March 04 2008 / (1)

The South By.

interactive_icon.gifI'll be going to SXSW Interactive again this year, which will make it five in a row. I'll be on a panel once again, this time in the new "Core Conversation" format. It's titled, "Working Over the Web: Managing Distributed Staffs," and Jeff Robbins, CEO of Lullabot, will my co-panelist.

Working with people is hard enough, but what if you're not even in the same room? This panel will provide practical tips for managing contributors via email and the web, keeping people happy and motivated in the absence of face-to-face interaction, and other common issues facing distributed teams. Learn how to find and keep staff whom you may never see in person, discover resources and tools to make your job easier, and share ways to fight staff fatigue.

This has me a little worried, frankly. I have never claimed to be an expert on the subject, and was intending to have a five-person panel who would also share suggestions on ways to keep people motivated and active, etc., from a variety of perspectives. Instead, Jeff will represent the developer perspective and I'll represent the content perspective. Not that we can't cover a lot of ground between the two of us, but hopefully enough other knowledgeable people will show up to make it actually be a conversation, because I don't think Jeff and I are going to have all the answers here.

I'll also be pimping for Bloxes while I'm there; ask me for a t-shirt. I've teased with photos of these for the past year, but we'll be launching the product at the convention -- we were even given permission to build some directional walls for the show. We'll have a bunch of bloxes around to build and play with, and they'll be available for purchase by this weekend.

If you're headed down, I recommend running down this exhaustive checklist to make sure you're packing everything you'll need or want, and that you put together a little schedule for yourself. Get yourself a Twitter account while you're at it; it'll come in handy for finding out where the action is after hours.

I'll be pretty reachable while I'm there -- get in touch if you'd like to meet up. When in doubt, the Interactive Playpen is a good bet.

My goal is to make plenty of updates here on the blog, keeping you abreast of the action and my thoughts. Stay tuned. Well, so much for that.

1 Comments / Leave a comment

March 06 2008, 08:34 AM / Paul Terry Walhus

Geek News Central ( http://geeknewscentral.com ) and AustinCast ( http://austincast.com/sxsw ) are doing interviews at SXSW with attendees, panelists and trade show exhibitors. GNC has a series running on itunes now of CES 2008 interviews if you want to see a sample of what we do.

We'd like to interview if possible by phone or skype before SXSW and in person during SXSW. If this is agreeable to you please send us either your phone or skype id and a good time to call or skype you. If you have skype with video that would be perfect.

Interviewers are myself, Dina Knight and Cheryl Hill. My email is walhus@gmail.com and the cell phone number is 512.699.4000. My skype id is walhus

I hope you can do this!

Thanks,

Paul Terry Walhus
http://austincast.com/sxsw
http://justin.tv/austintexas
http://geeknewscentral.com





    

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