A Healthcare Checkup at South-By-Southwest

This Thursday marks the inaugural Social Health 2010 event, the day before the infamous South-By-Southwest Interactive conference.

Organizers of the event, Shwen Gwee and Dana Lewis, have done a great job bringing together the best of the best to discuss social media in the healthcare industry. The keynote address will be presented by Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong. Other confirmed speakers of SXSH include Johnson & Johnson’s Marc Monseau, MD Anderson’s Jenn Texada, Better Health’s Val Jones, Ignite’s Fabio Gratton, David Hale and none other than WCG’s own Bob Pearson and Paul Dyer.

According to their site, SXSH will be a day-long international social health un-conference encompassing all aspects of healthcare. The event will have structured, previously announced presentations in the style of a TED conference, as well as an “un-conference” portion — similar to PodCamp or HealthCamp — where topics are decided by the participants. If you’d like to attend, registration is required and can be found here. A TPS application developed by Humana’s Greg Matthews and team is a great tool to track SXSH buzz prior to the conference and can be found here. There is sure to be plenty of conversation to follow on Twitter via the hashtag, #SXSH along with the conference Twitter handle, @SXSH.

Social Health 2010 will be a great introduction to conference week of South-By-Southwest. Since its addition to the SXSW Music Festival in 1994, the Interactive piece is now bringing approximately 12,000 techiest of the tech nerds into Austin, a town welcoming these entrepreneurs and companies with open arms.

Some must attend panels and events at SXSW Interactive include:
• Opening Remarks: Privacy & Publicity with Dana Boyd
• The Tweet House
• Windows Phone TechSet Party
• Microsoft BizSpark and Volusion present TECH cocktail SXSW: Johnny Cash Blackout Sunday
• PBS and Friends with ReadWriteWeb
• Mashable: Mashbash 2010
• Evan Williams Keynote
• Rackspace Revolution
• SXSW Interactive Closing Party / Hosted By Media Temple

While you are in Austin for the conference festivities, be sure and get the full Austin flavor by visiting the local sites. If the weather permits, be sure and spend an afternoon at Zilker Park or take a walk around Town Lake. Check out the The University of Texas and you’ll see why it continues to be a tourist attraction. Start by taking a stroll down Guadalupe and check out what Austinites refer to as “the drag” and stop by the UT Co-op to get some burnt orange apparel and Texas-themed souvenirs. When you get hungry, BBQ is the way to go – The Saltlick if you have time for a drive through the Texas hill country, or Iron Works and Stubb’s are both located downtown close to the convention center. Antone’s, the first club on 6th street, helped launch the careers of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bob Schneider. During SXSWi, they will have performances by Jimmie Vaughan, Gary Clark, Jr. and Pinetop Perkins. And last but not least, a visit to Allen’s Boots on South Congress is a must!

By: Lauran Driver

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