(L-R) Gianfranco Chicco, Noah Kuttler and C.C. Chapman
Gianfranco photo by Beatrice Arenella, Noah photo by @annielenore,
C.C. photo courtesy C.C.

The SXSW Interactive Festival Advisory Board consists of industry experts, as well as veteran members of the community that come together in Austin each spring. Advisory Board members are very involved in helping select the best of the best proposals, which SXSW receives each year through the SXSW PanelPicker. We asked Advisory Board members Gianfranco Chicco of Conference Basics, Noah Kuttler of IBM and C.C. Chapman the following question...

"What are you most excited about for SXSW Interactive 2013?"

Featured Sessions

C.C. Chapman: The fireside chat between Chad Hurley & Kevin Rose should be interesting since I'm a big fan of Kevin's show Foundation that this is based on. I'm also very excited about David Carr's session Gates of Heaven, Gates of Hell, because he always delivers.

Panels

Noah Kuttler: Stop Staring at My Tumor, My Boobs Are Down Here with Charlie Nox and Jonah Spear. I met Charlie Nox at a SXSW event and have since been a fan of her writing, so I'm looking forward to seeing her present on this very personal topic.

C.C.: A Life Worth Living is a Life Worth Recording is near the top of my list because I'm a big fan of Trey Ratcliff's work and the topic hits close to home. Also, the CNN lead How to Make the Internet Care session sounds great to me as it covers the intersection of news and advocacy.

Workshops, Book Readings, Meet Ups

C. C.: For workshops – The Hackathon for Social Good hits home for me. My new focus is 100% in the social good arena and I LOVE seeing something like this happening at SXSW and I can't wait to see what they come up with and the good that comes out of it. Meet Ups – I'm jazzed to go to the Social Storytelling and Travel Blogger meetups.

Noah: This is a shameless plug, but I'm hosting The Large Enterprise Social Media Meet Up. We had an amazing showing last year of people who wanted to meet with their peers in other large companies as well as some of the agencies we work with and this led to some great discussions on how we can help each other solve some of the problems we face day-to-day.

By Date: Friday, March 8 sessions

Noah: Art of Akira: About the Art That Made the Anime with Joe Peacock. This is the film that influenced an entire generation of creative individuals and shaped how we define storytelling and aesthetics (I keep searching for a capsule jacket).

C.C.: Teaching Cheetahs: Disruptive Education in Africa is one that I will in no way miss. After visiting Ghana last year with the ONE Campaign, I saw the opportunities that exist across the African continent to make a huge difference with education and this panel is going to talk about that.

By Date: Saturday, March 9 sessions

Noah: A Home on the Web: The State of Blogging in 2013 with Kara Swisher and Matt Mullenweg. As someone who hasn't touched my blog in months, but tweets multiple times a day I keep wondering if blogs are the TELEX of the 2000's. (Oh, and honorable mention to my meetup. Shameless plug!)

By Date: Sunday, March 10 sessions

Gianfranco Chicco: The New Serendipity? because it is probably the most relevant session inside the serendipity machine that South By is.

C.C.: Global News After the Twitter Revolutions is the one that got my attention. As a storyteller myself I'm very interested in the changing world of how the news is reported and this panel has a top tier line up of speakers and I can't wait to hear what they have to say.

Noah: Slap My Words Up: Language in the Digital World with Gail Marie, Neal Ungerleider, Kristina Eastham and Sean Carton. True story: I once judged someone based on which style guide they used, so this conversation is right up my alley.

By Date: Monday, March 11 sessions

Gianfranco: Design for Aging, Your Future-Self because we're living longer but few people and companies are thinking of how to make that extra time worth it and designing appropriate experiences for the elders, which are us in a couple of decades. Also The Art of Making Fun of Yourself 'cos... well, if life/work is not fun, then it's probably not worth it.

C.C.: Hacker Girls: Why Aren’t There More Women Coders? looks to be a great panel. The diversity of the speakers instantly caught my attention. Nice mix of big media, gaming company and coders. Should prove to be an interesting conversation.

Noah: The Art of Making Fun of Yourself with Ben Huh. Huh is on my top five list of the best SXSW speakers of all time. Always insightful, hilarious and not to be missed.

By Date: Tuesday, March 12 sessions

Noah: Bruce Sterling Closing Remarks. Sterling is the highlight of every SXSW Interactive and the perfect end cap to a week that's going to challenge how you view everything you do.

What trend / meme / idea / product will emerge from SXSW 2013?

Gianfranco: I believe that the MAKER movement (spearheaded by 3D printing technologies) is going to be one of the most talked about trends but I also suspect that EEG and Google Glass will be up and rising and present in demos, corridor conversations and nearfuture related talks.

Noah: Mobile. You think you've seen everything there is to know about mobile, but I think we're not even halfway into "act one" of that story.

C.C.: Honestly, I'm not sure if anything will break out or not. It is so hard to predict. I remember learning about FourSquare during a keynote, but last year there was more hype than actual value so I'm very curious to see what if anything breaks out and makes an impact.

Most memorable serendipitous encounter at SXSW?

Gianfranco: You can not separate serendipity and SXSW as the former is what makes South By amazing and the latter creates the right conditions for serendipity to happen. Last year I organized an impromptu [Japanese] sake tasting with some friends and probably it ended up being the most meaningful gathering I experienced since I've been attending.

C.C.: I've always called this "hallway magic" and love it so much that I included a whole chapter about it and SXSW in my new book. What I always tell people is that if you stand in one place inside the convention center for any length of time you are guaranteed to see someone you know and someone you'd like to meet. I can't say that about any other conference.

Thanks to Gianfranco, Noah, and C.C. for contributing to this post. Stay tuned to the blog, follow us, friend us, or add us for more Advisory Board recommendations in the coming days...