We like infographics

1. Present. Our panel is called “Latinos y Mobile: A Silver Bullet, and it is going to be awesome. Lou Aronson, Brent Wilkes, Kety Esquivel, and Estuardo Rodriguez will be speaking about the impact of the Hispanic voice on technology and, in turn, the impact of technology on the Hispanic voice. 5-6 on Friday! More info here.
2. Eat tacos. Apparently this is what Austin is known for: they seem to have everything from breakfast tacos to late night tacos, even an 11^th annual SXSW nuclear taco meet up. We’re intrigued.
3. Rock on. We have to admit that we haven’t heard of most of the bands performing, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be great. Last year we ended up at a Delta Spirit concert they are still my top 3 Pandora music station. Hoping to find some more great bands this time. SXSW is known for attracting the best new ventures, films, and bands, so we figure we can’t lose. We also plan on attending Rock On, SXSW, hosted by Rocket Lawyer on Monday night. Good music, good company, and good food? Count us in.
4. Explore Mars. This year there seems to be a multitude of space themed events due to the Curiosity Rover. We cannot wait to see an inside view of how this historic event went down, analyzed with a twist of the online community’s reaction. “Gale Crater, I am in you”, a tweet that will live in infamy. 3:30-4:30 on Sunday.
5. Watch a movie. For the most part, the movie sector of SXSW overlaps with the interactive, so it makes sense to see a film. I have to give kudos to my friends Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq who are (almost) premiering their film These Birds Walk at SXSW. The film documents a runaway boy in Pakistan trying to figure out where his home really is.  It’s got amazing cinematography (always wanted to use that word in a blog) and the backstory details the work of Abdul Sattar Edhi, the Mother Teresa of Pakistan. SPOILER: I saw a rough cut of the film a year ago but since then they added a musical score, color correction and more editing.
6. Meet new people. Last year we met many of our current clients during this week. Aside from the business end of things, there are brilliant and interesting people around every corner that we would never get to meet (or eat tacos with) otherwise.
7. Watch other people present. SXSW is a trove of amazing presentations, making it possible to forget to attend events that actually pertain to our company. However, panels such as “Mobile Saturday: Re-imagine Everything” (9:30-10:30, Saturday) and meet-ups like “How do you get People to Care about your Data?” (3:30-4:30, Monday) make it easy for us, and we cannot wait to join the conversations.
8. See the keynotes. Matthew Inman should be both insightful and hilarious (his bio centers around his love for Sriracha sauce), while Elon Musk is the genius behind SpaceX, Pay Pal, and SolarCity, who inspired the main character in Iron Man. There is no way we are missing these sure to be memorable talks.
9. Stay flexible. There is so much to do at SXSW that it can be a little overwhelming. Some of the best events and parties we attended last year were ones we heard about after we got to Austin. We’re leaving time to talk with as many people as possible, and follow the buzz that generates around the city to events we hadn’t originally planned on going to.
10. Take it all in, and mix it up. It is impossible to do everything you want to do at SXSW, but since everything is so awesome there is no way to truly miss out. When else can you play ping-pong against CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, interact with the MIT Media Lab, and watch the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in concert in the span of 5 days? We cannot wait to branch out, explore the great city of Austin, and come back to D.C. with some new information and connections…and maybe a new album or two.

Next week, we are headed back to SXSW in Austin to explore one of our favorite topics: technology and innovation in the Latino community. Press release here. 

With fifty-two million Latinos living in the US today and an estimated 50 million Latino voters expected in 2040, this is a community that will have a major say in hat happens in 21st century America.

While a digital divide exists, the Latino population is making a huge impact on the ever-evolving communications landscape and the way brands and causes engage audiences online.

Our panel at SXSW is called “Latinos y Mobile: A Silver Bullet?”  in which we will explore the problems, opportunities and data surrounding Latinos and digital engagement. Panelists include Brent Wilkes from the League of United Latin American Citizens, Estuardo Rodriguez of The Raben Group, Kety Esquivel of Fenton Communications (her blog here) and our very own Lou Aronson, founder of Discourse Analytics. We’ll also be sharing the results from the second annual Latino Voice survey, which gives Latinos a platform to express how technology has impacted them and their community. The survey is currently open for submission.

If you are going to SXSW next week check out our event on March 8th.  Details here. If you can’t come, follow along the #mobileLTN hashtag on Twitter. 

Can’t believe that SXSW is around the corner. Just a year ago we were speechless when we found out we made it into the Startup Accelerator Finals. SXSW was a fantastic experience for us personally and professionally. We officially launched Votifi in Austin and the experience contributed to much of the success we had this past year. 

We’re looking forward to attending SXSW again, this time as Discourse Analytics. Thanks to everyone who voted for our panel on the Panel Picker. Lou will be speaking on a panel called “Latinos y Mobile: The Silver Bullet” on March 8th at 5:30 PM [link]. 

Joining him on the panel are Kety Esquivel (moderator) who is currently a VP at Fenton Communications (@KetyE); Brent Wilkes, National Executive Director for the League of United Latin American Citizens (@BrentWilkes) and Estuardo Rodriguez, a principal at the Raben Group (@EstuardoDC). 

New times call for new methods and as Einstein said you can’t solve the problems of today using the same technology we used to create them.

No where is this more the case than in the Latino community: a highly diverse, highly mobile, highly tech adaptive population. There is no better place to explore these issues than at SXSW.

Today we’re also launching the second installment of our LatinoVoice survey to elicit responses on the impact of technology in the Latino community.

