If so, then this post is for you!  Yes, badge-less you.  You don’t need a SXSW badge to enjoy the conference sessions or live music, and you certainly don’t need to stand in any lines.  Here are my five tips for enjoying SXSW Interactive from the comfort of your couch.

1. Follow the tweets.

Twitter users at SXSW have been sharing their favorite session quotes, links, and insights via tweets.   How can you follow a session if you don’t know the hashtag?  Start by finding the session title on SXSW’s online schedule (http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/).  Then, type the session name in quotes followed by #SXSW in Twitter’s search bar (see screenshot below).

From there, your results will reveal session-specific hashtags–making it easy to continue your SXSW exploration.  In this case, it appears that the hashtag was #socialfuel.

2. Appreciate (session-drawn) art.

During select sessions, artists from Oglivy Notes/Image Think have been drawing out session notes in real-time.  Check out the SXSW with Oglivy Notes photostream on Flickr (http://bit.ly/dRfmJg) or follow @Oglivy and #oglivynotes on Twitter for recent images.

3. Listen to the live sounds.

Music happens throughout SXSW, and you can catch the sounds coming from Austin, Texas, through Aol Music (http://music.aol.com/sxsw/).  The majority of the music bits will be coming up on March 15-20, 2011.

4. Flip through the slide decks.

Find SXSW content on Slideshare by typing “SXSW2011″ in the Search Bar, or just follow this link (http://www.slideshare.net/sxsw2010/tagged/sxsw2011/2). Examples of SXSW slide decks that have been uploaded recently include:

• Using Twitter to Improve College Student Engagement, uploaded by Ray Junco
• Social Media and Organized Crime in Mexico, uploaded by oso
• Kicking Community Ass: Building Better Influence, uploaded by sujamthe

5. Sit back and enjoy the show.

IFC.com’s SXSW channel (http://bit.ly/dK8h0g) provides live-streaming videos and an archive of recently filmed segments.

SXSW will post videos and podcasts from the 2011 on their site (http://sxsw.com/interactive/news/videos_and_podcasts) in the next 6 weeks or so, and you can view archived content on their YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/sxsw).

*         *         *

Have you been following SXSW Interactive sessions and events from a distance? If so, what are the best sources of information that you’ve found for the sofa surfers out there?

While intended as a place for our members to gather together to make media and merriment, we are happy to host entrepreneurs, bloggers, journalists and others from our community/industry. In addition to our UStream studio broadcasting live each day, the Clubhouse will be host to several events from Friday March 11 through Monday March 14. As an ‘unofficial event/venue’, you can request credentials even if you don’t have a conference pass, you can also contact us about sponsorship opportunities or hosting your event at the Clubhouse.

The Schedule So Far (will be updated here regularly):

Thursday March 10, 2011

• 4-6pm We will host a kickoff cocktail party to open the Clubhouse for our professional members and select invited guests.

Friday March 11, 2011

• 330-5pm VIP Invite Only Party/Press Event (tenative, details to come)

Saturday March 11, 2011

• 12-3pm Social Media Club Members Meeting: We are inviting all our professional members attending the conference to join us for this important membership meeting where we will discuss our code of conduct, vote on key matters of our 501c6 non-profit association and set the direction for the remainder of 2011.

Sunday March 12, 2011

• 3-6pm #BlogChat Live with Mack Collier and friends.
• 7-9pm TBA, Special Entertainment

Everyday (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday)

• 10am-6pm Clubhouse open for credentialed guests
• 10am-2pm Panel Discussions. If your panel didn’t get ‘picked’ you can submit your panel to us to feature on our UStream channel each day, starting on the hour and running for 30-45 minutes.
• 2pm Interactive Conference Recap in Spanish
• 3pm Interactive Conference Recap in French, featuring Axelle Tessandier of ReadWriteWeb France and Scoop.it
• 4pm Conference Insytes: Chris Heuer’s daily show with interviews of industry leaders and a look ahead to the night’s activities
• 5-6pm Live Music on the Roof (tenatively)
• 7pm-2am Social Shuttle for Credentialed guests

As with last year, we will be offering the “Social Shuttle” each night to transport you to and from all the official and unofficial parties/events. Many people last year said it was their favorite memories from the conference. Equipped with karaoke and filled with Molson, sodas and water, it is in many ways its own party, and your Clubhouse credentials is the only way to get onboard.

