As more and more workers take up the promise of technology and get out of the office to work where and when it suits them, employees’ needs for their company’s office change radically. Cubicles fall in importance as many opt to stay away from the office when they want to grind out work in isolation, and the remaining spaces increasingly need to be designed to foster collaboration. Enter coworking, whose very existence is predicated on the idea of providing spaces to break down isolation and get workers’ creative juices flowing. What lessons does the movement have for corporate types looking to create spaces that foster collaboration?

GCUC is featuring a panel entitled “How to Design, Build and Grow your Space for Collaboration” and to get a sense of what answers it might offer for those providing corporate spaces to increasingly nomadic teams, we spoke to two panelists — architect Jerome Chang, who is also founder of BLANKSPACES coworking in Los Angeles, and Harvard-trained designer Sidi Gomes, who is the founder of ParallelCities.com – for a sneak preview. Both said those interested in the future of office design should pay plenty of attention to coworking.

“The future, I believe, is that corporate offices are going to become coworking offices,” said Gomes. “One space that was able to host 100 permanent workers can now hold 300 mobile workers working different hours, half the time from home, or the coffee shop. Therefore, corporate offices should be learning everything they can from coworking spaces, especially how to still keep ‘community’ when the population suddenly triples in size.”

Chang agrees, calling Zappos’s new campus  for example, “a great extension of coworking ideals.” How so? Change explains that “Zappos is looking to build a whole mini-city community by having encouraged a lot more people to live, work and play all in the same area as their office. The surrounding community becomes the campus itself.” That’s an idea more companies may want to explore.

Not only are the ratio of workers to square footage and the relationship between campuses and their surrounding communities set to change, but so too is the balance of private to public spaces within offices, according to both Chang and Gomes. And coworking has something to teach companies here too, they feel.

Collaboration is all well and good, “but true creativity really comes from privacy and reflection,” according to Gomes. “Imagine Frankenstein being developed in a public lab. You need the privacy of a basement to do that.” But this creativity-protecting cocoon of privacy needs to be balanced with idea-sparking sociability. “If you were always locked up in a basement, you would never get the idea to create Frankenstein to begin with,” he continues. Coworking can provide a template for corporate offices looking to get this fine balance right.

“The cool thing about coworking spaces is that ‘privacy’ is achieved in an open floor plan setting, because you are surrounded by people you don’t know, and therefore are not expected to talk to, so you can put your head phones on and go heads down,” explains Gomes.

Could a bustling corporate campus housing three times as many folks as a standard office and with people coming and going at less regular hours offer the same advantages of meeting stimulating (relatively) new people combined with the privacy of proximity to near strangers that coworking does?

Image courtesy of Flickr user .dh.

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• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• The rise of tablets in the enterprise
• Putting Big Data to Work: Opportunities for Enterprises

There is more information available in the world than any one person could hope to consume (hundreds of exabytes of data), but most of that information is uninteresting, out of date, inaccurate, or not relevant for you. The key to reducing information overload is to more efficiently find the data you want among the information that you don’t care about. The tools that I talked about in my SXSW session are focused on discarding or de-emphasizing the data you don’t need, while highlighting the data that’s relevant for you. I wanted to share some of what I talked about during my presentation.

Individual RSS feeds from blogs, news and other sources are a great starting point for your information overload reduction efforts. Some individual RSS feeds from friends’ blogs or the top people in your field might almost always be relevant and won’t need any other work. But what about the blogs where one in five or one in 10 posts are relevant for you? How do you narrow them down to a manageable flow of information that allows you to keep up with at least the most important content?

While there are some simple ways to make better use of your RSS reader to manage information overload, the real magic is in filtering. My favorite filtering tool is Yahoo Pipes, which lets me filter an RSS feed using various criteria: URL, author, date, content and more. Some examples of filtered feeds in my reader right now include industry analyst blogs filtered to only find posts about online community; searches across social websites where my projects are mentioned; and my some blogs filtered for just the best posts using PostRank. The image on the right contains a simple Yahoo Pipes filtering example from my SXSW presentation.

