You know what’s cool? South by Southwest. You know what’s even cooler? Jake Holman, one of Zendesk’s fabulous product managers, has a shot at being a revered panelist at this amazing conference and festival that brings together new music, independent film, and emerging technology.

We might be a little biased, but we’re pretty stoked about Jake’s proposed panel: Motivated By Cookies: Computer Game Mechanics IRL.

What’s that mean? Well, here’s a little teaser for you ripped from the pages of Jake’s actual proposed panel:

When you head into the grocery store, you bring along your rewards card to earn points. For each dollar spent, you gain points that can later be redeemed. Initially you feel excitement but eventually the rewards are so far off that your participation in the system becomes habit. We see this with online game environments as well with people “playing up” characters and auctioning them off. Are we so addicted to instant gratification in real life that it carriers over into the virtual world? Are we so conditioned to task + reward that we’ll linger even when the reward is well into the horizon? Join me for this exploration into the human mind and that of the gamers who serve as the fodder for development companies ready to exploit our natural desires into dollars.

Pretty cool stuff, right? Well, here’s the deal. In order for Jake to rock SXSW, he needs your vote. How do you vote? It’s easy. By simply creating an account through SXSW’s Panel Picker, you can browse all of the panels people have proposed for the 2011 conference and rate which ones you think are the best fit. In this instance, we think it’s Jake’s.

The Panel Picker kicked off on Aug. 11 and goes until Aug. 27th. The results tallied from this online tool will account for 30 percent of the decision-making process that picks the final panels. That means your vote absolutely counts

More details:

The dates for the upcoming SXSW event are March 11-20.

Want to vote? Go here.

Learn more about SXSW? No problem.

Ready to register. Sure thing.

Thanks for your time! We hope to see you and Jake at next year’s SXSW.

photo courtesy of Amy Price