Where Is My Guru is a weekly online radio show dedicated to yoga, leadership, community and service, featuring guests from the yoga community and beyond. On March 10, 2012 at 11:00 am CST, co-hosts Jessica Durivage and Diane Ferraro will speak as presenters of their co-authored panel presentation “Radio Free Yoga–Self-Realize x Social Enterprise,” at the SXSW Interactive Festival 2012 headquarters in Austin, TX. Their panel will explore bringing yogic philosophy into the mainstream discourse of social media, providing a platform for positive, healthy and effective communication based on the five yamas, or principles, which guide how individuals interact with the world whether in person as practiced through the ancient tradition of yoga or today through the world wide web. Joining Jessica and Diane on the panel are Waylon Lewis, founder of the decade-old print-to-online far-reaching publication elephantjournal.com, and Seane Corn, world-renowned yoga instructor and co-founder of the philanthropic organization Off the Mat, Into the World.

Social Media’s Impact

Social media is the new standard of communication. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and who, for all intent and purposes, could be called the ‘Father of Social Media,’ recently announced that the company is going public with more than 800 million users. The Huffington Post–an American news website, content-aggregator and blog–was sold to AOL in 2011 for $315 million dollars. Twitter’s microblogging service attracts more than 300 million users and handles over 1.6 billion search queries per day. Given social media’s high impact and high usage, it’s interesting to note that users do not receive a “how-to” manual and that communication conduct is not standardized. Left to their own devices in the midst of a relatively new medium, users must figure out the P’s and Q’s of social media communication without guidance, leaving them vulnerable to non-intentional missteps and phenomena such as “over- or under-tagging,” “over-posting,” unsolicited and unwelcome “friending,” and other online no-no’s.

What the Heck is SXSW Anyway?

Over the past 18 years, SXSW Interactive Festival–the platform that helped put one-time start-ups and now-famous social media mavericks Twitter and Foursquare on the map–has featured the creativity and passion of hundreds of exceptional technology industry experts and has hosted hundreds of speakers including New Yorker contributing writer and author Malcolm Gladwell (2005), co-founder of Google Larry Page (2001), founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg (2006 / 2008 / 2011), above-mentioned founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg (2008/2010), and many more trailblazers and visionaries in the field of social media and technological connectivity.

What does YOGA have to do with it?

“Radio Free Yoga: Self-Realize x Social Enterprise” brings yogic philosophy to a world-famous festival which does not traditionally feature panel presentations around yogic philosophy and its place in social media. Though given the surge over the past decade in those who practice yoga in the United States–an industry reportedly bringing in more than $3 billion annually according to surveys conducted by Yoga Journal–and the surge in social media users, Where Is My Guru aims to link these two cultural phenomenons skyrocketing at tremendous rates and sharing real estate as household names.

Oh yeah, one more thing… The BOSS is the Keynote Speaker for SXSW FESTIVAL!

Where is My Guru Airs LIVE every Friday at 11am EST.  You can find archives of past shows here.  Waylon Lewis will be joining the Where is My Guru Show on March 2nd as we all get ready to head to Austin for the festival.