PostRank is a great service that allows you to get the best posts from any feed based on an “engagement” ranking score that incorporates measures like comments, Diggs, sharing on social sites like Twitter, and more. The best thing about PostRank is that you can get an RSS feed of just the best posts from a particular publisher, and that feed then includes the PostRank score, which means that you can do even more hacking on the PostRank RSS feed using Yahoo Pipes. One useful way to use PostRank and Yahoo Pipes is to take several feeds containing only the best posts from a few of your favorite blogs, and filter those top posts to find only the articles mentioning a specific group of keywords using Yahoo Pipes. Because the PostRank feed includes the rank, you can even sort the results so that the highest ranked posts appear at the top of your feed. The image to the right shows an example of how you might do this.

Another technique that helps me to consume information more efficiently is to modify the format of many of my RSS feeds; I bring relevant information into the headlines of the feed to make it easier to quickly scan it to determine which posts are important enough for me to click on them for more details. By bringing more details into the title, I can avoid spending time clicking to get more information. There’s an example of reformatting a Twitter RSS feed in the image to the right.

The final trick is to use Web APIs to gather additional data that can’t be found in an RSS feed. I’ve written about using APIs before, so I won’t go into much detail here, but you can see an example of how I’ve used several APIs together with Yahoo Pipes to build an RSS feed of people posting links from Twitter to my blog posts on slides 17 – 23 of my presentation.

You can listen to the audio from my session and download the slides here.

What are your favorite RSS hacking tools and techniques to manage information overload?

Photo courtesy Flickr user SparkCBC.

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• Big Data Marketplaces Put a Price on Finding Patterns
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Planning

For a while, I gave up pre-planning almost entirely and relied on serendipity or conversations with other attendees to guide my way to sessions. While this works to some extent, I found myself missing too many interesting sessions. So now, I’ve started pre-planning sessions that I want to attend, and for large conferences, like SXSW, I identify two or three at every time slot, which allows me to pick the one I’m in the mood to see, and also gives me a backup in case my first choice was a dud or too crowded.

I also try to pick a variety of types of sessions so that I can get a broad range of knowledge with some more technical talks and others leaning toward community or business topics. I also try to pick speakers who have done amazing things to get more insight into the stories behind their success.

Finally, I’m always prepared to deviate from my plan to see sessions based on recommendations from other attendees or to take advantage of other interesting opportunities at the event. If I’m in a session that turns out to be a snooze, I’ll do a quick check on Twitter to see if friends are raving about another session that I might want to catch instead.

Conversations

Don’t underestimate the value of the “hallway track” where you can have interesting conversations with amazing people outside of the traditional conference format. This is an especially important side-effect of conferences for those of us who regularly work remotely or who work in a job with few peers within our own company. I’m not saying that you should spend all your time chatting with friends, but it is important to balance sessions with time spent talking to other people in your field. This is an opportunity to build lasting personal and professional relationships with smart people working in similar roles.

Make sure you attend the parties or meet up with other people for meals. While this might feels like goofing off, it’s really one of the easiest ways to get to know other people in your field. Resist the urge to go back to your hotel early and be careful not to hang out with the same few people during the entire conference. Take advantage of all of these opportunities to talk to new and interesting people, and make an active effort to renew relationships with people you’ve met before while making sure that you also spend time meeting new people.

Ditch Work

I know, you are incredibly important, and you can’t possibly ignore your work for more than a few minutes at a time. However, if you spend all of your time at the conference on email and calling into meetings, you might as well have saved some money and stayed at home to work. If you really want to get the most value out of the conference, you’ll put off what you can and delegate the rest to someone else for a few days.

Follow Up

Most of us leave a conference with a big pile of notes that we never look at again. You really need to do something with all of that information. I usually try to get a few blog posts out of each conference, or at least one post with something interesting that I learned. If you work with a team of people, a short trip report to share what you learned with your team might also be a good idea.

