<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Recently, Karen and I were invited by the Knight Foundation to (as a grantee) the Interactive portion of South by South West Festival in Austin, TX. For those who may not know, SXSW is not only a well-known festival for interactive technology, music and film but is also an exceptional venue to spotlight Tor's technology and research with a very proactive and positive message to new audiences including journalist and film makers. By tag teaming throughout the week Karen and I were able to talk with tech and non-tech people looking for greater understanding about online privacy, security and circumvention tools. Our brief PowerPoint loop (created by Karen) was the perfect amount of content paired in a visually appealing manner to inspire people to talk with us. (Many of you saw it at the dev meeting "meet n' greet") </span><div>
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Here are a few highlights: </span><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<br></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><u>Grantee Meet n' Greet Party</u> - we were invited to participate with other grantees in a social meet n' greet event. People started arriving 30 minutes before the event was scheduled to start and from that point on we were inundated with a constant stream of people who 1. had never heard of Tor, 2. those who had a sense of who were are but wanted to learn more and 3. those who were big fans actively engaging people around to come talk with us! Several people commented on how great it was to see "the Tor people at SXSW". We also took this opportunity to test drive our new informational brochures - handing out over 75 in total and gathering some important first impressions along the way which will be included in the next generation of these pieces.</div>
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<u>Booth Time </u>- though our designated booth time wasn't scheduled until later in the event, Karen and I took the Knight Foundation's offer to come and "hang out" in the booth, conduct meetings if needed and walk around the exhibition hall. We took full advantage of this spending Monday, Tuesday and our allocated time on Wednesday. </div>
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<u>Daily Buzz Radio Interview</u> - Karen also participated in a panel conversation on Eugene Herandez's Daily Radio Show - <a href="http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/daily-buzz-sxsw-episode-4" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://www.filmlinc.com/<span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204);color:rgb(34,34,34)">daily</span>/entry/<span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204);color:rgb(34,34,34)">daily</span>-<span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204);color:rgb(34,34,34)">buzz</span>-sxsw-episode-4</a></div>
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Also, here's a sample of the organizations we connected with:</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Amazon, AXT Hackerspace, OpenlyDistruptive, Public Radio International, EFF, MediaFonds, Media Innovation Studio, ApiSleuth, ScienceOnline, MAMA, American Film Institute, The Artist Partnership, United Nations Foundation, Lufthansa (Global Social Media), American Library Association, Movements.org and several others.</div>
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So what were the results?</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><ol><li style="margin-left:15px">75+ brochures handed out and tested for feedback/reactions</li>
<li style="margin-left:15px">50+ business cards exchanged and connections made</li><li style="margin-left:15px">1 very happy sponsor and (hopefully) an invitation to return to SXSW 2014</li><li style="margin-left:15px">Countless handshakes and positive commentary from a growing fan base of Tor.</li>
</ol></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Follow-up efforts since SXSW:</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<ul><li style="margin-left:15px">A follow-up email has been sent to every business card collected at SXSW - stay tuned for new opportunities. Also, in the near future we will be able tracking the genesis of these connections when the CRM - measuring the value for Tor of attending events like this.</li>
<li style="margin-left:15px">Follow-up suggestions have been provided to Megan at Knight Foundation and additional follow-up regarding Knight's verbal offer to host our 2014 winter dev meeting.</li><li style="margin-left:15px">
Several people asked if Tor would return next year to conduct a "learning event" about the Tor technology and general information about online privacy and censorship circumvention - we are following up on this with the Knight Foundation. If it falls on deaf ears, we will think of other way's to help bring Tor back to SXSW.</li>
</ul></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
Karen - please feel free to add any additional comments.</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
We also ran into Wendy at SXSW who was speaking - Wendy, please also feel free to add to this report.</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br>
</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Kel</div><div><br></div>-- <br><font size="1" color="#009900"><b>Kelley Misata</b></font><div><font size="1" color="#009900"><b>Outreach and Communications</b></font></div>
<div><font size="1" color="#009900"><b>The Tor Project</b></font></div><div><font size="1" color="#009900"><b><a href="http://www.torproject.org" target="_blank">www.torproject.org</a></b></font></div>
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