Unfortunately, we are at this late hour still in need of sponsors due to some unfortunate events.  If you would like to support us in making sure this Social Media Clubhouse can break even or perhaps make a few dollars to support our other community endeavours to improve media literacy around the globe, please contact us via email at socialmediaclub@gmail.com. Sponsorships are available from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.

After many months of planning, and working to create some true innovation for #SMCH6, we are nearly there.  We are really looking forward to seeing all of our friends, old and new, and enjoying all the great city of Austin has to offer. Stay tuned to the Social Media Clubhouse web site for more announcements, including details on were the house is located (walking distance from the convention center) and all of the social events being produced by our friends from around the world during ‘that’ interactive conference in mid-March.

Important Links:

• Request Credentials
• Submit Your Panel
• Be interviewed on one of our UStream shows
• SMC Members, Promote your Panel/Talk at the conference
• Sponsorship Info

Owyang touches on an earlier interview at SMCH5 and his Le Web 2010 Keynote, where he believes brands are aiming to integrate Facebook Connect on their branded sites to attract more users, and capture more information from their profile likes/dislikes so they can tailor the brand messaging to entice them to buy or revisit their site.

Papadimitriou quickly adds to the discussion, that fact, that more people are being introduced to brands via Facebook by way of suggestions through their Facebook connections.  Little known brands or products are harder to discover strictly using search engines but may be easier to discover at the suggestion of a friend with similar interest or based on messaging that may appeal to you.

SMC Lounge – 2011 trends IV
Uploaded by techtoctv. – Videos of the latest science discoveries and tech.

NEW THIS YEAR AT BLOGWORLD ~ Food Focus!

With an estimated 30,000 blogs now dedicated to food, BlogWorld co-founder, Rick Calvert voiced that it seemed only fitting that they would join forces with BakeSpace.com’s TECHmunch Food Blogger Conference to make food a primary focus this year.

“The #TECHmunch feature sessions and demonstrations at BlogWorld have been designed to help food bloggers learn how to develop great content, grow their audience and profit financially from their hard work.“

The BlogWorld Kitchen, beautifully outfitted and sponsored by Jenn-Air – was nestled squarely within the Exhibits — which allowed those in the hall who had not originally scheduled to view one of their particular sessions to take notice  and easily fall in while still staying immersed in the energy and buzz of the exhibits….and as what most would view as a triple bonus – the new content and the many delectable food samples from the kitchen allowed bloggers to stuff their heads with new content, their bags with brand swag AND their bellies simultaneously.  *Triple FTW!

The #TECHmunch session I attended was the Panel “Food Trends & Curating Flavors on the Web: How to Come Up With Great Content” moderated by the very likeable Amanda Coolong (TechZulu/ThisWeekIn.com). Her panelists included Nichelle Stephens (Cupcakes Take the Cake), [updated] Rene Lynch* @renelynch (LA Times Food) *replaced Sarah Gim (Tastespotting.com) and Lindsay William-Ross (LAIst.com)

It was nice to hear each of them  - all very popular in their niches – still in the midst of deciding what’s really working, what’s not working right now, but they believe will work in the future…to how they are seeking new “best practices” –  from yes or no to blogrolls (some do and some don’t on purpose)…how they are now curating content and how they all want to integrate more ways to converse and continue to sell without “selling.”

“People hate to be sold, but they love to buy….”

My personal favorite takeaway was Amanda’s recommendation they check out the ease of Collecta for keyword curation.  Collecta is a real-time search engine tool offering simple check boxes for you to filter the results of your search (e.g. – blog posts, comments, pictures, videos, etc.). It allows easy one click views of individual results as well as easy bookmarking and/or sharing of that post immediately to your community.  Current sharing options are Twitter, Facebook, mixx, reddit, delicious and stumbleupon. Collecta always shows the current trends without a need for a  search and always keeps a record of your own most recent searches.

Kudos to Ms. Coolong for such an excellent tip that specifically addressed her panelists most “urgent” need….as well as most of ours.  I am sure I speak for many in positions responsible for creating value in a branded or private community outside of our own original content, the ability to find tools that allow easy curation (AND easy delivery!) of the most interesting, necessary and relevant content for our audience and the audience we wish to acquire is paramount.