I also try to come up with at least five things that require some additional work on my part, and I add them to my task list. These might include an idea for a new project I want to start, something I want to implement in my current job, an interesting technology that I want to learn or someone that I want to follow up with on a specific topic. By getting these out of the huge pile of notes and onto my task list, I’ve drastically increased the chances that I will actually do something rather than forget all about it when I return home.

What are your favorite tips for getting the most value from attending a conference?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Kenneth Yeung

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• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview
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Here are some of the latest and greatest apps I’ve found to help me connect with others, find places to go and document and share my experience.

1. SXSW Go. This is the official SXSW app, which helps to track the multitude of sessions and events you can attend.
2. Plancast. Announce your plans, such as the conferences or events you are planning to attend. Then search for plans, people or categories of events through this app and see where your friends are going. Check out the Unofficial SXSW Events Guide.
3. GroupMe. Create a private text chat room by grouping people in your contact list. Handy for making plans amongst friends and acquaintances to meet up at a conference. Other similar text grouping apps include Beluga and TextPlus.
4. Yobongo. This app runs on the premise that you may want to chat with others based on proximity and may need help breaking the ice to get a conversation started in real time.
5. Hashable. Track the people you are meeting with and introducing to one another using this app to help build your network and augment your address book with key information about your relationships with others.
6. Hurricane Party. With this app, you can specify your location and the time and tap into your contacts to bring people together. Personally, I may use this app to let folks know where I’m having lunch within walking distance of the convention center to invite them over to join me.
7. Liquidspace. This app identifies possible work locations nearby and can issue you with a “visa” for your Liquidspace “passport” to book and access those work spaces. Spaces can free or fee-based and can include empty work cubicles or board rooms at nearby offices; meeting rooms at hotels; backrooms at restaurants, or any underutilized work-ready space. The company behind the app provides the owners of these spaces with tools to manage space inventory including bookings. If you’re at SXSW, look for the workspace in a bus renovated by Steelcase/Turnstone.
8. Paperlinks. I’m embracing the QR Code trend with new business cards courtesy of Paperlinks. I’m also investing $250/year for the custom mobile destination site where my cards lead. See my earlier post on Paperlinks for more details.
9. Retrollect. Remember View-Masters? This app lets you upload, save and view photos in a similar way. I’ll also use my favorite storytelling photo app Whrrl, Instagram, and I’ll check in now and then on Foursquare.
10. Geoloqi. If all this location sharing has you freaked out, this app allows for private, real-time sharing of location data. You can leave “Geonotes” at locations where you’ve been, be notified if your friends are close by or share GPS maps of your locations only with people you know.

For more on useful mobile apps for conferences, check out my post from last year and my toolkit at OneForty.

What apps are on your smartphone for SXSW and upcoming conferences?

Photo courtesy stock.xchng user bvdwiel.

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Here’s my video interview with Deb Ng of the Freelance Writing Jobs Network. Deb has been writing freelance since 2000. You may have seen her byline on About.com, iParenting Media, and the BlogWorld and New Media Expo, but she also writes for clients. She’s a former newspaper columnist, and currently provides professional blogging and social media consulting services, as well as working with the Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas, coordinating speakers and sessions.

Here’s my video interview with Marc Gingras, CEO of Tungle.me, a scheduling service.

There are a few more video interviews from SXSW that we’ll be publishing next week to round out this year’s SXSW video interview series, so stay tuned.

What is your favorite web app so far this year?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Here’s my video interview with Corvida Raven, founder of SheGeeks.net.

What’s your favororite app, Corvida Raven? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for the rest of the video interviews from SXSW.

What is your favorite web app so far this year?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Here’s my video interview with Darren Rowse of Problogger fame. Rowse was one of the unlucky presenters whose lecture was interrupted by a convention center-wide fire alarm. But he was able to present long enough to reveal that his real “claim to fame” and his largest web site is the Digital Photography School; he considers Problogger to be his “side project.” Quite the large side project!

