Please help us get our panel onto SXSW 2010

We had a ball at the South by Southwest conference in 2009 when the Brits got bored with the samey-ness of the panels packed full of Yanks all spouting the same old stuff.

So we hijacked an empty room and started our own non-panel with the help of the AV guys. It turned into the usual "UK vs the rest of the world" moan interspersed with in-jokes and some fine role-play ably led by Andy Gibson .  His masterstroke was to introduce voting for panel members so the audience could vote them off.

Rapid changes in front of house faces followed.

And the local twitter stream got flooded with an unexpected hashtag, #kebab, chosen to confuse and delight

..apparently Brits just took over a room and met up, this panel is like a hug from Jesus. #kebab

Anyway, Andy took the idea forward and had #kebab2 the following day.  A different crowd and a slightly different discussion ethic followed but none-theless interesting as a more euro-centric view of developments online and in world economics and politics – all nicely reported on TechCrunch .

He then got invited to Birmingham to run #kebab3 during September which enabled him to refine the concept with a new audience, many of whom hadn't been at hte first and second events.

When I read his tweet about kebab3 I got in touch and asked him if he wanted to put forward a panel suggestion for SXSW next year…. so we met and thrashed out a proposal.

#kebab Presents… Whose Panel Is It Anyway?

Questions the panel will answer:

       1. What should SXSW2010 really be talking about?
       2. Which is better: London or California?
       3. Is a widget for mobile actually a 'midget'?
       4. Who should we bomb next?
       5. Why have a fifth question

      6. Hang on, isn't there a recession on?      

7. Where is Europe?
       8. Can anyone ask a question without plugging their dumb website first?
       9. What the hell is this #kebab business anyway?

Description:
    The conference-hackers behind 2009's #kebab unpanel are back with another Pythonesque assault on SXSW. A UGC panel of non-experts will address the topics other panels cannot reach – from monetising waterboarding, to how Twitter could have stopped Hitler. You pick the topics, you pick the panel. Democracy is coming to SXSW…

Today we heard that the kind folks in Austin think is is good enough to be put forward for public voting and assessment  by the team of Advisors.

I am organising the campaign to promote it through public voting.

Here's what I am going to do – treat this as a live case study of my business development methology.

Ready?

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Tags: Andy Gibson, SXSW