SXSW: Pubmedia Dialogue and Oversharing

Just back from Austin, where the Integrated Media Association Conference and the SXSW Interactive festival offered an incredible confluence of the wired journalists, filmmakers and public media producers that we analyze and showcase here at the Center for Social Media. I covered my time there in two stories for the PBS MediaShift site:

IMA + SXSW = Major Discussion on Future of Public Media

Public media makers found a whole new crew to hang with at this year's Integrated Media Association (IMA) Conference on March 10 and 11.  

Fueling excitement was a new collaboration: The IMA preceded and then flowed into the interactive track of the SXSW festival on the 12th. Attendees at a Knight Foundation-supported array of SXSWi panels on news innovation and content strategy joined the mix.  

Despite looming cuts and recent controversies, participants seemed eager both to learn about a raft of recent public media experiments and collaborations, and to meet their online friends and followers in the flesh. This annual public media conference, IMA, has recently been revitalized with new leadership and strategy, and felt much hipper and more cohesive than the last iteration of the conference in 2009.  

But don't just take my word for it. Here's a glimpse at the conversations through the eyes of attendees -- noted in bold -- and my own running Twitter coverage at @beyondbroadcast. You can follow a larger discussion of both conferences by going to the #imaconf and #sxsw hashtags on Twitter.

Oversharing, Overstimulated and Setting Boundaries at SXSW

AUSTIN, TX -- By Day 3 of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, I find that the future's so bright, it kind of gives me a migraine.

Inside the Austin Convention Center, where most of the conference was staged, pillars are baroquely barnacled with multiple generations of posters, flyers, and business cards -- many of which sport cryptic QR codes designed to lead smartphones to promotional sites.

Outside, "booth babes" in skintight leggings shill for digital scavenger hunts, iPad drawings, and Axe Body Spray. Barkers on one street corner offer free Monster energy drinks; on another corner, free coffee with branded mugs; and a third, free shots of premium whiskey.

Sunday night, looped on free drinks and rebuffed from attending the Mashable party, I stop to buy a hot dog from a street vendor before heading back to my hotel. Before I can eat it, a photographer asks me to pose with it, displaying the "Appkin" it's wrapped in, embossed with yet another QR code. Read More >>