Everyone is talking about the SXSW Festival, coming up next week in Austin. It is, after all, the place Twitter launched two years ago, and a Mecca for the digerati.
So how do social justice and SXSW intersect? Here's a look:
Plutopia 2009: Co-founded by Worldchanging and The Futures Lab, Plutopia uses music, art and performance to encourage attendees to imagine an infinite number of possible future utopias. This year's theme is 'Living Systems,' and will feature entertainment from local, national and international performers and speakers from the fields of futurism, technology, sustainability, media and art. Plutopia will take place on Monday, March 16, 2009 from 6 p.m. to midnight at Palmer Events Center in Austin.
Social Media Nonprofit ROI Poetry Slam: Representatives from the National Wildlife Federation, Humane Society, American Cancer Society and others will present five-minute poems or stories about how their organization has successfully implemented a social media strategy experiment and how they considered the ROI. That happens March 14, 2009 at 5 p.m.
Convio Clicks Session: A roundtable discussion about how nonprofit organizations and grassroots activists can embrace new media for fundraising, outreach and empowering supporters. Participating in the panel will be Convio's Vinay Bhagat, leading nonprofit industry bloggers Beth Kanter and Holly Ross, and a former member of Obama's social media strategy team, Scott Goodstein. Takes place March 15 at 4 p.m.
Social Media for Social Good: Hosted by communications powerhouse PorterNovelli, this event will take place on March 16 at 11:30 a.m.