SXSW PanelPicker Trends: Sharing
The Forrest Four-Cast: August 24, 2018
After Thursday, August 30, the 2019 SXSW PanelPicker interface will close for the season — and you will no longer be able to vote and comment on its 5000+ speaking proposals. So log into your SXSW account now to weigh in on this process. Creating a new account is free and easy if you don’t already have one. Do so via this link.
In addition to providing a modified crowd-sourcing approach to content (the SXSW advisory board and staff also judge all proposals), the PanelPicker serves as a barometer of the creative industry. This function is accomplished when you do a side-by-side comparison of the number of speaking proposals on a given topic from the 2019 interface to the 2018 interface.
For August 24, let’s measure the barometric pressure on one of the growing trends in today’s economy — “sharing.” For the 2019 SXSW PanelPicker, this word appears in 132 total speaking speaking proposals, which is a nice jump from the 112 total of 2018. This jump is likewise noticeable (825 in 2019; 771 in 2018) if you shorten the search term to “share.”
Some of the more interesting sharing-related speaking proposals in the 2019 SXSW PanelPicker include:
— How to Share Opportunities in the Age of the Algorithim
— Rethinking Healthcare with Shared Decision Making
— Trust in the Sharing Economy
Otherwise, we encourage you to discover other topics of interest by typing in your favorite keyword in the “Search” bar on the left sidebar of the PanelPicker. Or, better yet, keep track of the running list of ideas that are getting the most traction in this year’s interface by simply bookmarking this post from Medium.
For the 2019 PanelPicker, about 500–600 of the 5000+ speaking proposals will be accepted as sessions for March Magic in Austin. These accepted sessions will be announced via the SXSW website in mid-October. Learn more about how the voting / judging / acceptance process works for PanelPicker proposals via this page.
And if you want to take part in all the discovery, brainstorming, creativity, deal-making, and cross-industry networking that is SXSW, register before the early-bird deadline of Thursday, September 13 to get the season’s lowest badge rates. After you buy your badge, book your downtown Austin lodging for the event via SXSW Housing and Travel.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
