Did you miss us during SXSW? Lucky for you, we may be in a city near you very soon! With about half a dozen speaking engagements at meetups and conferences in New York and the Bay Area over the next few months, we’ll be on both coasts and available for in person conversations.

A little later this week, founders, Joe Kelly and Dhruv Bansal will be in New York City for Structure: Data. Just give us a shout if you’d like to meet up with them to chat about Big Data and the Infochimps Platform!

We’ve been deep in the chaos of SXSW Interactive since late last week and it’s amazing to see how much the conference has changed even in the few years that we have existed as a company. Even more amazing is how far the conference has come since it’s inception in 1994 (18 years ago!) and how it’s changed from a music festival with a “film and multimedia conference” tacked on to the launchpad for tech that it is today.  In 2010, the number of attendees for Interactive surpassed Music for the first time and by all accounts it seems like this trend will only continue.

Infographic via Cool Infographics, created by Silicon Angle and Rocksauce Studios

We’re just four short days away from the start of the beautiful madness we call SXSW Interactive and as you prepare for what has been lovingly referred to as “Geek Spring Break“, you may be wondering how to track down some of the smart chimps in the jungle. Well, you’re in luck, here’s your field guide to finding our founders: Flip Kromer, Dhruv Bansal, and Joe Kelly in the chaos.

Disambiguation: Embrace Wrong Answers & Find Truth
Sunday, March 11 12:30pm – 1:30pm | Hilton Garden Inn (Rio Grande)

Big Data can solve big problems, but it can also head to big headaches. For example, seemingly easy questions can gain immense complexity when you consider ambiguity. Dhruv Bansal and Flip Kromer will be presenting a tag-team panel on how we can embrace ambiguity and #findtruth in our data.

Data Show and Tell: International Data-Driven Journalism Unconference
Sunday, March 11 3:00pm – 5:00pm | Texas Tribune (823 Congress Ave, Suite 210)

We’re joining NPR, Deutsche Welle Innovation Projects and the Texas Tribute for an unconference for the data people  - with a focus on data journalism and data science. Topics of discussion will include examples of reporting based on data, cool data visualization and how to create them, how to create more effective data-driven teams in the newsroom, and more! Interested in attending? Email Mirko Lorenz to reserve a spot!

Austin [Big] Data Party!
Sunday, March 11 6:00pm – 9:00pm | Elysium (705 Red River St.)

Hobnob with some of the world’s biggest data geeks at the Austin [Big] Data Party, organized by GeekAustin. We’re one of the co-sponsors and would love to share a drink with you! No badge required – just RSVP!

Big Data Meet Up
Monday, March 12 3:30pm – 4:30pm | Hilton Austin Downtown (Room 615AB)

Get together with other Big Data professionals for an hour of brainstorming, idea-buidling, networking, friend-making and career-enhancement. This event is presented by Silona Bonewald, co-founder of TuneHopper.
We’ll see you soon!

O’Reilly Strata Conference kicks off today in Santa Clara, CA, and you can view the livestream here after the jump.

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We’re gearing up for Strata 2012 and the wonderful folks at O’Reilly have bestowed upon us one Conference Pass for Strata 2012 that we will be giving away to one of our lucky blog readers!  This pass, worth $1345, gives you access to two amazing action packed days of panels, discussions and workshops at Strata 2012.

All you have to do is comment on this blog post!  That’s it!  We’ll select one winner on Friday, February 17th at 5pm CT and that person will receive a super secret code that will comp them for a Conference Pass.  How cool is that?

Want to learn more about the conference?  We’ve got the full rundown, plus a 20% off discount code for you after the jump!

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We’re excited to have our CTO, Flip Kromer presenting a talk at Strata Conference in Santa Clara later this month.  The discussion centers around disambiguation.  Now you might be wondering… what is disambiguation?  Simply put, disambiguation is the process of resolving conflicts to remove ambiguity.  We’ve discussed this topic a number of times in this blog and Flip will be presenting on how this concept affects the way we ask questions and find answers about Big Data.

For more details on the talk, check out the Strata schedule.

Yesterday, we attended the MadeInAustin Fair, an event that can perhaps be described as a “Job Fair 2.0″.  The event, endorsed by Mayor Lee Leffingwell, Bob Metcalfe and other local leaders, focused on connecting students with start-ups and small companies.  The goal?  To stop the massive brain drain of tech talent from the Silicon Hills.

According to Leffingwell, 80% of the engineers graduating from the University of Texas leave the city to seek work in other cities.  With over 100 companies in attendance at yesterday’s event, the vast majority searching for engineers, it’s obvious that the start-up community of Austin needs to make a concerted effort to keep and attract talent to our fair city.

So what’s the sell to UT’s most talented engineers who tend leave Austin to work for the Googles and Facebooks of the world?  Instead of leaving town, connect to the start-ups in your community and work for the next Google and the next Facebook.

The sell of working for a start-up?  Your job will be a dynamic and exciting.  You’ll have real influence over the direction of the company and its products.  You get to work with similarly driven, innovative, (often) very fun people.  And if it all works out, the monetary payoffs can be huge.

In addition to the openings for full time positions and internships with us, there’s tons of other opportunities in Austin.  We encourage you to keep the spirit of innovation alive by joining or starting your own startup.

Here are some great resources to check out to get you on your way:

MadeInAustin Fair: Interested in a position with an Austin start-up or small tech company?  Peruse the full list of attendees of the first MadeInAustin Fair and check out current openings for full-time, part-time and internship roles.

campus2careers: Connect with positions at start-ups and small/medium sized businesses.  Currently only available in Texas, but looking to be nationwide in the next year.

Capital Factory: Check out this early stage accelerator program for tech startups that provides a small amount of seed capital and weekly mentoring sessions by entrepreneurs who have founded successful companies.

Yesterday, our CEO, Nick Ducoff presented at Data Content, an Infocommerce conference. In this presentation geared towards fellow data publishers, Nick takes us through a history of information and his thoughts on the future and where Infochimps fits into the puzzle.  If you’d like to review a full transcript of his presentation, you can check it out after the jump. Enjoy!

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Just another typical Friday night, drinking beer, hanging out with friends and hacking!  That’s right, folks – an intrepid group of Infochimps along with dozens of other local developers, designers and nerd-tastic folks gathered at CoSpace for the second edition of our favorite local regular hack event – Friday Night Hacks!

This time around, we decided to offer a prize to our favorite hack and we’re pleased to announce the winner is Chris McGrath.  Using our new Geo API, Chris added a geo-location option to his QR Code Generator.  Using his app, you can turn almost any piece of information into a QR code that you can scan later to retrieve on your phone.  Rad!  For his efforts, he gets a sweet $100 ThinkGeek gift card and an even sweeter Infochimps belt buckle!

Thanks everyone for participating and we can’t wait til the next one!

Check out this interview with Flip Kromer, founder and CTO (yes, that’s a typo in the O’Reilly video) at Strata NY 2011.  He shares his thoughts on how to do data science on a shoestring, the tools of the trade and the future of DaaS (data as a service).