SXSW PanelPicker Trends: Transportation
The Forrest Four-Cast: August 10, 2018
Have you voted and commented yet on the 5000+ speaking proposals in the 2019 PanelPicker interface? Engaging in this process is easy (and fun)! Just log into your account and click on the ideas that most appeal to you. Please also leave a comment on the speaking proposals that you find particularly compelling.
If you don’t already have a SXSW account, then you can create one very quickly via this link.
Between now and when the polls close at the end of the day on August 30, this space will investigate some of the most prevalent themes in the PanelPicker. We do this by comparing the number of speaking proposals on the given topic in the 2019 interface versus the number of speaking proposals on this topic a year ago.
For today’s installment of this series, we investigate what kind of impact the interface has felt from electric scooters, autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars and next-generation trains. In other words, how much of an increase in transportation-related content do we see in the PanelPicker? Indeed, the increase is fairly noticeable as you will find 60 transportation-focused proposals in this year’s interface. But for the 2018 PanelPicker, this topic was only found in 28 ideas.
By comparison, the gain for proposals covering delivery was very small. 53 total speaking proposals in 2019, versus 49 in 2018.
You can find other interesting trends and themes in the SXSW PanelPicker by using the “Search” button that is located on the left side of the interface. Or, just visit this post from Medium to read the day-by-day list of ideas that seem to be getting the most traction in this year’s interface.
About 10–20% of the 5000+ speaking proposals in the PanelPicker will be accepted as sessions for the March 2019 event. These accepted sessions will be announced via the SXSW website in mid-October. Buy your badge now so you can be part of all the discovery, brainstorming, creativity, deal-making, and cross-industry networking that is SXSW.
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.
