Why the SXSW Panel Picker is a great hack

South by Southwest (SXSW) is a huge undertaking. Across weeks, they schedule a huge number of talks. Speaking at SXSW is aspirational—hundreds of startups and thinkers clamoring for the limelight (and the free badge that comes with being a credentialed speaker.)

But how they choose talks is a brilliant attention hack. Here's why.

Most conferences (including those I run) rely on the organizers, or an advisory board, to review talks. We choose those we think have merit, and will be well delivered, and will be useful to attendees. But those things are all proxies for something: Will this talk get bums in seats?

This means that the content model for most conferences is a cycle like this:

There are a few problems with this. First, the content team may make bad choices. They may select a speaker the audience doesn't enjoy, or want to hear from. But there's a second, bigger, problem: The most important thing about an event is attendance.

Just Evil Enough talks a lot about the journey from attention to action. We live in a noisy world, so our minds are constantly filtering out messages by asking, is this for me? We triage relevant information, and one of the best signs that something is relevant is when it's delivered by someone we know and trust.

Here's the SXSW content cycle.

SXSW has a panel picker. The audience votes on the talks it wants to hear.

This solves the first problem: the attendees know best what content they want. Of course, there are also plenty of curated talks and invited keynotes at the event as well.

To prevent vote rigging, you have to create and verify an email address with SXSW. You can opt out of communications, but this nevertheless means they grow a huge database of everyone who might be interested in the content.

This also solves the second problem: The speakers promote the conference to their friends. Every speaker launches a secret campaign, messaging friends and posting to WhatsApp groups and cajoling co-workers into upvoting their talk. Everyone tries to game the system, and SXSW reaps the rewards.

In other words, the way SXSW chooses talks turns every speaker into a conference promoter. It's a giant popularity contest, with the event reaping the real rewards. SXSW subverts the voting process, and we admire them for doing so.

If they can do it, so can we

If you read this far, you've probably guessed that we want to give a talk about subversive marketing at SXSW London next year. We have about ten days to get way more votes than anyone else. So here's how you can try the panel picker out for yourself. It'll take around 6 minutes, and you can opt out of receiving any communications.

1. Open the SWSX London Awards Platform in a browser window.

Just visit https://sxswlondon.awardsplatform.com/

2. Enter your email in the “Log in or register” box

If you don’t already have an account, this will create one. If you do, you can log in.

3. Open your email and look for a message from SXSW

This may take a couple of minutes to arrive. It will look like this:

4. Copy the security code from that email

It’s a six-digit code. You can just select it and use copy.

5. Switch back to the SXSW website tab again

The web page should now display a dialog where you can enter the security code. If you copied it, you can just click in the first digit and paste.

Once you’ve entered or pasted your code, click “Continue”

6. Fill in the rest of the registration information

You don’t have to consent to receiving mails from them.

7. Click “Complete registration”

You should now be on the “Welcome to public voting” page, which looks like this:

8. Scroll down to the search dialog

Once you’ve found it (it’s on the right) type “Just Evil Enough” into the search field:

9. Hit Enter

In the search results, look for the talk thumbnail. It should be the only one, since our talk is a singularly fascinating topic.

10. Tap or click on the heart

This will register your vote for the session. You’ll know your vote is recorded when the heart is filled in, as follows:

11. Enjoy our eternal gratitude. You’re done!

And of course, if you want to attend SXSW in London next year, we'll see you there.