jbrotherlove

photo by Nate Steiner

SXSW Interactive hosted a networking mixer last night at Cypress Street Pint and Plate. It was very well-attended, possibly due to SXSW’s increasing visibility outside of the music, film and tech communities.

As a result, there seemed to be a lot more people out last night who had never been to SXSW; or who can’t make it this year.

One of the more interesting conversations I had centered around how the black tech community doesn’t appear to be as supportive of each other as they should.

Even when blog posts or articles are positive, there are often negative or elitist comments that follow, especially around individual. This behavior was likened to the “crabs in a barrel” scenario.

I admit to being somewhat ignorant of this because I don’t read a lot of comments unless the post is about something technical. Comments, especially those that are anonymous or aren’t linked to the user’s website, have become mostly useless to me. I’ve seen too many well-meaning topics turn into personal bitchfests. Wrong time, wrong place.

This is one of the topics that will be discussed on the Black Blogging Rockstars panel at 2010′s SXSW Interactive. I’ll be moderating the panel and will offer some ideas. But my panelists: Maurice Cherry, Dede Sutton and Gina McCauley, have strong opinions about this. Trust.