Vote for me!

[[posterous-content:aIhHctacBwkckJrDbqBr]]I've noticed a bit of a trend among some conferences lately - they're outsourcing/crowdsourcing talk selection to (usually, but not always) the attendees. The most recent example was Ignite Raleigh, but the precedent for all of these is, of course, SXSW. For the last several years, SXSW interactive (and, starting this year, SXSW music and film) has allowed anyone to vote on submitted panels for inclusion in the conference. One of the effects of the panelpicker process is that submitters flood the internet with pleas for votes - and I'm no exception. I've submitted two panels:

• Mind Control: Psychology for the Web - This will be a much-expanded version of the talk I gave at Ignite, in which I describe the heuristics we use to make our way through the world, how they both work and fail in the online environment, and how we (as designers and developers) can use that knowledge to get people to do what we want them to do.
• Difficult Domains: Alternative Databases for the Web - This will be the updated version of my "Comics" Is Hard talk, which I've presented at several events. It's fun to continue speaking about this topic, because the state of the field is changing very quickly. New key-value stores are popping up daily, it seems, and there are dramatic changes afoot in the document-oriented database realm. Heck, Neo4J just released a new version, as did MongoDB! Exciting times, my friends...

So, there's my call to action. Go, vote 'em up! And while you're there, the other Viget proposals would like some love, too.