It’s that time of year again — time for the public to vote on which panel proposals should get included in next year’s South by Southwest Interactive, Film & Music conference in Austin, Texas. VCAM has a history with SXSW, having sent (or having helped send) Production Manager Bill Simmon to the conference four times, including last year where he gave a presentation at the conference on community media. Bill has a panel proposal in for next year’s conference as well. It’s all about how to teach video skills to people who have zero experience with video. Here’s Bill’s pitch:

Video is becoming nearly as ubiquitous as text on the web. Web tools for uploading and sharing video are free and easy to use, but still the vast majority of content producers don’t really understand how to communicate effectively in the video medium. It turns out communicating well with video is just as complex as communicating well with language, and teaching those skills to the uninitiated can be daunting. This panel is designed to help those who already have a decent mastery of video production teach those skills to others. It’s a how-to-how-to, if you will.

We obviously encourage you to vote for Bill’s proposal. You have to register at the site in order to vote, but it’s quick and painless and you won’t get spammed or anything for doing it.

But Bill isn’t the only one pitching a community media-related panel. Software developer and community media activist, Kevin Reynen, who is himself proposing a panel on the Open Media Project, has identified several community media-related proposals in the this year’s list (of more than 2,300 panel proposals!). Here’s Kevin’s list; please vote for these panels and help get community media on the south-by radar!

Panels being proposed by PEG center staffers:
channelAustin Open Media Project: Giving Community Control of Television
VCAM – Shooting Noobs: Teaching Video to the Video Illiterate
BAVC – Sexy Dirty Data: Making Your Metrics Matter
BAVC – Virtually Augmented 3.0 Reality: New Tools for Filmmakers

Other Public Media related sessions:
Offline America, Why We Have A Digital Divide – Rural librarian and Internet folk hero, Jessamyn West (a Vermonter!)
Open Wide: New Models for Public Media – Jacquie Jones from the National Black Programming Consortium has a much more inclusive view of Public Media 2.0
Wordpress 3.0: The TV Series Publishing Platform – It’s not Drupal, but it is open source
Cost-Collaboration: Professionals, Policy & Open-Information Practices Eric Steuer from Creative Commons has helped explain Creative Commons licensing at channelAustin and BAVC.
Our Media: Building An API For Public Media – Nothing wrong with API’s and standards that are truly open. Not sure if this one is, but at least leaves the door open for folks outside the CPB by including “NPR, PBS and others are thinking even bigger.”

General Television and VOD sessions:
YouTube vs. the Telly: Changing Viewing Habits
Taking The Onion’s Web Series to Television
500 People in Your Living Room: Emerging SocialTV
It’s Not Tv, It’s Social Tv
Second Screen: TV Meets The Web Backchannel
This is Our Generation: WeOwnTV Sierra Leone

Other sessions that could have something to do with open, public media:
Too Small, Too Open: Correcting Wikipedia’s Local Failure
Journalism Collaborations: Recreating News for the Digital Age
Content Is No Longer King: Curation Is King!
The Rebirth of Radio Thanks to Social Media

Thanks for your vote!

VCAM is preparing to send it’s delegation to Pittsburgh, PA for the Alliance for Community Media’s national conference. The conference is taking place from July 7-11th at the Hilton in Pittsburgh. I (Rob Chapman) will be making the over-ten-hour drive, with Operations Director Seth Mobley and Production Technician Jim Kelty in the car. Scott Campitelli and Drew Frazier from RETN will also help with the driving duties.  The conference happens every year in July.  Over 400 people will attend the conference, including access center staff, access producers, board members and vendors. It’s an opportunity to network with community media minded people, to learn about the latest communication technologies and to develop strategies  for defending against threats to PEG access — whether it’s some piece of legislation, some regulatory changes or negotiation tactics for franchises. It’s also a great opportunity to see what PEG access looks like in other areas of the country and to bring our own skills to our fellow access providers. We’re very excited that our own Seth Mobley will be serving on a panel that deals with developing outreach strategies associated with social media. We’ll let you know what we find out.