Last year at SXSW, we learned that Latinos saw blogs and Facebook as the best places to interact with others in the community, felt passing the DREAM Act was a top priority, and believed vocational education was the best way to realizing the American Dream.  What will we learn this year?

Take the survey, pass it along to your friends, and help us make the Hispanic voice heard this year at SXSW.

You can follow the conversation on twitter at #mobileLTN. And let us know if you are going to be at SXSW this year. We’d love to meet up. 

Super excited for our panel to get approved for #SXSW 2013

As the numbers of Latinos in the US continues to grow, we have heard that mobile will solve the digital divide in empowering the Latino population but what does that mean are we making the correct assumptions? Our panel brings in experts from all sides to explore the impact of the Hispanic voice on technology and, in turn, the impact of technology on the Hispanic voice. The panelists bring experience in politics, caused based organization, commercial campaigns and mobile in order to uncover trends in issue identification and activation around the Latino community as a whole and the subsets within that whole. Much like the consumer today can choose between various tablets and smartphones for functionality and personal identification the Latino Community is not one size fits all community. The Latino community in the U.S. today is one of the most dynamic and diverse of all communities from a socioeconomic, racial, political and country of origin perspective. We explore this diversity.

After having an amazing time at our first SXSW Festival in March, we’re super excited for number two in March 2013.

We’re also hoping our panel makes it through the panel picking process. 

We are teaming up with Kety Esquivel from Ogilvy and Estuardo Rodriguez of the Raben Group to talk about empowering the Latino community in the mobile era. If this interests you take a moment to vote for the panel here: 

Latinos y Mobile: A Silver Bullet?

Description

As the numbers of Latinos in the US continues to grow, we have heard that mobile will solve the digital divide in empowering the Latino population but what does that mean are we making the correct assumptions? Our panel brings in experts from all sides to explore the impact of the Hispanic voice on technology and, in turn, the impact of technology on the Hispanic voice. The panelists bring experience in politics, caused based organization, commercial campaigns and mobile in order to uncover trends in issue identification and activation around the Latino community as a whole and the subsets within that whole. Much like the consumer today can choose between various tablets and smartphones for functionality and personal identification the Latino Community is not one size fits all community. The Latino community in the U.S. today is one of the most dynamic and diverse of all communities from a socioeconomic, racial, political and country of origin perspective. We explore this diversity.

Questions Answered

1. Is mobile empowering the Latino community?
2. What information can we glean on the Latino community its preferences and trend lines from the “hard” data in this rapidly changing landscape?
3. Is mobile and broadband the panacea that some have suggested?
4. What can mobile connectivity do to help us locate the thoughts and trends within this powerful and dynamic group?
5. How effectively is mobile currently being leveraged to understand and activate the Latino community?

Remember. Give us a thumbs up here while you browse other cool SXSW panel suggestions. 

Here is the info graphic from the JOBS Act survey we ran during SXSW.

The Votifi polling machine has been busy crunching numbers from our SXVOTIF poll (have your voice heard at votifi.com/sxsw). Here are the results after a week of polling on some of the questions. We’ll update with more results throughout the Festival

We’re psyched to be in the TechCocktail StartupLIfe celebration.

We’re just thrilled to be invited as a finalist in the SXSW Startup Accelerator. Thanks to everyone on the Votifi team and your hard work for the last 14 months to make it this far. And we look forward to meeting all the great people down in Austin.

UPDATE: Our schedule at SXSW

1. TechCocktail StartLife Celebration
When: March 10, 6:00 PM- 11:00 PM –
Where: Stage on Sixth, 508 East 6th Street Austin TX,78701
What: Party, party, party and meet startups. Expect > 3,000 people to come through. Probably snag lots of free stuff too.
We’ll be at our booth, and we’re running a contest to win a free Lytro Camera. Come by. Sign up. Win!

2. SXSW Startup Accelerator

When: March 12-13
Where: Hilton Austin 4th Floor Startup Village
What: Our first round pitch in the Social Media Social Networking category is on Monday between 11:00 and 12:00 AM in Salon A. Doors Open 10:30 AM. Each pitch is 2 minutes followed by 10 minutes of Q&A

3. “An Unusual Arsenal: Tech Tools to Topple a Tyrant”
Aasil Ahmad, Votifi co-founder and COO is a panelist
When: March 12, 12:30 PM
Where: Convention Center Room 9ABC
What: When the Internet goes black, as it did Jan. 27, how do revolutionaries access these invaluable social channels to communicate, mobilize and ultimately overthrow an unjust government? How do citizens in radio silence tune into the rest of the world – without incurring the wrath of their government? What are the tools behind the tools that every revolutionary should include in his tool kit? And why should you care?
#sxsw #overthrow

4. Startup America Panel on the impact of Mobile and politics
Not confirmed yet, possible on Tuesday 12:30 PM , location TBC
We’ll keep you posted

UPDATE: We like Omar Gallaga’s 10 tips on what to talk about at SXSW, especially #10:

10. “I wonder if techies will affect in the 2012 elections.” Politics isn’t always a huge topic at SXSW, but this year it’s everywhere, from panels about tech in government (“Do People Really Want Participatory Government?,” “The Human Cost of Failed Government Technology,” “Sunspots: The Promise and Pitfalls of Gov 2.0”) to panels addressing the presidential race (“How Social Media Imperils Political Parties,” “Big Data: Powering the Race for the White House” and “Socializing the Presidency: Digital Politics 2012,” among others).