South by Southwest, SXSW, is a yearly conference in Austin, TX.serving the film, music, and interactice industries. The photo shows the goodies they gave out this year.

Guest Reporter Sheila Scarborough

Hi Successful Bloggers,

To the regret of every geek within 200 miles of Austin, the online media/Internet buzzfest of SXSW Interactive ends tomorrow (although the film and music festivals continue. Party on, Wayne/Garth.)

There have been a number of interesting panels in the last few days, so I want to give you a Roving Reporter peek while you recover from Liz’s Virtual SOBCon.

** From a great David Shipley/Will Schwalbe panel on email disasters, the thought that “email problems are not a tech issue, but an emotional, anthropological and psychological issue. Mistakes are made in this medium by people who really should know better.”

Why?

The absence of tone in email encourages misunderstandings, so as an email writer, use more descriptive, clear language….make your emails come alive. It’s just good writing.

The speed of email encourages sloppiness, and since there’s no direct human interaction, you also get “disinhibition” AKA “cluelessness.” That ironically sounds like being drunk!
The medium also gives more opportunity for cowardly actions like firing people via email so that you don’t have to face them.

Good email? Short paragraphs, clear subject lines, good writing (even using emoticons to add flavor) and mostly, mindfulness. Follow the Golden Rule with email and you can’t go wrong.

** Random Twitter comment — “So I’m addicted to World of Warcraft. Drinking wine, twittering and playing WOW on a Saturday nite at SXSW — Help.”

** Gina Trapani of LifeHacker and Penelope Trunk (career advice writer) plus more awesome panelists with freelance entrepreneurship advice: Have an elevator pitch, which is just an answer to the question, “What do you do?” (And make sure that it makes sense; your mother should understand your elevator pitch.)
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South by Southwest, SXSW, is a yearly conference in Austin, TX.serving the film, music, and interactice industries. The photo shows the goodies they gave out this year.

Guest Reporter Sheila Scarborough

Hi Successful Bloggers,

Your Roving Tejas Reporter brings some impressions from Day Two of South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive here in Austin, Texas.

Everyone take a breath and say, “Y’all” and “Howdy” and “digital content service solutions” and “client and server-side XSLT,” just to get in the right frame of mind.

Believe me, there’s plenty of activity here for both Ye Olde Basic Blogger (me) and the most geeked-out programmer. I’ve been mostly going to panels that talk about online relationships and communities, and here are some quick highlights:

** From the panel “World Domination via Collaboration” this morning, I learned that the best way to get a response from your blog readers is to “ask, not tell.”

In terms of corporate blogging, Betsy Aoki of Microsoft talked about how blogging can change the DNA of a company from the grassroots upward, resulting in more of a “culture of transparency and a better connection with customers.” BlogHer’s Lisa Stone pointed out that “whether your company blogs or not, someone is blogging about you,” and Jenna Woodul of LiveWorld chimed in to agree that ” people are talking about your brand out there; you’d better listen and respond.”

Jenna also said that some companies need to have blogging’s ROI (Return on Investment) laid out clearly — “break it down as to what they’re leaving on the table” by not engaging with this online culture.

Lisa Stone reminded us of that old learned-it-in-kindergarten maxim, “Don’t Lie,” using the recent Wal-Mart paid RV blog PR disaster as an example of a “fundamental missed opportunity” to use online tools to build brand loyalty.

Jenna Woodul had great suggestions for growing an online community, including paying close attention to “how the newcomer is perceived and treated; building a culture of community as nurtured and demonstrated by how it welcomes.”

If you need a specific example, look no further than how Liz greet newbies and is always welcoming in her comments in posts and Open Mic Nite, to say nothing of her coveted SOB badges.
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South by Southwest, SXSW, is a yearly conference in Austin, TX.serving the film, music, and interactice industries..

Guest Reporter Sheila Scarborough

Greetings Liz,

Thanks for the chance to blog for you, here’s my first email….

***************

Greetings, Successful Bloggers, let me see if I can whip this out before I go to the BlogHer meetup at 8 pm (BlogHer Technology and Web writer Virginia DeBolt already has a SXSW post up.)

Your Roving Reporter has decided to brave the wilds of SXSW Interactive, the “ground zero for the world’s most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators and new media entrepreneurs.”

Hey, I saw the word “blogger” somewhere in there and figured, close enough.

I’d already paid and registered online (even uploaded my own photo so I didn’t have to take a dorky one for my badge) but my organizational abilities still failed to get me on time to the first panel that interested me, “How to Rawk SXSW.”

(I think to rawk is good.)

Once I waded through Austin traffic, waded through the line to get my badge, waited to have them make my badge (I guess they want to make sure you “have it your way” or something) there were only 10 minutes of rawking left.

It was an interesting 10 minutes.

The panelists spent this last bit of session time telling the audience how to do “contact management,” which is apparently how to meet people.

There were lots of panelist comments to the audience like, “Have meaningful conversations versus many conversations” and “Actually engage in the panel discussions — close your laptop” and “Are you scared of introducing yourself? Buy the person a beer.”

Geek social guidance?
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