The Panel: Sustainability and Social Media at #SXSW Interactive 09

“If sustainability is the goal, then social media will be an enabling technology.”

If you only see only one panel at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference it’s gotta be Social Media to Accelerate Sustainability Monday at 3:30 pm in Room 8. I will be joining Jon Lebkowsky, Emily Gertz, and Rob Reed in this timely discussion. I will be representing my company Clear Green Technologies and giving an initial look at the GreenLight product, a catalyst for changing our awareness of our personal energy use.

“Sustainability requires doing more with less, constantly learning how to get more out of every pound of material and watt of energy. The creation and communication of this knowledge occurs in social networks of relationships, empowered by social media.

Join us for a discussion and exploration of how social media are being used to accelerate our transition to a global sustainable culture.”We do some of our best work when we’re constrained: by budgets, by headcount, by technology, by the economy. These are the times when bureaucracy and waste die by necessity. What’s left are ideas, and the muscle to make them real. 2009 will be a tough year in many ways, but now more than ever, the core concepts of Web 2.0 provide an advantage. Lightweight tools, user interfaces, and development models will help streamline productivity and focus resources; new business models will emerge out of the environment of change.

The technologies driving social media are at the heart of today’s change movement. From electing Barack Obama President to his appointment of Van Jones as Special Advisor for Green Jobs and the countless small gains being made across the social web, we have a greater say in how government and business operates. If sustainability is the end, then social media will be a means.

Hope to see you there.

@jmacofearth
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