Stay tuned for the rest of the video interviews from SXSW.

What is your favorite web app so far this year?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Here’s my video interview with Jonathan Fields, author of the book “Career Renegade.” His blog is about entrepreneurship and personal development.

Stay tuned for more video interviews from SXSW.

What is your favorite web app so far this year?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Here’s my video interview with Shama Hyder Kabani of The Marketing Zen Group and the author of the upcoming book ‘The Zen of Social Media Marketing.”

Based in Dallas, Shama is a real up-and-comer in the technology space, hosting her own Web-based televisions show — Shama.tv — on new media marketing.

Stay tuned for more video interviews from SXSW.

What is your favorite app so far this year?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

First, let me say that the experience I’m about to describe will not stop me from using the apps I mention. However, I found some weak spots that put me in a jam, and thought I’d share to help you avoid the same situation.

Where TimeDriver Falls Short

I’ve been singing the praises of TimeDriver, the personal appointment scheduler, because I love the way it lets me break my calendar into smaller chunks — or “Books” — and share them with groups of people who I want to see specific open time blocks on my schedule. I have a Book for my phone demos for WebWorkerDaily, one for my women in business podcast, another for my Second Life podcast, and then I set up one specifically for in-person interviews at SXSW.

What I learned the day I arrived here is that TimeDriver doesn’t translate to a third time zone, meaning that I saw the calendar as Alaska Time (where I live and work), every interviewee saw the scheduler in their time zone, and then we both arrived in Austin, which is in Central Time, we both got the meeting times wrong. The way I found out about this snafu? Missing a long overdue meeting with C.C. Chapman, a colleague and friend. Because of the time zone issue, our meeting actually coincided with my flight into Austin. There was very little I could do to rectify the situation from the air.

When I finally did get TimeDriver tech support on the phone (note: they are excellent and patient), the only solution they could offer was a workaround. Basically I should have switched my computer to Central Time before setting up the schedule Book, then reverted back to my time zone. Then the Book would be in the wrong time slots for Alaska and for the interviewee, but the correct ones for Texas. But then I would have to inform the interviewees (of which there are over a dozen) that they have to note the timezone discrepancy and make adjustments accordingly. Yikes.

Until TimeDriver adds the capability of an alternate “common” time zone for when meeting parties are traveling to meet in a time zone other than their own, you’re going to get very messed up using its scheduling Books.

The Quick Workaround With Meetwith.me

In a panic, I spent my night going through TimeBridge‘s new scheduling solution Meetwith.me (which I recently reviewed) to see if it could be an alternative solution to my appointment dilemma. Unlike TimeDriver’s Books, TimeBridge doesn’t let you designate different time chunks from your calendar for different audiences. However, I figured out that I could sign up again to claim a second Meetwith.me page using a different email address, and then narrow my time availability to just certain blocks of time during my stay at SXSW.

I was able to then send out invites, get responses back and manage the first wave of responses to nail down times. But later, I realized that after the first wave of responses, more had arrived and since I was using a secondary email address, I didn’t see them and missed a number of interview opportunities. Luckily, some persistent PR folks tracked down my primary email and were able to make contact with me through other channels.

In the course of stressing over my scheduling apps dilemma, I ran into Mark Gingras, the CEO of Tungle, another scheduling app. I told him what I was going through and then scolded him. Why? Because when I tried signing up for Tungle.me to see if it might be a good interim solution, I could not access my newly-opened account. We discussed the third time zone issue, and Gingras admitted that Tungle.me did not have a specific solution for it, but he said it was a much-requested feature and hinted at integrating in the future.

It just goes to show that SXSW can test applications to near-breaking, but also provide unprecedented access to heads of application firms who can troubleshoot for you in-person and on the fly!

