My SXSW sketching bag…ready to go. See my drawings from last year.

SXSW starts Friday. If you’re in town for the conference, here’s where you can find me:.

• Sunday, March 14 @ 11:00PM, I’ll be doing 10-minute mentor sessions with folks on blogging and publicity. You can sign up here.
• Monday, March 15 @ 3:30PM, Visual Note-Taking 101 – this is my panel with my friends Dave Gray, Mike Rohde, and Sunni Brown. You should NOT miss this, as we have a really special surprise for people who show up. Really special. Something you can take with you…
  
• At 5:50PM, on Monday, barring any postal disasters I’ll be doing my first ever signing of Newspaper Blackout at the SXSW bookstore! That’s right: come get the book before it’s in stores! Super-pumped about this. (Note: might not show up on the bookstore schedule, since we’re shipping them last-minute.)
  
• Tuesday, March 16 @3:00 PM, I’m interviewing Ian Albinson & Alex Ulloa of The Art of The Title for Studio SX
• At 9:00PM on Tuesday I’ll be part of a panel over at Stagira Studios on the relationship between art and money, with my friends John T. Unger and Hugh MacLeod.

Phew! Of course, I’ll be roaming around, hitting up a ton of panels, films, and music acts. (I have a platinum badge this year.)

You can see my schedules online (although I’ve resorted to planning on sticky notes):

http://my.sxsw.com/user/schedule/austinkleon

http://sitby.us/austinkleon/

If you want to meet up, @reply me on Twitter (@austinkleon). I’ll also be trying out these GoWalla and FourSquare thingies…I’ll be carrying around a bunch of cool postcards for the book, so come find me.

If you have a tip for something I just have to see, or you want to invite me to a party, leave it in the comments!

And of course, if you’re not going to the festival, follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr: thanks to the magic iPhone, I’ll be posting photos of my notes and drawings throughout the week.

Our Visual Note-Taking 101 panel made the cut for the first batch of 2010 SXSW programming!

Here’s the description:

Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of your thinking, make information more memorable, and make your ideas easier to share with others. Learn practical techniques and “tricks of the trade” from modern visual note-taking masters: how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them.

The lineup isn’t finalized yet, but I’m hoping that Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and Mike Rohde will all be able to sit on it. Read about our previous work together on the topic.

Thanks so much to everyone who voted!

Other panels I’m interested in seeing: Dan Roam‘s “Blah Blah Blah: Why Words Won’t Work” and Casey Caplowe from GOOD Magazine on “Interactive Infographics.”

See my visual notes from SXSW 2009.

Please do me a huge favor and head over to the SXSW Panel Picker site to vote for a SXSW panel on visual note-taking that will include me, Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and Mike Rohde. Here’s the description:

Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of your thinking, make information more memorable, and make your ideas easier to share with others. Learn practical techniques and “tricks of the trade” from modern visual note-taking masters: how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them.

Even if you’re not planning on going to SXSW this year, if you’ve enjoyed my mind maps, my SXSW visual notes, or drawing tutorials, please head over to the SXSW site, put in a vote, and leave a comment!

Thanks so much!

Vote now!