Emotion Technology Selected to present SXSW 2010 Interactive Panel

Thanks to your support, SXSW has officially selected Emotion Technology's panel, "RT: I'm Going to Kill Myself. Preventing Suicide Online" as a 2010 Interactive Conference presentation. This will be the first time a major, national technology conference will address suicide at all, and we are thrilled to be part of such an important event.

For conference badges and more information, visit the official 2010 SXSW website.

Austin Chronicle: Hold Your Water

Journalist Lee Nichols spotlighted Jennifer and Christopher Gandin Le's short film, "Small Changes," in the Austin Chronicle, after it won the Grand Jury Prize in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles-based Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition has presented its top jury award to Austin filmmakers Jennifer and Christopher Gandin Le for their two-minute video "Small Changes." The film offers a humorous – but sobering – look at how drastically our lives could be altered if we fail to conserve water. View the winning film and other entries at www.iuowfilm.com.

Austin Chronicle: Three Drops in Austin's Filmmaking Bucket

Austin Chronicle writer Lee Nichols mentioned Jennifer and Christopher Gandin Le for their short film, a finalist (and eventual Grand Jury Prize winner) in the Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition.

Three Austinites are finalists in the Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition, an annual contest for films that bring awareness to water conservation issues. The short films, "Small Changes" by Jennifer and Christopher Gandin Le and "Poor Mark" by David Tuck, are among six films that will be shown at the Getty Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 23. All films in the finals may be viewed at www.iuowfilm.com.

Connect Safely: A Summit for Saving Lives

Anne Collier wrote a commentary about the SAMHSA-sponsored summit in Washington, D.C., "Suicide and New Media: An Action Planning Summit to Save Lives," in which she quoted this takeaway from Christopher Gandin Le:

Users make the difference, Chris Le, CEO of Emotion Technology in Austin, told us. And Gallup, which has been doing research for SAMHSA, told us that "thousands of social-network-site users are active in educating and supporting fellow users to prevent suicide."

Net Family News and Connect Safely: The social Web's 'Lifeline'

Anne Collier, editor of NetFamilyNews.org and co-director, with Larry Magid, of ConnectSafely.org, interviewed Christopher Gandin Le in 2007 when he was working as Resource and Information Manager at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Parents should also know that MySpace isn't the only social site working with the Lifeline, it's just the biggest (with 160 million+ profiles now) and the first. "The reason why we have a MySpace profile was that, a year ago, we realized it was our top referrer," Le told me. At that time "it was just 10 kids linking to us, putting a banner up on their profiles. We noticed that the number of referrals they sent was higher than those sent by CDC [Centers for Disease Control], SAMSHA [the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration] or any other suicide-prevention service."