How do you manage scheduling in multiple time zones with two or more people and with calendar integration?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

Here’s my short video interview with Scott Stratten of Un-marketing.com.

Statten’s an expert in viral and social marketing, which he calls “Un-Marketing.” He has a lot of followers on Twitter (45,000 plus), and also does a mean karaoke performance (photo here to prove it).

Stay tuned for more video interviews from SXSW.

What is your favorite web app so far this year?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

A great conference leaves you feeling empowered, inspired and ready to take on whatever comes your way. And then you arrive home feeling overwhelmed as you unpack, do laundry, open snail mail and handle all the mundane stuff that needs doing. Not only that, but also you have so much information that you hardly know where to begin to put it to use.

Profit from a Conference in Five Easy Steps

Recovered? Rested? Don’t proceed until you are. For a day or two, focus on recovering and getting through the mundane stuff. You have notes, business cards, programs and handouts to help you remember what you need to know. Then start making your conference pay off with these five steps.

1. Review your content. This includes notes, business cards, handouts, people to follow up with and anything else that came back with you. Don’t use this time to read it all. Instead, sort the content into three piles:
   • Now: The information most important to you, and items with deadlines.
   • Next: The things to look after you finish working through the “Now” pile.
   • Never: Useless stuff you received and items with the least value. Be ruthless: Toss them in the trash. Let them go, otherwise you risk doing nothing with any of the things you brought home. Tip: Next time you go to a conference, do a review to toss the bad stuff before you leave, as it will leave less to pack and less to contend with when you get home.
2. Act on the quick “Now” items. Read the notes, enter business cards into your address book, drop a quick note to contacts, link up with contacts in social networks and make a list of action items that will take more time.
3. Schedule “Now” items that take more time. If you want to, say, write an article based in information received or study notes in depth, put them on your tasks list with due dates to ensure they get done.
4. Check for information posted online. You may skip this if you have all you need. Sometimes you find a gap in the information you have or wish you had notes from a session you couldn’t attend. Find out if the sessions were recorded or the speaker’s slides have been posted online, and see if the conference had a Twitter hashtag or web site where everyone shared notes.
5. Complete your tasks. Make sure to follow up on the items scheduled in step 3.

Go Deeper With Your Conference Knowledge

Everyone absorbs and uses information differently. Here are things you can do to make the most of your conference content. Just watch out that you don’t get overwhelmed;  it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to contact too many people, select too much to study or write too many articles.

• Follow up with people. Did you make any promises to contacts you made at the event? Do those first before pursuing the rest of your “Now” items. Only move onto the “Next” group after you have comfortably followed up and stayed in touch with the higher-priority contacts.
• Study the materials. Since you sorted out the more important content, study it. How you study depends on your learning style. Looking over it one time isn’t enough for most people to remember and apply the concept. As you learn the material, you’ll find opportunities to put it to work. After you feel you got what you needed from the material,  move on to the “Next” pile.
• Write blog posts or articles. For some, one of the best ways to learn the material and let it sink in is by writing an article or blog. Make a list of article ideas and then prioritize them. Write articles on the most important topics. Put away remaining ideas for safekeeping.

Next time you prepare for another conference or trade show, check out Judi’s “A Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker.”

How do you make the most of a conference after returning home?

Photo by stock.xchng user Vicky 5.

Riffing off Dawn’s SXSW tips, here are mine:

