4sqDay Panel at SXSWi!

It’s that time of year again! In short, thousands of panel ideas were submitted to South by Southwest and now they take the public’s votes into consideration as they determine the programming for the 2011 event! (More info on how that works…)

Walter Elly of MicroArts thought a SXSW panel about Foursquare Day and the foursquare community would be really interesting and Dr. Nate and I agreed! We’d love your help getting there!

Foursquare Day: Realizing the Location-Based Services Revolution

Location-based services are here and are revolutionizing the way people experience the world. Events like Foursquare Day 2010 fueled the growth of this revolution, but we haven’t fully realized the future of what location-based services have to offer. See what the future holds for location-based services. Examine how Foursquare Day went from idea to grassroots international movement in 1 month and what its effects were on the growth of location-based services. Learn how to supercharge the growth of location-based services and realize their future by bringing Foursquare Day to your town or city on 4/16/11, Foursquare Day 2011.

In about three weeks, the core team from Tampa Bay started the first Social Media holiday and it was a hit! On 4/16 there were 550,000 checkins (9 checkins/sec at peak) and 20,000 new user signups. 14,330 Foursquare Day badges and 5, 566 Foursquare Swarm badges were awarded on 4/16 at over 45 different venues. By our count, about 290 cities in 35 different countries celebrated the holiday!

Some things that interest me about the topic that I think we can share:

• For the Tampa team, Foursquare Day wasn’t really about foursquare, it was about community! Why is this important? Why did people love the idea so much?
• Uniquely bridges the gap between the internet and real life connections… Besides tweet-ups, this is the only tool/day, etc (I can think of) that does this. Even came about before meetup.com/everywhere.
• It wasn’t just about getting together. We can talk about specials businesses offered, too. What unique ways did other communities celebrate? We did the Puzzle Hunt, etc. These are things communities could be doing all the time, for any reason. Think of the possibilities a Chamber of Commerce could come up with? Or a Neighborhood Association?
• The story of how we in Tampa created the event, and how others built up the event in their local community… what we learned… what went wrong and what went right…
• Creating an event for free from scratch in 3 weeks. Building a viral event in general.
• Social networking tools and the intersection of business and personal lives.

So what do you think? All you have to do is vote if you like the idea! What interests you the most? Did we forget something you’d like to see us talk about? Leave a comment here or on the panel topic!

SXSWi… A Branding and Social Media Conference?

I’ve had a lot of conversations about the content of and possible improvement of SXSW, specifically the Interactive portion (and really, tech conferences in general)…

How SXSWi describe themselves: “brightest minds in emerging technology”… “the best new digital works, video games and innovative ideas the international community has to offer.”

Quote from the SXSW site:

17. Do you have any specific programming needs for the 2011 event?
- SXSW Interactive is specifically looking for more advanced-level ideas, as well as more sessions that cover technical issues. We are also interested in seeing more solo and dual presentations.

Interesting! So… What are the topics which have been submitted? Surely some technical stuff, right?

Below is the top 10 submitted panel topics as taken from their site a few minutes ago:

You can also take a look at the full list sorted by # submissions per topic… Also, of the 2346 submitted, only 208 are listed as Advanced. (LOL-worthy?)

What do you think? Will you be going this year? For all you techies who say no, where will you be going instead?

How to Make Oversized Conference Shirts Wearable

Love this! I really need to break out my sewing machine..

SXSW Without Breaking the Bank!

I’ve let many opportunities in life pass me by because I felt like I couldn’t afford to do something. I’ve seen many people do the same thing, most recently about SXSW. This compels me to offer unsolicited advice: Don’t make the same mistake. While this post deals specifically with SXSW, many of these concepts could apply to any of the countless conferences and workshops that happen all over the world, or even just a pleasure trip. Take a look, and let me know what you think. What did I leave out? Hope to see you at SXSWi 2010!

Biggest tip #1: Start early!

Biggest tip #2: Be creative!

Where to lay your head:

• Stay with someone who lives in Austin.
• Find a rental on Craigslist, consider splitting a house with a group of friends.
• Stay in a hostel. Hostelling International Austin seems to have good reviews and is a 5 minute drive to the Convention Center. Beds from: $19.00 a night.
• Check out Couch Surfing or a similar service. A quick search shows about 350 definitely available couches in Austin.
• If you decide on a hotel, get a cheap one and split it if possible. If you going to SXSW hinges on being willing to sleep on a couch or in a double bed for a couple days, definitely choose the double bed. Using SXSW’s tool, you can qualify for some discounts.
• Rent an RV?
• Some suggest staying a little farther away will save big. Since Austin has a good bus system, shouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience.
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Is this how teachers feel?

Oh, internet. Come sit down and listen to my tale…

We have been working sometime on redesigning www.sparkfire.net. We did a tremendous amount of planning and research and came up with almost exactly what we wanted. With a specific style in mind, copious notes, sketches, and sites and photos as reference, I found someone on www.deviantart.com who did really fantastic work. I messaged him on Facebook (so as to not be mistaken for SPAM) that I liked his work and would like to consider hiring him. He was interested, and had very reasonable rates, so we had been e-mailing for a while about the specifics of the site.

We were still deliberating over what we wanted the name and logo to look like, and had a couple things that had been worked up already (which we sent to him as a reference). We made it clear we knew exactly what we wanted for the site, but it would be best to wait on the logo. Style, work to be completed, timeframe, etc. were agreed to, but there was no contract in place, nor had he asked for payment yet.

Last night, he sent us an e-mail with two mock-ups. We were disappointed to see they were of the logo, but then came a huge shock. Part of the logo was blatantly a rip off of another site with the name Sparkfire.

His Logo:

Sparkfire Creative’s Logo (www.sparkfirecreative.com):

I knew exactly where it came from immediately.

The icing on the cake, is that he says in his e-mail:

“The type is a custom one I did based on Avant Garde maintaining a serious feel with a dynamic glare in the A and a fire element on the R. I was trying to play with making the word “Sparkfire” into the logo itself…”

Now we’re left wondering if any or all of his portfolio was stolen, and where we should go from here.

TEDx Tampa Bay Recap

My last post was written in anticipation of attending TEDxTampaBay. Not only did I get a chance to go to this amazing event, I actually got to help out the organizers for the day!

Sylvia Landis and I manned the registration table and tweeted about the event while watching the Talks live and via live stream.

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TEDx Tampa Bay

EDIT: Logo by Museum.

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BarCamp SWFL Roadtrip Adventures Videos

Dave and I woke up at 6am and drove south for BarCamp SWFL. Lolz ensue.

Video #2. < Now go over setting the song to a music video..

Video #3. < Favorite (made-up) BarCamp memory…

Super excited to volunteer at SocialFresh!

See you there!

Women Deserve Better

Culturally-diversified bi-racial girl,
with a small diamond nose-ring
and a pretty smile
poses beside the words: “Women deserve better”.

And I almost let her non-threatening grin begin to
infiltrate my psyche-
till I read the unlikely small-print at the bottom of the ad.
‘Sponsored by the US Secretariat for Pro Life Activities
and the Knights of Columbus’
on a bus, in a city with a population of 563,000.

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