SXSWi: The open agenda

SXSW Interactive gets started this week, and there are a lot of sessions on the agenda with topics related to the open source way. Music collaboration, open government, Creative Commons... nearly every time slot has at least one session I want to tell opensource.com readers about. Below is my "open agenda" for the week with a quick summary based on the abstracts available. I know there are things I'm missing--feel free to leave comments with sessions you think should be on the list or places I should check out. (You can also tweet/dent me--@suehle.) And if you aren't going to be in Austin, you can be right here for a series of posts on the openness issues being discussed at SXSWi.

Friday, March 11

• 2 p.m.: Rebooting Iceland: Crowdsourcing Innovation in Uncertain Times
  Iceland has seen tumultuous times in the last couple of decades. Now a group called the National Assembly, inspired by the open source way, is rapidly prototyping a new democracy.
• 3:30 p.m.: Social Network Users' Bill of Rights: You Decide
  Last year's Facebook and Google privacies controversies led to a Social Media Users Bill of Rights, but there's still a long way to go. The next step is debate and public vote. Explore privacy in the digital age and the relationship between users and providers.
• 5:00 p.m.: Cultural Protectionism: Image Use at Burning Man
  The EFF and Creative Commons helped Burning Man update its photo and media policies to incorporate fair use and CC licenses--how's it working out?

Saturday, March 12

• 9:30 a.m.: Brave New World: Debating Brands' Role as Publishers
  Blurring the line between marketer and publisher--transparency and trust, copyright and sharing.
• 11 a.m.: Why Visualizing Government Data Makes Taxpayers Happy
  The public is increasingly expecting more transparency. How can agencies use free tools to get that data to their constituents?
• Also at 11: The New Sharing Economy (Read the recap)
  Zipcar, Kiva, and Kickstarter, oh my. What are the motivations and barriers in a sharing economy? Latitude Research and Shareable Magazine conducted a survey to benchmark sharing services and behaviors.
• 1 p.m.: Startup.gov: Reworking Government Through Technical Innovation
  The merits and pitfalls of open government initiatives. Innovating in government at the speed of a startup.
• 3:30 p.m.: Public Transit Data, APIs and City Governments
  This talk is about urban life in the era of smartphones and tablets. Offering your API leads to creative new projects from third parties.
• 5 p.m.: Money for Nothing, and Your Software for Free
  Not all free software is created equal. What does free really cost?

Sunday, March 13

• 9:30 a.m.: Too Small, Too Open: Correcting Wikipedia's Local Failure
  It's hard to imagine Wikipedia as "not big enough." But could a different collaborative environment serve the neds of more local communities?
• 11 a.m.: The Science of Influence
  Idea generators--the people who shape the things we talk about--are now coming from more places. Jounralists to developers, investors and entrepreneurs alike. What does influence mean?
• 12:30 p.m.: Fail Big, Fail Often: How Fear Limits Creativity
  Instead of fearing failure as a possibility, embrace it as a requirement. How can you be more satisfied with your work when nothing is sacred?
• 1 p.m.: Social Policies & Company Culture
  As companies become more open, how do their policies accommodate greater transparency?
• 3:30: How Open Health Data Can Improve America's Health
  Todd Park, the CTO of Health and Human Services, on applying openness to health information for the betterment of all.
• 5 p.m.: Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Transparency: New Success Standards
  In a recent survey, nearly 70% of companies couldn't measure the impact of their green initiatives. To take hold, the sustainability movement needs to be connected to financial data for a complete view of a business.
• Also at 5: Radically Onymous: How Ending Privacy is Awesome!
  Radically Onymous is OK with Facebook's perceived violations of privacy. It's for a belief in extreme transparency, possibly built on existing social networks.

Monday, March 14

• 9:30 a.m.: An Open Internet: The Last, Best Hope for Independent Producers
  Senator Al Franken. There's no abstract on the SXSW agenda--I think the name and session title pretty much summarize what this one will be.
• 11 a.m.: Better Innovation, Design and Sustainability via Open Source
  Nike has started a conversation with designers and developers around intellectual property and data for solving sustainability problems.
• Also at 11: Hub-and-Spoke Systems for Open Museum Technology
  Liberty Science Center uses MOSCAR, the Museum Open Source Code and Application Repository, to promote and apply collaboration and open source technologies. The abstract says the talk "will contextualize the dearth of museum resources and offer an outlet for reusable, fully distributable content and a support network for conversation and, ultimately, better work."
• 12:30 p.m.: Net Neutrality Forever? The Very Long View
  A long-term look at the significance of net neutrality in the evolution of the Internet, as compared to similar issues at the rise of the telephone and radio industries.
• 3:30 p.m.: Mozilla School of Webcraft @P2PU
  P2PU is free and open web developer training to help people build careers on the open web. The culmination of this session will be an open web skills course offered during SXSW.
• 4:30 p.m.: Designing for Android
  Stop just adapting apps from iPhone and start taking advantage of Android's unique features.
• 5 p.m.: DIY Diplomacy: Designing Collaborative Gov
  The Department of State is applying open government principles to increase sharing. How did they go about doing so in a federal government enviornment where such a culture can't be mandated?
• Also at 5: Our Media: Building An API For Public Media
  The Public Media Platform (PMP): An open API for develoeprs to get personalized public media content to new platforms.

Tuesday, March 15

• 9:30 a.m.: Innovation Dot Gov: Designing Democracy for the Age of Networks
  Beth Simone Noveck, the former White House Depty CTO, will talk about creating smaller and smarter government by changing the default from closed to open.
• Also at 9:30: Innovating & Developing with Libraries, Archives & Museums
  How can open data help archivists make the past available to the public? Use cases include Flickr Commons and Smithsonian Commons.
• 11 a.m.: Indie Success: Caching in on Collaboration
  Skip the label and go to the fans. Collaborative artists will talk about how openness serves them well, along with the issues of rights and collaborative spaces.