• 2014 SXSW PanelPicker tip: your video is important
• Be part of the SXSW V2V Mentor Program
• SXSW Eco programming announced June 20

Registration for the 2014 SXSW Interactive Festival opens on Thursday, August 1. Early-bird cost to register for the event will be at least $695. But, why spend your hard-earned cash when you can obtain a badge at no charge? That's right, you can win a FREE FREE FREE registration for the 2014 SXSW Interactive Festival in March in Austin by taking part in this simple social media campaign.

To be eligible to win, create a tweet that describes what innovation means to you. The tweet must include the hashtag #sxswv2v (and we all recommend also using the hashtag #innovation). Our staff will pick one tweet from all that use this #sxswv2v hashtag -- and the person who created this tweet will get a comp badge. To be eligible to win, tweets for this campaign must describe your concept of innovation and must be posted by 11:59 pm central time on Wednesday, June 19.

Only two weeks until Monday, July 1, when we begin accepting speaking proposals for the 2014 SXSW Interactive Festival.

We expect to receive more than 3000 total entries via this year's interface, so the competition for speaking slots will be fierce. How can you ensure your proposal will get high marks via public voting, as well as in Advisory Board and staff feedback? One of the most basic keys for success is proofread proofread proofread!

To this end, we are often amazed at the number of PanelPicker proposals we receive that include misspellings, poor punctuation, incomplete sentences, bad grammar and an assortment of other typographical problems. These kinds of errors are always serve as a red flag -- if you don't have enough attention to detail to catch these mistakes in your speaking application in July, then it is not likely you will have enough attention to detail to pull off a successful speaking slot in March.

Quick access to your need-to-know SXSW information!

• SXSW V2V Meet Up tonight in Los Angeles
• PanelPicker entry process opens Monday July 1
• T-Shirts & More: Buy cool SXSW merchandise

photo by Justin Burnham

Thanks to all the gaming enthusiasts who turned out for the WIGI (Women In Games International) S.T.E.A.M. Punk Party on Wednesday, June 12 at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles. SXSW Gaming proudly served as a co-host of this June 12 event and we enjoyed meeting many of the 3000+ E3 attendees who turned out en masse for this amazingly entertaining evening.

photo courtesy of Case Foundation

The innovative approach to kids clothing taken by North Carolina textile company Lolly Wolly Doodle has begun to generate a fairly significant buzz. As noted in the Wall Street Journal, "At a time when major retailers grapple with the fallout from outsourcing apparel manufacturing to developing countries, a small, rapidly growing children’s apparel upstart is proving that clothing can be made locally and at scale, by leveraging technology such as Facebook and the concept of just-in-time manufacturing."

This buzz has led to a $20 million investment in Lolly Wolly Doodle from Revolution Growth, a fund led by Steve Case. Speaking to the WSJ, Case cited how impressed he was by the company's innovative business model: "The money they save by eliminating the inventory risk is pretty significant. This has the potential to be a billion-dollar company."