Personal Democracy Plus Our premium content network. LEARN MORE You are not logged in. LOG IN NOW >

A Political Geek's Guide To South by Southwest

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Tuesday, March 6 2012

Photo: Flickr/alexdecarvalho

Every year, creative types from around the world descend upon Austin to party, network, and party -- and oh yeah -- learn a few things from panel discussions at the digital media, music and film festival South by Southwest.

This year's SXSW, which runs March 9-18, features dozens of interesting panels on networked politics, digital activism, Government 2.0 and the 2012 presidential campaign. Not only that, staff from President Obama's re-election campaign are going to kick off the event this Friday evening with a "Technology 4 Obama" fundraiser in the form of a cocktail party at the Six Lounge in Austin. Tickets are $500 a person, and those who pony up will get to meet the country's former first Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, the Obama campaign's Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter, the campaign's Digital Director Teddy Goff, and the campaign's Chief Technology Officer Harper Reed.

If you can't cough up $500, you can sign up to meet the Obama campaign's Chief Integration and Innovation Officer Michael Slaby, who will be holding "office hours" on Saturday between 3pm and 4.45pm. He tweets that he wants to hear from people who want to help the campaign, but adds on his office hours listing that he doesn't want vendor pitches or to meet the press. Ouch.

You can also catch Teddy Goff on a Sunday afternoon panel with our own Micah Sifry. They'll speak on a panel entitled: "Election 2012: Campaigns, Coverage & the Internet." Also scheduled to speak on the panel are: BBC.com's North American Editor Claudia Milne; University of North Carolina Professor Zeynep Tufekci and Time's White House Correspondent Michael Scherer.

Other than this, many of the movers and shakers who are changing the business of governing will speak at SXSW this year. And there'll be other intriguing panels on the origins of Anonymous, what it was like to live-tweet Osama Bin Laden's death, how 21st century tools are undermining traditional forms of power, and how "slactivism" can be turned into "activism," among other things:

  • Beyond SOPA/PIPA: Moving Forward With Engine Advocacy
    Speakers:Andrew Rasiej, founder & president, Personal Democracy Media/NY Tech Meetup; Laurent Crenshaw, legislative director, Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-Calif;) Mark Stanley, new media director, Center for Democracy & Technology; Mike McGeary, founder, Engine Advocacy, strategist, Hattery Labs.
    Hashtags for Twitter Conversations: #sxsw #SopaPipa
  • SOPA/PIPA: Why the Open Internet Needs Us
    Speakers:Andrew McLaughlin, VP, Tumblr; Elizabeth Stark, Stanford/Ideas for a Better Internet; Gary Kovacs. CEO/Mozilla.
    Hashtags for twitter Conversations: #sxsw #SopaPipa
  • Do People Really Want A Participatory Government?
    Speakers: Jed Sundwall, president, Measured Voice. Sundwall has developed social media strategies for USA.gov, GobiernoUSA.gov, The World Bank, PayPal, and Unilever; Michelle Chronister, program analyst for the US General Services Administration (GSA.)
    Hashtags for Twitter conversation: #sxsw #govengage
  • Future of Cities: Technology In Public Service
    Speakers: Code for America's Director of Strategy Abhi Nemani; Chris Vein, deputy United States chief technology officer for government innovation, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy; John Tolva, Chicago's chief technology officer; Nigel Jacob, co-chair of Mayor's office of New Urban Mechanics Boston City Hall; Rachel Sterne, New York City's chief digital officer.
    Hashtags for Twitter conversations: #sxsw #FutureCity
    The New York Tech Meetup is also hosting a "Made in New York" party on Sunday night.
  • Austin 2032: Shaping Future Cities with Mobile Data
    Speakers:Alexander Howard, Government 2.0 correspondent, 
O’Reilly Media; Chris Volinsky, director, statistics research, AT&T Labs-Research; Chris Osgood, co-chair, Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, Boston City Hall; Eric Paulos, associate professor, Carnegie Mellon University.
    Hashtags for Twitter conversations: #sxsw #cityfuture
  • An Unusual Arsenal: Tech Tools to Topple a Tyrant
    Speakers: David Gorodyansky, CEO & Founder AnchorFree; Jamal Dajani, vice president for the Middle East and North Africa Internews Network; Neal Ungerleider, reporter for Fast Company, Peter Fein, Telecomix, Sonja Gittens-Ottley, manager, Business and Human Rights Program, Yahoo!
    Hashtags for Twitter conversations: #sxsw #overthrow
  • How Social Media Imperils Political Parties
    Speakers: Joe Trippi, founder & president, Joe Trippi & Associates; Marci Harris, CEO, POPVOX; Mark McKinnon, vice chairman, Hill + Knowlton Strategies; Matt Bai, chief political correspondent, New York Times Magazine and author of The Argument; Nathan Daschle, CEO, Ruck.us.
    Hashtags for Twitter conversations: #sxsw #ruckus
  • But Hasn't Politics Always Been Social?
    Speakers: Adam Conner, associate manager for policy, Facebook; Katie Harbath, associate manager for policy, Facebook.
    Hashtags for Twitter conversations: #sxsw #FBpolitics
  • Big Data: Powering the Race for the Whitehouse
    Speakers: Patrick Ruffini, Engage; Josh Hendler, Jumo; Kristen Soltis, The Winston Group; Dan Siroker, Optimizely; Alex Lundry, TargetPoint Consulting
    Hashtags for Twitter conversations: #sxsw #data2012

      Siroker was in a recent Financial Times article that described how the Obama campaign in 2008 was able to raise millions more in campaign donations by optimizing its web site by testing which images most appealed to the site's audience. Not surprisingly, a picture of the Obama family reeled in more bucks than a photo of Obama on his own giving a speech.

