The Mix team has published a call for content to participation in Mix09. Mix is a fantastic conference. The challenge with Mix for the past few years is that it is has been closely preceded (2009) or followed (2008) by SxSW Interactive. Fortunately, there’s an 11 day hiatus between Mix09 and Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. And let’s not forget that ETech is happening immediately before SxSW. It just means that rather than travelling every few months, you can just spend March on the road.
Here’s how I look at each of the conferences:
- ETech
ETech is about looking at the horizon. This is technology that you’ll see in homes and businesses in the future. It felt like in 2006 & 2007 that O’Reilly forgot about this crystal ball. But it looks like 2009 is back to the content and conversations that brought me to ETech in the beginning. In 2009, coverage includes Mobile & the Web; City Tech; Health; Materials; and Geek Life. For me, ETech is TED or Pop!Tech or IdeaCity for hackers. - SxSW
SxSW Interactive is a conference for technology and content entrepreneurs. It is a great chance to see new technologies, new business models, new people and old friends. There is a great cross pollination of people from interactive, music, technology, content, politics, and just about every industry on the planet. This coupled with the great opportunities to connect with people at the conference, at the parties, on the tradeshow floor (BlockParty). - Mix – <3 Your Web
Mix is a Microsoft conference. It’s different than PDC or TechEd. It’s somewhere in between SxSW and PDC. The technical sessions are outstanding. There are panel discussions, keynotes, product launches and hands on learning that are unsurpassed. However, it is almost exclusively on the Microsoft platform. At SxSW, I found companies building on Flash, Javascript, PHP, .NET, Java, Rails, Python, Erlang and every other platform under the sun. At Mix, which in some ways is a huge benefit, the platform is chosen. But there are open conversations with the faithful around integration of open standard. At Mix07 & Mix08 (you can infer similar will be at Mix09), there were conversations about open source applications, mashups, PHP, LAMP among others. - Web 2.0 Expo
Web2.0 Expo feels like the big tradeshow. Don’t get me wrong, there’s good content. If I was building products and looking to market to a web savvy crowd, Web 2.0 Expo would be a great spot (though it’s so big you’d have to do something to rise above the noise level). It’s a big event. I found the new social tools introduced at Web 2.0 Expo NY (the CrowdVine tools are great). They made it easier to find out who was attending and connect with people (now if I could just get always on roaming data in the US on my Rogers phone that doesn’t include my first born child, maybe next time I’ll buy a pay-as-you-go card from AT&T). Janetti, Brady, and Jen have improved the experience and continue to provide a great conference and tradeshow for this space.
The question is, what are you looking to get out of the conference? Because I’m willing to bet that you can find it at any of these conferences. They are all world class, and like we were all told as kids, “You only get out what you put in”.
Call for Content: Be a Speaker at Mix09!
Do you have an idea for a session that you’d like to present at MIX09? Would the content be interesting to our web developer and designer audience? If so, we invite you to submit your session idea for consideration by 5:00 PM PST on Friday January 23, 2009.
Send your idea to [email protected], and be sure to include the following information:
- Title – Ideally, the title is short, catchy, and descriptive
- Abstract – One or two sentences that describe what an attendee would hear and learn in the session
- Speaker – Your name
- Speaker Bio – A little about who you are and why you’re the perfect person to present the session
- Speaker Contact Info – Your e-mail address and phone number
- Target Audience – Creative, Technical, or Business
- Session Type – Full or Mini. In addition to Full breakout sessions that are 75 minutes long, for MIX09, we are introducing a new 20-minute Mini breakout session format. These mini sessions are intended to focus on very specific topics.
After we receive your submission, it will be reviewed by our content team for consideration. Though we may respond earlier, please don’t expect a response until after the submission deadline ends on January 23, 2009. While we promise to review every submission, we receive far more session proposals than can fit into MIX09 and the selection process is very competitive. As a result, not all submitted sessions can be selected for MIX.
Thank you for your interest in MIX09, and good luck!
Hope to see you at Mix09, SxSW, Web2ExpoSF or Mesh.