[tor-reports] Tor at SXSW - Trip Report

[Kelley Misata]

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")

Here are a few highlights:

*Grantee Meet n' Greet Party* - 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.

*Booth Time *- 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.

*Daily Buzz Radio Interview* - Karen also participated in a panel
conversation on Eugene Herandez's Daily Radio Show -
http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/daily-buzz-sxsw-episode-4

Also, here's a sample of the organizations we connected with:
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.

So what were the results?

   1. 75+ brochures handed out and tested for feedback/reactions
   2. 50+ business cards exchanged and connections made
   3. 1 very happy sponsor and (hopefully) an invitation to return to SXSW
   2014
   4. Countless handshakes and positive commentary from a growing fan base
   of Tor.

Follow-up efforts since SXSW:

   - 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.
   - 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.
   - 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.


Karen - please feel free to add any additional comments.

We also ran into Wendy at SXSW who was speaking - Wendy, please also feel
free to add to this report.

Kel

-- 
*Kelley Misata*
*Outreach and Communications*
*The Tor Project*
*www.torproject.org*
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