    • Occupying Media: 24 Hour Protest People
      Speakers: Boyd Carter, Managing Director, Artisan Technology Solutions; Charles Wyble, co-founder and chief technology officer, Free Network Foundation, Colin Delany, Democratic digital politics strategist, Epolitics.com; Kira Annika, and Priscilla Grim, OWS.
      Hashtags for Twitter conversation: #sxsw #OccuMedia
    • How Digital Softened Brazil's Iron Lady, a session on the 2010 election of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president who connected with millions online during her campaign.
      Speaker: Andrew Paryzer, director of accounts, Blue State Digital
      Hashtags for Twitter conversation: #sxsw #DigiBrazil
    • Internet Power: After Cyber-Optimism and Pessimism
      Speakers: Chris Bronk, Rice University professor, Mary Joycem founder of the Meta-Activism Project, Patrick Meier, director of Ushahidi's of Crisis Mapping & Partnerships, Richard Boly, the U.S. Department of State's director of eDiplomacy
      Hashtags for Twitter conversation: #sxsw #NetPower
    • Your iPhone Is Political: Mobile Democracy
      Speakers: Josh Levy, Internet campaign director, Free Press (and formerly of techPresident!); Katherine Maher, fellow, Sharek961.org; Nilay Patel, managing editor, The Verge; Parul Desai, communications policy counsel, Consumers Union
      Hashtags for Twitter conversation: #sxsw #openmobile
    • Turning Slacktivism Into Online Activism
      Speakers: Boyd Neil, former trade union activist and national practice leader, social media and digital communications, Hill & Knowlton, Canada
      Hashtags for Twitter conversations: #sxsw #activism

      This post has been updated

    News Briefs

    RSS Feed yesterday >

    This Isn't What Political Air Time Usually Means

    MoveOn.org is asking supporters for $150,000 in donations to fly a plane above high-dollar fundraisers for Mitt Romney with "a message that reminds voters how he represents his corporate and 1% donors." MoveOn previously hired a plane to fly over Romney's Liberty University graduation speech with the message "GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT." GO

    There's a New $200 Million Fund for Super-High-Speed Broadband Projects

    An initiative to build and test gigabit-speed broadband networks is set to fund up to six next-generation Internet access projects across the country, fueled by a new $200 million broadband development funding program, Gigabit Squared and Gig.U announced this morning. GO

    New Rice University Paper Chronicles Impact of the Internet On U.S. Foreign Policy

    We all know that the Internet has transformed the way that the United States conducts diplomacy, and the way that it views national security, but where should we look to find evidence of this? This is the wide-ranging subject matter of a new paper published on Tuesday by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The paper provides a round-up of some of the major turns of events between 2005 and 2011 in the realms of Internet governance, the development of online public diplomacy at the State Department, the evolution of the Internet-fueled Arab Spring, and the establishment of the shadowy U.S. Cyber Command in Fort Meade, Maryland, among other things. GO

    Messin' with Lamar Smith, Revisited

    Remember that grassroots fundraising campaign to put a "Don't Mess with the Internet" billboard in the home district of Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and sponsor of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act? All of the money required came in, and Fight for the Future, the advocacy group opposing more stringent copyright protections online, writes that the billboard went up. GO

    Republican National Convention Organizers Sever Ties With Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions

    After eight years producing online content for the Republican National Convention, GOP web consultant Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions is off of the project. "Campaign Solutions was retained to help develop our convention website and digital strategy, but they are no longer involved in convention planning," James Davis, the convention's communications director, told techPresident Tuesday. It's unclear what precipitated the of the relationship between the convention organizers and Campaign Solutions, which has been producing the online component of the event since 2004. But Donatelli's name surfaced in a controversial anti-Obama ad pitch sent to a Super PAC backed by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, which appeared in its entirety in the Times last week. Ricketts has since disavowed the proposal and Donatelli has denied any involvement. GO

    PD+ This Thurs 1pm: Thriving Online With Howard Rheingold

    I'm really looking forward to talking with author Howard Rheingold this Thursday on the next PD+ teleconference. His new book, Net Smart, is a concise and thoughtful guide to understanding and making the most of the hyper-networked, always-on, firehose of information and distraction that is the contemporary experience of anyone who uses ... GO

    City of Joplin, Mo. Launches New Online Center Ahead of Tornado's Anniversary

    The city of Joplin, Missouri launched its new web site over the week-end ahead of the May 22 anniversary of the massive tornado that devastated the city and killed 161 people. The new site enables Joplin citizens to sign up for emergency alerts via text message, e-mail and RSS. In addition to those alerts, individuals can also sign up for ... GO

    In Virginia, City Council Debates to Include Questions Posed Online

    The Alexandria Democratic Party in Alexandria, Virginia has partnered with online civic engagement platform ACTion Alexandria to include questions solicited in an online forum in the final Democratic primary debate for a City Council election there on June 4, ahead of the June 12 election, according to a statement released by the group. ACTion Alexandria hopes to work with both parties during the general election.

    Participants in the project can add questions to the forum, or vote on questions that have already been posed, although each user is only given three votes to distribute. Users are also encouraged to use their real names. Questions submitted so far hit on topics ranging from broadband access to a ban on food trucks in the city.

    GO

    More