I’ll be headed back to the Lone Star State for SxSW Interactive 3/13-17. It’s my third time to Austin and fast become something that I look forward to each year.

There are so many reasons to love it: great town, great food (mas queso), great knitters (like the aptly named Julia Yarnmaven), great yarn stores, and great geek-dom for all things online.

Guess what? This year, I’m presenting at the conference, well, it’s not so much presenting as facilitating a discussion. They call it a Core Conversation.

My topic: Commu(k)nity: Lessons for Marketers from Online Crafting. It’s something I’m intimately entwined with, as I spend more hours a-marketing than I do a-knitting.

Let’s celebrate what we do online and encourage companies to support authentic, passionate groups of people who come together, not just make money off them or following the latest new media buzzword. If you’re around, come by and share your $0.02 on how Ravelry, Knitty, Etsy and Craftster are models for how people want to interact with one another. It’s Monday, 3/16, 5:00pm, so y’all come, y’hear?

For all the knitters who will be attending, Julia has created a knittingSxSWI wiki so we can plan our purls. It makes me smile to see knitters represented among the coders, designers and bloggers, so brandish your needles! In the past, I met one of my favorite podcasters, Jenny (and Harold) of Stash and Burn, mingled with Canadian-turned-Bostonian-formerly-Austinite Caro Split Yarn and had cocktails with TV hostess with the most-est and author and columnist Vickie Howell.

What will 2009 bring? I get to hang with a new friend, James. I’m always happy to spend time with Julia and visit The Knitting Nest. Cat from Let’s Knit 2gether video podcast will be there. And who knows who else!

So, if you see a guy in his mid-30s working on a sock or weaving in the ends of a glove or a cowl, good chance it’s me! Say hello and let’s get a beer or a coffee or a taco or piece of ground to sit and talk.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 10:26 pm and is filed under knitting, tripping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.