1. Go lobby. While there are some incredible sessions, there are also duds like any conference. The real learning and connecting doesn’t happen in the sessions. It happens in lobbies, in hallways, in nearby cafes. Yes, you paid to attend, however, you will get far more out of the non-session moments than the formal panels.
2. Bring chargers. Dawn points out the dearth of power sources but so far I haven’t found power to be a problem. Just sit down in any hallway, and you’ll find outlets. But next year, think about bringing solar chargers, alkaline battery chargers, and any other options to make your charging more efficient.
3. Manage your contact options. I’m using Twitter, Foursquare, and texting as my main methods of contacting and connecting, with email as a last ditch effort. One communications device or application will not be enough.
4. Talk to strangers. No matter how shy you think you are, the person next to you may be even more shy. So be the one to break the ice, and just say hello. Start up conversations with the person in line behind you, with the person walking down the hall near you. Smile and make a comment about the long, long walks between sessions or the beautiful sunshine outside that everyone is missing. I met a guy from Belgium as I walked back to my hotel yesterday and got some wonderful insight into how others perceive our country and our conferences.
5. Move to the center. Of the row, that is. Stop sitting on the end. If you are going to bother going to a session, don’t prepare to exit the room by sitting at the outside seats. Move in and let the rest of us have a chair. The only reason to sit on the end is if you have a bladder problem.
6. Take photos. And upload them. There is something brilliant and beautiful about the photostreams on Flickr and Whrrl and the like emanating from SXSW. Tag the people you know. Share your experiences in pictures. Photos are great for those who are not here and for those of us who are here but missed that person, that scene, that moment. And of course, do an image vanity search when the week is over to make sure nobody caught that clothing failure when you were dancing and singing backup at TechKaraoke.
7. Invite others. If you are going to lunch, invite others to join you, even if you don’t really know them. Invite them to invite others so you meet new people. Don’t go solo if you don’t have to, but if you go solo (and aren’t doing it to have some alone time), ask to join a group. Be generous and inclusive.
8. Be the connector. I’m spending 99 percent of my time making sure that each person I’m with at the time meets all the other folks I know who come up to me to say hello. Why? Because there are connections to be made, and if you have a lot of contacts, be generous. And if I fail to introduce you to someone when you’re with me, introduce yourself because I probably have blanked on someone else’s name. Or yours.
9. Wear comfy shoes. I was in my Merrills yesterday. I’m in sneakers today. To hell with fashion. You will walk for miles — literally — in the week, much of it indoors but a lot outdoors as well. Erica wore non-comfy shoes. Her feet hurt. Get your sneakers, Erica.
10. Drink water. And plenty of it. I spike my water with Emergen-C, Airborne and 12 Salts, a natural remedy to boost wellbeing without the yucky crash of energy drinks. Don’t drink energy drinks. They dehydrate you. And if you end up having to go the the restroom a lot because you’re drinking a lot of water, use it as a moment to have some much-needed silence. Thank goodness for bathroom stalls far from the maddening crowds.

What are your off-the-wall tips for surviving and thriving at SXSW?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

1. Parties. SXSW is all about the parties. Seriously. OK, maybe it’s more about the people and the conversations that you have at the parties. More on the parties in later tips.
2. Pronunciation. SXSW is correctly referred to as “South by Southwest” or”‘South by” for short. Never refer to SXSW as S-X-S-W.
3. Pace yourself. It isn’t unusual for various activities to continue well into the night. Nothing starts before about 9:30 a.m., so sleep in, plan for an afternoon nap if you need one, and pace yourself by not drinking too much or too early.
4. Skip the big parties. The big, official parties are usually too crowded to be able to move or have conversations with people, so skip those and head out to some of the smaller parties or informal gatherings. You can usually find these by asking about them on Twitter or keeping track of your friends on your favorite location-based social networking service.
5. Prepare to walk. Just assume that you will need to walk further than you expect. The convention center is huge, with sessions spread out all over it; you’ll probably want to walk somewhere for lunch, and many of the hotels and parties are a short hike away. Wear comfortable shoes and think carefully about how much gear you want to lug around all day. Consolidate everything into one bag, since it can be too easy to lose track of things in the crowd.
6. Arrive early. SXSW is a huge show, and it suffers from long lines and overcrowding. The line to get your badge on Friday is likely to be very long, so plan for something to do while you wait. You should also arrive early to keynotes and popular sessions, since they often fill up quickly and start turning people away or moving people into overflow viewing areas.
7. Power is scarce. Arrive with a full charge and don’t count on being able to easily find power. The back of many of the rooms and the hallways often have power, but you’ll find a huge crowd around most of the outlets. Consider bringing a backup battery if you have one or a power strip to share power.
8. Attend sessions. SXSW has some amazing speakers, so plan to attend the sessions. It doesn’t hurt to do some advance planning to work out which ones you want to attend, but you should also talk to people and be prepared to switch sessions based on feedback from others. If you get into a session that isn’t as great as you expected, take a quick look at Twitter to see what sessions people are talking about and move on. The number of sessions is overwhelming, so attend what you can, but keep in mind that in past years, the sessions have been released as podcasts after the event. I attend what I can in person and then catch up on a some others after the event by listening to the podcasts.
9. Crazy weather. The weather in Austin is unpredictable. I’ve seen it alternate between pouring rain and blinding sunshine or freezing cold and really warm, so dress in layers and bring a rain jacket or umbrella. Like most convention centers, the indoor temperature can also vary widely, so dressing in layers can also help while you are inside attending sessions, too.
10. Guacamole. The Iron Cactus makes fresh guacamole right at your table, and they have decent margaritas. Enough said.

