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SXSW Interactive 2007 - Panel Retrospective

Posted on March 20, 2007
Filed Under 2007, Daily Links, SXSW 2007 |

South by Southwest Interactive 2007 is a funny conference to look back on. After all it had the main elements that you need, namely lots of influential people mixed with new ides, new attendees, and an open approach from everyone. There were enough evening parties to mix everyone up thoroughly, but no so many that you couldn;t decide where to go (which is an improcement on last year, where I tended to choose from more parties namely on who was going to be there).

Where SXSWi was let down was in the panels.

Not because of the chosen topics, they were incredibly relevant, and represented a diverse view of the interactive world. Where they failed is in the format of the panels. Aside from the keynotes, you had a few ‘conversations with…’ panels or a mass of ‘interested parties; on a panel.

Regarding the former, where the flow of presentation from an invited guest was channelled through an interviewee, much like on a chat show, I really feel this is a bad approach. These people are communicators in our time, and should be allowed to interact directly with the audience - but a solid hour of public speaking is not for everyone, so I can live with a few of these.

Where I feel let down by the SXSW Committees are in the panel discussions. The theory goes that you have a moderator, with relevant panellists, exploring a topic through the moderators steering, and the audience input. NOne of the panels I attended got close to this ideal. First of all, it appears that the panel has chosen itself, the person submitting the panel has constructed together who is on the stage. So straight away there’s going to be a skewing of the viewpoint. Sitting in a panel on “Using the Web to build a fanbase” were two film directors, two advertising agencies, and a film producer. Surely they needed, at the very least, someone from MySpace or another web based service on there?

Now let’s have the moderator introduce himself, and justify why he’s there. Thats a few minutes. Given the other four panellist a chance to introduce themselves (and a little plug for their business). Ten minutes down if it’s spedy intros. THrow out a softball opening question for everyone to bite, and then a slightly more challenging questions (which is likely not to leave any comfort zone, but take longer to answer). 10 and 15 minutes repsectivly? So even with two questions as a minimum, that’s 35 minutes bled off the clock. Pop in two audience questions and you’re pretty much close to time.

There’s no time in there for anyone to really get to grips with any topic in depth. And that’s a fundamental problem.

What should the SXSW team do to get around this? I’m not sure. A lot depends if they want to stick with panel discussions, or move to a more ‘lecture/presentation’ based format with a lot less people on stage. If the panel discussion format is to stay, then some radical re-organsiation should be debated to provide some challenge next year.

I think we need independent moderators. BY all means have people submit their proposal, but once it has been acceppted, SXSW could employ professional moderators who can take time to independently research the topics assigned to them in the lead up to SXSW, act as an audience advocate, drive the conversation away from advertising to information, and generally improve the panel experience. Will this put out of join the people submitting a proposal? Probably not as I would at the very least make sure they are offered a seat on the panel (and their recommendations on panellist would be taken into strong consideration).

Thoughts?

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