Warning! Shameless self promotion ahead…

Dan Hon, Iain Tait and I need your vote.

It really sucks when branded content goes wrong. When brands create content for the sake of it (aka the Kevin Costner school of communication – build it and they will come). Or when agencies create overly complicated layers of participation because we can – without regard for whether people will actually want to do what we’ve carefully planned they’ll do.

It sucks for brands. It sucks for users. And it sucks for whoever else is involved & supporting that content or experience.

Because, let’s face it, digital content and services often want brands to get involved. VC funding doesn’t last forever, and at some point you need a business model. Sometimes it can be user-paid. But invariably getting brands involved is pretty important for commercial revenue. And it’s a big bag of suck when it’s done in a clunky way, that’s not friendly to the user experience, not friendly to the platform or community, and not friendly to the perceptions of the brand.

So Dan, Iain and I want to slaughter some sacred cows. Slaughtering the sacred content cow, to be precise.

We want to look at how brands can partner with digital content and services in a non-sucky way. Often the don’ts are as instructive as the do’s – so we’ll be looking at what has been a total pile of arse, as well as what’s been a big bag of win. We’re playing fair – it’s not just an excuse to slag off other people’s stuff off, or kiss arse & wax lyrical about stuff we wish we’d done. We want hold up the mirror to things we’ve worked on, and look at where we could have made things better, what we would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight.

We want to use our thoughts to kick start discussion with awesome people who are much cleverer and more interesting than we are. So we want to take this as a panel to SXSWi next year, for which we need your help.

The SXSWi panelpicker is now open for voting, and we’d really love your vote, if you think this is something that you’d like to see on the programme for SXSWi 2010.

You do have to register to vote, but it’s really dead simple. Honest.

You may also notice, if you’re awesome enough to have a look at voting for our panel (I know you’re awesome, but this is an extra level of awesome), that only Dan’s name is mentioned. Each panel is initially submitted by one person, and because Dan is the Man, having previously rocked numerous SXSW panels, and romped away with the Best of Show award at SXSW09, Iain and I are shamelessly riding on Dan’s coat tails.

We’d love to slaughter this sacred cow – and would very much appreciate your vote.

(Here endeth the blatant self promotion. I feel a bit dirty now.)