These are my top SXSW tips. What are your favorite SXSW tips and tricks?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

In his new book, “The Backchannel: How Audiences Are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever,” Cliff Atkinson provides an example of the effect that a Twitter-enabled backchannel (an online conversation between audience members) can have on a presentation. At last year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Tex., Pam Slim led a panel discussion titled, “From Blog to Book Deal.” The panel consisted of Hugh MacLeod, Guy Kawasaki, Stephanie Klein and Kate Lee. Kawasaki turned to the topic of getting book deals without having to write a proposal. Lee started to respond that not everyone has that opportunity when Kawasaki interrupted. Moderator Pam Slim studied the tone and body language of the panelists and determined that Kawasaki didn’t overstep his bounds.

But audience member Whitney Hess saw it differently. “She felt that Guy was being chummy with the other male panelist, and now he was aggressively taking over a female panelist who was not challenging him on it,” writes Atkinson. Hess tweeted that Kawasaki started taking over the panel when he told Lee to let him finish talking. Demonstrating the power of the backchannel, Kawasaki was monitoring Twitter from his laptop and saw Hess’ comment. “I want to know who Whitney Hess is, because she just said I’m being a total dick. What is this?” he asked.

Atkinson defines the backchannel as follows:

A backchannel is a line of communication created by people in an audience to connect with others inside or outside of the room, with or without the knowledge of the speaker at the front of the room. Usually facilitated by Internet technologies, it is spontaneous, self-directed, and limited in time to the duration of a live event.

The backchannel can either be a good or bad thing, depending on how the presenter and the audience use it. Presenters can use the backchannel to extend a presentation and engage the audience inside and outside of the room. The backchannel can also destroy a presentation when the audience posts negative feedback online for the world to see, or changes the mood in the room entirely.

Atkinson’s book covers in details the risks and rewards of the backchannel, explaining the different types of backchannel that can affect a presentation. These help the presenter understand what they are getting into when they join or discover a backchannel. He demonstrates how to prepare for a backchannel, and how to integrate Twitter-friendly ideas into a presentation, such as creating a hybrid of presentation and conversation, taking “Twitter breaks” and involving the audience through Twitter and the Internet.

He also shares a variety of real-world examples and how the speakers handled them. Atkinson tells Chris Brogan‘s story of having to deal with an unruly backchannel from the presentation prior to his. Brogan changed his introduction to post the backchannel on the screen. He opened with a few lines of rap and managed to loosen up the audience with laughter.

“The Backchannel” targets presenters more than audience members, although audience members can also benefit from the book’s insights. The next time you make a presentation or join a panel, you can either be prepared for the backchannel or let it take over. If you want to be prepared, “The Backchannel” gives you the guidance you need.

What is your experience with the backchannel?

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