be able to purchase real items through virtual stores.

Relay for Life in Second Life

My favorite panel was my own of course where we packed the house technology to mobilize communities. Our panel talked about legacy system integrations, community development tools and services, as well as fund raising processing systems. They covered the implementation of some open source products as well as how we look to make the best use of our Donor money. Our premier presenter was not actually there, he made his presentation using Skype and Second Life ... which was so appropriate since ... well you can watch the video on a cell phone!!!

[See a clip of the event via YouTube ]