Day three at #SXSW for me was actually Sunday because of a previous obligation I had on Saturday but you better believe I was speeding (safely) down I-35 Sunday morning to ensure I made it to “Running the Show: TV’s New Queen of Comedy” with Mindy Kaling, Adam Pally, Ike Barinholtz & Anne Fulenwider. Mindy was personable, intelligent and hilarious just as I expected and this panel covered a wide range of topics. From what drives Mindy to work as hard as she does to what the creative process is like in The Mindy Project writing room.
As a huge fan of Mindy’s show and her in general, I loved every second of this experience and I’m pretty sure everyone else in the audience was girl crushing as hard as I was. Mindy pointed out so many insightful and inspiring things about her life as well as the show while keeping everyone laughing and wishing the panel would never end. 
Next on the schedule was “Are We All Producers Now?” with Randi Zuckerberg and Dana Brunetti, President & CEO of Trigger Street Productions. This session was different from what I expected but in the best way. Due to not doing my homework on Brunetti, I found out when it began that he’s a producer for House of Cards, the most intelligent and innovative TV show there is right now in my opinion. Brunetti discussed how he pays attention to the show’s audience and how so much more content inspiration comes from social media rather than traditional media. Brunneti also confessed that House of Cards fans may have coined the term “stream cheating” – when your spouse or significant other is watching episodes ahead of you.
Being such a huge fan of the show and Kevin Spacey, who Brunneti started out as an assistant for, this session truly inspired me and challenged me to approach content production in a new way.
“As a producer, you pay attention to what the fans are doing and creating, what they want and expect so you can create and make it for them…it’s a whole new world with Twitter and Facebook. It can destroy or create a hit.” – Dana Brunneti
For my last session of the day, I got in line for “Instagramming the News” with Dan Toffey, Instagram, Kira Pollack, Time Magazine, and David Guttenfelder, Associated Press Chief Photographer and Time Magazine’s Instagram Photographer of the Year. This panel had a much different pace than some of the others I attended and was truly fascinating. Guttenfelder’s work is above and beyond anything I’ve seen on Instagram and I enjoyed hearing him discuss his process, where he’s been and how Instagram has complemented his efforts to create a connection and community with people.
The fun-filled day of sessions had to come to an end so we decided to make our way to Mashable’s MashBash at The Ranch. The crowd was pretty unbelievable, so much so that I had to snap a picture, which ended up being regrammed by this guy:
A great end to a great day. We’ll be squeezing in a few more sessions today then it will be time to head back to Dallas. Austin, you’ve been good to us. We’re so glad we got to be here to put #DallasOnTheMap.