I could start a whole new discussion here on Curation which is being touted as next social THING. Of course it is, it’s a human thing and social is a human space and humans like to share stuff. I’m sure you heard “the people” invented the RT on Twitter, not Twitter – and everytime you RT or share something to your social networks you are curating content for your community. Newsflash: You ARE managing a community! Amber Naslund profoundly noted this recently on her Brass Tack Thinking blog,  ”we are all community managers whether we realize it or not…”

I’ve inserted a screen shot of keyword search “blogworld”  below in Collecta.   **You might want to check out Hubspots recent “Top 9 Awesome Search Engines That Aren’t Named Google” which includes Collecta and a few other awesome search tools that will help you curate the awesome.  I’d love to hear if you already have a favorite curation tool in the comments below.

Contantly. Seeking. Awesome. Tools.

Keeping it Real…in Real/Real-time…

Love You / Mean It,

Zane

@zaneology

TECHmunch is an ongoing series of conferences in cities across the U.S. that help food bloggers gain the specific digital media, marketing and business skills they need to make their blogs more personally and financially rewarding. Unlike similarly-themed conferences, TECHmunch takes a practical, grassroots approach featuring local, national and international experts who provide hands-on information that bloggers can apply easily on their own.

TECHmunch image credit & “What’s TECHmunch?” bio – via bakespace.com

LIKE Bakespace on Facebook

#TECHmunch panel image credit via Jenn-Air

LIKE Jenn-Air on Facebook

Together we will listen to insightful communications professionals such as authors Paul Gillin, Brian Solis and David Meerman Scott. They will be joined by a handful of experienced executive such as Mike Lewis from Awareness Inc, Jennifer Milano of Kayak.com, and James Hart of ASOS.com Other participants in this round table conversations include Jason Falls, Peter Fasano, Wendy Tan White and a dozen other experts who can really answer this question and get at what matters most.

This unique conversation will be facilitated by Chris Heuer who seems to think that engagement is the third generation of marketing philosophies, following on the broadcast and interactive eras. As moderator, he promises to be fair and balanced, but he clearly sees engagement as a way for great companies to differentiate themselves and find a new path to success.

In our attempt to definitively answer whether engagement is just another buzzword or if there is something bigger brewing, we are fortunate to be joined by Brian Solis, author of the new book Engage! who has quite a bit to say about this subject. While many believe he engagement meme is on the edge of the cliff he believes we are on the cusp of a big breakthrough in the marketing profession, a day when marketers will realize the true power of engagement. But first they need to understand what’s different and what’s the benefit.

So we will build upon Paul Gillin’s research to explore what is being called the Social Media Multiplier and how that not only creates maximum engagement for a brand, but also maximizes the impact of the brand’s marketing efforts. His published findings that will be discussed include the belief that the next big challenge is to get procedures and organizations in place to integrate social media into other communication programs.

But that has always been the challenge.

In the 90′s it became clear that the most effective way to market products and services was through the use of multiple channels. Email, banner ads or direct mail used on their own were never as effective as integrated programs running within and across multiple channels. Any channel used on its own were as good as the proverbial one legged chair. The importance of an integrated muilti-channel approach has proven to be true yet again in social media.

With the rise and widespread adoption of social media, the technical barriers to participation have been removed enabling consumers and businesses of all sizes to embrace the power of their voice online. Not only can they speak to their jubilation or frustration with any company, but they can potentially be heard by all. As a result, companies are adapting to the shifting balance of power and responding to the market’s demands for respect, transparency and even, dare we say, love.

Just as some individuals like vanilla and others chocolate ice cream, different people have different channel preferences for interaction. Some will come to you, some want you to come to them.. Some prefer Twitter, others Facebook, and others still Bebo. With new social destinations appearing daily across the web, organizations are facing an increasingly complex world of multi-channel conversations making it even more difficult to deliver satisfaction to a more demanding market.

Internally, organizations are facing the challenge of which group “owns” social media. As marketers determine how to tie social media into their broader business objectives, they are receiving conflicting messages about whether social media needs to be centralized and most are still determining how to measure success.

For those that crack this connundrum, there is the promise of a tremendous payoff. But is it real? Is the idea of genuine cross-platform engagement more buzzwordy goodness or is it really the harbinger of a new era in business, marketing and society as the engagement evangelists proclaim?

If you are a marketing professional this is a not to be missed livestream. If you are going to be in Austin for SxSW you can request an invitation to join us in the clubhouse studio, but please understand there just isn’t enough room for us to accommodate everyone as it being hosted in a private house as opposed to a big venue like a convention center.